Hours later, when it came time to board the Chicago train, the flimsy trunk was hauled to the platform from the baggage room. The lid was jarred, and an overpowering stench filled the balmy summer air. The station master was called over. He had no trouble opening the cheap lock. He pried open the lid to find bloodstained quilts and rags covering the nude body of a young woman. She was frail and slight, doubled up and crammed into the small space. Her pale hair spilled over her body. Her blue eyes stared sightlessly at the horrified spectators.
A summoned police officer had the trunk and its grisly contents brought to the morgue. Dr. Cushman removed the body from the trunk, along with an army blanket, a quilt, a bed-tick, a chemise, and two white muslin rags. Nothing in the trunk provided a clue as to the young woman's identity.
The body had no external marks of trauma, though there was substantial decomposition.
The Autopsy
Dr. Cushman began the autopsy. All of the organs of the chest were found to be normal. Inside the pelvic area he found an enlarged uterus with a dilated cervix and remnants of a placenta, evidence of peritonitis, and uterine lacerations caused by a pointed instrument.
Dr. Cushman concluded that the young woman had died from infection due to an abortion.
Public Display
The newspapers dubbed the mystery "The Trunk Case", and filled their pages with lurid descriptions of the crime and poetic descriptions of the victim. She was, the New York Times said, a "young girl ... [with] a face of singular loveliness... but her chief beauty was her great profusion of golden hair... that lay in heavy masses upon her breast."
An appeal went out to the public to identify the dead girl. Crowds braved the smell to catch a glimpse of the young woman's body, which was kept on ice to try to slow decomposition. Despite some false leads, the woman's identity remained a mystery.
Searching for the Wagoneer
The police enlisted the help of young Paddy Potts. The boy remembered seeing the name "Tripp" on the wagon in question, leading the police in search of carters named Tripp, then Trapp, and dragging an innocent man into the police station and assuming that by denying being the carter in question, he was likely an accomplice in the murder. None of the men turned out to be the carter in question.
Paddy was taken all around the city by the police in search of the wagon in question, to no avail.
Finally a man named William Pickett came forward. From reading the papers he'd realized that he was the carter the police were looking for. Paddy and Pickett recognized each other.
The Carter's Story
Pickett said that the young woman from the depot, who had given her name as Julia Sidney, had quibbled over the $1 fee but had paid it when Pickett went into a store and broke a $5 for her. She instructed him to go to the house at 687 Second Avenue and ring the basement bell. The trunk, she said, would be brought to him.
Pickett had gone to the address and rung the bell as instructed. A man opened the door and let him in. Several women were present in the basement room. The man helped Pickett to carry the trunk to the cart, but didn't speak to him. Pickett described the man to the police, who knew that Dr. Jacob Rosenzweig, who matched the description the cart man had given, lived at the address in question.
Dr. Rosenzweig Identified
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| Dr. Jacob Rosenzweig |
The police then went to 687 Second Avenue and arrested Rosenzweig. That he was probably the "butcher" who had killed the young woman in the trunk came as no surprise to reporters and police detectives. He had, in fact, been one of the city's abortionists featured in a New York Times article, "The Evil of the Age," just a week earlier.
Rosenzweig, a native of Poland, had reportedly begun as a saloon owner, but qualified himself as a doctor and branched out into abortion on the basis of a $40 diploma he'd bought from a diploma mill in Philadelphia. Since at that time all a person had to do to legally practice medicine in New York was pay a $10 "physician revenue tax," this diploma might well have raised his status.
After the arrest, Pickett identified Rosenzweig as the man who had handed the trunk off to him.
Though the police still had to complete their investigation, they were certain that they had identified the abortionist. They still had to identify the victim.
A Worried Mother
Meanwhile in Patterson, New Jersey, Caroline Bowlsby worried about her daughter, 25-year-old Alice. The young woman and her mother had been in Newark, helping to attend to her ailing uncle. Alice had left her aunt's home on the 23rd to go to New York for the day. Clad in a white lawn dress with a blue sash and ribbons, she'd headed into the Big Apple to see a matinee and do some shopping. She hadn't been seen or heard from since.
