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Ellen Caroline “Carrie Old Shakespeare” Brown

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Ellen Caroline “Carrie Old Shakespeare” Brown

Birth
England
Death
24 Apr 1891 (aged 56–57)
New York, New York County, New York, USA
Burial
Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts, USA Add to Map
Memorial ID
View Source
Unsolved murder victim. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper.

http://www.casebook.org/victims/carrie.html

http://www.jtrforums.com/archive/index.php/t-12472.html

From Ancestry.co.uk
Ellen Caroline Montgomery
aka Carrie Brown
Born about 1834 in England
Died 24 April 1891 in New York
Sources:
Birth England - Citation - 1860 US Census
Residence: 1860
Salem Ward 1, Essex, Massachusetts
Death:
24 April 1891 aged 57
Husband;
Charles E Brown
Born in Copenhagen, Denmark
Died in Africa
1829 - 1878
Children:
Mary Ella Brown 1854 - 1901 married Frank P Allen born 1852
Charles E Brown 1857 - 1859
Born and died in Salem

She was either interred in a receiving vault at Harmony Grove Cemetery or Green Lawn Cemetery, both in Salem, Massachusetts.The Murderer of Carrie Brown

New York, April 30.--Inspector Byrnes has at last fastened the crime for the murder of Carrie Brown.

The murderer is Frenchy No. 1, who was arrested on Friday night, less than twenty-four hours after committing the crime, and who had been under lock and key ever since.

He had been the one-time lover of the woman, but for some time had become insanely jealous of her.

He entered her room, strangled, and then disemboweled his victim. This is the story of the policy.

The Decatur Daily Review (Decatur, Illinois)01 May 1891, Fri Page 1
=====
Carrie Brown, a.k.a. "Old Shakespeare" (NYC Municipal Archives)

One of the few alleged Ripper victims actually to have been killed outside of London, Carrie Brown remains, for the most part, a mystery. An older, American prostitute, Carrie's lifeless body was discovered in the room of the East River Hotel on the Manhattan waterfront of New York, U.S.A., on the night of April 23-24, 1891. Before the release of Sugden's The Complete Jack the Ripper, very little was known of her, and even less was deemed worth writing about. She was, and still is, mentioned solely as a connection to the suspect George Chapman, who at the time of the murder was living in nearby Jersey City, New Jersey.

Known fondly by her acquaintances as "Old Shakespeare" due to her tendency to recite her favorite poet's sonnets after a few drinks, Carrie Brown checked into the East River Hotel, on the southeast corner of Catherine Slip and Water Streets, with a man between 10:30 and 11:00 on the night of April 23rd. Her lifeless body was discovered lying on the bed the next morning, naked from the armpits down, according to the night clerk who found her. Her body was mutilated, and she had been strangled, but there are few details known about her injuries. The details of the autopsy were played down a great deal by the press, and all that we can know for sure is that there were 'cuts and stab wounds all over it.' The doctor who performed the autopsy, named Jenkins, is said to have thought that the killer had attempted to completely gut his victim. Other than that, the exactness of her injuries remains a mystery.

The man with whom she had entered was never traced, although an Algerian Arab named Ameer Ben Ali was arrested and later convicted for the crime. Sentenced to life imprisonment, but vehemently denying his guilt, Ali was released eleven years later when new evidence showed that bloodstains found in Ali's room (which were primarily used to secure his conviction) might have been accidentally strewn by an irresponsible investigation. Governor Benjamin Odell had him released and the American Judicial System declared him innocent of the crime -- so who killed Carrie Brown?

The man with Carrie Brown that night was seen only by one witness, an assistant housekeeper at the East River Hotel named Mary Miniter. She described her companion as:

About 32 years of age.
Five feet, eight inches tall.
Slim build.
Long, sharp nose.
Heavy mustache of light color.
Foreign in appearance, possibly German.
Dark-brown cutaway coat.
Black trousers.
Old black derby hat with a dented crown.
Admittedly, Miniter did not get a good long look at the suspicious man. As he booked the room with Brown, Miniter claimed that he had remained inconspicuous in the background and seemed 'anxious to avoid observation.'

