Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

Who Killed Helen Jewett? by Zeta Rothschild

Public opinion was divided; and a rev. Mr. Brownlee openly supported the murder as “a deed to be commended”

All New York took sides in the manner of an old-fashioned spelling-bee when Helen Jewett was found murdered in her bed one night in April, 1836.

Was Frank Robinson, the last man seen in the girl’s room that night, responsible for her death? Did the blue cloak found in a neighboring yard belong to him? And did the hatchet, with which the girl’s head had been smashed before her bed was set afire, come from the store where Frank Robinson worked?

A large faction of vengeful New Yorkers would have shouted “Yes” to these questions. It urged the district attorney, by way of the New York Sun, to hold Frank Robinson for trial.

The same paper held up for ridicule the one man who provided Frank Robinson with an alibi for the time during which Helen Jewett was murdered and boldly asserted in its columns that nobody who knew him would believe him under any circumstances.

And later the prosecution was blamed for the alleged lackadaisical manner in which it conducted the trial. Was it possible that political pressure had been able to persuade the State to go softly? — insinuated the press.

On the other side was a small minority who saw Frank Robinson as a victim of a series of unhappy coincidences. The only witnesses against him, or rather, the most important ones, were Helen Jewett’s companions in the house she called home. And was the word of these fallen women to be taken seriously?

The jury had not much difficulty in making up its mind as to the guilt of Frank Robinson. In less than half an hour it brought in a verdict of “Not Guilty.”

But in the cold calm eyes of almost a century later, there seems to have been some justification in the clamor of those who yearned to see Frank Robinson mount the gallows.

Helen Jewett was a very beautiful lily of the field. Of her early days — she was only twenty-three when she was murdered — rumor credited her with a series of affairs, more or less honorable, and more or less profitable.

At the time of her murder she was an inmate of a house patronized by the dandies of New York. The house itself, located at 41 Thomas Street, was “large and elegant,” wrote the elder James Gordon Bennett who covered the story for his newly acquired Herald, and was painted yellow. It was also elegantly furnished with mirrors, splendid paintings, sofas, ottomans, and every variety of costly furniture.

On the night of the 9th of April, 1836, this story opens.

Rosina Townsend, the head of the house, was the first to testify at the inquest. At nine o’clock, she said, she had opened the door to Frank Robinson, had called Helen and had seen them go upstairs together.

About half past eleven she had taken a bottle of wine up to them. It was the last time she saw Helen Jewett alive.

In answer to questions, this witness said that Robinson had worn a cloth cap and a dark cloak. He had kept his face muffled in the cloak when she let him in, but he always did that. Anyway, she had seen him in the room with Helen when she took up the wine and so had no doubt that it was Robinson.

At a quarter past twelve, she had locked up the house and gone to bed. Some time later — it turned out to be three o’clock — the Townsend woman was awakened by a violent knocking on the front door. She went downstairs to see who it was.

To her surprise there was a lamp burning in the parlor. She thought it belonged to one of the girls, but when she called their names, got no reply.

Then the witness said she went back to her bed and was just falling asleep again when she thought she heard another noise at the front door. She went downstairs a second time, went close to the door and called out “who’s there?” But getting no answer, she turned back again. But she wasn’t through.

This time, however, she decided to see if all the girls were in. She knocked at the first door, found it locked, and could hear its occupant asleep. The second room was Helen Jewett’s.

When she tried this door, it opened. A column of smoke poured out and choked her. Rushing to the adjoining room, she beat on the door and told the girl Helen’s room was on fire.

The neighboring watchman had now been aroused by the cries of fire coming from 41 Thomas Street. He hurried to the house and up to the second floor. One of the girls had braved the smoke and made her way to Helen’s bed.

And as the smoke cleared, the officer, surrounded by the terror-stricken girls, saw the body of Helen Jewett, her skull battered in by hatchet blows, and her left side horribly burned. There was no doubt that the hatchet had killed her.

The discovery of the crime occurred between three and four in the morning. Within an hour the police had begun to hunt for clews to the murderer. Though mockingly dubbed Leatherheads in those days, they had rather keen wits and alert eyes, nevertheless.

One officer found a hatchet in the back yard adjoining Mrs. Townsend’s. Another found a cloak similar to the one, if not the same, worn by the man Robinson, and a third had arrested Robinson in his room at 42 Dey Street.

An inmate of the Townsend house, who slept across the hall from Helen’s room, testified that at 2 A. M. she heard groans coming from Helen’s room and that on peeping from her door, she saw Helen’s door slowly open and Robinson emerge and go softly downstairs. Then, she said, she heard him leave by a back door.

