THREE MURDERS IN NEWARK IN MAY, JULY, AND AUGUST 1926.
(Do not quote without attribution to Alvin Esau)
From his base in Palo Alto working at the Arnold estate, or from visiting his Aunt Lillian in San Francisco, Earle Nelson could have easily travelled to Los Angeles, or other West Coast cities like Portland and Seattle to commit murder during 1926, but did he travel clear across the country to Newark, New Jersey, and back, not only once but twice in this period? We will examine three murders in Newark that took place in May, July and August of 1926. If the “dark strangler” was responsible for them, as well as murders on the West Coast, it would mean that he travelled to Newark to commit the first murder, then returned “home” to California to commit a few more, and then returned to Newark for a series of murders, and then came back to California again.
One may well doubt that Earle Nelson would have been under any suspicion involving the three murders in Newark in 1926, but for the fact that he was undoubtedly in Newark the following year. Nelson sent some postcards from Newark, but it should be noted that these were postmarked February 8 and 11 of 1927, not 1926. When Nelson was arrested in Winnipeg, there was no report of any activity by Newark police to distribute his photo to potential witnesses in Newark. It was only during the trial in November 1927, that the Newark police apparently were told about the postcards, one of which stated, “I am working steady and have found good church friends.”[1] Captain Sebold, head of the Newark Detectives, asked for any of these church friends, whomever they might be, to step forward and talk in confidence to him. Assuming Nelson was telling the truth about having such friends, we have no evidence that any came forward. In any case, when you examine the three unsolved Newark murders of 1926, they do not seem to fit the pattern that Earle Nelson had by now adopted. We deal with these murders only because various authors have placed one or more of them on the list of Earle Nelson’s probable additional victims on an expanded body count.
There seems to be considerable misinformation floating about as to these murders. For example, the authors of The Murder Casebook, state as to Nelson:
Specifically, he was widely suspected of the murder of three women in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926. Mrs. Rose Valentine and Mrs. Margaret Stanton were strangled and Mrs. Laura Tidor was shot... All three had been violated after death. The most striking evidence linking Nelson to the killing, though, was that the bodies had all been perfunctorily hidden, two of them shoved under a bed and one rolled up in a length of carpet.[2]
As we will show, most of this information is wrong, as is a great deal of information found in existing books and blogs about Earle Nelson. It was Stanton who was shot, and apparently none of the three women were sexually assaulted, and none of the bodies were hidden. This misinformation also appears in a book by Brian Innes.[3] More accurately, Schechter, eliminates the shooting death, and just mentions that two of the Newark murders are worth exploring as possible Nelson body count inclusions.[4] Another author, Diane Anderson, mentions the third Newark murder as a possibility.[5] As we will see, my conclusion is that Nelson was not the murderer in any of these three cases.
May 10, 1926- Rose Valentino, 69, Newark
The body of Mrs. Rose Valentino, 69 years old, was found on Tuesday morning, May 11, 1926, lying in a hallway of her own third floor apartment at 195 Norfolk Street. Mrs. Valentino owned the apartment building she lived in.[6] Valentino was considered a wealthy widow, given that her late husband had owned a prosperous importing business and the apartment building she owned contained sixteen suites.[7] On Sunday night, May 9th, there was a party in the Valentino apartments involving a variety of young people and relatives celebrating Mrs. Valentino’s birthday. That party ended at about 11 p.m. One of her stepsons lived with his wife in the building, and when his stepmother failed to come down to his apartment for breakfast on Monday morning, as was her custom, he apparently investigated to see whether she had gone to another stepson’s house. Not finding her there, and not seeing her all day Monday, and finding no response when he knocked on her locked door, he eventually went to the police on Tuesday. The police broke in to find the body.
