Ep. 13 The Headless Masseuse
The case of the East River Torso Murder stumped New York's best detectives and probably would've remained unsolved-- if not for a thirsty newspaper reporter and a discolored duck.
On the Saturday afternoon of June 26, 1897, three boys playing along East 11th Street and the East River found a bundle bobbing on the surface of the water. It contained part of a man's body-- the shoulders, arms and chest, to be precise.
Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, the coroner's physician, examined the torso at Bellevue Hospital. His examination concluded that the man had been tall and muscular; the hands were soft and free of calluses. The victim's chest had been mutilated, as if to destroy evidence of a tattoo. O'Hanlon concluded that the man had been dead for about 24 hours. Meanwhile, detectives examined the oilcloth in which the torso had been bundled. It was red with golden flowers, the sort of design one might choose for a tablecloth or drapes.
The following afternoon, a second bundle was found in a wooded area of North Manhattan near 176th Street. It contained what authorities believed were the man's hips and groin. These, too, had been wrapped in an identical red and gold oilcloth.
Founded by Joseph Pulitzer's younger brother, Albert, in 1882, the New York Morning Journal was sold after three years to John R. McLean, who, in turn, sold it to William Randolph Hearst in 1896. By this time, the paper had changed its name to The New York Evening Journal. Unlike its stodgy, older competitors, the Journal was rebranded as bold, brash and controversial, and the torso murder was just the opportunity Hearst was looking for in his "yellow journalism" war against rival publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Assigned to cover the story for the Journal was reporter George Waugh Arnold.
Early Wednesday morning, Arnold dropped into an East 42nd St. saloon to order a stiff drink; he had been working on the story for 30 hours straight with little to show for it and needed to be refreshed. At the bar he overheard a conversation between bartender Pete Bricker and one of the patrons. They were talking about one of the patron's co-workers-- Billy Guldensuppe, a masseuse at the Murray Hill Turkish Baths. Billy hadn't shown up for work since Thursday, and at the mention of the word "massage", George Arnold recalled the strong, soft white hands he had seen at the Bellevue Hospital morgue. He butted in to the conversation.
"Say, Pete, maybe I know this fellow. Does he come here a lot?"
"Comes in here all the time. Least, he used to."
The reporter turned to Billy's co-worker. "Isn't he the one with the tattoo on his chest?"
"That's right-- the tattoo of a woman."
At that moment George Arnold knew that he had hit the jackpot. After leaving the saloon, he went to the Turkish baths and convinced a handful of regulars to accompany him to the morgue. By this time, the victim's legs, bundled up in a white oilcloth, had been fished from the East River near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There was no doubt about it; those were the feet of Billy Guldensuppe. The regulars at the Murray Hill Turkish Baths were certain, and the soles of the feet bore the thick calluses from exposure to the hot floors of the bath house.
Arnold learned that Billy had told his employer that he wouldn't be able to work on Friday, and his wife wanted to him to go out to Long Island to look at a property she was interested in buying. On Saturday, the day the first bundle was found, the owner of the Turkish baths received a telegram claiming that Billy was too sick to go to work.
Reporters from the Evening Journal learned that Billy had been living with a woman named Mrs. Augusta Nack on Ninth Avenue, whose husband, a drunken, ill-tempered sausage maker, had abandoned her. George Arnold interviewed Mrs. Nack, who said that her estranged husband had moved to East 82nd Street after she had rented out one of her rooms to Billy Guldensuppe. Another room she had rented out to a dapper barber by the name of Fred Braun.
Things had been going well until the previous winter, when Braun began to complain about his accommodations. Augusta allowed Fred to switch rooms, and this new room was right next to hers. Billy was not happy about this arrangement. He beat up Fred Braun and kicked him out of the building.
Meanwhile, in Queens, Mrs. Pauline Riger saw the Journal's drawing of the red and gold oilcloth. She called the Journal to report that she carried the same cloth in her store on Jackson Avenue, adding that she had sold several yards of the oilcloth on June 23rd to a stocky woman with dark, piercing eyes. She was escorted to police headquarters, where she identified her customer as Augusta Nack. Augusta was held as a material witness, while detectives searched the city for Fred Braun and Augusta's estranged husband, Nerman Nack. The husband had a rock solid alibi, but Fred Braun was considerably more difficult to track down, as there appeared to be no barber in all of New York with that name. However, his description exactly matched that of a well-known local barber named Martin Thorn.
Detectives were convinced that Braun and Thorn were one and the same after one of Thorn's former partners told them he had shown up for work at the barbershop one cold winter day with a black eye. Next, detectives checked up on Augusta Nack's movements and learned that she had rented a horse and carriage on Friday, June 25, and Saturday, June 26, from a livery stable near her home. The horse and carriage had been returned at 9 o'clock on Saturday evening by a man who fit the description of Martin Thorn. The dapper barber also fit the description of the man who had walked into the telegraph office at 46th St. and Sixth Avenue to send a message to the Turkish bath.
For several days, Henry Wahle, of Woodside, Long Island, had been telling people about his sick ducks. The ducks were accustomed to swimming in the open drain outside a vacant cottage next to Wahl's home, and Wahl noticed that the water had recently taken on a strange, pinkish hue, as did the feathers of his once-white ducks. Wahl reported this to the police on July 3, and detectives learned that the owner of the cottage, Mrs. Baula, had rented it to a man named Braun on the 25th and 26th of June. With him was a stocky woman with dark, piercing eyes. According to Henry Wahle, he had seen the couple carrying red and gold bundles out of the cottage.
On the morning of July 5, Martin Thorn went to Martinelli's barbershop on 8th Avenue to get a haircut from an old friend named John Gartha. After the haircut, Thorn got out of the chair and passed a note to Gartha, asking to meet him at 1:00. During their meeting, Thorn confessed that he had nowhere to turn, and then he spilled his secrets to his old friend. Augusta Nack had lured Billy Guldensuppe to the cottage on Long Island on Friday, June 25th. Hiding inside a bedroom closet was Martin Thorn, with a pistol.
Thorn told Augusta to go home and come back at 5 o'clock. She returned to find the bundles neatly tied up. As for the head of Billy Guldensuppe, it was encased in plaster of paris and dropped from the ferry into the river. They returned to the cottage the next day to clean up, not realizing that the only sewer outlet from the bathtub was the open drain out front.
John Gartha refused to tell the authorities about what his friend had told him, but he told his wife, who became concerned that Martin Thorn would regret his decision and attempt to silence her husband. She went to the police, and Thorn was picked up by policemen disguised as laborers. On July 8, Martin Thorn and Augusta Nack were indicted for murder.
While awaiting trial in jail, Augusta sent Thorn a message concealed in a baked potato claiming that she intended to commit suicide. Thorn sent a reply stating that he had a doctor's prescription for morphine and, of worse came to worst, they would leave the world together. The worse did come to worst-- at least for Martin Thorn. Augusta Nack turned state's evidence at the November trial and claimed that she agreed to help murder Billy Guldensuppe only after Thorn had choked her and threatened her life.
After three hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Martin Thorn of first-degree murder. He died in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on August 1, 1898. As for Mrs. Nack, because of her cooperation as a witness, she was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter. She was sentenced 15 years, but was released in July of 1907 after serving just nine and a half years of her sentence. After her release, she changed her name, and lived out the remainder of her days in quiet obscurity.
Yet, Martin Thorn and Augusta Nack had their 15 minutes of infamy for the murder and mutilation of Billy Guldensuppe-- a murder that might never have been solved if not for a thirsty newspaper reporter and a discolored duck.
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