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Carrie Brown : Murder In The East River Hotel
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#Post#: 2350--------------------------------------------------
***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 1:36 pm
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Thread for a good number of articles pertaining to the person
who I personally consider perhaps the most important person in
the case since George Damon's intrusion into the story.
Without Dougherty, we'd still be held in place by the phony
farmhand story Damon came up with in 1901.
Again...unless someone can demonstrate how a clean-shaven man
can leave New Jersey a clean-shaven man...wind up in the Lower
East Side and be described as having a heavy mustache...and then
come back home to New Jersey clean-shaven again, Damon's story
is kaput.
Okay...on to Dougherty's own colorful career.
Twenty days after the murder of Mary Kelly in London, Dougherty
was featured in the Pall Mall Gazette.
Inspector Thomas Byrnes was aware of this guy 12 1/2 years
before Dougherty wrote his letter to Governor Odell in June
1901.
Pall Mall Gazette
November 29, 1888
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/VeeY2lk.jpg
#Post#: 2351--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 1:41 pm
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The woman on this carte de visite from Philadelphia is the
actress Dougherty stalked.
Dougherty wasn't done by any means.....a lot more to come.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/bw0WWAw.jpg
#Post#: 2352--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 4:37 pm
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Ashland(Wis.) Weekly News
December 12, 1888
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/eGpD29O.jpg
#Post#: 2353--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 4:42 pm
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The actress begged Byrnes to let Dougherty go.
Byrnes thought otherwise.
Nebraska State Journal
November 15, 1888
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/OetTgDE.jpg
#Post#: 2354--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 4:45 pm
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Good Christ ! He even sent messages to the Queen!
Chicago Tribune
November 16, 1888
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/rvlCOOo.png
#Post#: 2355--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 4:54 pm
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From Bob Wilhelm's Murder By Gaslight, in my opinion, the best
website available for 19th Century American crime
stories....hands down.
James M. Dougherty was an industrious young man in Brooklyn in
the 1880s. He worked as a lineman for the Postal Telegraph
Company and in his spare time he studied meteorology,
electricity, astronomy, and other sciences. He dabbled in a
little of everything until after watching a play he became
obsessed with the leading lady, Mary Anderson, and his love for
her became his sole controlling passion.
He would go wherever she was performing and do whatever he could
to be close to her. In 1887, Miss Anderson traveled to Europe,
and Dougherty followed. By this point, he believed that Mary
Anderson loved him as well, but she was surrounded by a group of
conspirators dedicated to keeping them apart. They were
controlled by Antonio Fernando de Navarro, his chief rival for
Mary’s affections, who would marry her in 1890. While in
Liverpool in 1887, Dougherty believed that the conspirators had
tried to poison him, so he moved back to America.
He settled in Washington D.C. where he sold encyclopedias. Mary
Anderson followed him to Washington, he would later tell his
doctors and took lodging across the street from him. At this
time his enemies were so intent on surveilling him, Dougherty
said, that they used a system of mirrors arranged over the
transom of his door so they could follow his every move.
In 1889, while Anderson was appearing in New York City,
Dougherty’s constant stalking came to the attention of the
police. James Dougherty, a tall, lanky man with dark,
wild-looking eyes peering through spectacles, was declared
insane by doctors on Ward’s Island and sent to the King’s County
Insane Asylum in Brooklyn.
At first, Dougherty was considered dangerous and kept under
close observation but gradually his condition appeared to
improve, and his obsession with Mary Anderson had subsided to
the point that he received the news of her marriage to Mr.
Navarro with apparent indifference. Considering him no longer a
threat, the doctors put Dougherty to work on the asylum’s farm.
But their trust had been premature; Dougherty took the farm as
an opportunity to escape.
The asylum guards searched for him but with no avail. After ten
days, according to the rules of the asylum, Dougherty was
recorded as discharged.
On September 26, 1890, Dougherty returned to the asylum and
walked up the stairs with a revolver in his hand. Several
doctors and nurses who were on the porch scattered and Dougherty
walked into the office of Dr. Fleming, superintendent of the
institution. Dr. Fleming told him he was not wanted anymore, and
Dougherty said he had come for the things he left behind. His
things were promptly procured, and Dougherty left without using
his revolver. Dr. Fleming did not report the incident to the
police.
Two weeks later, on October 10, Dougherty returned again, this
time with a revolver, loaded and cocked, in each hand, entered
the main office of the asylum and asked for Dr. Fleming. Doctors
Lloyd and McGreal who were in the office at the time, told him
that Dr. Fleming was out. Dr. Lloyd, who recognized the former
inmate right away, began to say, “Now, Dougherty, you ought to
be—" but the sentence was cut short by the sharp report of a
revolver. Dougherty had shot Lloyd in the left side of his
chest. Dr. Lloyd staggered to his feet, and as he rose,
Dougherty fired again hitting Lloyd in the throat. Dr. Lloyd
gasped, “Oh, Dougherty!” then fell to the floor and died
instantly.
Dr. McGreal ran from the room and out of the asylum, shouting,
“Police!”
Also at the asylum that day, was Dr. Edward H. Ashford, who was
employed by the Federal Government to collect the mortality
census in New York and Brooklyn. He heard the shots and saw
Dougherty leave then hurried to the Flatbush Police Station and
told them what had occurred. The police in Brooklyn correctly
assumed that Dougherty would flee to Manhattan and captured him
as he crossed the bridge.
While in custody, Dougherty said to the captain, “I did it. I
meant to kill him and would have killed ten more if I had the
chance.” He said that he meant to shoot Lloyd, Fleming, McGreal
and the whole crowd for the brutal treatment he had received at
the asylum. “I am not crazy,” he said, “but as sane as the
sanest man that walks New York today.”
