THE MURDER OF YETTA ABRAMOWITZ, 12, IN NEW YORK CITY ON MAY 14, 1927.
(Do note quote without attribution to Alvin Esau)
Because the watch taken from Mrs. McConnell was found in New York City, there was eventually some speculation that Earle Nelson, the killer of Mrs. McConnell, also murdered a 12-year-old girl a few weeks later in the Bronx.[1]
The Abramowitz family, with five children, lived at 883 East 165th Street in the teeming tenements of the Bronx. On the Saturday evening of May 14, 1927, Mrs. Abramowitz, gave her 12-year-old child, Yetta, a few coins to go to a store and buy a toothbrush and a tube of tooth paste.[2] Most reports suggested the time was about 4 in the afternoon, and that the mother gave Yetta 20 cents.[3] Just as Lola Cowen, 14-year-old murder victim of Earle Nelson, would not return home in Winnipeg after being out selling artificial flowers, so Yetta never returned home. As dark descended her mother searched for her.
She was found about ten p.m. on the roof of a five-story apartment building a few blocks away at 1013 Simpson Street. The New York Times reported:
The body was discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Anton Castleman of 1017 Simpson Street. They had been visiting Mr. Castleman’s brother, Albert, who lives at 1013 Simpson Street. About 10 o’clock last night they started for home, walking over the rooftops instead of going through the street. As they passed the penthouse at the top of the dumbwaiter shaft, they heard faint moans. Peering into the darkness, they discovered the dying child, who was unconscious. The man and woman rushed back into the house, Mrs. Castleman rousing Samuel Lieberman, a taxicab chauffeur, who lives on the top floor, and her husband running into the street and calling for help. Lieberman ran to the roof and carried the child’s body down to the street, taking it to a drugstore… An ambulance summoned by the policeman on the beat took the child to Lincoln Hospital where the child died within half an hour.[4]
Near her body was found a child’s ring that had been torn from her fingers, which were broken in the struggle, and later it was reported that police found an iron pipe on the roof that may have been used as the murder weapon.[5] There were 35 cents worth of coins remaining beside her, indicating perhaps that she had been lured to accompany the murderer by a 15 cent inducement of some kind.[6] The arrival of the Castleman couple on the roof may have scared off the killer before he had completed his murderous task.
The autopsy disclosed that Yetta had been attacked, strangled, and struck repeatedly with a blunt instrument. She had five fractures to her skull.[7] “Attacked” at this time was the code word for sexual assault. The tabloid, News, described the killer as a “sex-crazed maniac with the strength of a gorilla and bestial depravity.”[8] There were numerous pictures of Yetta, this one from the Brooklyn Times Union:[9] (See above)
There was a crucial ambiguity in the narrative in terms of any linkage of this murder to Earle Nelson. Three women claimed they encountered the murderer leaving the scene, and the description of this man, could well fit Earle Nelson. However, it was later reported that the women were likely describing Mr. Castleman, and not the murderer.[10] As first reported in the Times:
Three women who saw the man descend from the roof to the street about ten minutes before the little girl was found, described him as about 35 years old, short, stocky, swarthy, wearing a red sweater, dark trousers, and a gray felt cap… the were standing on the landing of the third floor of the house talking Saturday night when the dark, swarthy man in the red sweater came down the stairs apparently from the roof. As he passed the women he was reported to have said in broken English, “There is a girl on the roof badly cut up.”[11] Some reports noted that the man then “swaggered leisurely out of the building.”[12] It was reported that the women did not investigate, “because they thought he must be some crank or that they had misunderstood him.”[13]
The description of the foreign looking man was widely disseminated and a manager of a movie theatre nearby claimed that a man- “about thirty, muscular and swarthy, and clean shaven, dressed in a red sweater and gray cap, came in about five o’clock, accompanied by a girl about 12 years old, who wore a middy blouse and blue skirt.”[14] The man had bought tickets and candy and they had watched the show twice before leaving.[15] The description of the man supposedly matched that given by the three women, and the clothing of the girl supposedly matched the clothing of Yetta.
It will be recalled that Earle Nelson a few weeks after this New York murder, murdered 14 year old Lola Cowan in Winnipeg and then several days later persuaded 10-year-old Jessie Rowe to accompany him to an ice cream parlor in Regina and asked her to go to the movies with him, but she told him that the movies were closed on Sunday.[16] However, as noted, all of these descriptive and circumstantial links to Earle Nelson in New York came crashing down when the police later determined that the three women on the third floor landing might have been describing Mr. Castleman and not the murderer.[17] Thus, the initial report that the women had seen the man before the body was discovered, now changed to seeing Castleman after he had discovered the body. The fiend had likely escaped over the rooftops and had not descended into the building where the murder took place.
