TWO AMERICAN SENSATIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 13090, 24 October 1908, Page 12

TWO AMERICAN SENSATIONS.

One of the most ghastly murders ever perpetrated In New York' lias just been brought to light as the result of a cabman’s srrartuees, and (Mr Chester Jordan, a brother-in-law of Mr Jesse Livermore, the financier, who a short time ago made himself famous as a “ cotton plunger,” has been arrested on a charge of murdering his wife, and has confessed his guilt. The details of the crime are among the meet horrible that have ever been related in the American Press. The headless body of the unfortunate lady was found in a trunk which Mr Jordan was taking with him in a cab to a certain lodging-house in the west end. A cab was hired for the purpose, and the cabman, thinking there was something suspicious about his fare, subsequently went to the police. An investigation was immediately made by the authorit’es. Several police officers were willed to lae scene, and Mr Jordan was forced to open the trunk himself in the presence of the police. Within the box were seen all that remained of his wife's body. The man was at once placed under arrest, and he lias now made a full confession, declaring that he and his wife had more than once quarrelled recently on the grounds of his jealousy. The murder, lie says, was committed in a moment of madness, when he had been wrought up to a pitch of frenzy in the course of a more than usually hitter dispute. He-told the full story of the horrible affair, explaining how lie had killed the lady, and then dismembered the body, burning tho head in a furnace, and packing the rest of the bodv into the trunk. Tiie second crime was committed by a vaudeville actor in Boston, who murdered

h’fi wife, who was also on the stage. Her dismembered trunk was found m a boardinghouse, whither it hod been removed from the town of Somerville, whore the murder is supposed to have boen committed, and where the head, as well as-the bones of the arms and legs (from which the flesh had been clean scraped), were found in a furnace. The scalp and other gruesome remains were found nTa kitchen range. The murderer, on beyg arrested, confessed his guilt. He said that he killed the woman accidentally, during a quarrel that owed, its origin to jealousy. Fearing . the conso-' qnences of his act he dismembered the body, with the intention of throwing it overboard during his voyage from Boston to New York.