Mrs. Bowlsby asked the family dentist, Dr. Joseph T. Parker, what she should do. Parker, though worried that evil had befallen the young woman, tried to reassure the frantic mother that perhaps Alice had taken ill and was resting up somewhere before returning home.
Caroline had already suffered much. Her abusive, alcoholic husband had abandoned her to care for their three daughters. The four of them lived together, working as dressmakers. Alice also taught Sunday school. She had her share of attention from men, but had formed a relationship with 25-year-old Walter F. Conklin. Walter was the son of Newark alderman Lewis Conklin and worked as a bookkeeper at a silk factory. He had met Alice at the dressmaker's shop where she worked.
Alas for Alice, Walter was a bit of a rake. More on that later.
Sad Suspicions Confirmed
The family doctor, Theodore F. Kinney, had also heard of Alice's disappearance, and had read about the gruesome discovery in the papers. He consulted with Parker, who practiced in the same building, about whether or not the woman in the trunk could be the missing Alice. On Tuesday, August 29, Kinney went to the Bellevue Hospital morgue to view the body and learn if the dead girl was his patient.
He found the body in a state of such decomposition that he couldn't just identify her on first sight. However, upon closer examination, Kinney was able to tentatively identify her as Alice by her scars -- particularly an unusually-placed vaccination scar, and by a scar on her face.
Kinney returned to New Jersey, and together with Dr. Parker went to Mrs. Bowlsby and voiced his suspicions. He returned to Bellevue with Parker, who was able to identify Alice positively by her facial scar and a mole, as well as by the dental work he had done on her. Both men concurred on the identification. The dead woman was indeed Alice Augusta Bowlsby.
When Dr. Kinney and Dr. Parker went to the police to report on the identity of the dead woman, they were brought to Rosenzweig's home to see if they could identify anything there as belonging to Alice. They identified a hemstitched cambric handkerchief, marked "A. A. Bowlsby", and a blue sash that the men could not say for sure was Alice's, though they believed it to be. This strengthened the identification of Rosenzweig as the abortionist.
Even More Scandals Revealed
The news that the Trunk Mystery woman was Alice Bowlsby reached most of Patterson, New Jersey, through the newspapers. Gossip was running rampant in the silk mill where Walter Conklin worked. Some conjectured that Walter's diamond pin, which he'd not been wearing recently, had been used to pay for the fatal abortion. While most of the 250 workers were on lunch break, Walter opened large fireproof room off the bookkeeper's office, went inside, and shot himself in the head. In his pocket was a note written on a piece of the business letterhead:
"I have long had a morbid idea of the worthlessness of life, and now to be obliged to testify in this affair and cause unpleasantness to my family is more than life is worth."
After his death, rumors arose that Walter Conklin had two wives -- one in New Jersey and one in Russia, where he had traveled on business -- while being involved with Alice and possibly other young women. His suicide cemented his identity as Alice's "seducer."
Another young man, Frank Tripp, believed to have been somehow involved in Alice's sad end, absconded from the area and was believed to be in Canada.
The Coroner's Jury
On September 1, 1871, a Coroner's Jury was convened. Alice's mother was in no state to view her daughter's body or to participate in the inquest. The men of the Coroner's Jury, after being sworn in, were first brought to the morgue, where Alice's body lay under a sheet. Dr. Kinney and Dr. Parker showed the jury the marks by which they had identified the dead woman as Alice. The jury then returned to the hearing room, where they cast angry and disgusted looks at Rosenzweig, who turned away and looked out the window.
An ad from the New York Herald, read, "A. -- Ladies in trouble guaranteed immediate relief, sure and safe; no fees required until perfectly satisfied; elegant rooms and nursing provided. Dr. Ascher. Amity-place. $c." Dr. Ascher, it turns out, was an alias being used by Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig denied any duplicity in also being the "Dr. Ascher" who ran thinly veiled abortion ads in the paper. He asserted that he just used Ascher's name for pure convenience because his predecessor had left the sign up.
Rosenzweig reportedly attempted to hang himself in his prison cell on the morning of September 2. He insisted that he was a victim of a conspiracy and was placed on suicide watch.