It was also disclosed that the murderer had not lured Yetta into a restaurant because the autopsy examination of her stomach contents indicated that she had not eaten recently. Thus, it remained a mystery as to what the murderer did with the girl for the several hours between her disappearance and the discovery of the body at ten in the evening. Logically the police believed that the murderer might well be someone who knew Yetta and thus was able to be with her for many hours before the murder.[18]
There was another witness who arguably did not add much to the narrative for purposes of identification. She lived in the neighboring building and went onto the roof of her building to walk her cat. What she said involved all the dangers of post-event information and tabloid sensationalism. For what is worth, she was quoted in the News:
“Suddenly on the roof of the house directly opposite I heard a girl screaming. She uttered one word over and over and over: ‘Mamma! Mamma!’ The cries were so piteous and sounded so distressing that I climbed up on the brick parapet which divides the houses there and looked across. Sharp against the lighted sky I saw a man. He was moving quickly back and forth as if trying to prevent someone or something from passing him in the direction of the door of the penthouse leading down into the building. The cries kept up. Finally, he abruptly left and disappeared. He was a man of average height, muscularly built, and he wore a soft fedora hat with a flat brim. I could see him only down to his waist because the cornice of the building is higher than the roof on that building and covered his lower half. I don’t know if he was wearing a raincoat or some sort of sporting jacket with a belt. The reason I am so sure of his description is that a little later I saw Mrs. Josephine Castleman when she crossed the roof to Yetta and was able to note every detail of her dress. I am positive of what I saw.”[19]
Another potential witness involved a motion picture clerk (different than the initial theatre manager) who now came forward after seeing a picture of Yetta in the newspapers and claimed that she saw a man of “medium height, with dark hair and smooth shaven, wearing a tan raincoat,” come to a theatre shortly before 4 in the afternoon and purchase two tickets with Yetta standing about 5 feet back of the ticket window.[20] She was quoted in the News as stating, “I recognized the child immediately. She was standing before the cashier’s cage in the lobby a few minutes after 4 p.m. Saturday… Talking with her was a man of swarthy complexion, perhaps about 30 or a little older. He was of medium height and wore a tan coat, perhaps it might have been a raincoat, I’m not sure. After talking to Yetta, he walked over the cage and gave me 40 cents for two tickets… They went into the theatre together.”[21] If this report has any credibility, we are back to establishing a possible link to Earle Nelson, given the description and the circumstances. However, like the first description of the three ladies, this description also apparently was deflated when it was reported that police believed after persistent questioning of family members, that Yetta did not leave the home till after 6 p.m., thus discounting the purported sighting by the movie ticket seller at 4 p.m.[22]
Nevertheless, various suspects were arrested who were thought to have met the description of the wanted man.[23] One of the arrested suspects was a homeless laborer who insisted that he was in Philadelphia on the day of the murder, and the blood on his clothes was because of an accident in Philadelphia. Detective William Stepper was sent to Philadelphia where he investigated the man’s story and found it to be true, leading to the release of the man. However, Stepper noted that the description of the murderer of Yetta Abramowitz matched the description of the man who had murdered Mrs. McConnell in Philadelphia a few weeks previously, not to mention that the murderer had undoubtedly been in New York, given that the watch of Mrs. McConnell was found there.[24]
However, a few weeks later, when Earle Nelson was identified in Winnipeg as the alleged “gorilla man strangler,” as we have noted, his picture was presented and identified by the New York pawnshop owner as the person who pawned Mrs. McConnell’s watch, but we have no evidence that his picture was presented to any of the purported witnesses in the Yetta Abramowitz murder case. The police had apparently delinked Yetta’s murder from those of the “gorilla man” strangler. Should they have? The police focused on finding a man who had allegedly been stalking Yetta for some time before she was murdered,[25] as well as rounding up a host of local perverts accused of preying on children.[26] None of these arrests led anywhere, and after a year went by, the murder of Yetta remained unsolved.
