Murder Plus: True Crime Stories From The Masters Of Detective Fiction

Eleazar Lipsky was the assistant district attorney of New York County, and for a time his star shone brightly, in the literary world and in Hollywood. His first novel, The Kiss of Death (later published as The Hoodlum) attracted the attention of all the major Hollywood studios. Director Henry Hathaway brought it to the screen. A smash hit starring Victor Mature as a noble stool pigeon who smashes the racket led by crazed gunman Richard Widmark, it is generally thought to be a masterpiece of late-1940s realism. On the heels of its success, Lipsky quickly published two uneven novels, Murder One and The People Against O'Hara. After that, he turned to true crime. This story about a perfectly normal, harmless man who faced death for a crime he didn’t commit appeared in the premier issue of Detective: The Magazine of True Crime Stories. Founded in 1951, publisher Lawrence Spivak declared his magazine would be “characterized by accuracy, restraint and an intelligent literate approach,” one that would “leave the gory photographs, the lurid illustrations and the sensational exaggerations to others.” Readers accustomed to getting their murder straight up and bloody responded indifferently to this classy publication. It folded less than two years later.

Shield of the Innocent

There is a popular idea, spread by the movies and the radio, that district attorneys and detectives spend the best years of their lives pinning murders on innocent suspects who happen to fall into their hands. Well, maybe.

But in my own practical experience, I have seen it work more often the other way. Police sometimes are wrong. All men can be wrong. But if we were to insist on perfection, we could have no police force and no workable system of justice.

Some years ago, the Homicide Bureau of the Office of the District Attorney of New York County “caught” a case. It was a hot Saturday morning in late June. The young assistant district attorney on duty received a call from Detective Joseph Hennessy of the Homicide Squad who put the matter to him. The conversation ran along in this order:

“What have you got, Joe?”

“A cutting in the Seventh. They’ve got a prisoner there.”

“What’s it about?”

“It seems that this guy cut a man’s throat early this morning. The man’s at the hospital and it looks as though he’s going. They don’t give him much time.”

“What’s there for me?”

“Well, this prisoner is making a statement—”

“Do you mean a confession?”

“No— He claims they’ve got him wrong. But there’s no doubt about it. They’ve got a pack of witnesses. They all saw him do the cutting.”

“What was it for?”

“Just one of those things.”

The prosecutor said, “I’ll call the stenographer. Can you pick me up?”

“In twenty minutes. I’ve got the squad car.”

A short time later the homicide detective and the young prosecutor were at a precinct station in the lower East Side where Detective Morris Schreiber of the Seventh Squad Detectives was “carrying the case.”

Despite the green shades pulled down against the blazing sun, the squad room on the second floor was hot. Detectives were working in shirtsleeves, and a sweating group of eyewitnesses sat about in sleepy boredom. Schreiber took the prosecutor and the homocide detective aside and pointed to the prisoner — a trembling white-faced boy of nineteen whose torn shirt was smeared with blood. His face was bruised and cut. Schreiber summed up:

“These witnesses saw the whole thing. They tell us this cutting took place at two A.M. outside of a saloon and this boy, Kennedy” — he pointed to the trembling youth — “did the job. Three of these witnesses” — he pointed to a woman and two men, all Negroes — “saw Kennedy walk down the street with two other men. The woman says she kept her eye on Kennedy. Now the old man who was stabbed was sleeping on the stoop of the house where he lives which is about fifty feet from the saloon. It was hot and that’s why he was sleeping outdoors. Kennedy and his friends went past the old man and walked west to the corner. Then Kennedy turned back. He walked up to the old man and cut his throat, just like that. The woman screamed and a whole mob started after Kennedy. They caught him and gave him one hell of a beating. An officer came along and saved his life.”

“What started it all?” the prosecutor asked.

Schreiber shrugged. “It was about nothing. The old man was asleep. No words passed between them. Kennedy just came up and cut his throat.” The prosecutor considered this information and asked, “Where’s the arresting officer?”

Schreiber stuck his head into the corridor and called, “Fitz!” A stocky officer in a trim blue uniform entered the room. The prosecutor asked:

“Do you have any information on this, officer?”

The other shook his head. “I was on patrol in the car. I saw a mob chasing somebody in a white shirt. When I caught up, they were fit to kill him. I had to take out my gun before they would let up.”

“He’s pretty bruised up,” the prosecutor observed.

“Don’t look at me,” the officer said. “That’s the way I found him.”

“It doesn’t look good when a man comes in with injuries,” the prosecutor said earnestly. “It takes the edge off a confession.”