The police surmised that she had, ironically, been clubbed with a patrolman’s night stick that she had herself been persuaded to buy and hang near the kitchen door for her own protection. Now that club was found at her feet at the murder scene. One report stated that, “her head lay in a pool of blood.”[8] There was also a handkerchief gag placed in her mouth. The medical report subsequently established the cause of death as strangulation, rather than the clubbing.[9] Near the body was one of her teeth, which had been knocked out or pulled out during the murder. The Newark Evening News reported that, “The body was fully clothed, and the bed made, indicating either that it had not been used on Sunday night or else had been made up early Monday before the attack occurred.”[10] A neighbour reported hearing moans coming from the apartment at about eight on Monday morning, indicating that Mrs. Valentino probably died on Monday morning, May 10. Captain Sebold of the Newark Detective Bureau concluded that the intruder had probably entered the apartment through an unlatched window off a fire escape, and then left through the front door which had a spring latch lock.[11] No fingerprints could be found on the club.[12]
The police considered robbery to be the motive, given that Valentino was well to do and that no money was found in the apartment, but for a quarter.[13] Another report, however, stated that Valentino did not keep money in her apartment. However, she was a very rich woman who frequently loaned thousands of dollars to people, and she had several notes coming due. Perhaps a debtor might have killed her and destroyed the evidence of indebtedness?[14] That theory was somewhat diminished when various debt notes were found in the apartment.[15] Police proceeded to interview relatives of the victim, debtors to the victim, disgruntled apartment dwellers, and even a persistent younger suitor of the wealthy woman, who may have been more interested in her money than her companionship.[16]
Having no leads, the police used the occasion of Mrs. Valentino’s funeral to arrest the stepson who lived in the building, holding him in custody for a few days as a material witness, and then releasing him on a $500 bail bond.[17] Judging from the absence of any further news, it would appear that the police never made any progress on identifying the murderer of Mrs. Valentino. That the police continued to believe robbery was the motive, was hinted at several months later when the Star-Eagle noted that the police were informed, “that she had made known her intention of depositing money in the bank the morning following the party.”[18]
Does this look like a murder that Nelson committed? While Mrs. Valentino was the owner of an apartment building, we have no indication whatsoever that there was an advertisement for a vacant apartment, nor do we have any evidence of a sexual assault post-death. Nelson never entered apartments through a window as far as we can tell.
July 3, 1926- Margaret Stanton, 42, Newark
The second unsolved murder in Newark took place in the early morning hours of Saturday, July 3, 1926. Given that the murder of Mrs. Russell in Santa Barbara took place on June 24, 1926, we do not have a whole lot of time for Nelson to be moving from one coast to the other for a second time. Furthermore, this second Newark murder involves the use of a gun, which certainly does not fit with Nelson’s methods of killing. Another factor is that the time of the killing is the middle of the night. The “dark strangler” was not known as a night prowler. Furthermore, as in the Valentino case, the killer apparently made his way into the apartment by way of a window, and there was certainly not a “room for rent” sign on these premises. While we would like to know more about the possibility that Valentino might have been sexually assaulted, from the way that the Stanton murder unfolded it is apparent that this victim was not sexually assaulted. The only connection with Earle Nelson, seems to be the coincidence that the victim’s husband was also named Earle. He died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.[19]
Mrs. Margaret Stanton, an attractive 42-year-old widow, lived at 242 First Street in a basement floor apartment with her four children. She worked as an ironer at a laundry and was well respected for her hard work and her dedication to her children.[20] Her oldest daughter, Violet, aged 17, was working as a telephone operator at night and was not home at the time of the murder. At four in the morning on Saturday, July 3rd, sleeping in a bedroom with her daughter, Emma, aged 14, Mrs. Stanton awoke when she heard heavy breathing from the bedroom where her two sons, Dewitt, aged 12, and Aylward, aged 8, were sleeping. She got up and entered the bedroom to find a man holding his hands over Dewitt.[21] Apparently the man lunged forward toward her, either to make his escape, or to strike her. She attempted to stop him, and the man shot her in the stomach, dashed out the door, leaving behind a perfumed soft gray hat made in Miami, and a piece of cloth that Mrs. Stanton had torn from his coat in her struggle with him.
The young boy, Dewitt, described the killer as being about 5 feet six inches. As reported:
His story is that he was awakened by the presence of the man near him. Before he could make an outcry, the man pressed a hand over his mouth. The boy struggled only feebly in comparison with the man’s strength. “Then he got up and walked to the dresser,” the boy told detectives today, “and picked up a revolver. He returned to the bed and told me he would kill me if I said a word. I could have yelled while he was getting the gun, but I was too frightened… I heard my mother coming toward my room… And when she got to the door the man jumped up and ran toward her. He struck her but missed. Then he fired the gun. Mother screamed and fell… The man ran out through the kitchen and out by the front door.”[22]
The Star-Eagle reported the events somewhat differently.[23] The intruder came through an open kitchen window and after hearing Mrs. Stanton coming toward the bedroom where the boys were, he left the bedroom, and the struggle took place in the kitchen where he shot Mrs. Stanton in the right breast and escaped through the same window. Her body was found in the kitchen, “between the gas range and the table.”[24] The story also noted that one theory of the police was that the intruder might have been intent on attacking Emma Stanton, the14 year old daughter.