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Probably the most important suspect was arrested in December of 1928, after Nelson had already been hung in Winnipeg. His name was Peter Kudzinowski, age 26, picked up as a drunk in Detroit. After sobering up and before being released from jail, Kudzinowski on his own accord confessed that he wanted to get a couple of murders off his mind. He confessed that in November of 1928 he had kidnapped a seven-year-old boy, Joe Storelli, living at 165 1st Avenue in Manhattan. After going to the movies and plying the child with candy, he lured the boy to the swamps near the Jersey Shore and cut the boy’s throat. This was not a false confession, as Kudzinowski explained precisely the location of the body, which was found by Jersey police exactly were he said it would be.[27] The sexual element can be assumed as the body was found “with his blue sweater pulled up to the neck and his brown overalls down to his heels.”[28] A detailed account of his confession as to luring the boy to the Jersey swamps was printed, but the details of the sexual element were “unprintable.”[29]
Kudzinowski also confessed to killing a young man in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1922, and also the murder of a five year old girl from Jersey City in August of 1928. The girl was at a family picnic at a lake when Kudzinowski lured her away with the promise to take her on a boat ride. He strangled her to death when she resisted his attack, took the body aboard a train car, spent several “pleasurable” hours with the body as the train made its way down the tracks, and then he dumped the body in the Delaware River. The police had no doubts about this story, but despite the precise description of where he dumped the body, the little girl’s remains were not found.[30]
Apparently Kudzinowski wanted to pay for his crimes and welcomed the prospect of the death penalty, asserting that if he was released he would kill more children, but he also asserted that the murders he had committed were worth the pleasure he derived from them.[31] Given the prospect of the death penalty and the likelihood of an insanity defence, Kudzinowski arguably had nothing to lose by admitting to other murders, but he specifically denied killing Yetta Abramowitz.[32] After a trial in Newark, the jury found him guilty of the murder the Storelli boy, despite a plea of insanity, and Kudzinowski was executed on the electric chair in Trenton on December 20, 1929.[33]
As a paedophile serial killer, Kudzinowski may be a better suspect in the murder of Yetta, then is Earle Nelson. However, when it comes to the description of witnesses, for what they were worth, Kudzinowski was described as small, slim (not muscular at all), with pale skin, blue eyes, and blond-reddish hair.[34] This description does not match any of the “witnesses” in our narrative of Yetta’s murder.
New suspects were arrested from time to time.[35] However, to this day the paedophile serial killer most often assumed as the murderer of Yetta Abramowitz is Albert Fish, arrested in late December 1934, convicted and sentenced to death in 1935, and executed at Sing Sing in 1936. There are numerous books and booklets about Fish, and we will not recount his bizarre killings here.[36] After his conviction for the one murder he undoubtedly committed, Fish purported to confess to others in an attempt to bolster his claim of insanity by way of appealing the death penalty sentence. He never confessed to killing Yetta Abramowitz and the police doubted that his confessions to other child murders were genuine. For example, even after Fish confessed to the abduction and mutilation of 4-year-old Billy Gaffney, who had gone missing from his home in Brooklyn a few months before Yetta went missing, the police doubted his confession, and the case remained open on the police books for many years.[37]
The very elderly Fish, over 60 years of age, with stooped posture and wispy grey hair, does not match any of the descriptions given by witnesses in the Abramowitz murder, assuming any of the witnesses actually saw the murderer. Furthermore, the murders of Fish involve much more than “simple” sexual attacks and strangulation, and involved mutilation, torture, and cannibalism. However, as noted, the killer may have been scared off from his task due to the arrival of the Castleman’s on the roof. Another possible link is that when Fish was arrested, police asserted that they had evidence that Fish was in New York, perhaps even near the neighborhood of the Abramowitz apartment building, when the murder took place.[38]
Perhaps Kudzinowski or Fish are better suspects than Earle Nelson? Obviously, this case does not fit into the pattern of a landlady killing, but Nelson may have been a more versatile killer. We at least have lingering suspicion despite the literature that links this murder as probably one committed by Albert Fish.
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The Abramowitz family continued to live at East 165 Street in the Bronx after the murder of Yetta.[39] Eventually they moved to an address on Lyman Place in the Bronx.[40] Parents, Louis and Sarah Abramowitz were both born in Russia, and met and married after immigrating to the United States. They had five children- Samuel, Benjamin, Blanche (Beckie), Yetta, and Frank.[41] Louis Abramowitz died at age 75 in 1960, and Sarah died in the same year at age 71.[42]
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[1] “N. Y. Murder is Laid to Strangler Here,” Philadelphia Public Leger, May 19, 1927, at 1.
[2] “Human Gorilla Sought for Crime,” N. Y. Daily News, May 16, 1927, at 4. [Henceforth the News].
[3] “Woman Saw Girl’s Strangler,” N. Y. Sun, May 16, 1927, at 5; “Movie Only Clue in Child’s Murder,” N. Y. Evening Post, May 16, 1927, at 19.