The name of Jack the Ripper was quickly heard around the rumor mill, and newspaper headlines brought the story back for another turn.

Newspapers refused to let the matter stand where police wished to leave it, which was far, far away from the specter of Jack the Ripper. The New York Times wrote:

There has not been a case in years that has called forth so much detective talent. Inspector Byrnes has said that it would be impossible for crimes such as Jack the Ripper committed in London to occur in New York and the murderer not be found. He has not forgotten his words on the subject. He also remembers that he has a photographed letter, sent by a person who signed himself Jack the Ripper, dated 'Hell', and received eighteen months ago.

It was this statement that has prompted one theory concerning the death of Carrie Brown which says that the New York Police Department was involved. Having made such a boast that 'if Jack the Ripper came to America, he would surely be caught,' these theorists claim that they had Brown killed and planted the evidence in Ameer Ben Ali's room the next day while 'investigating.' This would serve to further embarrass the 'competing' London police while giving praise and adulation to the N.Y.P.D.

Though this story is far-fetched indeed, the logic behind it simply doesn't make sense. If the N.Y.P.D. had wanted to cast themselves in the light of 'the force who caught the Ripper,' they would not have played down the possibility of connexion with Jack the Ripper. Still, it does explain the reason for the bloodstains suddenly 'appearing' in Ali's room, if indeed they were as a result of the police and reporters who flooded the room the morning after the murder.

Another story emerged in 1901, accusing a Danish farmboy who was working in Cranford, New Jersey at the time of the murder. According to his employer, the man was absent that night, and returned home in the morning, only to leave a few days later, never to return. Soon after, the employer found a key similar to those used in the East River Hotel as well as a bloodstained shirt in his room. Unfortunately, the fact that this information was revealed an entire decade later must make it the object of suspicion.

And so the murder of Carrie Brown remains unsolved. The question of whether or not it was a Ripper-related murder can not, at present, be sufficiently answered. Detailed medical reports must be found concerning the exact nature of her injuries, and these must be matched to the M.O. of Jack the Ripper's canonical victims. If they do indeed match the injuries of, say, Chapman or Eddowes, then some serious rethinking concerning the case of Jack the Ripper needs to be done.

Casebook.org
=====
Carrie Brown (1834 – April 24, 1891) was a New York City prostitute who was murdered and mutilated in a lodging house. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper. Although known to use numerous aliases, a common practice in her occupation, she supposedly won her nickname of Shakespeare for her habit of quoting William Shakespeare during drinking games. She has often been erroneously referred to as Old Shakespeare in later news articles and books.

The badly mutilated body of Brown, a longtime Bowery prostitute, was found in a room in a squalid lodging house known as the East River Hotel on April 24, 1891. Newspapers were quick to report the murder as proof of the alleged arrival in America of Jack the Ripper, whose murders of prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district were well known during the time. News of the possibility that Jack the Ripper had arrived in New York City posed a challenge to NYPD Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes, who had criticized Scotland Yard for its inability to capture Jack the Ripper.

As the murder of Brown was soon becoming one of the most publicized in the city's history, the pressure was on Byrnes to solve the murder as quickly as possible, and an Algerian named Ameer Ben Ali (who also went by "Frenchy" or "Frenchy No. 1") was arrested for the murder soon after. However, the evidence against Ben Ali was largely circumstantial and based primarily on the claim that unidentified bloodstains had been found leading from the room where Brown was killed into the room he was staying in. Reporters who had been at the scene of the crime said that no such bloodstains were there. Due to testimony from doctors who made claims that could not be supported by medical tests at the time, Ben Ali was tried and convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, despite his claims of innocence.