Over the next few weeks there were reports of various suspects being arrested and then cleared. One suspect was a robber who had allegedly been in Florida and thus was under suspicion, given the “Miami hat” left at the scene.[25] Another had a fondness for sexually attacking young girls, but he too could not be linked with the murder of Mrs. Stanton.[26] Several years later Peter Kudzinowski, a confessed child killer, became a suspect in the case, with strong circumstantial evidence against him.[27] Kudzinowski was executed at Trenton on December 21, 1929, for the murder of a young boy.[28]
August 9, 1926- Lena Tidor, 72, Newark
The third Newark murder occurred about a month later on Monday, August 9, 1926. Again, while the “dark strangler” eventually moved swiftly from city to city, this murder in Newark is perhaps a little too close in time to the next murder officially attributed to him that occurred clear across the country on August 16th in Oakland. Furthermore, as in the Stanton case, this third Newark murder took place in the middle of the night, and the intruder came through a window, and there was no “room for rent” sign.
The third murder took place in a dingy one room apartment at 149 Bergen Street on the ground floor behind a little grocery store operated by the victim, seventy-two year old Lena Tidor, a woman of considerable bulk.[29] Her husband, Harry Tidor, was seventy-four years old and apparently had suffered a stroke several weeks previous which left him partially paralyzed and somewhat deaf. Occupying separate beds, Harry slept through the night and awoke to the alarm bell at six in the morning. He glanced over and saw his wife half on and half off the bed, a towel wrapped around her neck and mouth, a necktie binding her hands. Despite his paralysis, he managed to crawl up a steep set of stairs on the side of the building to an upstairs apartment where he told Mrs. William Stevenson and her daughter Alberta that his wife appeared to be dead and please call the police.[30]
The arriving police noted that the intruder must have come in through a window. A screen on the window had been removed and was lying on the ground. Robbery did not appear to be a motive since a tin box containing $40 was sitting undisturbed on the dresser. A package of Piedmont cigarettes, of a brand that apparently neither Mr. nor Mrs. Tidor smoked, was left at the scene.[31] It was established that a neighbouring dog had been barking furiously at 3 in the morning, which might have been the time of death, and might also have served to scare away the intruder, although the stirring of Mr. Tidor sleeping in the same room might have had the same effect. The fact that there was no sexual assault was confirmed the following day by County Physician Martland.[32] As reported, “After a careful analysis,” Dr. Marland said last night, ‘I failed to find any evidence bearing out the early indication of criminal assault. The motive seems to be solely robbery.”[33]
Various “bad actors” were investigated by the police and ultimately exonerated.[34] Not surprisingly the suspicion then fastened on the victim’s husband. The police expected that the window sill, through which the intruder had supposedly made his entrance, would have contained fingerprints or some sign of disturbance, but they discovered the dust on the windowsill to have been undisturbed.[35] Mr. Tidor was arrested as a material witness and Prosecutor Bigelow ordered that Mrs. Tidor’s body should be exhumed, because the police had failed to take her fingerprints to see if they matched the fingerprints on the cigarette package that Mr. Tidor had stated were not smoked by either of them. The fingerprints did not match those of Mr. Tidor, but perhaps they matched those of the victim, which would certainly create doubt in his story.[36] It turned out that when the body was exhumed, the state of decomposition made it impossible to get fingerprints from the victim.[37] As a last resort, the police compared the prints on the cigarette box with the toe prints of Mr. Tidor to see if he might have stepped on the box. This proved fruitless.[38] Mr. Tidor, held in custody as a witness, was finally released on $5,000 bail.[39]
Aside from a report about a “colored” man accused of entering a house through a window and attempting to attack a 12-year-old girl and thus coming under investigation for both the Stanton and Tidor murders, the newspapers fell silent, and all three murders, as far as we know, were unsolved.[40]
In conclusion, there is very little in the circumstances of these three Newark murders that links them together, much less that they should be linked to the “dark strangler.” While all three of the murders allegedly involved an intruder coming through a window at night, none of them involved a murderer gaining access to the victim by pretending to rent a room from them. None of them involved a sexual assault on the victim. The murder with a gun does not fit any of the other murders attributed to Earle Nelson.
