A DEATH CRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 255, 27 October 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

A DEATH CRY.

NEW YORK DENTIST BUTCHERED.

j fifteen wounds.

ftew York haa had many strange mysteries in its time, but none of them hasaver been covered with such a dark Blanket of secrecy as the murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell. ge was a dentist, living at 31, Bond gtreet. One writer has described him as bull-necked, full-chested and brutal in Ma manners. The fact that he was reputed to be worth £100,000 adds to the interest of the narrative. He nwd the second floor of the house in Bond Street for his office and his ]jfing quarters. The remainder of the h<ro» was rented to tenants, with all of irhom he was well acquainted.

Ons of them was a Mrs. Cunningham, g irell-bred person, with an agreeable personality, who acted as a sort of housekeeper. The other two were men named |!ckd» and Snodgrass.

On that historic night iir May, 1857, It WW raining a deluge. The doctor, who fcgd been dining at the Metropolitan frfo, remained there until 10 o'clock, having a good time with a congenial party of friend». At that hour he sallied forth to his home in the midst of the rain and the wind. A neighbour on the other side the street testified that he saw the doctor letting himself in by the aid of hii latch key at about that time of night.

" Murder!" iftl- few minutes later the aforesaid Neighbour was startled by the loud cry i of "Murder!" but paid no attention to it in the belief that it might have been gome citizen merely beating his wife. Em 3 Albert, a young man who acted as jnlet, office boy and general helper to -Dr. Burdell, was in the habit of reporting for duty each morning. He reached £be homo at the usual hour the next morning and let himself in with his pasa key. •He went to the basement for a bucket 'of coal and walked upstairs whistling, 'with the abandon of one who has a good aongipence. Opening the door of Burdell's loom, he found himself obstructed with jometfring heavy on the floor. It was •t be body of the dentist, covered with - , friood. He let out a shriek, dropped his scuttle jef coal and ran upstairs, where he found Vra. Cunningham and Eckels and Snodaraai calmly eating a hearty breakfast of .. giniage and hot cakes. They followed ''' jsn to the room of death. There was blood on the walls, blood on f gbe floor and blood in the hall. One , nd trail led upstairs and another led . dlowiatairs. There was the mark of a lord around Burdell's neck. They found . fifteen itab wounds in his right side and ; evidently made by a long, thin coroner's doctor said they were Jnflicted by a left-handed person. Mrs. ,|()anningham waa left-handed. She was '-IttiMted, and so were Eckels and SnodpiM. But no cord or dagger was found - ' ndat their trial three months later all three were acquitted. Mm. Cunningham created a fresh senfitioa three months after the trial by declaring that she had been secretly married to Burdell three months before the

■; murder. This, if proved, meant that she would inhterit part of his estate. Later •he nid . she was about to become a mother. This would have meant that •be would get all his money. She showed ft marriage certificate and produced a • leedy-looking minister who said he had performed the ceremony. But in the end he admitted that he could not tell the man he had married to Mrs. Cunningham, and she confessed that she was not going to hare a child after all. So she lost all the money. Eckels, being sent to the Albany Penitentiary for fraud, died there. Snodgnas also went the way of all flesh.