However, a group of reformers pointed out instances of police misconduct in the investigation and evidence to support Ben Ali's innocence. The group was able to prove the NYPD had not attempted to find the missing key to the locked room or the unidentified man who witnesses claimed she had last been seen with the night before.

Years later it was claimed that a man in a New Jersey farm had found the missing key to Room 31 and a bloody shirt in a bureau drawer of a room he had rented out to a man who had disappeared shortly after the murder. Faced with this testimony, coupled with the longstanding belief of many for years that Ben Ali had been set up and the fact that Byrnes had been removed from office for corruption, Ben Ali was released after serving 11 years and left for his native Algeria shortly afterward.

No substantial evidence has proven that Jack the Ripper was responsible and the case remains unsolved. It has been stated by writer Philip Sugden that if the murder was committed by Jack the Ripper, one possible culprit could be George Chapman, a Ripper suspect who moved from London to the US around this time,[1] although recent research suggests that he only moved to the US after this murder.[2] Another possibility suggested by writer James Tully is James Kelly, a Ripper suspect who murdered his wife by slashing her throat and was committed to Broadmoor Insane Asylum, which he escaped from just before the Ripper murders. He may have traveled to New York after the Ripper murders in London stopped.[3]

Wikipedia
=====
BIOGRAPHY
Carrie Brown (1834 - April 24, 1891) was a New York prostitute who was murdered and mutilated in a lodging house. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper. Although known to use numerous aliases, a common practice in her occupation, she supposedly won her nickname of Shakespeare for her habit of quoting William Shakespeare during drinking games. She has often been erroneously referred to as Old Shakespeare in later news articles and books.

MURDER
The badly mutilated body of Carrie Brown, a longtime Bowery prostitute, was found in a room in a squalid lodging house known as the East River Hotel on April 24, 1891. Newspapers were quick to report the murder as proof of the alleged arrival in America of Jack the Ripper, whose murders of prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district were well known during the time. News of the possibility that Jack the Ripper had arrived in New York posed a challenge to NYPD Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes who had criticized Scotland Yard for its inability to capture Jack the Ripper.

As the murder of the middle-aged prostitute was soon becoming one of the most publicized in the city's history, the pressure was on Byrnes to solve the murder as quickly as possible and soon after, an Algerian named Ameer Ben Ali (who also went by "Frenchy" or "Frenchy No. 1") was arrested for the murder. However, the evidence against Ben Ali was largely circumstantial and based primarily on the claim that unidentified bloodstains had been found leading from the room where Brown was killed into the room he was staying in. Reporters who had been at the scene of the crime said that no such bloodstains were there. Due to testimony from doctors who made claims that could not be supported by medical tests at the time, Ben Ali was tried and convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, despite his claims of innocence.

However, a group of reformers pointed out instances of police misconduct in the investigation and evidence to support Ben Ali's innocence. The group was able to prove the NYPD had made no attempt to find the missing key to the locked room or the unidentified man who witnesses claimed she had last been seen with the night before.

Years later it was claimed that a man in a New Jersey farm had found the missing key to Room 31 and a bloody shirt in a bureau drawer of a room he had rented out to a man who had disappeared shortly after the murder. Faced with this testimony, coupled with the longstanding belief of many for years that Ben Ali had been set up and the fact that Byrnes had been removed from office for corruption, Ben Ali was released after serving 11 years and left for his native Algeria shortly afterward.

Although no conclusive evidence proved that Jack the Ripper was responsible, the case remained unsolved nonetheless. If the murder was committed by Jack the Ripper, the culprit could be George Chapman, a Ripper suspect who may have moved from London to the US at roughly this time, although recent research suggests that he only moved to the US after this murder. More likely would then be Francis Tumblety, an already popular Ripper suspect who had returned to the US on 24 November 1888.

peoplepill.com
Unsolved murder victim. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper.