[4] “Girl, 12, Strangled; Hunt on for Slayer,” New York Times, May 15, 1927, at 1 and 12. [Henceforth the Times].
[5] “Thinks Slain Girl Knew Strangler,” Times, May 17, 1926, at 31.
[6] Supra note 3.
[7] “Women Give Clues to Girl’s Strangler, Times, May 16, 1927, at 1 and 14.
[8] “Maniac Girl Killer Tracked,” News, May 16, 1927, at 1; and “Fiend Tracked by Movie Claim,” News, May 16, 1927, at 3.
[9] “Police Scour City for Girl’s Slayer,” Brooklyn Times Union, May 16, 1927, at 13.
[10] Supra note 5; Also, “Bronx Girl Killer Knew His Locality,” N. Y. Evening Post, May 17, 1927, at 3.
[11] Supra note 7. [My emphasis.].
[12] “Seek Child-Slayer,” Reading Times, May 16, 1927, at 8.
[13] N. Y. Sun, supra note 3.
[14] “Slayer Took Child to Movies,” News, May 18, 1927, at 3
[15] “Fiend Tracked by Movie Claim,” News, May 16, 1927, at 3.
[16] See Esau, The Gorilla Man Strangler Case (Altona: Friesen Press, 2022) at 45-46.
[17] Supra note 10.
[18] “Bronx Girl Killer Knew His Locality,” N. Y. Evening Post, May 17, 1927, at 3.
[19] “Woman Saw Fiend,” News, May 17, 1927, at 2.
[20] “Police Hunt in Vain for Bronx Slayer,” Times, May 18, 1927, at 27.
[21] “Slayer Took Child to Movies,” News, May 18, 1927, at 3.
[22] “Hunt Discloses that Yetta Did Not Attend Movies,” News, May 20, 1927, at 4.
[23] “Murder Suspect Being Held Here,” Yonkers Herald, May 16, 1927, at 2; “Suspect is Held,” Hackensack Record, May 19, 1927, at 1; “Kidnapper Had Appearance of Yetta’s Slayer,” News, May 20, 1927, at 2 and 4.
[24] Supra note 1 and “Alibi Here Frees Suspected Slayer,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 19, 1927, at 4; “N.Y. Slayer May be Philly Strangler,” Reading Times, May 19, 1927, at 2.
[25] “What Has Happened to Justice?” Atlanta Constitution, Jan. 29, 1928, (magazine section) at 5.
[26] For example, “Park Fiend Linked to Bronx Slaying,” News, July 21, 1927, at 2; “Authorities Seek to Identify,” News, July 22, 1927, at 5; “Ether Weilder Pleads Guilty on Boys’s Charge,” News, Aug. 4, 1927, at 32; “Bag Man Attacks Babies,” News, Aug. 17, 1927, at 2; “Man Quizzed,” News, June 23, 1928, at 6; “Child Slaying Suspect Freed,” News, June 27, 1928, at 6:
[27] “Jersey Justice Speeds Boy-Killer Fiend’s Fate,” News, Dec. 7, 1928, at 3 and 4.
[28] “Murder and Depravity Lurked Along the Trail of Peter Kudzinowski,” Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 2, 1930, at 61.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid.
[31] “Crime Worth Death,” News, Dec. 10, 1928, at 3 and 4.
[32] Ibid.
[33] “Kudzinowski Executed,” Scranton Republican, Dec. 21, 1929, at 1 and 26.
[34] Ibid. Also based on descriptions in Supra note 27, and “Fiend Slayer Goes Cringing to Chair,” News, Dec. 21, 1929, at 2.
[35] For example, “Police Try to Link Horrner to Death of Bronx Girl,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 26, 1930, at 6; “Alleged Attacker Freed,” Hartford Courant, Aug. 28, 1930, at 18.
[36] For example, Harold Schechter, Deranged (New York: Pocket Books, 1990); John Borowski, Albert Fish in his Own Words, Waterfront Productions, 2014.
[37] “10-Year-Old Gaffney Kidnap Still Mystery,” News, Feb. 7, 1937, at 28B; “Billy Gone 10 Years,” Brooklyn Times Union, Feb. 12, 1937, at 2.
[38] “4 Child Deaths Linked to Fish,” News, Dec. 22, 1934, at 3 and 4; “Believe Fish Killed Many N.Y. Children,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Dec. 22, 1934, at 2.
[39] U. S. Census of 1930.
[40] U. S. Census of 1940 and 1950.
[41] U. S, Census of 1920. At this stage they lived in the tenements on the East side of Manhattan.