Under Boss Tweed, abortion, though illegal, had been tolerated. But the gruesome discovery of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl crammed rudely into a trunk excited too much outcry for any politician to step in and intervene. Rosenzweig would be brought to trial. As the evidence against him mounted, nobody doubted that he would be convicted.
James F. Boyle, an undertaker, testified that on the morning of Saturday, August 26, a man came to his establishment, saying that a servant girl of his had died. She'd only had about $10. He wanted to know how much it would cost to bury her. Boyle had asked where the girl was to be buried, and the man had said he wasn't particular; the cheapest place would suffice. He also wanted to know how quickly the preparations could be finished. Boyle had told him about an hour and a half. He asked where the dead girl was, to which the would only reply that she wasn't far away. Boyle had asked about the doctor who had tended the girl, and was told he was downtown. Boyle said that he would need a medical certificate. The man had left, saying he would return later with the medical certificate, but he never did. Boyle testified that he's seen him later, standing outside the house on Second Avenue. He said he identified him later, at the police station, as Dr. Rosenzweig.
Jane Johnson, Rosenzweig's servant, testified that she had seen a woman dressed in white, with a white bonnet, admitted to the home on August 23. The woman went upstairs. She never saw the woman again. She identified a piece of a diaper and a towel, taken from the trunk, as belonging to the Rosenzweig household.
A woman named Marian Arthur testified that she had let professional rooms to a man she had always known as Dr. Ascher, who she identified by pointing to Dr. Rosenzweig. She said that Ascher/Rosenzweig "has a considerable practice, but more gentlemen than ladies."
Rosenzweig answered few questions for the Coroner's Jury, only indicating that he was a Polish-born physician, 39 years of age. His attorney argued that "a great deal of the testimony admitted is illegal," and the suspect denied "any participation in the atrocities charged".
The Jury quickly returned their verdict, that Alice Bowlsby had died from a criminal abortion performed some time between August 23 and August 26, and that Jacob Rosenzweig was the perpetrator.
News coverage of the inquest concluded by saying that the District Attorney, when interviewed, "said there was no possible chance of escape for the abortionist, and that he is certain of seven years' retirement from professional life at Sing Sing."
The Trial Begins
The trial was a sensation, drawing huge crowds to the brownstone courthouse. The first motion in open court was by Rosenzweig's co-counsel, Mr. Hummell, who pleaded unsuccessfully for an adjournment to allow main counsel, William Howe, to recover from an illness. A jury was empaneled: a cigar maker, a tailor, a builder, a plasterer, a speculator, two brokers, a hatter, a grocer, an agent, a dry goods merchant, and a tobacconist.
The Second Day
On this, the first day of testimony, the infamous trunk was brought into the courtroom and entered into evidence.
Alice's mother, distraught, agitated, and dressed in mourning, took the stand. She testified about the last time she'd seen her daughter alive, and about Alice's possessions, found at Dr. Rosenzweig's home. She also briefly testified about Alice's relationship with Walter Conklin. Next, Alice's sister Carrie testified. She spoke of the last time she'd seen her sister alive, and corroborated her mother's testimony about Alice's possessions.
Jane Johnson, a servant working at Rosenzweig's house, testified that she had been living under his roof for three months prior to Alice's death. She left Rosenzweig's employ on the 29th of August, when the trouble had erupted over the discovery of Alice Bowlsby's body.
Rosenzweig lived with his wife, four children, and a boarder named Abraham Sigel. A woman named Netta was a frequent visitor, up until about noon on the 23rd or 24th of August (which Jane recalled as the Wednesday or Thursday prior to the discovery of Alice's body). On that day, Jane saw Rosenzweig come into the house through the basement and admit a woman, clad in a white dress with ruffles and tucks, through the main entrance. This woman immediately went upstairs.
On Friday morning, the 25th, Mrs. Rosenzweig sent Jane on an errand that kept her out of the house all morning. Jane reported seeing Nettie at the house that day.