“You won’t get a confession,” the officer predicted. “He’s been yelling not guilty since I dragged him in.”

“We’ll see.” The prosecutor dismissed the officer and turned back to Schreiber. “What does Kennedy say?”

“He doesn’t say anything,” Schreiber answered. “He claims he was walking along the opposite side of the street with two friends. He was on the south side walking west. He says they were standing at the corner when suddenly they saw a mob running at them and he beat it because he was afraid. He didn’t know what they were after. He just ran. So did his friends, Butch and Louie.”

“Butch and Louie? Who are they?”

Schreiber grimaced expressively. “He doesn’t know their last names or where they live. He doesn’t know how to reach them. He says they were just out walking and talking when this happened. Butch and Louie sound phony.”

The case so far was typical of many assaults on the streets of New York. A man without motive, goaded by an impulse known only to himself, savagely attacked a harmless bystander. When caught he offered a weak alibi. The problem seemed to require only the examination of the eye witnesses to verify identification.

Hennessy, who was a philosopher, wondered out loud, “Now why would Kennedy do a thing like that?”

“Drunk, doped, or just plain nuts.” Schreiber was not concerned with the impulse behind the crime — police are not required to show motive.

“It’s funny,” the prosecutor said doubtfully. “Let’s talk to the witnesses.”

Schreiber motioned to a woman who had been dozing behind a typewriter desk. She came forward and the detective said, “This is Mary Jones. Mary, this is the district attorney. He’s your friend. You can tell him the truth.”

“I’m telling the truth,” she said simply.

The prosecutor offered the witness a cigarette and motioned her to the inner office. When they were seated, he asked quietly:

“Did you see what happened this morning?”

“I saw it with my own eyes,” she said emphatically. “He cut old Caspar’s throat. I saw it.”

The prosecutor lit her cigarette. “You want to help us catch the man who did this thing to old Caspar, don’t you?”

“Mister, you got him.” She puffed the cigarette.

“Is there any chance you might be mistaken?”

“Not a chance.”

The prosecutor thought Mary Jones sensible enough. She worked as a buttonhole maker in the garment district. She had a daughter at home and had been waiting near the tavern for her husband who was due from his job as an elevator operator. These were some of the things she told him before he asked her what had happened. She said:

“I was standing on the corner under the lamp post. I wasn’t talking to anyone. I was just waiting for my husband. We were going to have a beer together and go home. There were two men standing around. I know them as Fred and Terry. After a while three men, I mean Kennedy and his two friends, passed in front of me. They walked along the street on the same side as me away from the East River. Then they crossed to the downtown side of the street. I saw them pass old Caspar the first time. There were no words between them. Nothing happened to draw my attention. I had nothing to do so I watched them. When they got to the corner, they stood around talking. Then Kennedy came back alone. He walked up to old Caspar and made a pass at his throat. I didn’t know what he was doing. Then he walked away slowly. Old Caspar got up and put his hand to his neck. I was wondering what it was all about. Then Caspar looked at his hand and started to walk toward where I was standing. I saw blood coming down his shirt and I saw this cut along his neck. I pointed to Kennedy and I screamed, ‘He cut old Caspar’s throat. The one in the white shirt. Get him!’ Then Fred and Terry started after him. I kept screaming and pretty soon, maybe five seconds or so, a whole crowd came running. They caught this Kennedy. I pointed him out right away to the cops and then to the detectives.”

The prosecutor resumed. “Between the time you saw old Caspar’s throat cut by someone and the time you screamed, did you take your eyes off the man who did the cutting even for an instant?”

“I did not,” she said firmly.

“You keep using Kennedy’s name,” the prosecutor said. “Did you even know him before this? Do you have anything against him?”

“I learned his name here in the station house. I never saw the man before.” She left the room.

Fred and Terry, young powerful men employed in the subways, agreed with Mary Jones’s statement. They had been standing near her engrossed in conversation, but they recalled three men passing a few minutes before the woman screamed. When they looked up, they saw the street was empty except for the dazed victim and “the man in the white shirt” whom they identified as Kennedy.

“When I saw him,” Fred said, “he was only a short distance from old Caspar. No one else was on the street. Couldn’t be anybody else did it but this man. I lit out after him. He turned two or three corners, but I ran wide and I never lost sight of him. I collared him and then the rest came and started to beat him up.”

“You didn’t see him do the cutting?”

“No, but it just had to be him. Nobody else was in sight.”

The prosecutor asked each in turn:

“When you turned around, was this the man in the white shirt near Caspar or near the far corner?”

They were sure he was near Caspar.

“How many drinks did you have in you?”