[42] N. Y. Death Index, 1949-1965.
(Do note quote without attribution to Alvin Esau)
Because the watch taken from Mrs. McConnell was found in New York City, there was eventually some speculation that Earle Nelson, the killer of Mrs. McConnell, also murdered a 12-year-old girl a few weeks later in the Bronx.[1]
The Abramowitz family, with five children, lived at 883 East 165th Street in the teeming tenements of the Bronx. On the Saturday evening of May 14, 1927, Mrs. Abramowitz, gave her 12-year-old child, Yetta, a few coins to go to a store and buy a toothbrush and a tube of tooth paste.[2] Most reports suggested the time was about 4 in the afternoon, and that the mother gave Yetta 20 cents.[3] Just as Lola Cowen, 14-year-old murder victim of Earle Nelson, would not return home in Winnipeg after being out selling artificial flowers, so Yetta never returned home. As dark descended her mother searched for her.
She was found about ten p.m. on the roof of a five-story apartment building a few blocks away at 1013 Simpson Street. The New York Times reported:
The body was discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Anton Castleman of 1017 Simpson Street. They had been visiting Mr. Castleman’s brother, Albert, who lives at 1013 Simpson Street. About 10 o’clock last night they started for home, walking over the rooftops instead of going through the street. As they passed the penthouse at the top of the dumbwaiter shaft, they heard faint moans. Peering into the darkness, they discovered the dying child, who was unconscious. The man and woman rushed back into the house, Mrs. Castleman rousing Samuel Lieberman, a taxicab chauffeur, who lives on the top floor, and her husband running into the street and calling for help. Lieberman ran to the roof and carried the child’s body down to the street, taking it to a drugstore… An ambulance summoned by the policeman on the beat took the child to Lincoln Hospital where the child died within half an hour.[4]
Near her body was found a child’s ring that had been torn from her fingers, which were broken in the struggle, and later it was reported that police found an iron pipe on the roof that may have been used as the murder weapon.[5] There were 35 cents worth of coins remaining beside her, indicating perhaps that she had been lured to accompany the murderer by a 15 cent inducement of some kind.[6] The arrival of the Castleman couple on the roof may have scared off the killer before he had completed his murderous task.
The autopsy disclosed that Yetta had been attacked, strangled, and struck repeatedly with a blunt instrument. She had five fractures to her skull.[7] “Attacked” at this time was the code word for sexual assault. The tabloid, News, described the killer as a “sex-crazed maniac with the strength of a gorilla and bestial depravity.”[8] There were numerous pictures of Yetta, this one from the Brooklyn Times Union:[9] (See above)
There was a crucial ambiguity in the narrative in terms of any linkage of this murder to Earle Nelson. Three women claimed they encountered the murderer leaving the scene, and the description of this man, could well fit Earle Nelson. However, it was later reported that the women were likely describing Mr. Castleman, and not the murderer.[10] As first reported in the Times:
Three women who saw the man descend from the roof to the street about ten minutes before the little girl was found, described him as about 35 years old, short, stocky, swarthy, wearing a red sweater, dark trousers, and a gray felt cap… the were standing on the landing of the third floor of the house talking Saturday night when the dark, swarthy man in the red sweater came down the stairs apparently from the roof. As he passed the women he was reported to have said in broken English, “There is a girl on the roof badly cut up.”[11] Some reports noted that the man then “swaggered leisurely out of the building.”[12] It was reported that the women did not investigate, “because they thought he must be some crank or that they had misunderstood him.”[13]
The description of the foreign looking man was widely disseminated and a manager of a movie theatre nearby claimed that a man- “about thirty, muscular and swarthy, and clean shaven, dressed in a red sweater and gray cap, came in about five o’clock, accompanied by a girl about 12 years old, who wore a middy blouse and blue skirt.”[14] The man had bought tickets and candy and they had watched the show twice before leaving.[15] The description of the man supposedly matched that given by the three women, and the clothing of the girl supposedly matched the clothing of Yetta.
It will be recalled that Earle Nelson a few weeks after this New York murder, murdered 14 year old Lola Cowan in Winnipeg and then several days later persuaded 10-year-old Jessie Rowe to accompany him to an ice cream parlor in Regina and asked her to go to the movies with him, but she told him that the movies were closed on Sunday.[16] However, as noted, all of these descriptive and circumstantial links to Earle Nelson in New York came crashing down when the police later determined that the three women on the third floor landing might have been describing Mr. Castleman and not the murderer.[17] Thus, the initial report that the women had seen the man before the body was discovered, now changed to seeing Castleman after he had discovered the body. The fiend had likely escaped over the rooftops and had not descended into the building where the murder took place.