Early in the morning of the 26th, Jane was sent to take Rosenzweig's children to Central Park. She didn't return until late afternoon. She could not positively identify the trunk, but there had been one like it in Rosenzweig's house. She believed, from what she'd heard from Rosenzweig's daughter Rosie, that it belonged to Netta. Jane did positively identify a baby blanket found in the trunk as belonging to the Rosenzweig family.
On cross-examination, Jane indicated that she'd not heard or noticed any particular excitement or stir about the house on the days in question, other than that naturally involved with the birth of the Rosenzweigs' new baby.
Pickett the cabman gave the same testimony he'd given to the Coroner's Jury. Extenisve cross-examination didn't shake him in his story. He identified the trunk, as did several other witnesses, including the baggage boy, police officer, baggage master, and morgue attendant, all of whom reiterated testimony given at the Coroner's Jury. Alice's dentist and family doctor testified about how they'd identified her body. Boyd the undertaker reiterated his testimony from the Coroner's Jury. The police who searched Rosenzweig's house testified about the evidence they'd found there.
A woman named Nellie Willis was called to the stand to identify Rosenzweig as the man who had performed an abortion on her, about two and a half years earlier, that had left her hospitalized for weeks, and had nearly killed her. Rosenzweig had been practicing then as Dr. Ascher.
Dr. Cushman testified in great detail about the autopsy he'd performed. Alice's uterus had been enlarged, the cervix dilated, and various lacerations, giving evidence of an abortion which had caused fatal infection. The trial was adjourned for the day during cross-examination.
Day Three
This day began the the defense completing the cross-examination of Dr. Cushman. A Dr. Finnell was sworn in, and corraborated Cushman's testimony. The prosecution rested its case.
The defense, while conceding that the crime against Alice was "frightful, replsive, horrible", and conceding that there was a strong circumstantial case, held that it had not been proved that Rosenzweig had actually killed Alice.
Howe called two doctors to the stand, Garrish and Parker, who gave some medical testimony that made so little impression on reporters that I've been able to find no record of it.
The defense called Cornelia Bowlsby of Brooklyn, who was not related to the dead woman. Mrs. Bowlsby of Brooklyn claimed that the handkerchief identified as Alice's actually belonged to her daughter, Anna. She said that she and her daughters had visited the Rosenzweig home in August, and that Anna had spilled some wine and wiped it up with the handkerchief, and had left it behind. She said Anna had seen articles about Alice's death in the newspapers, with great attention focused on the handkerchief, and had brought it to her mother's attention. Mrs. Bowlsby then felt compelled, she said, to step forward to identify it. On cross-examination, she indicated that she'd not given any thought to the handkerchief until Mrs. Rosenzweig had come to her house to talk to her about it three weeks before the trial, and she wavered a bit on her description of the handkerchief. She also admitted that her husband had been expelled from the same college of physicians that Rosenzweig had gotten a phony diploma from.
The defense also produced as witnesses the Cohen brothers, Jacob and Lewis, who placed Rosenzweig at their home on the 26th, providing medical care to Jacob. Lewis testified that Rosenzweig had arrived at 10 a.m. and had stayed until 2 p.m.; Jacob testified that Rosenzweig he had arrived at aout 12:30 and stayed two or three hours. But on cross-examination, both brothers became less clear about what day Rosenzweig had actually been at the house, with Jacob saying that it was two or three days before Rosenzweig was arrested, and Lewis only being able to say it was a Saturday in the later part of August.
Mr. M. Samuels took the stand, saying he'd known Rosenzweig for at least six years, during which he'd treated his brother at their father's house. He said that Rosenzweig had visited at his house on the day he was arrested -- Monday -- and had been there the previous Saturday as well at about 3 p.m.
The defense also brought forward eight character witnesses, but most of them could only verify that they knew Rosenzweig as a physician. Only three of the eight testified that they personally knew that he was "a man of good character."
The vanished Netta, also identified as Yetty Fox, was produced as a defense witness. She said she had secretly gone to Rosenzweig's house on the Thursday prior to the 26th, due to illness, and had been dressed in white. She said she had come forward after reading accounts that placed importance on the entrance to Rosenzweig's home of a woman dressed in white.
