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Carrie Brown : Murder In The East River Hotel
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#Post#: 2868--------------------------------------------------
Counterpoints To The Veracity Of The Damon Story
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: August 8, 2024, 12:14 pm
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If anyone else has a point to include, please do.
1. Why continue to keep an employee you were leery of before the
murder occurred? Damon's affidavit confirms that.
2. Why take the key to the disreputable hotel for comparison
since he already knew it was the key
as his servant had already shown him the sketch in the
papers? Damon states he was shown the newspaper with the sketch
of the key.
3. Why go to the hotel if you had already decided not to get
involved ( Lee affidavit)?
4. Why go through all that trouble for nothing?
5. Why would James Jennings lie about the type of key used on
that floor? He ran the East River Hotel for at least 8 years.
6. Why would Mary Miniter have lied?
7. Why all of the excuses ( six, including those in the
newspapers) when one would suffice?
8. Why sit back for a decade and then, all of a sudden, show up
in the role of Ali's savior? Are there any parallels to this
in criminal history?
9. Why the dramatic differences in the list of excuses? On one
hand, he is self-serving in that he fears for his reputation and
the chance of retaliation. On the other hand, he feigns concern
for Ali's well-being claiming he'd be better off in jail. It's a
baffling dichotomy.
10. Why didn't he just mail the items in?
11. What happened to the shirt?
12. A Governor-two friends or associates-one tangible piece of
alleged evidence- and the farm hand story. Without the
statements in the affidavits being subjected to scrutiny to
verify their content, they remain hearsay. The friendship of the
Governor and Damon was real. Yet, the Governor relied on Damon's
word or those of Damon's friends as some sort of proof that his
story was true.
13. Accepted version of events despite lack of authentication:
key and description of farm hand accepted.
14. Damon claimed he felt Ali would not be convicted yet he does
nothing when he is convicted, either directly or anonymously.
15. Damon exhibits zero concern that the murderous farmhand
might commit another similar crime. Just as long as it doesn't
happen to him or his.
16. We know that Damon took a neighbor to court over ten
dollars: sued a man over twenty-six dollars (a man who rented
office space from him): and created a brouhaha over a $1.98
vase, which was publicized in Manhattan and Cranford newspapers,
to list just a few instances
of him taking care of business, whether in the North or down
South. He was not averse to getting legal counsel involved,
regardless if they were mundane or more serious issues.
The point is, is that he was very capable of putting together a
plan with an attorney to tender the items to the authorities
without the involvement of the press. It wasn't like he was all
thumbs all of a sudden when the hired hand left in April 1891.
17. When Damon stated that the hired hand's name was Frank, to
the best of his recollection, he established himself as the only
person in Cranford who knew his first name. Although John Lee
stated in his affidavit that he knew of the dangerous character
of 'Frank', he does not mention him by name. When Damon gave a
description of the man, it differs from Mary Miniter's
description significantly, so much so it appears to be the
description of a completely different man. Generic similarities
( ethnicity, coloring, age) could be expected as many
Scandinavians/men of light coloring were employed as farm
workers in New Jersey and all across America, whether or not
Damon had hired this man.
Did Damon misrepresent what 'Frank' looked like out of some
long-harbored fear that the man was hiding out somewhere waiting
just in case Damon eventually came forward and spilled the
beans....for a decade? Did Damon give a fake name for the same
reason, again,for a decade?
18. It has been suggested that we have no way of knowing whether
or not Damon would have ever come forward with his information.
Yet, we know he didn't at several critical points in case
history and it is not likely that he would have until the time
that he actually did.
A. It might be acceptable that he wouldn't come forward within
the first two weeks of the murder just after Ali had been
arrested.
B. He doesn't come forward after the Coroner's Inquest when the
panel charged Ali with capital murder.
C. Damon had two months to sit on his information before the
trial started on June 26th. Mid-May to the end of June is six
weeks. Damon doesn't come forward.
D. Damon could have saved the State a lot of money by coming
forward right before the jury was selected. He wouldn't have
been charged with concealment or suppression of evidence.
The State paid Dr. Formad the equivalent of $40,000 in 2023
dollars to appear on their behalf, just one example of the
inherent costs in trials.
E. He doesn't come forward after Ali is sentenced. Ali, like
Damon, could have died during the ten years between imprisonment
and release. Ali's life, therefore, was in large part in the
hands of George Damon for a decade.
F. A decade drags by and his coming forward comes and goes.
19. Why didn't he have the same epiphany during 1897, 1898,
1899, or 1900? Was there something about the political
atmosphere that made him decide to come out in 1901?
19. Who was the attorney that John Lee allegedly had a
discussion with?
20. Why weren't the differences in the facial descriptions given
by Miniter and Damon noticed by Robert Butler or Ovide
Robillard? Both were
aware of the 1891 sketch in Butler's paper in an article he,
himself, may have been responsible for?
21. Why the total absence of criticism toward Damon in Manhattan
papers?
A power trip? After all, he does have Ali's life in his hands.
A self-serving interest? Attract clients for his business? He
and Peets lost 3/4 of a million dollars( 2024 dollars) in a
theft that happened in 1897.
Attracted to the 'Free Ali' campaign, despite the decade-long
reticence?
#Post#: 2870--------------------------------------------------
Re: Counterpoints To The Veracity Of The Damon Story
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: August 8, 2024, 1:15 pm
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If any of the people we read about in the case who came from
the Lower East Side had done what Damon had done, what would the
results have been? Did Damon's social class override any
serious inquiries into his story?
When the farmhand came home on the 24th, he was seen by Henry,
the other worker with the broken arm. Did Henry notice the blood
on the farmhand's shirt? If he did, does it not seem reasonable
to assume that he would have told Damon about it later on that
day when the latter returned from New York? Does it not seem
reasonable that Damon would have approached the farmhand about
what had happened on his trip to the city the night before, in
casual conversation? The farmhand, without a doubt, did not wear
the shirt for the last two days or so before he left Damon's
estate.
What prevented the farmhand from taking the two items that could
link him to the murder? It is highly unlikely that he simply
forgot them and left them in a drawer at Damon's to be found
later unless he left them there as some sort of arrogant
statement since he had to know that everyone in the region would
learn about the murder on the 24th.
Since he did not leave until two days later ( one or two
references claim more than two, but Damon stated two, at least),
the farmhand would stay and work at Damon's while New York and
the surrounding metropolitan area was fully aware of the murder
of Carrie Brown. Yet, he sticks around to till the soil. Little
strange, isn't it?
#Post#: 2871--------------------------------------------------
Re: Counterpoints To The Veracity Of The Damon Story
DIR By: Michael Banks
Date: August 8, 2024, 3:28 pm
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Why did his wife have the key? This is an addition to the ‘why
did he keep hold of the key in the first place’ question of
course but I’ve always thought it odd. He knew that they still
had it but he didn’t know where it was? So was he assuming that
his wife hadn’t decided to throw away this useless old key? Or
had he to,d her to hold on to it for some reason?
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