“We weren’t drunk,” Fred said sturdily. “I had maybe two shots but I knew what I was doing. I couldn’t be wrong. Not this wrong.”

And there it stood. Three eyewitnesses, an immediate hue and cry, the chase, and capture. It was a simple case.

Yet Schreiber seemed unhappy. “You better talk to the boy.”

Hennessy, of Homicide, a red-haired intellectual with the manner of an instructor in philosophy at a military academy, put the questions.

“I don’t know what this is about,” Kennedy protested. “I was just walking around after supper with these fellows, Butch and Louie. We had a beer apiece at about ten o’clock on Canal Street. We walked along the river front for a while and then turned into this street. I was never on the side where the old man got knifed. We walked on the opposite side to the corner and were standing there when we heard a mob yelling and running at us. We all ran away together. I didn’t run because I stabbed anybody. I ran because I was afraid. This is a mixed neighborhood. I saw they weren’t white. I thought it might be a riot. I don’t know where Butch and Louie live. I don’t know their last names. They’re fellows I met around the neighborhood.”

“This is a serious business,” Hennessy said. “You’d better know where to get Butch and Louie.”

The prosecutor asked, “Do you claim the police beat you?”

“No, they saved my life. But they act like I did it. I had nothing to do with this at all. Why should I hurt him? I don’t even know who he is.”

“Did you see anybody else on the street at the time who could have cut him?” Hennessy demanded.

Kennedy was trembling. “No, I didn’t.”

“Somebody did it and they all say it was you.” Hennessy waited a moment. “You could make it easier for yourself by telling the truth.”

“I’ve told you the truth.” Kennedy conceded a minor record of delinquency, neither good nor bad. He had a spotty employment record. He lived with his family. “What reason would I have? Answer me that,” he asked.

“Whoever did it had no reason,” Hennessy said, “and it might as well be you.”

Kennedy was taken outside and the investigators sat around in the inner room, drinking soda pop, and standing in the breeze of the fan. “What do you all think?” the prosecutor asked.

Schreiber finished his bottle. “Let’s try the old man. He ought to be coming around now.”

Kennedy was taken to the hospital where old Caspar lay in the emergency ward with a wad of bloody cotton at his throat. The prosecutor put questions but the old man could not talk because of the blood welling up in his mouth. Schreiber and Hennessy brought in Kennedy and the prosecutor asked, “Is this the man who cut you?”

For a moment the old man could not move. Then with an effort he raised himself and pointed at Kennedy and nodded. He sank back weakly and closed his eyes.

“Now what does that mean?” Schreiber asked heavily.

“It means we charge this Kennedy with assault,” the prosecutor said. “If the old man dies, we’ll arraign him again for homicide.”

“I didn’t do it,” Kennedy protested.

The officials stood on the hot street in front of the hospital and summed up. Three eyewitnesses questioned separately had given a story which made the prisoner’s guilt appear unmistakable. The victim had pointed him out. His “alibi” of Butch and Louie appeared to be fictitious.

“Still, I don’t like it,” Schreiber grumbled. “This is a vicious crime. I don’t for the life of me see how this kid could do it. He’s a weakling.”

The prosecutor also had his doubts. “I don’t like it for another reason. If he was the kind who could commit this assault, why doesn’t he invent a story? He’s too passive.”

“Well, you’re right,” said philosopher Hennessy, “but what can you do against three eyewitnesses?”

“We can get a plate of borscht — that’s what we can do,” Schreiber said, and they adjourned to a dairy restaurant on nearby Delancey Street.

That afternoon the old man died, and automatically the charge against Kennedy became homicide.

There seemed no chance of mistaken identity. The harmless life of the victim ruled out a planned killing. It was a neighborhood affair, a cutting done on impulse. Little further police work was indicated. Ordinarily, with that kind of evidence, a prisoner immediately would be indicted, tried, and convicted for murder. Kennedy had neither the brains, the resourcefulness, nor the money to fight his way out of the trap.

However, neither the police nor the prosecutor were satisfied. They continued to worry and work. Schreiber continued to dig around the neighborhood. On Monday, Margaret Kennedy, the prisoner’s sister, applied at the district attorney’s office for a pass to see her brother in City Prison.

The prosecutor made it a rule to interview members of the family and he invited her to his office. The young woman was good-looking with an intelligent air, but with a definitely hostile manner. She worked in a millinery shop on Second Avenue as a sales assistant. “My brother’s innocent,” she said bitterly.

“How do you know?” the prosecutor asked. “We always hear that.”

“I know,” she said flatly.