[1] “Would Link Murders Here To Strangler,” Newark Evening News, Nov. 4, 1927, at 1 and 4. The original postcards are in the Winnipeg Police File.
[2] “Travelers in Death,” Volume 9 of Murder Casebook , #128, A Marshall Cavendish Weekly Publication, 1992, at 4587.
[3] Brian Innes, Serial Killers (London: Quercus, 2006) at ??
[4] Harold Schechter, Bestial (New York: Pocket Books, 1998) at 312.
[5] Diane Anderson, Bloodstains: Canada’s Multiple Murders (Calgary: Detselig, 2006) at 17.
[6] “Woman Killed by Gag After Being Clubbed,” Newark Evening News, May 11, 1926, at 1.
[7] “Woman of 69, Rich, Clubbed to Death,” Newark Star-Eagle, May 11, 1926, at 1.
[8] Ibid.
[9] “Widow’s Death Laid to Greed,” Newark Star-Eagle, May 12, 1926, at 1.
[10] Supra note 6.
[11] Supra note 7.
[12] Supra note 9.
[13] Supra note 6.
[14] Supra note 7.
[15] Supra note 9.
[16] Ibid.
[17] “Stepson Freed in Bonds as Witness in Woman’s Murder,” Newark Evening News, May 18, 1926, at 19.
[18] “Cigarettes Lone Clue,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 10, 1926, at 1 and 2.
[19] “Victim of Killer Kin of Statesman,” Newark Evening News, July 7, 1926, at 6.
[20] “Funeral of Widow, Killed by Intruder,” Newark Evening News, July 6, 1926, at 9.
[21] “Woman Killed as She Defends Son from Intruder in Home,” Newark Evening News, July 3, 1926, at 1.
[22] Ibid.
[23] “Mother of Four Slain in Home,” Newark Star-Eagle, July 3, 1926, at 1.
[24] Ibid.
[25] “Quizzed in Killing,” Newark Evening News, July 9, 1926, at 1.
[26] “Millburn Girl’s Assailant Queried in Stanton Killing,” Newark Evening News, July 15, 1926, at 6; “Prisoner Believed Innocent of Murder,” Newark Evening News, July 16, 1926, at 3.
[27] “Four Murders Laid to Killer,” Detroit Free Press, Dec. 15, 1928, at 4.
[28] “Kudzinowski Dies,” Asbury Park Press, Dec. 21, 1929, at 2.
[29] “Aged Woman Slain While Mate Sleeps,” Newark Evening News, August 9, 1926, at 1. There is a picture of Lena in the Newark Star-Eagle, August 9, 1926, at 2.
[30] “Aged Woman Slain While Mate Sleeps,” Newark Evening News, August 9, 1926, at 1.
[31] “Newark Wife of 72 Strangled in Sleep,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 9, 1926, at 1.
[32] “Motive Veiled in Murder of Aged Woman,” Newark Evening News, August 10, 1926, at 1.
[33] “Cigarettes Lone Clue,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 10, 1926, at 1.
[34] “Youth Quizzed in Strangling,” Newark Evening News, August 12, 1926, at 1; “Youth Grilled in Strangling,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 12, 1926, at 1: “Man Questioned in Strangling,” Newark Evening News, August 14, 1926, at 1; “Cops Question Tidor Suspect,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 14, 1926, at 1.
[35] “Orders Body of Mrs. Tidor to be Exhumed,” Newark Evening News, August 16, 1926, at 1.
[36] Ibid.
[37] “Grave Balks Murder Prints,” Newark Evening News, August 17, 1926, at 4.
[38] “Toeprints Used in Murder Case,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 17, 1926, at 11.
[39] “Tidar Released in Wife’s Death,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 18, 1926, at 4.
[40] “Quiz Prisoner About Murders,” Newark Evening News, Aug. 27, 1926, at 2.