This testimony, in addition to Mrs. Townsend’s description of Robinson and her account that he was the last person in Helen’s company, sufficiently impressed the jury, and Frank Robinson was held for the murder.

Before the trial the newspapers gave much space to possible reasons for the murder. Some credited the report that Robinson was engaged to the daughter of his employer, Hoxie, and that when he told Helen, she threatened to break the match.

Others spread the story that in a moment of relaxation, Robinson had told Helen Jewett of various mistakes of his youth. Mistakes that if repeated to the interested parties would bring him to jail. And that Helen for some real or fancied wrong had threatened to tell these stories. So, in order to silence her forever, Robinson had decided he must kill her.

Public opinion was divided. Enthusiastic meetings of sympathy were held in several of the churches, the Rev. Brownlee, of the Chatham Street Chapel, openly supporting the murder of Helen by Robinson as “a deed to be commended.”

The newspapers that demanded justice despite the reputation and character of the girl were spoken of as hounding an unfortunate youth to his grave.

The girl was a common blackmailer, argued some of the righteous, and her violent death was a just retribution for the life she had led. On the whole, it seems that while it was generally conceded that Frank Robinson was guilty, it was thought unnecessary to hang a man for killing such a girl.

The first day of the trial brought out about the same evidence as was given at the inquest. The second day opened with an uproar. A mob of more than five thousand excited men and women tried to crowd into the court room and a special force of thirty deputy sheriffs was ordered out to clear the room.

Not until twelve o’clock was order restored. And then after a consultation with the mayor and other city officials, it was decided to exclude from the room all but the members of the bar and the representatives of the press.

The prosecution now brought before the jury the cloak and the hatchet found in the yard adjoining Mrs. Townsend’s. The coroner said the hatchet had the same red stains when first handed to him, and also a white string tied securely to its handle. The cloak had also a piece of string tied to an inner strap.

And, in the opinion of the coroner, these two pieces of string had originally been one. To him, it looked as if the murderer had carried the hatchet beneath his cloak, and the better to hide it, and to leave his arms free to hide his face, had tied it to the cloak with the string.

When he left the house by the rear door, he had had to climb a fence ten feet high. And so the murderer had flung both his hatchet and cloak over the fence and then vaulted over himself. But possibly disturbed by some noise, he had hurried on, leaving the cloak and hatchet behind.

The officers who had found both these articles and who had later searched Robinson’s room testified that in the latter place they had picked up a pair of breeches belonging to the prisoner.

On the front of the breeches and also on the side of the leg were white stains. And it was here dramatically brought out that the ten-foot fence surrounding the yard of Mrs. Townsend had been recently whitewashed. Any one climbing it would have stained his clothes in just the places that Robinson’s breeches were so marked!

Robinson on the night, or rather early morning of the murder, had, when questioned, denied that he owned a blue cloth cloak. But the prosecution now brought forth a witness who testified that on the night of the murder he had walked up Beekman Street with Robinson and that the latter was wearing then a cloth cap and a dark colored cloth cloak with velvet collar.

On being shown the cloak found in the backyard, he identified it as the one Robinson had worn or else one exactly like it.

Under cross-examination this witness said he lived in the same boarding house as Robinson, that he had often seen a blue cloth cloak in the latter’s trunk and had seen him put on the cloak before they went out together that evening.

Another witness, a companion of Helen Jewett in the Townsend establishment, gave even more convincing testimony as to the connection between Robinson and the cloak found in the back yard.

About two weeks before Frank Robinson had asked her to sew a broken tassel on his cloak. She had taken some braid, not like that used to fasten on the other tassels, and sewed on the loose tassel.

When the cloak was first brought into the house, she had told the officers of the tassel and the braid. And on examining the cloak, they had noticed the difference.

Cross-examination did not shake her testimony, but brought out one more fact that helped to identify Frank Robinson as Helen’s caller that night. When he came, she said, she heard Helen say: “Dear Frank has come.”

A porter in the store where Frank Robinson was the bookkeeper was the next witness called by the State. He swore that the hatchet found in the back yard was the one used in the store. He had not seen it in the store since the day of the murder. The hatchet had some peculiar markings and he was sure he was not mistaken.

The third day opened without any disturbance. A few witnesses were called who identified Frank Robinson as Helen Jewett’s caller on the night of her death.

A drug clerk testified that Robinson had tried to buy arsenic from him in order, he explained, to kill rats. He did not get the poison. Nothing vital was produced, and about noon the prosecution closed its case.

The first witness of the defense offered a perfect alibi for the prisoner. A man who kept a grocery store at the corner of Nassau and Liberty Streets said Frank Robinson came into his store the Saturday night of the murder, bought a bundle of cigars and sat down and smoked there until ten.