The prosecutor looked at her curiously. It was natural for a sister to protest her brother’s innocence. But something in her manner pointed to definite knowledge of some sort. Her chin was up and her mouth was clamped tight. He asked mildly, “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“Is there any reason I should?”

He was not annoyed at her hostility. She was right to view him with suspicion. From her viewpoint he meant her brother no good. “Do you think I’d take advantage of any information you might give me?”

Her shrug was answer enough.

“Do the police know your brother?”

“Not especially.”

“Did I ever meet your brother before Saturday?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Then what makes you think he means anything to me?” he demanded.

“I’ve got nothing to tell you,” she said firmly.

“I think you do,” he said sharply. “You’ve got something on your mind. Why not spill it?”

“How do I know how you’ll use it?”

He laughed. “Your brother means nothing to me. There’s no election turning on this case. Nobody’s going to get to be governor by convicting your brother. The whole idea is just tiresome. Now, let me tell you — we have overwhelming proof that your brother killed this old man. We believe that proof. But our minds aren’t closed. We’ll take anything now. If the evidence goes to his innocence, we’ll follow it there. If it goes to his guilt, well, that’s where we are already.”

She stuck to her guns. It took an hour’s hammering and cajoling to break her down. “All right!” the prosecutor shouted. “Somebody told you he was innocent. Who was that man?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Where did you hear the news?”

“I was in a bar.”

“What bar?”

“Farley’s Bar,” she muttered, “on Henry Street.”

“When?”

“Early Saturday morning a man came in and said, ‘They got your brother, but he didn’t do it.’ ”

“What does that add? He didn’t say any more than you’ve been saying.”

“He saw the whole thing,” she burst out, and then bit her tongue.

“An eyewitness?”

She nodded.

“What’s that man’s name?”

“I won’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I promised I wouldn’t get him in trouble.”

The prosecutor was incredulous. “Your brother is facing the chair. We’ve got an airtight case against him. You’re his sister. You claim you have evidence to prove his innocence. Now you tell me that you’ll let a promise to this man stand in the way of saving your brother.”

She said stubbornly, “I can’t tell you. I gave the man a promise.”

Finally after several hours of tedious harangues and pleas and arguments, the girl promised to ask her witness to come in voluntarily the next day. As she left, she said, “I hope I’m doing the right thing.”

Schreiber called in to say, “I got something for you.”

“What is it?”

“There might be something in Kennedy’s story at that. I finally got the owner of the bar and his bartender. There was a fight there just before this cutting. Two civilians and a sailor. I’ve got a feeling one of the civilians could be our man.”

Within the hour, Schreiber produced a white-haired old man who owned the bar, and his stocky bartender. A few threats directed against the liquor license loosened their tongues completely. They agreed that one of the civilians, a tall powerful man, had been drinking heavily. Finally, in an ugly mood, he had quarreled with the bartender. “Mr. District Attorney,” the Negro bartender said quietly, “the things he said about me and mine I wouldn’t take off any man. Besides, he was making a nuisance of himself. So I asked the boss for the okay and I threw him out. He wasn’t gone five minutes when I saw my sandwich knife was gone. Then a little after that, maybe five, ten minutes, I hear this woman scream, and everybody ran out. I closed up the place and went home. I didn’t want to be around if there was trouble. Of course if I’d have known old Caspar was going to die, I’d have stuck around. But I thought they got the man.”

“Who was the tall man you threw out?”

The bartender shook his head. “I never got his name. I remember seeing him in the neighborhood.”

The prosecutor showed both a photograph of John Kennedy. “Was it this man?”

They studied it carefully. “No.”

The prosecutor had the witnesses outside and asked Schreiber, “What does this prove?”

“How many men are roaming around that hour in the morning looking for trouble with sandwich knives?” Schreiber protested. “What do you want — moving pictures?”

“There’s a chance you’re right,” the prosecutor admitted. “But we’ve got to do better. What about Butch and Louie?”

“I passed the word along to have them come in, if they exist,” Schreiber said.

Statements were taken and the witnesses were released. The following morning, Margaret Kennedy’s missing witness proved he was not a myth by showing up. He was a man of thirty, short, with a pimpled face, wavy hair of which he was proud, a low grade of intelligence, and frazzled nerves. He sat pulling at his knuckles.

“What’s your name?”

“Jerry Capone!”

“Capone?” the prosecutor studied the witness. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was,” Jerry said sadly. “I get a lot of ribbing.”

“All right, what happened — Capone?”

“It wasn’t Johnny Kennedy.” Jerry licked his lips. “I don’t know anything else. I just came because they asked me.”