It was also disclosed that the murderer had not lured Yetta into a restaurant because the autopsy examination of her stomach contents indicated that she had not eaten recently. Thus, it remained a mystery as to what the murderer did with the girl for the several hours between her disappearance and the discovery of the body at ten in the evening. Logically the police believed that the murderer might well be someone who knew Yetta and thus was able to be with her for many hours before the murder.[18]
There was another witness who arguably did not add much to the narrative for purposes of identification. She lived in the neighboring building and went onto the roof of her building to walk her cat. What she said involved all the dangers of post-event information and tabloid sensationalism. For what is worth, she was quoted in the News:
“Suddenly on the roof of the house directly opposite I heard a girl screaming. She uttered one word over and over and over: ‘Mamma! Mamma!’ The cries were so piteous and sounded so distressing that I climbed up on the brick parapet which divides the houses there and looked across. Sharp against the lighted sky I saw a man. He was moving quickly back and forth as if trying to prevent someone or something from passing him in the direction of the door of the penthouse leading down into the building. The cries kept up. Finally, he abruptly left and disappeared. He was a man of average height, muscularly built, and he wore a soft fedora hat with a flat brim. I could see him only down to his waist because the cornice of the building is higher than the roof on that building and covered his lower half. I don’t know if he was wearing a raincoat or some sort of sporting jacket with a belt. The reason I am so sure of his description is that a little later I saw Mrs. Josephine Castleman when she crossed the roof to Yetta and was able to note every detail of her dress. I am positive of what I saw.”[19]
Another potential witness involved a motion picture clerk (different than the initial theatre manager) who now came forward after seeing a picture of Yetta in the newspapers and claimed that she saw a man of “medium height, with dark hair and smooth shaven, wearing a tan raincoat,” come to a theatre shortly before 4 in the afternoon and purchase two tickets with Yetta standing about 5 feet back of the ticket window.[20] She was quoted in the News as stating, “I recognized the child immediately. She was standing before the cashier’s cage in the lobby a few minutes after 4 p.m. Saturday… Talking with her was a man of swarthy complexion, perhaps about 30 or a little older. He was of medium height and wore a tan coat, perhaps it might have been a raincoat, I’m not sure. After talking to Yetta, he walked over the cage and gave me 40 cents for two tickets… They went into the theatre together.”[21] If this report has any credibility, we are back to establishing a possible link to Earle Nelson, given the description and the circumstances. However, like the first description of the three ladies, this description also apparently was deflated when it was reported that police believed after persistent questioning of family members, that Yetta did not leave the home till after 6 p.m., thus discounting the purported sighting by the movie ticket seller at 4 p.m.[22]
Nevertheless, various suspects were arrested who were thought to have met the description of the wanted man.[23] One of the arrested suspects was a homeless laborer who insisted that he was in Philadelphia on the day of the murder, and the blood on his clothes was because of an accident in Philadelphia. Detective William Stepper was sent to Philadelphia where he investigated the man’s story and found it to be true, leading to the release of the man. However, Stepper noted that the description of the murderer of Yetta Abramowitz matched the description of the man who had murdered Mrs. McConnell in Philadelphia a few weeks previously, not to mention that the murderer had undoubtedly been in New York, given that the watch of Mrs. McConnell was found there.[24]
However, a few weeks later, when Earle Nelson was identified in Winnipeg as the alleged “gorilla man strangler,” as we have noted, his picture was presented and identified by the New York pawnshop owner as the person who pawned Mrs. McConnell’s watch, but we have no evidence that his picture was presented to any of the purported witnesses in the Yetta Abramowitz murder case. The police had apparently delinked Yetta’s murder from those of the “gorilla man” strangler. Should they have? The police focused on finding a man who had allegedly been stalking Yetta for some time before she was murdered,[25] as well as rounding up a host of local perverts accused of preying on children.[26] None of these arrests led anywhere, and after a year went by, the murder of Yetta remained unsolved.