(Do not quote without attribution to Alvin Esau)
From his base in Palo Alto working at the Arnold estate, or from visiting his Aunt Lillian in San Francisco, Earle Nelson could have easily travelled to Los Angeles, or other West Coast cities like Portland and Seattle to commit murder during 1926, but did he travel clear across the country to Newark, New Jersey, and back, not only once but twice in this period? We will examine three murders in Newark that took place in May, July and August of 1926. If the “dark strangler” was responsible for them, as well as murders on the West Coast, it would mean that he travelled to Newark to commit the first murder, then returned “home” to California to commit a few more, and then returned to Newark for a series of murders, and then came back to California again.
One may well doubt that Earle Nelson would have been under any suspicion involving the three murders in Newark in 1926, but for the fact that he was undoubtedly in Newark the following year. Nelson sent some postcards from Newark, but it should be noted that these were postmarked February 8 and 11 of 1927, not 1926. When Nelson was arrested in Winnipeg, there was no report of any activity by Newark police to distribute his photo to potential witnesses in Newark. It was only during the trial in November 1927, that the Newark police apparently were told about the postcards, one of which stated, “I am working steady and have found good church friends.”[1] Captain Sebold, head of the Newark Detectives, asked for any of these church friends, whomever they might be, to step forward and talk in confidence to him. Assuming Nelson was telling the truth about having such friends, we have no evidence that any came forward. In any case, when you examine the three unsolved Newark murders of 1926, they do not seem to fit the pattern that Earle Nelson had by now adopted. We deal with these murders only because various authors have placed one or more of them on the list of Earle Nelson’s probable additional victims on an expanded body count.
There seems to be considerable misinformation floating about as to these murders. For example, the authors of The Murder Casebook, state as to Nelson:
Specifically, he was widely suspected of the murder of three women in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926. Mrs. Rose Valentine and Mrs. Margaret Stanton were strangled and Mrs. Laura Tidor was shot... All three had been violated after death. The most striking evidence linking Nelson to the killing, though, was that the bodies had all been perfunctorily hidden, two of them shoved under a bed and one rolled up in a length of carpet.[2]
As we will show, most of this information is wrong, as is a great deal of information found in existing books and blogs about Earle Nelson. It was Stanton who was shot, and apparently none of the three women were sexually assaulted, and none of the bodies were hidden. This misinformation also appears in a book by Brian Innes.[3] More accurately, Schechter, eliminates the shooting death, and just mentions that two of the Newark murders are worth exploring as possible Nelson body count inclusions.[4] Another author, Diane Anderson, mentions the third Newark murder as a possibility.[5] As we will see, my conclusion is that Nelson was not the murderer in any of these three cases.
May 10, 1926- Rose Valentino, 69, Newark
The body of Mrs. Rose Valentino, 69 years old, was found on Tuesday morning, May 11, 1926, lying in a hallway of her own third floor apartment at 195 Norfolk Street. Mrs. Valentino owned the apartment building she lived in.[6] Valentino was considered a wealthy widow, given that her late husband had owned a prosperous importing business and the apartment building she owned contained sixteen suites.[7] On Sunday night, May 9th, there was a party in the Valentino apartments involving a variety of young people and relatives celebrating Mrs. Valentino’s birthday. That party ended at about 11 p.m. One of her stepsons lived with his wife in the building, and when his stepmother failed to come down to his apartment for breakfast on Monday morning, as was her custom, he apparently investigated to see whether she had gone to another stepson’s house. Not finding her there, and not seeing her all day Monday, and finding no response when he knocked on her locked door, he eventually went to the police on Tuesday. The police broke in to find the body.