He was certain of the time, for when the clock struck ten the prisoner took out a small silver watch and said it was one minute past ten. And the witness then took out his and compared it with the prisoner’s.

Then the porter went out and brought in some barrels from the sidewalk. The witness and Robinson chatted until a quarter past ten and then Robinson left.

It was fully a mile from this store to the house in Thomas Street, added the grocer, who said also that Robinson that night wore a dark frock coat and a cap.

The defense on the following day now brought forth one of the watchmen — policemen were then called watchmen — who had been the fifth man to reach the house on Thomas Street the morning of the murder.

He testified that Mrs. Townsend had told him that Frank Rivers — the name Frank Robinson had used on these occasions — had been in Helen’s room and that she wouldn’t know him by daylight. He had been there only a few times, and she had not seen the man when she took the wine upstairs.

The witness had asked the girls if any of them knew the man and they had said no. Two other men had been present when this conversation took place.

The one later called to substantiate this witness’s testimony testified that Mrs. Townsend had told him she believed Frank Rivers to be the murderer and that she said she knew him only by his voice.

Unfortunately Maria Stevens, who had occupied the room next to Helen Jewett, had died the week before the trial. Some thought her death rather mysterious and much to the advantage of the defense. But there was apparently no reason to suspect Frank Robinson or his friends of having been a party to it.

Mrs. Townsend was now recalled by the defense. She said she was certain that she had not told any of the watchmen or any other person, for that matter, that she had not seen the face of Frank Rivers when she let him in.

Now the defense had a surprise for the court. It brought forth Frank Robinson’s roommate, a young man by the name of Tew, who, it was claimed by the defense, also used the name of “Frank Rivers” when he called at. Mrs. Townsend’s.

He had had tea with Robinson the night of the murder, and had gone out for a walk with him and others. Had also gone with him to Mrs. Townsend’s, but lost sight of him there.

He went home and to bed about a quarter past eleven, but didn’t know at what time Robinson returned, although they occupied the same bed.

At first, it looked as if the defense was trying to confuse the identity of the two Frank Riverses, but there was nothing to connect Tew with Helen Jewett.

Very little was added to the story of the murder and the fourth day was over.

On the fifth day of the trial the defense and the prosecution made their final pleas to the jury. The defense offered a strange interpretation of the murder and one which, odd to say, it had made no effort to substantiate during the trial.

It argued that Helen Jewett had been murdered by Mrs. Townsend, aided by some of her miserable boarders who were jealous of the beauty of Helen Jewett! Also that Mrs. Townsend, afraid of the evidence proving this theory that might or would have been given by the Stevens girl, had poisoned her!

The cloak and hatchet, continued the defense, had been procured and placed in the next yard by these female fiends. Their client was not guilty, in fact, was not in any way responsible for the death of the miserable Helen Jewett.

He, as well as the dead girl, had been the victim of those foul and miserable harpies who corrupt the life, health, morals and character of all with whom they come in contact.

The summing up by the defense, however, emphasized the legal points of the case. “Circumstantial evidence may be sufficient to convict,” argued an able member of the defense, “but to warrant a conviction the circumstances proved ought fully to exclude the belief that any other person could have committed the crime.

“The proof in this case consists of coincident circumstances, but taken severally or united they do not necessarily exclude the hypothesis that some other person might be guilty of the murder, and if they do not, the prisoner ought not to be convicted.”

The prosecution ran quickly over the details of its case. It was to the advantage of Robinson alone that this girl should die. His cloak and hatchet were found near the scene of the murder.

To contemporary critics, the judge seemed to favor the defense. And the jury, in less than half an hour — says one account, in not more than ten minutes — brought in a verdict of “Not Guilty.”

The newspapers were thoroughly out of sympathy with this decision. They continued to try the case, implying that the prosecution had been bribed to overlook certain witnesses whose testimony would have impelled the jury to convict Frank Robinson.

Another rumor credited a wealthy lady living on the north side of Washington Square with having bribed several of the jurors to bring in a verdict that would return Robinson to her waiting arms.

The public at large was never reconciled to the verdict. Robinson was hooted at and scorned until he found life too uncomfortable in New York City. So, within a short time of his acquittal he migrated speedily to Texas.

Rumors drifted back and were given space in the New York papers. It was said on one hand that Robinson had reformed, settled down, bad married a respectable girl and had already begun to raise a family. And on the other hand — and it is possible that the wish was father to the thought — another rumor believed by many was that Robinson in grief and remorse had committed suicide.

As for Furlong, the man who had first furnished Robinson with an alibi, he actually did jump from a boat into the North River a few weeks after the trial. And the anti-Robinson faction could see his death only as a confession of shame for his share in absolving Frank Robinson of the murder of Helen Jewett.