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Probably the most important suspect was arrested in December of 1928, after Nelson had already been hung in Winnipeg. His name was Peter Kudzinowski, age 26, picked up as a drunk in Detroit. After sobering up and before being released from jail, Kudzinowski on his own accord confessed that he wanted to get a couple of murders off his mind. He confessed that in November of 1928 he had kidnapped a seven-year-old boy, Joe Storelli, living at 165 1st Avenue in Manhattan. After going to the movies and plying the child with candy, he lured the boy to the swamps near the Jersey Shore and cut the boy’s throat. This was not a false confession, as Kudzinowski explained precisely the location of the body, which was found by Jersey police exactly were he said it would be.[27] The sexual element can be assumed as the body was found “with his blue sweater pulled up to the neck and his brown overalls down to his heels.”[28] A detailed account of his confession as to luring the boy to the Jersey swamps was printed, but the details of the sexual element were “unprintable.”[29]
Kudzinowski also confessed to killing a young man in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1922, and also the murder of a five year old girl from Jersey City in August of 1928. The girl was at a family picnic at a lake when Kudzinowski lured her away with the promise to take her on a boat ride. He strangled her to death when she resisted his attack, took the body aboard a train car, spent several “pleasurable” hours with the body as the train made its way down the tracks, and then he dumped the body in the Delaware River. The police had no doubts about this story, but despite the precise description of where he dumped the body, the little girl’s remains were not found.[30]
Apparently Kudzinowski wanted to pay for his crimes and welcomed the prospect of the death penalty, asserting that if he was released he would kill more children, but he also asserted that the murders he had committed were worth the pleasure he derived from them.[31] Given the prospect of the death penalty and the likelihood of an insanity defence, Kudzinowski arguably had nothing to lose by admitting to other murders, but he specifically denied killing Yetta Abramowitz.[32] After a trial in Newark, the jury found him guilty of the murder the Storelli boy, despite a plea of insanity, and Kudzinowski was executed on the electric chair in Trenton on December 20, 1929.[33]
As a paedophile serial killer, Kudzinowski may be a better suspect in the murder of Yetta, then is Earle Nelson. However, when it comes to the description of witnesses, for what they were worth, Kudzinowski was described as small, slim (not muscular at all), with pale skin, blue eyes, and blond-reddish hair.[34] This description does not match any of the “witnesses” in our narrative of Yetta’s murder.
New suspects were arrested from time to time.[35] However, to this day the paedophile serial killer most often assumed as the murderer of Yetta Abramowitz is Albert Fish, arrested in late December 1934, convicted and sentenced to death in 1935, and executed at Sing Sing in 1936. There are numerous books and booklets about Fish, and we will not recount his bizarre killings here.[36] After his conviction for the one murder he undoubtedly committed, Fish purported to confess to others in an attempt to bolster his claim of insanity by way of appealing the death penalty sentence. He never confessed to killing Yetta Abramowitz and the police doubted that his confessions to other child murders were genuine. For example, even after Fish confessed to the abduction and mutilation of 4-year-old Billy Gaffney, who had gone missing from his home in Brooklyn a few months before Yetta went missing, the police doubted his confession, and the case remained open on the police books for many years.[37]
The very elderly Fish, over 60 years of age, with stooped posture and wispy grey hair, does not match any of the descriptions given by witnesses in the Abramowitz murder, assuming any of the witnesses actually saw the murderer. Furthermore, the murders of Fish involve much more than “simple” sexual attacks and strangulation, and involved mutilation, torture, and cannibalism. However, as noted, the killer may have been scared off from his task due to the arrival of the Castleman’s on the roof. Another possible link is that when Fish was arrested, police asserted that they had evidence that Fish was in New York, perhaps even near the neighborhood of the Abramowitz apartment building, when the murder took place.[38]
Perhaps Kudzinowski or Fish are better suspects than Earle Nelson? Obviously, this case does not fit into the pattern of a landlady killing, but Nelson may have been a more versatile killer. We at least have lingering suspicion despite the literature that links this murder as probably one committed by Albert Fish.
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The Abramowitz family continued to live at East 165 Street in the Bronx after the murder of Yetta.[39] Eventually they moved to an address on Lyman Place in the Bronx.[40] Parents, Louis and Sarah Abramowitz were both born in Russia, and met and married after immigrating to the United States. They had five children- Samuel, Benjamin, Blanche (Beckie), Yetta, and Frank.[41] Louis Abramowitz died at age 75 in 1960, and Sarah died in the same year at age 71.[42]
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[1] “N. Y. Murder is Laid to Strangler Here,” Philadelphia Public Leger, May 19, 1927, at 1.
[2] “Human Gorilla Sought for Crime,” N. Y. Daily News, May 16, 1927, at 4. [Henceforth the News].
[3] “Woman Saw Girl’s Strangler,” N. Y. Sun, May 16, 1927, at 5; “Movie Only Clue in Child’s Murder,” N. Y. Evening Post, May 16, 1927, at 19.