The police surmised that she had, ironically, been clubbed with a patrolman’s night stick that she had herself been persuaded to buy and hang near the kitchen door for her own protection. Now that club was found at her feet at the murder scene. One report stated that, “her head lay in a pool of blood.”[8] There was also a handkerchief gag placed in her mouth. The medical report subsequently established the cause of death as strangulation, rather than the clubbing.[9] Near the body was one of her teeth, which had been knocked out or pulled out during the murder. The Newark Evening News reported that, “The body was fully clothed, and the bed made, indicating either that it had not been used on Sunday night or else had been made up early Monday before the attack occurred.”[10] A neighbour reported hearing moans coming from the apartment at about eight on Monday morning, indicating that Mrs. Valentino probably died on Monday morning, May 10. Captain Sebold of the Newark Detective Bureau concluded that the intruder had probably entered the apartment through an unlatched window off a fire escape, and then left through the front door which had a spring latch lock.[11] No fingerprints could be found on the club.[12]
The police considered robbery to be the motive, given that Valentino was well to do and that no money was found in the apartment, but for a quarter.[13] Another report, however, stated that Valentino did not keep money in her apartment. However, she was a very rich woman who frequently loaned thousands of dollars to people, and she had several notes coming due. Perhaps a debtor might have killed her and destroyed the evidence of indebtedness?[14] That theory was somewhat diminished when various debt notes were found in the apartment.[15] Police proceeded to interview relatives of the victim, debtors to the victim, disgruntled apartment dwellers, and even a persistent younger suitor of the wealthy woman, who may have been more interested in her money than her companionship.[16]
Having no leads, the police used the occasion of Mrs. Valentino’s funeral to arrest the stepson who lived in the building, holding him in custody for a few days as a material witness, and then releasing him on a $500 bail bond.[17] Judging from the absence of any further news, it would appear that the police never made any progress on identifying the murderer of Mrs. Valentino. That the police continued to believe robbery was the motive, was hinted at several months later when the Star-Eagle noted that the police were informed, “that she had made known her intention of depositing money in the bank the morning following the party.”[18]
Does this look like a murder that Nelson committed? While Mrs. Valentino was the owner of an apartment building, we have no indication whatsoever that there was an advertisement for a vacant apartment, nor do we have any evidence of a sexual assault post-death. Nelson never entered apartments through a window as far as we can tell.
July 3, 1926- Margaret Stanton, 42, Newark
The second unsolved murder in Newark took place in the early morning hours of Saturday, July 3, 1926. Given that the murder of Mrs. Russell in Santa Barbara took place on June 24, 1926, we do not have a whole lot of time for Nelson to be moving from one coast to the other for a second time. Furthermore, this second Newark murder involves the use of a gun, which certainly does not fit with Nelson’s methods of killing. Another factor is that the time of the killing is the middle of the night. The “dark strangler” was not known as a night prowler. Furthermore, as in the Valentino case, the killer apparently made his way into the apartment by way of a window, and there was certainly not a “room for rent” sign on these premises. While we would like to know more about the possibility that Valentino might have been sexually assaulted, from the way that the Stanton murder unfolded it is apparent that this victim was not sexually assaulted. The only connection with Earle Nelson, seems to be the coincidence that the victim’s husband was also named Earle. He died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.[19]
Mrs. Margaret Stanton, an attractive 42-year-old widow, lived at 242 First Street in a basement floor apartment with her four children. She worked as an ironer at a laundry and was well respected for her hard work and her dedication to her children.[20] Her oldest daughter, Violet, aged 17, was working as a telephone operator at night and was not home at the time of the murder. At four in the morning on Saturday, July 3rd, sleeping in a bedroom with her daughter, Emma, aged 14, Mrs. Stanton awoke when she heard heavy breathing from the bedroom where her two sons, Dewitt, aged 12, and Aylward, aged 8, were sleeping. She got up and entered the bedroom to find a man holding his hands over Dewitt.[21] Apparently the man lunged forward toward her, either to make his escape, or to strike her. She attempted to stop him, and the man shot her in the stomach, dashed out the door, leaving behind a perfumed soft gray hat made in Miami, and a piece of cloth that Mrs. Stanton had torn from his coat in her struggle with him.
The young boy, Dewitt, described the killer as being about 5 feet six inches. As reported:
His story is that he was awakened by the presence of the man near him. Before he could make an outcry, the man pressed a hand over his mouth. The boy struggled only feebly in comparison with the man’s strength. “Then he got up and walked to the dresser,” the boy told detectives today, “and picked up a revolver. He returned to the bed and told me he would kill me if I said a word. I could have yelled while he was getting the gun, but I was too frightened… I heard my mother coming toward my room… And when she got to the door the man jumped up and ran toward her. He struck her but missed. Then he fired the gun. Mother screamed and fell… The man ran out through the kitchen and out by the front door.”[22]
The Star-Eagle reported the events somewhat differently.[23] The intruder came through an open kitchen window and after hearing Mrs. Stanton coming toward the bedroom where the boys were, he left the bedroom, and the struggle took place in the kitchen where he shot Mrs. Stanton in the right breast and escaped through the same window. Her body was found in the kitchen, “between the gas range and the table.”[24] The story also noted that one theory of the police was that the intruder might have been intent on attacking Emma Stanton, the14 year old daughter.