The Defendant Takes the Stand
When Rosenzweig took the stand in his own defense, according to the New York Times, "his testimony was singularly incoherent, and he totally failed in his endeavor to remove the effect of the case made by the prosecution."
Rosenzweig testified that he knew Cornelia Bowlsby, and her daughters, who lived in Brooklyn, but never knew any Bowlsbys that lived in Patterson, New Jersey. He said he knew of nobody named Conklin from Patterson, New Jersey, and that nobody had arranged for Alice Bowlsby to board at his home. He denied having ever performed an abortion on anybody. He denied that any woman had died in his house during the time period in question, saying, "if she did I would know it."
He said any evidence of a pregnancy at his home was due to the fact that five weeks prior to his arrest his wife had given birth in the family home. He said he'd brought Netta to his house to see the baby, and had come in through the basement because he'd forgotten his key. Netta, he said, was the white-clad woman the servant had seen. He insisted that no other woman dressed in white had come to his house at all during the period in question.
Rosenzweig also testified that he had never seen the carman, William Peckett, until after his arrest. He also insisted that he'd never seen the handkerchief until after his arrest. He denied ever having seen the trunk. He admitted to having visited Boyle, the undertaker, but said he'd been sent by a Jewish society to get prices for funerals for the poor.
Under cross-examination, Rosenzweig admitted to practicing under the name of "Dr. Asher," but that he only did so because he'd taken over the previous doctor's practice and had simply left the name on the door. He denied having any knowledge of some other physicians who were evidently part of an abortion ring.
Day Four - The Defense Rests
The court was crowded, with Rosenzweig's wife and 14-year-old daughter arriving early. Alice's family did not attend, but the Mrs. Bowlsby of Brooklyn was there with her daughter as well.
Defense attorney Howe launched into a challenge for the court to prove that Alice Bowlsby had been alive on August 24, and that if an abortion had been performed it had not been necessary to try to preserve her life. His motions were denied.
In his closing argument, Howe proved a less than stellar spokesman for his client. He attacked Alice's mother for not having gone to the morgue personally to identify her daughter's body, instead having "deputed a hired dentist and a hireling physician". He then insisted that the identification was insufficient to prove that the dead woman was in fact Alice Bowlsby. How, he said, could Rosenzweig be convicted of killing Alice Bowlsby when it hadn't been sufficently been proven that Alice Bowlsby was in fact dead? Then he pointed out that the last people to see Alice Bowlsby alive had seen her in New Jersey, and no witnesses had seen her alive in New York. Sure, he conceded, Alice's things were in New York, but had Alice brought them to New York alive and died there? Then he theorized that Conklin, "who betrayed the girl, procured her death to conceal his guilt, and subsequently sent the body to the house of a so-called New-York abortionist" -- thus admitting that Alice's body had indeed been at his client's house and that his client was known as an abortionist, assertions that his client had denied during the trial.
He then argued that had Rosenzweig actually killed Alice, he'd hardly have kept her sash, dress pads, and handkerchief around the house to be discovered. Then he used the lack of larger, more easily identifiable items of Alice's dress at Rosenzweig's home as proof that Alice hadn't been there.
Howe pleaded Rosenzweig's reputation, his family, his home, and his charities, while Mrs. Rosenzweig and their daughter wept openly.
Day Four - The Prosecution Rests
The prosecutor began by focusing on the horrible nature of the crime. According to the New York Times, the District attorney, addressing the court, "observed that he never rose to open a case of this description without feelings constituting the most lively emotions within the heart. The surroundings of a case of this character were such that wherever we look, to whatever point of the compass they direct their attention, death, blood and murder stared them in the face. If the prisoner was guilty of the crime with which he stood charged, he was guilty of one of the highest crimes known to the law. And yet for some unaccountable reason ... our legislators and governers have seen fit to construct the law so that a man who takes the life of the unborn child, and also of the mother, by no jury of his country or by no Judge can he be consigned to the gallows."
He described the plight of a girl like Alice, desperate to save her reputation and not to shame her mother and family, abandoned by her lover to face her shame alone.