[4] “Girl, 12, Strangled; Hunt on for Slayer,” New York Times, May 15, 1927, at 1 and 12. [Henceforth the Times].
[5] “Thinks Slain Girl Knew Strangler,” Times, May 17, 1926, at 31.
[6] Supra note 3.
[7] “Women Give Clues to Girl’s Strangler, Times, May 16, 1927, at 1 and 14.
[8] “Maniac Girl Killer Tracked,” News, May 16, 1927, at 1; and “Fiend Tracked by Movie Claim,” News, May 16, 1927, at 3.
[9] “Police Scour City for Girl’s Slayer,” Brooklyn Times Union, May 16, 1927, at 13.
[10] Supra note 5; Also, “Bronx Girl Killer Knew His Locality,” N. Y. Evening Post, May 17, 1927, at 3.
[11] Supra note 7. [My emphasis.].
[12] “Seek Child-Slayer,” Reading Times, May 16, 1927, at 8.
[13] N. Y. Sun, supra note 3.
[14] “Slayer Took Child to Movies,” News, May 18, 1927, at 3
[15] “Fiend Tracked by Movie Claim,” News, May 16, 1927, at 3.
[16] See Esau, The Gorilla Man Strangler Case (Altona: Friesen Press, 2022) at 45-46.
[17] Supra note 10.
[18] “Bronx Girl Killer Knew His Locality,” N. Y. Evening Post, May 17, 1927, at 3.
[19] “Woman Saw Fiend,” News, May 17, 1927, at 2.
[20] “Police Hunt in Vain for Bronx Slayer,” Times, May 18, 1927, at 27.
[21] “Slayer Took Child to Movies,” News, May 18, 1927, at 3.
[22] “Hunt Discloses that Yetta Did Not Attend Movies,” News, May 20, 1927, at 4.
[23] “Murder Suspect Being Held Here,” Yonkers Herald, May 16, 1927, at 2; “Suspect is Held,” Hackensack Record, May 19, 1927, at 1; “Kidnapper Had Appearance of Yetta’s Slayer,” News, May 20, 1927, at 2 and 4.
[24] Supra note 1 and “Alibi Here Frees Suspected Slayer,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 19, 1927, at 4; “N.Y. Slayer May be Philly Strangler,” Reading Times, May 19, 1927, at 2.
[25] “What Has Happened to Justice?” Atlanta Constitution, Jan. 29, 1928, (magazine section) at 5.
[26] For example, “Park Fiend Linked to Bronx Slaying,” News, July 21, 1927, at 2; “Authorities Seek to Identify,” News, July 22, 1927, at 5; “Ether Weilder Pleads Guilty on Boys’s Charge,” News, Aug. 4, 1927, at 32; “Bag Man Attacks Babies,” News, Aug. 17, 1927, at 2; “Man Quizzed,” News, June 23, 1928, at 6; “Child Slaying Suspect Freed,” News, June 27, 1928, at 6:
[27] “Jersey Justice Speeds Boy-Killer Fiend’s Fate,” News, Dec. 7, 1928, at 3 and 4.
[28] “Murder and Depravity Lurked Along the Trail of Peter Kudzinowski,” Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 2, 1930, at 61.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid.
[31] “Crime Worth Death,” News, Dec. 10, 1928, at 3 and 4.
[32] Ibid.
[33] “Kudzinowski Executed,” Scranton Republican, Dec. 21, 1929, at 1 and 26.
[34] Ibid. Also based on descriptions in Supra note 27, and “Fiend Slayer Goes Cringing to Chair,” News, Dec. 21, 1929, at 2.
[35] For example, “Police Try to Link Horrner to Death of Bronx Girl,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug. 26, 1930, at 6; “Alleged Attacker Freed,” Hartford Courant, Aug. 28, 1930, at 18.
[36] For example, Harold Schechter, Deranged (New York: Pocket Books, 1990); John Borowski, Albert Fish in his Own Words, Waterfront Productions, 2014.
[37] “10-Year-Old Gaffney Kidnap Still Mystery,” News, Feb. 7, 1937, at 28B; “Billy Gone 10 Years,” Brooklyn Times Union, Feb. 12, 1937, at 2.
[38] “4 Child Deaths Linked to Fish,” News, Dec. 22, 1934, at 3 and 4; “Believe Fish Killed Many N.Y. Children,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Dec. 22, 1934, at 2.
[39] U. S. Census of 1930.
[40] U. S. Census of 1940 and 1950.
[41] U. S, Census of 1920. At this stage they lived in the tenements on the East side of Manhattan.
[42] N. Y. Death Index, 1949-1965.
