Frank Pfeifers, Murdered and Committed Suicide, March, 1881
(right: cell furnishings of a wealthy criminal)
(right: cell furnishings of a wealthy criminal)
A Daring Criminal Who is Believed to Have Murdered his Father.
Special Despatch to the Press
New York, March 17,--Frank Pfeifer has always been one of the most desperate ruffians in the Twentieth Precinct. He has been a “regular comer” at the station, in the words of an officer, for the past ten years. Most of his offenses were only punished, however, by a few months at Blackwell’s Island, but in May, 1878, he was arrested for burglary and was sentenced by Recorder Hackett to three and one half years imprisonment in State Prison, which term he served out.
About three months ago a cigar store in Thirty-Ninth Street near Tenth Avenue was robbed and Pfeifer was suspected. The police were on the lookout for him when his mother, who keeps a tenement-house at No. 413 West Thirty-Seventh Street, called Officer Malone and informed him that her son had purchased a revolver, with which he intended to shoot Officer Biglin of the same precinct. She wished to prevent it and showed the police the stolen goods, which Pfeifer had concealed in his trunk.
He could not be captured, however. When next heard of it was in connection with a burglary at Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Sergeant C. H. Pless of the Twentieth precinct said that he was one of the hardest cases he had ever met with. His father was murdered about nine years ago and strong suspicion was directed toward the son as his murderer, as he had often been arrested for violence toward his parents.
This suspicion was strengthened some years afterward, when he was arrested and tried for disorderly conduct before Justice Otterberg on complaint of his mother. He was sentenced to imprisonment for one month, when his mother cried out: “For God’s sake, Judge, don’t give him such a short time, for when he gets out he will kill me, as he did his father.” His sentence was thereupon changed to six months.
Previous to his sentence at State Prison, Pfeifer kept a low dance house in Thirty-Ninth Street which was the nightly resort of the most degraded criminals of both sexes. The place is still known by the name of Pfeifer’s Hall. Pfeifer’s most intimate associate was “Dutch” Harmon, now serving a term of eight years in the State Prison at Sing Sing for car robbery. Both these men were supposed to have been connected with the murder of a watchman in the Harlem Railroad yard at Thirtieth Street, with the intention of committing burglary.
Source: Charlie Crowell. Capital Punishment Scrapbook, Philadelphia Newspaper Article, about March, 1881.
New York, March 17,--Frank Pfeifer has always been one of the most desperate ruffians in the Twentieth Precinct. He has been a “regular comer” at the station, in the words of an officer, for the past ten years. Most of his offenses were only punished, however, by a few months at Blackwell’s Island, but in May, 1878, he was arrested for burglary and was sentenced by Recorder Hackett to three and one half years imprisonment in State Prison, which term he served out.
About three months ago a cigar store in Thirty-Ninth Street near Tenth Avenue was robbed and Pfeifer was suspected. The police were on the lookout for him when his mother, who keeps a tenement-house at No. 413 West Thirty-Seventh Street, called Officer Malone and informed him that her son had purchased a revolver, with which he intended to shoot Officer Biglin of the same precinct. She wished to prevent it and showed the police the stolen goods, which Pfeifer had concealed in his trunk.
He could not be captured, however. When next heard of it was in connection with a burglary at Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Sergeant C. H. Pless of the Twentieth precinct said that he was one of the hardest cases he had ever met with. His father was murdered about nine years ago and strong suspicion was directed toward the son as his murderer, as he had often been arrested for violence toward his parents.
This suspicion was strengthened some years afterward, when he was arrested and tried for disorderly conduct before Justice Otterberg on complaint of his mother. He was sentenced to imprisonment for one month, when his mother cried out: “For God’s sake, Judge, don’t give him such a short time, for when he gets out he will kill me, as he did his father.” His sentence was thereupon changed to six months.
Previous to his sentence at State Prison, Pfeifer kept a low dance house in Thirty-Ninth Street which was the nightly resort of the most degraded criminals of both sexes. The place is still known by the name of Pfeifer’s Hall. Pfeifer’s most intimate associate was “Dutch” Harmon, now serving a term of eight years in the State Prison at Sing Sing for car robbery. Both these men were supposed to have been connected with the murder of a watchman in the Harlem Railroad yard at Thirtieth Street, with the intention of committing burglary.
Source: Charlie Crowell. Capital Punishment Scrapbook, Philadelphia Newspaper Article, about March, 1881.
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