In his pockets the police found the two revolvers, one 44
caliber and one 38 caliber; fifty cartridges; a half-filled
bottle of whiskey; thirty cents; and four letters addressed
respectively to Mrs. Mary Anderson Navarro, his mother, and
friends Mr. Louis Spader, and Mr. Charles Pearson.
In the letter to Mary Anderson, he implied his intention to kill
himself, saying he would meet her in the next world and
bequeathing her three manuscripts which were also found on his
person. To Mr. Spader he requested that his body be planted, and
a grapevine placed over it “that it may nourish and bring forth
fruit to gladden the palate and tickle the brains of posterity.”
The grand jury charged Dougherty with first-degree murder. They
also censured the State Lunacy Commission for their policy of
marking escaped patients as discharged and admonished Dr.
Fleming for allowing Dougherty to remain at large after
September 26.
At his trial, the following January, Dougherty’s court-appointed
lawyer argued for his acquittal on the grounds of insanity.
Dougherty’s rambling testimony which covered the same conspiracy
theory that he had been spouting since his first arrest, would
seem to bear out the insanity plea, but Dougherty argued that he
was not insane and said many times that he would rather be
electrocuted than return to the asylum. After six hours of
deliberation, the jury returned a compromise verdict—guilty of
second-degree murder.
Dougherty’s attorney continued to assert his insanity and argued
that he should serve his sentence at the State Insane Asylum in
Auburn. Justice Bartlett agreed to appoint a committee to
investigate Dougherty’s sanity before deciding his sentence. In
February the commission concluded that Dougherty was suffering
from a newly named form of insanity called paranoia (formerly
known as monomania) characterized by hallucinations and peculiar
false beliefs where the sufferer believes he has enemies
conspiring against him and that he is of unusual talent, beauty,
or importance. His hallucinations, however, did not interfere
with his understanding regarding the motives or purpose of his
trial. In every respect, he comprehended the trial with as keen
an intelligence as a perfectly sane person.
After reading the committee’s report, Justice Bartlett concluded
that since Dougherty’s mental disease did not prevent him from
understanding the proceedings or from making a defense, he was
not insane to the extent necessary to prevent the rendition of
the jury's judgment. He sentenced James M. Dougherty to be
imprisoned for the rest of his natural life in the State Prison
at Sing Sing.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/zfLTjkn.png
#Post#: 2356--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 4:56 pm
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He would eventually be sent from Sing Sing to Dannemora prison
where by 1901 he would meet up with Ameer Ben Ali.
#Post#: 2357--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 5:04 pm
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Brooklyn Times-Union
October 10, 1890
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/mwrd4Kz.jpg
#Post#: 2358--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 5:24 pm
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Here's something to consider:
Most people who cold-bloodily murdered people like Dougherty did
usually got the hot seat in Auburn....especially if the victims
were people of prominence or
weren't Water Street wharf rats. He was sent to prison and
spared the electric chair.
Just imagine if he had been electrocuted. The chain of events
that he and he alone created led to us learning what we now know
about Damon's farmhand.
Not only that but what if he hadn't been sent to Dannemora and
had been kept in Sing Sing where he was originally sent?
He and Ali would have never met, meaning he'd have never
written that letter to Governor Odell.
More later...........
#Post#: 2359--------------------------------------------------
Re: ***James M. Dougherty***
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: November 19, 2023, 6:13 pm
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For the benefit of anyone who isn't aware of what I'm driving
at, I give the following. For Mike, Pete, and Nina's benefit,
I'll make it short and sweet.
The Chain of Events........
James M. Dougherty murdered Assistant Superintendent George
Lloyd of the Flatbush Insane Asylum in October 1890.
Dougherty had been an inmate at the institution who eventually
escaped from the prison farm.
He was sentenced on February 1891 to life in prison at Sing
Sing.
By 1901, he was reassigned to Dannemora Prison.
It just so happened Ameer Ben Ali was also sent to Dannemora
from Matteawan in 1901.
Dougherty, already a well-established letter writer (Queen
Victoria got a letter from Dougherty,...see posts above),
decides to send the new
Governor, Benjamin Odell, a letter in which he states that in
his opinion, George Damon can't be trusted and that Ameer Ben
Ali and
Damon's 'Danish Farmhand' were one and the same. This letter to
Odell is dated June 22, 1901.
Gov. Odell follows up on the claim. He has to since it wouldn't
look good if he went on to release or pardon a man who may have
been guilty all along.
He makes a formal request to NYC DA Eugene Philbin to have Damon
determine whether his farmhand and Ali were not one and the
same.
Up to now, no one has asked Damon to provide the facial features
of his farmhand. Damon had filed two affidavits before this
request from Odell through Philbin.
It is also worth considering that there had been no requests
made upon Damon to do this up until the Dougherty letter.
Authorities had known about Damon's story since late March 1901.
Almost 100 days after Damon came out of the woodwork, Damon is
finally asked to describe his farmhand. I sincerely doubt he
would have been asked had it not been
for the crazy letter-writer Dougherty. No file or request can be
found in the existing files which suggests Damon was going to be
asked to describe his hired hand.
Damon provides the description of his farmhand on July 2nd, 1901
in his third affidavit.
The description Damon gives does not resemble C. Kniclo. C.
Kniclo had a heavy mustache whereas Damon's farmhand was
described as 'clean-shaven'.
Bottom line: C. Kniclo...whoever he was....was definitely not
Damon's hired hand.... unless someone can explain how a man can
leave New Jersey clean-shaven...wind up in the Lower East Side
and be described at close range as having a heavy mustache...and
then come back home to New Jersey clean-shaven again.
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