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DIR Return to: Was Justice Served? A Second Look At The Decision T...
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Preview
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: September 29, 2026, 8:53 am
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The Kindle version and paperback version will be released
shortly.
Was Justice Served? A Second Look at The Decision To Release
Frenchy is my personal view
on who murdered Carrie Brown. It's the fourth book in our cycle
of works on the case.
The first book, East Side Story, was an overview of the case
that included never-before-seen
files from the State Archives in Albany, New York, intended to
familiarize the reader with
facts above and beyond those learned from contemporary press
reports.
The second book, the Illustrated Encyclopedia of the 1891 Murder
of Carrie Brown, is an
A-Z of people, places, articles, and events relevant to the
case. A number of unsung individuals
who played important roles in the case are featured in the
work.
The third volume, 'Once A Happy Bride', is a compilation of the
known facts about Carrie Brown.
From the early days of her life in Salem to her tragic death in
Room 31 of the East River Hotel.
Was Justice Served? examines the decision made by Governor
Benjamin Odell on April 16th, 1902,
to release Amer Ben Ali after he'd been incarcerated for almost
eleven years.
I outline why I believe the decision to commute his sentence to
time served was a mistake.
Amer Ben Ali, or Frenchy, confessed to being in room 31 to an
interpreter hired by the defense.
His confession was true, but it was the lesser of two evils,
IMHO. The confession was
then and is irrelevant now because forensic tests performed by
the prosecution's
medical experts proved he'd been in the room. By confessing to
merely being in the room but
stopping short of confessing to the crime, Ali had hoped this
would explain the blood on his shirt
and person, something which was undeniable.
While I don't believe in the story told by George Damon or the
authenticity of the key he turned in
to authorities in mid-1901, the following is a hypothetical
series of events in the instance that it was
a true account:
The decision made by George Damon to retain the key to room 31
and not hand it over to authorities at the time of its
discovery has always been correctly viewed as the major reason
Ali was not only put on trial for Carrie's
murder but for his conviction.
However, and again, hypothetically, I believe George Damon's
flimsy excuses and unparalleled reticence in handing over
allegedly
exculpatory evidence actually put the right man in prison.
Had Damon come forward before late June, the State's case
against Ali would have been less damning. Before late
June 1891, their case against Ali was based primarily on his
propensity to wander into rooms on the fifth floor after the
original male tenant left, his prior aggressive behavior toward
women, and the fact he had blood on his person and under his
nails.
His three prior arrests, one in Queens for vagrancy, one in
Brooklyn for larceny, and one just 7 months earlier in Manhattan
for assault,
would paint him as a low-life character. He was fortunate that
the Manhattan and Brooklyn charges weren't pursued further....
or maybe not.
However, since Damon didn't come forward before late June, the
State had time to bring Drs. Henry Formad and Austin Flint II
in to fully examine the material under his nails and on his
clothes. This examination proved that the blood and material
came from Carrie Brown. This would not have happened had Damon
come forward earlier than the time of the two doctors'
involvement in late June, again in our hypothetical scenario.
The State's case against Ali before these two doctors became
involved was not as solid, as it
could not exclude the possibility of the blood coming from
another source or means, and as definitely coming from one
source: Carrie Brown. Further testing would do that.
This is one of the great ironies in this case. Another being
that George Frank didn't pursue his case against Ali for theft
on January 1891.
With any luck, Ali would have been given a few months in a
Brooklyn jail for larceny, with his release coming after April
23rd, 1891.
If his story was true, then Damon's inaction led to the State
eventually proving the blood on Ali came from Carrie Brown.
Had the Damon story been true and he did come forward earlier,
and the press got wind of it, the chances that a trial
would have taken place would have decreased. Obviously, the
once-missing key to room 31 as well as a bloody shirt
left in a Cranford barn, would have worked against the State's
position that Ali was the murderer. It may have led the State
to drop the charge against Ali, hence no testing of the blood
that would link blood on Ali to Carrie Brown's. Trials are
expensive, and the
Ali trial was no exception. The cost to the city of New York to
conduct the trial was $6,000, and Dr. Formad's fee, if he was
brought in, would have been $1,200. In 2026 dollars, that equals
$ 250, 000.
If his story was a lie, we wind up with the same result.
Regarding the century-old myth of the NYPD or the State framing
Ali, researcher Peter Damgaard located a news
article in 2025 in which we discovered that Inspector Byrnes was
originally against the idea of bringing Dr. Henry
Formad to New York and being involved in the medical examination
of the collected evidence. Very few people alive
are aware of this, yet the mainstream belief in a frame-up
remains, for the most part, as solid as the evidence is against
him. The contention that faulty science led to his conviction
was flimsy then as it is today. The material under Ali's nails
as well as on his shirt could have come from only one source.
Just 5 years ago, I believed in the narrative that George Damon
had done a good deed in coming forward,
although a decade late; that C. Kniclo or Damon's Danish
Farmhand was Carrie Brown's murderer;
and that Ali was innocent and, in fact, framed for the murder.
Back then I knew a little about the case, while today I know a
lot more.
I hope the book will stimulate discussion and inspire others to
study the case.
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