The prosecutor arose. “Are you trying to insult the district attorney’s intelligence, Jerry? I don’t mind a man’s lying to me. I get to expect that. But I won’t tolerate anyone’s insulting the intelligence of the district attorney.”

Jerry shrank back. It was as though “insulting the district attorney’s intelligence” was a graver crime than murder. He started talking.

“Well, I saw the whole thing. I was across the street with some friends. We were sitting on boxes drinking rum colas. I went into the bar and I saw a sailor and two civilians. One of the civilians, a big man in a white shirt, started a fight with the bartender. I picked up my drinks and left. I wasn’t interested in any fights that night. About fifteen minutes later, I saw these two men and the sailor walk out and go west. They stood at the corner a while looking back. One of them, the big one, turned back. I thought he was going back to the bar to finish the fight. But he stopped at this old man and made a pass at him. I didn’t know what he was doing at that time. Then he went back to his friends and I lost sight of him. Then Kennedy and two boys walked right past me, as close as you are to me, and said, ‘Hello.’ I said ‘Hello’ back. Then I didn’t watch. A few seconds later I heard screams and I saw the mob running after Kennedy. I hung around until they caught him. Then I beat it. You never know where those things end. I found Kennedy’s sister and told her about the trouble.”

The prosecutor took careful notes and asked, “Was anyone with Kennedy?”

“I told you, two other boys. I never saw them before.”

“Did you hear what they were talking about?”

“Sure. Women.”

After a moment, the prosecutor asked, “All right now, who was the big man?”

“I don’t know,” Jerry said nervously.

“Sure you know. Out with it.”

“I wouldn’t like to say,” Jerry pleaded. “I’m scared.”

Schreiber took over. In other circumstances, his manner might have been regarded as unduly harsh. Jerry cowered and finally wept, “They call him Herman. I’m scared he’ll find out I told on him.”

The prosecutor asked the detective, “Does that give you an idea?”

“It sure does,” Schreiber said grimly. “I think that could be a tough one from the neighborhood.” He prodded Jerry. “You mean Herman Schweppes?”

Jerry nodded.

The prosecutor asked, “Do you have any idea, Jerry, why Herman did this job?”

“He couldn’t get at the barkeep,” Jerry said simply, “so he got at the first man he could.”

Schreiber added, “You don’t need to be a lawyer to see that.”

Jerry was placed in the antechamber and the prosecutor said, “We’ll need something more than Jerry. Three eyewitnesses, all friends of the dead man, tell us a different story. Jerry is a friend of Kennedy’s. It could be a frame.”

Schreiber picked up his straw hat. “Let me dig into it.”

It took a bit of doing. Herman Schweppes was located and a surveillance kept on his associates. Within two days, Schreiber identified his companions of the night. They were questioned vigorously until the story was developed.

The sailor did the trick. He was loyal to his friend — up to a point. But when the interrogation reached a peak of intensity he decided to get out of the middle. He gave Schweppes away.

Jerry Capone was right. Herman Schweppes had reason for his impulse. He had left the bar with rage in his heart because of his humiliation at the hands of the bartender. Schweppes was a parolee with a vicious criminal record. Any man in his path was in danger. Perhaps a white man might not have been attacked. But the defenseless sleeping old Caspar reminded him of the wounds from which he was smarting.

So, there it was — a flash of violence in the streets, a ready victim of suspicion and a routine investigation.

Kennedy would have been lost except for the uneasy feeling, shared by police and prosecutor, that he did not look and act like a killer. Until Jerry came in, there was no reason to doubt the eyewitnesses. They in turn were suspicious that the police were trying to save Kennedy, a white man, from punishment for killing a Negro. Because they would not credit the police with good faith, they refused to concede the possibility of error. The harder they were pressed, the more obstinately they insisted that they could not be wrong.

And yet the simple explanation was that in a short time interval between the criminal act and the alarum, Herman Schweppes had turned the corner and John Kennedy had stepped into his place.

If Kennedy had had a bad criminal record, there would have been another story. What else do the police have in the average case except eyewitnesses upon whom they must rely?

John Kennedy was lucky that Jerry Capone saw the killing and told the story to his sister, Margaret. He was lucky that the prosecutor took the trouble to get the truth from his reluctant sister. He was lucky, in fact, that Jerry Capone reached the prosecutor before he reached a defense lawyer — the story believed in the prosecutor’s office would have been torn apart under cross-examination in Court.

Clues, evidence, ratiocination, brilliant sleuthing, the embellishments of fiction — these have their place. But for the ordinary case, experience and sound instincts and a deep sense of responsibility are the strongest shield of the innocent.