He reiterated the evidence identifying the dead woman as Alice Bowlsby. He reiterated that only Alice and her killer knew exactly what had been done to her, and Alice had taken the secret to her grave. He reviewed the evidence that Alice had been at Rosenzweig's home, that her body, crammed into a trunk, had been removed from that home.
He contrasted the respectable Dr. Rosenzweig's practice with that of the disreputable Dr. Ascher -- one and the same man.
He ended with a plea for justice not just for Alice, but for her unborn baby, and held that any man who loved his wife and children would have to convict.
Day Four - The Jury
A man identified as "Recorder Hackett" read the applicable laws to the jury, then reviewed all the evidence, including inconsistencies in the defense's case. He closed by saying, "The crime of which the prisoner is accused has been practised from the formation of the world, and will continue to be practised as long as human nature remains as it is. It can only be restrained by potent legislative penalties and the vindications of the law. The poor girl's story is shortly told. Trusting, betrayed, she and her seducer sleep the sleep that knows no waking. Your duty is to calmly weigh the tesimony, and render a verdict according to your oaths."
The jury deliberated just under two hours before finding Rosenzweig guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years of hard labor. The New York Times noted, "The testimony presented so clear a case against Rosenzweig that he himself seemed to have abandoned all hope of escape. He expressed no astonishment at the verdict, though he showed that he thoroughly realized the horror of his situation."
Upon the judge dismissing the court, Mrs. Rosenzweig wept and went to embrace her husband one last time before he was taken away. His daughter threw herself on the floor shrieking, crying out curses on everybody who had spoken against her father: "Oh, may my God curse every one who has went against you, father; may their flesh rot from their bones; may their lives wither up; may they die rotten. Oh, father, if I die for it, I'll have all their lives!" She then threw herself onto her father and clung to him. Through all of this, Rosenzweig remained stoic. He was led outside, past a jeering crowd, and taken to prison.
The Aftermath
Alice was buried in the Potter's Field. The feminist newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, published a scathing piece about the death of Alice and her lover, placing the blame on a society that winked at unchaste men but condemned women who showed evidence of unchastity themselves:
We bring the dead bodies of the father, mother and the unborn child and lay them on society's doorstep, saying, "Behold your handiwork." This is no time to be scrupulous in our language. We cannot stand to pick words which hundreds are running the risks which Miss Bowlsby ran to satisfy the laws of society. We say that society itself is the patron of abortionists, that society's present laws make their occupation excusable, nay, a necessity; that the very men who are so loud in their denunciations of Rosenzweig and his class have, nine out of every ten of them, paid for his assistance, and, among women, nine out of ten would act as Alice Bowlsby did, if placed in the same position.
....
You screech at Rosenzweig today; you employed him yesterday, and will produce patients for his successor tomorrow, and go to church next Sunday and look as devout as a Chadband. And yet, as society exists, he has been your friend. How many of your daughters owe the shelter of your roofs to him? Ah! were that question fairly solved, it would ignite a torch whose lurid glare would inflame this city from end to end, and every one would proclaim how dreadfully bad his neighbor was, and point out the skeleton in his neighbor's closet.
....
The Rosenzweigs step in and say, practically, "I will spare you nine deaths out of the ten (for only one in a hundred dies under my hands). I will send fifty more out of the hundred victims home, still virtuous according to your rules, because no one knows of the so-called transgression, and the remainder shall have their error known only to their parents or relatives, and the outside world and future husbands shall remain in happy and blissful ignorance of the truth. All this I will do for one hundred dollars each." You find the money, you have the private interview with Rosenzweig (not that you are interested; oh, no, it is all out of pure friendship; you didn't do it; it was some other man.) You cheat society's rules of its victims, until another victim dies. Then you howl at their depravity and Rosenzweig's villainy.
Alice's mortification at her predicament must have been great. She was a Sunday school teacher and an active member of her church. Whether it was fear of censure alone that drove her to sacrifice her baby and risk her own life at the hands of Rosenzweig is a secret she took to her grave.
A public outcry against abortionists led to laws nationwide calling for stiffer penalties for abortionists. Ironically, Rosenzweig's attorney was able to leverage the new law into an appeal that freed his client on a technicality after he had served only one year of his sentence.
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