http://www.casebook.org/victims/carrie.html

http://www.jtrforums.com/archive/index.php/t-12472.html

From Ancestry.co.uk
Ellen Caroline Montgomery
aka Carrie Brown
Born about 1834 in England
Died 24 April 1891 in New York
Sources:
Birth England - Citation - 1860 US Census
Residence: 1860
Salem Ward 1, Essex, Massachusetts
Death:
24 April 1891 aged 57
Husband;
Charles E Brown
Born in Copenhagen, Denmark
Died in Africa
1829 - 1878
Children:
Mary Ella Brown 1854 - 1901 married Frank P Allen born 1852
Charles E Brown 1857 - 1859
Born and died in Salem

She was either interred in a receiving vault at Harmony Grove Cemetery or Green Lawn Cemetery, both in Salem, Massachusetts.The Murderer of Carrie Brown

New York, April 30.--Inspector Byrnes has at last fastened the crime for the murder of Carrie Brown.

The murderer is Frenchy No. 1, who was arrested on Friday night, less than twenty-four hours after committing the crime, and who had been under lock and key ever since.

He had been the one-time lover of the woman, but for some time had become insanely jealous of her.

He entered her room, strangled, and then disemboweled his victim. This is the story of the policy.

The Decatur Daily Review (Decatur, Illinois)01 May 1891, Fri Page 1
=====
Carrie Brown, a.k.a. "Old Shakespeare" (NYC Municipal Archives)

One of the few alleged Ripper victims actually to have been killed outside of London, Carrie Brown remains, for the most part, a mystery. An older, American prostitute, Carrie's lifeless body was discovered in the room of the East River Hotel on the Manhattan waterfront of New York, U.S.A., on the night of April 23-24, 1891. Before the release of Sugden's The Complete Jack the Ripper, very little was known of her, and even less was deemed worth writing about. She was, and still is, mentioned solely as a connection to the suspect George Chapman, who at the time of the murder was living in nearby Jersey City, New Jersey.

Known fondly by her acquaintances as "Old Shakespeare" due to her tendency to recite her favorite poet's sonnets after a few drinks, Carrie Brown checked into the East River Hotel, on the southeast corner of Catherine Slip and Water Streets, with a man between 10:30 and 11:00 on the night of April 23rd. Her lifeless body was discovered lying on the bed the next morning, naked from the armpits down, according to the night clerk who found her. Her body was mutilated, and she had been strangled, but there are few details known about her injuries. The details of the autopsy were played down a great deal by the press, and all that we can know for sure is that there were 'cuts and stab wounds all over it.' The doctor who performed the autopsy, named Jenkins, is said to have thought that the killer had attempted to completely gut his victim. Other than that, the exactness of her injuries remains a mystery.

The man with whom she had entered was never traced, although an Algerian Arab named Ameer Ben Ali was arrested and later convicted for the crime. Sentenced to life imprisonment, but vehemently denying his guilt, Ali was released eleven years later when new evidence showed that bloodstains found in Ali's room (which were primarily used to secure his conviction) might have been accidentally strewn by an irresponsible investigation. Governor Benjamin Odell had him released and the American Judicial System declared him innocent of the crime -- so who killed Carrie Brown?

The man with Carrie Brown that night was seen only by one witness, an assistant housekeeper at the East River Hotel named Mary Miniter. She described her companion as:

About 32 years of age.
Five feet, eight inches tall.
Slim build.
Long, sharp nose.
Heavy mustache of light color.
Foreign in appearance, possibly German.
Dark-brown cutaway coat.
Black trousers.
Old black derby hat with a dented crown.
Admittedly, Miniter did not get a good long look at the suspicious man. As he booked the room with Brown, Miniter claimed that he had remained inconspicuous in the background and seemed 'anxious to avoid observation.'

The name of Jack the Ripper was quickly heard around the rumor mill, and newspaper headlines brought the story back for another turn.