Over the next few weeks there were reports of various suspects being arrested and then cleared. One suspect was a robber who had allegedly been in Florida and thus was under suspicion, given the “Miami hat” left at the scene.[25] Another had a fondness for sexually attacking young girls, but he too could not be linked with the murder of Mrs. Stanton.[26] Several years later Peter Kudzinowski, a confessed child killer, became a suspect in the case, with strong circumstantial evidence against him.[27] Kudzinowski was executed at Trenton on December 21, 1929, for the murder of a young boy.[28]
August 9, 1926- Lena Tidor, 72, Newark
The third Newark murder occurred about a month later on Monday, August 9, 1926. Again, while the “dark strangler” eventually moved swiftly from city to city, this murder in Newark is perhaps a little too close in time to the next murder officially attributed to him that occurred clear across the country on August 16th in Oakland. Furthermore, as in the Stanton case, this third Newark murder took place in the middle of the night, and the intruder came through a window, and there was no “room for rent” sign.
The third murder took place in a dingy one room apartment at 149 Bergen Street on the ground floor behind a little grocery store operated by the victim, seventy-two year old Lena Tidor, a woman of considerable bulk.[29] Her husband, Harry Tidor, was seventy-four years old and apparently had suffered a stroke several weeks previous which left him partially paralyzed and somewhat deaf. Occupying separate beds, Harry slept through the night and awoke to the alarm bell at six in the morning. He glanced over and saw his wife half on and half off the bed, a towel wrapped around her neck and mouth, a necktie binding her hands. Despite his paralysis, he managed to crawl up a steep set of stairs on the side of the building to an upstairs apartment where he told Mrs. William Stevenson and her daughter Alberta that his wife appeared to be dead and please call the police.[30]
The arriving police noted that the intruder must have come in through a window. A screen on the window had been removed and was lying on the ground. Robbery did not appear to be a motive since a tin box containing $40 was sitting undisturbed on the dresser. A package of Piedmont cigarettes, of a brand that apparently neither Mr. nor Mrs. Tidor smoked, was left at the scene.[31] It was established that a neighbouring dog had been barking furiously at 3 in the morning, which might have been the time of death, and might also have served to scare away the intruder, although the stirring of Mr. Tidor sleeping in the same room might have had the same effect. The fact that there was no sexual assault was confirmed the following day by County Physician Martland.[32] As reported, “After a careful analysis,” Dr. Marland said last night, ‘I failed to find any evidence bearing out the early indication of criminal assault. The motive seems to be solely robbery.”[33]
Various “bad actors” were investigated by the police and ultimately exonerated.[34] Not surprisingly the suspicion then fastened on the victim’s husband. The police expected that the window sill, through which the intruder had supposedly made his entrance, would have contained fingerprints or some sign of disturbance, but they discovered the dust on the windowsill to have been undisturbed.[35] Mr. Tidor was arrested as a material witness and Prosecutor Bigelow ordered that Mrs. Tidor’s body should be exhumed, because the police had failed to take her fingerprints to see if they matched the fingerprints on the cigarette package that Mr. Tidor had stated were not smoked by either of them. The fingerprints did not match those of Mr. Tidor, but perhaps they matched those of the victim, which would certainly create doubt in his story.[36] It turned out that when the body was exhumed, the state of decomposition made it impossible to get fingerprints from the victim.[37] As a last resort, the police compared the prints on the cigarette box with the toe prints of Mr. Tidor to see if he might have stepped on the box. This proved fruitless.[38] Mr. Tidor, held in custody as a witness, was finally released on $5,000 bail.[39]
Aside from a report about a “colored” man accused of entering a house through a window and attempting to attack a 12-year-old girl and thus coming under investigation for both the Stanton and Tidor murders, the newspapers fell silent, and all three murders, as far as we know, were unsolved.[40]
In conclusion, there is very little in the circumstances of these three Newark murders that links them together, much less that they should be linked to the “dark strangler.” While all three of the murders allegedly involved an intruder coming through a window at night, none of them involved a murderer gaining access to the victim by pretending to rent a room from them. None of them involved a sexual assault on the victim. The murder with a gun does not fit any of the other murders attributed to Earle Nelson.
