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Carrie Brown : Murder In The East River Hotel
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DIR Return to: Sketches &amp; Photographs
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#Post#: 6788--------------------------------------------------
A Second Photograph
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: April 22, 2026, 3:53 am
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A SECOND PHOTOGRAPH
This photograph of Carrie Brown wearing a costume and standing
on what looks like a stage is
usually thought of as the only photographic representation of
the woman.
Research, to date, has been unable to determine who the person
was who handed a tin type of
Carrie to the police shortly after her murder. On April 30th,
Inspector Thomas Byrnes
held the tin type in his hands during the press conference when
he announced that the police
were charging Amer Ben Ali for her murder.
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/OIpOH2eH][IMG]https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/3f/d2/OIpOH2eH_t.png[/img][/URL]
The tin type may have been given to the police by a woman named
Catherine McGovern. To date,
her address, social status, and her relationship with Carrie
hasn't been discovered. McGovern
does not appear to have been a prostitute and was not detained
like several other women from the
Water Street area were. She was scheduled to testify at the
Coroner's Inquest in mid-May and, in
fact, her name appears on the physical report, but she didn't
testify. She did testify in late June at
the trial. She simply told the attorney while under
cross-examination that she identified Carrie for
the police, with no other details about Carrie being asked for
or given.
She may not have been the first person to identify Carrie for
the police, however. One woman, Mary
Healy, who had been drinking with Carrie in the hotel on the
23rd, likewise gave the police her name
and in consideration of the fact that Healy was in police
custody at the time she disclosed Brown's
name, she is probably the first to give the police Carrie's
name.
Eventually, someone processed the tin type into that photo.
Now, on to the second photograph.
Among all the newspaper reports, the first to feature the second
photo was the April 25th, Late Edition, of the New York
Evening World, which featured a sketch of Carrie on the front
page. At the bottom of the sketch is what appears to be
an indecipherable signature, which also appears on the sketch of
Mary Miniter ( the person who handed her and her
male companion known as C. Kniclo), to the immediate right.
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/xHPv7vMj][IMG]https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/ed/f9/xHPv7vMj_t.png[/img][/URL]
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/er2nsIpD][IMG]https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/62/cb/er2nsIpD_t.png[/img][/URL]
Typically, sketch artists, unless they provided a signature,
were uncredited at the Evening World.
Work is underway to ascertain the identity of the illustrator by
comparing similar sketches to the
April 25th sketch. One day, we may have that name.
Several out-of-town newspapers in New York state, such as Bath,
Glen Falls, Hackettstown, and Bridgewater, N. J.,
carried the following piece about how the Evening World sketch
came to be, in early July at the time of the trial and
weeks following the trial's conclusion. Yet, no Manhattan papers
carried this story. It is very common to find
articles in newspapers in towns and cities outside Manhattan
that did not appear iu New York City. This is the piece
in the Bridgewater Courier for July 22nd, 1891.
"The Jack The Ripper murder case in New York has been the
subject of columns of sensational newspaper
reading, but there has been one notable feature of the affair
which has entirely escaped the reporter, and is a powerful
sermon in itself. It is the harrowing effect which is a vicious
life for a few years had on the face of the victim, and the
improved appearance of 'Frenchy' from his few weeks confinement
and consequent separation from vice. The
writer chanced to be shown a photograph of Carrie Brown, the
respectable wife of a down east sea captain. It was
shown to the artist, who was the first one on the scene of the
slaughter of old 'Shakespeare'. He recognized the
portrait immediately as being the woman he saw so horribly
mutilated that morning.
The picture was in the hands of a friend of the murdered woman
who would not permit its publication. The artist made,
however, a mental photograph of it, and here it is side by side
with his sketch of the same woman when murdered.
He had taken the liberty of removing the blood stains, arranging
her hair and opening her eyes so that the picture
could be identified by those who saw her at her best, and knew
her as "Shakespeare."
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/xdgLogNr][IMG]https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/76/3e/xdgLogNr_t.png[/img][/URL]
The phrasing of the last sentence," He had taken the liberty of
removing the blood stains..." gives the impression
that the sketch artist is saying that he recreated this sketch
of Carrie's profile from a sketch of her laying on her bed,
deceased.
This is a sketch of her in the New York Sun from April 25th and
in profile.
[URL=
HTML https://imgbox.com/Uor3qk8k][IMG]https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/cb/b7/Uor3qk8k_t.png[/img][/URL]
However, the sketch of Carrie in profile when deceased was not
sketched by a New York Evening World illustrator.
That sketch was in the New York Sun, on the same day ( reporters
were present at the crime scene on April 24th, afterwards
the police closed the floor to outsiders).
It is highly unlikely that a NY Sun illustrator ( also unnamed)
sketched Carrie while on her death bed and then somehow, the
New York Evening World artist saw the Sun artist's sketch,
copied it, removed the blood stains, and submitted it to the
Evening
World editors.... and on the same day.
The statement," The picture was in the hands of a friend" may
very well refer to Catherine McGovern.
The odds are that the person who had the photo of Carrie in
profile and the tintype had both.
Whoever had the tintype shared the tintype with the police. The
police never released a copy of that tin type to the press.
The police made a copy of the tin type for investigative
purposes. Eventually, the never published print wound up in the
New York Municipal Archives.
Since whoever had the portrait ( there is no copy of the
portrait photo in any archive) refused to share it with the
press, the
sketch of the portrait is all we have today.
To date, the identity of the person that was in possession this
now-lost profile portrait was either Catherine McGovern
or an unknown friend of Carrie Brown.
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