[1] “Would Link Murders Here To Strangler,” Newark Evening News, Nov. 4, 1927, at 1 and 4. The original postcards are in the Winnipeg Police File.
[2] “Travelers in Death,” Volume 9 of Murder Casebook , #128, A Marshall Cavendish Weekly Publication, 1992, at 4587.
[3] Brian Innes, Serial Killers (London: Quercus, 2006) at ??
[4] Harold Schechter, Bestial (New York: Pocket Books, 1998) at 312.
[5] Diane Anderson, Bloodstains: Canada’s Multiple Murders (Calgary: Detselig, 2006) at 17.
[6] “Woman Killed by Gag After Being Clubbed,” Newark Evening News, May 11, 1926, at 1.
[7] “Woman of 69, Rich, Clubbed to Death,” Newark Star-Eagle, May 11, 1926, at 1.
[8] Ibid.
[9] “Widow’s Death Laid to Greed,” Newark Star-Eagle, May 12, 1926, at 1.
[10] Supra note 6.
[11] Supra note 7.
[12] Supra note 9.
[13] Supra note 6.
[14] Supra note 7.
[15] Supra note 9.
[16] Ibid.
[17] “Stepson Freed in Bonds as Witness in Woman’s Murder,” Newark Evening News, May 18, 1926, at 19.
[18] “Cigarettes Lone Clue,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 10, 1926, at 1 and 2.
[19] “Victim of Killer Kin of Statesman,” Newark Evening News, July 7, 1926, at 6.
[20] “Funeral of Widow, Killed by Intruder,” Newark Evening News, July 6, 1926, at 9.
[21] “Woman Killed as She Defends Son from Intruder in Home,” Newark Evening News, July 3, 1926, at 1.
[22] Ibid.
[23] “Mother of Four Slain in Home,” Newark Star-Eagle, July 3, 1926, at 1.
[24] Ibid.
[25] “Quizzed in Killing,” Newark Evening News, July 9, 1926, at 1.
[26] “Millburn Girl’s Assailant Queried in Stanton Killing,” Newark Evening News, July 15, 1926, at 6; “Prisoner Believed Innocent of Murder,” Newark Evening News, July 16, 1926, at 3.
[27] “Four Murders Laid to Killer,” Detroit Free Press, Dec. 15, 1928, at 4.
[28] “Kudzinowski Dies,” Asbury Park Press, Dec. 21, 1929, at 2.
[29] “Aged Woman Slain While Mate Sleeps,” Newark Evening News, August 9, 1926, at 1. There is a picture of Lena in the Newark Star-Eagle, August 9, 1926, at 2.
[30] “Aged Woman Slain While Mate Sleeps,” Newark Evening News, August 9, 1926, at 1.
[31] “Newark Wife of 72 Strangled in Sleep,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 9, 1926, at 1.
[32] “Motive Veiled in Murder of Aged Woman,” Newark Evening News, August 10, 1926, at 1.
[33] “Cigarettes Lone Clue,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 10, 1926, at 1.
[34] “Youth Quizzed in Strangling,” Newark Evening News, August 12, 1926, at 1; “Youth Grilled in Strangling,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 12, 1926, at 1: “Man Questioned in Strangling,” Newark Evening News, August 14, 1926, at 1; “Cops Question Tidor Suspect,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 14, 1926, at 1.
[35] “Orders Body of Mrs. Tidor to be Exhumed,” Newark Evening News, August 16, 1926, at 1.
[36] Ibid.
[37] “Grave Balks Murder Prints,” Newark Evening News, August 17, 1926, at 4.
[38] “Toeprints Used in Murder Case,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 17, 1926, at 11.
[39] “Tidar Released in Wife’s Death,” Newark Star-Eagle, August 18, 1926, at 4.
[40] “Quiz Prisoner About Murders,” Newark Evening News, Aug. 27, 1926, at 2.