Newspapers refused to let the matter stand where police wished to leave it, which was far, far away from the specter of Jack the Ripper. The New York Times wrote:

There has not been a case in years that has called forth so much detective talent. Inspector Byrnes has said that it would be impossible for crimes such as Jack the Ripper committed in London to occur in New York and the murderer not be found. He has not forgotten his words on the subject. He also remembers that he has a photographed letter, sent by a person who signed himself Jack the Ripper, dated 'Hell', and received eighteen months ago.

It was this statement that has prompted one theory concerning the death of Carrie Brown which says that the New York Police Department was involved. Having made such a boast that 'if Jack the Ripper came to America, he would surely be caught,' these theorists claim that they had Brown killed and planted the evidence in Ameer Ben Ali's room the next day while 'investigating.' This would serve to further embarrass the 'competing' London police while giving praise and adulation to the N.Y.P.D.

Though this story is far-fetched indeed, the logic behind it simply doesn't make sense. If the N.Y.P.D. had wanted to cast themselves in the light of 'the force who caught the Ripper,' they would not have played down the possibility of connexion with Jack the Ripper. Still, it does explain the reason for the bloodstains suddenly 'appearing' in Ali's room, if indeed they were as a result of the police and reporters who flooded the room the morning after the murder.

Another story emerged in 1901, accusing a Danish farmboy who was working in Cranford, New Jersey at the time of the murder. According to his employer, the man was absent that night, and returned home in the morning, only to leave a few days later, never to return. Soon after, the employer found a key similar to those used in the East River Hotel as well as a bloodstained shirt in his room. Unfortunately, the fact that this information was revealed an entire decade later must make it the object of suspicion.

And so the murder of Carrie Brown remains unsolved. The question of whether or not it was a Ripper-related murder can not, at present, be sufficiently answered. Detailed medical reports must be found concerning the exact nature of her injuries, and these must be matched to the M.O. of Jack the Ripper's canonical victims. If they do indeed match the injuries of, say, Chapman or Eddowes, then some serious rethinking concerning the case of Jack the Ripper needs to be done.

Casebook.org
=====
Carrie Brown (1834 – April 24, 1891) was a New York City prostitute who was murdered and mutilated in a lodging house. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper. Although known to use numerous aliases, a common practice in her occupation, she supposedly won her nickname of Shakespeare for her habit of quoting William Shakespeare during drinking games. She has often been erroneously referred to as Old Shakespeare in later news articles and books.

The badly mutilated body of Brown, a longtime Bowery prostitute, was found in a room in a squalid lodging house known as the East River Hotel on April 24, 1891. Newspapers were quick to report the murder as proof of the alleged arrival in America of Jack the Ripper, whose murders of prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district were well known during the time. News of the possibility that Jack the Ripper had arrived in New York City posed a challenge to NYPD Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes, who had criticized Scotland Yard for its inability to capture Jack the Ripper.

As the murder of Brown was soon becoming one of the most publicized in the city's history, the pressure was on Byrnes to solve the murder as quickly as possible, and an Algerian named Ameer Ben Ali (who also went by "Frenchy" or "Frenchy No. 1") was arrested for the murder soon after. However, the evidence against Ben Ali was largely circumstantial and based primarily on the claim that unidentified bloodstains had been found leading from the room where Brown was killed into the room he was staying in. Reporters who had been at the scene of the crime said that no such bloodstains were there. Due to testimony from doctors who made claims that could not be supported by medical tests at the time, Ben Ali was tried and convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, despite his claims of innocence.

However, a group of reformers pointed out instances of police misconduct in the investigation and evidence to support Ben Ali's innocence. The group was able to prove the NYPD had not attempted to find the missing key to the locked room or the unidentified man who witnesses claimed she had last been seen with the night before.

Years later it was claimed that a man in a New Jersey farm had found the missing key to Room 31 and a bloody shirt in a bureau drawer of a room he had rented out to a man who had disappeared shortly after the murder. Faced with this testimony, coupled with the longstanding belief of many for years that Ben Ali had been set up and the fact that Byrnes had been removed from office for corruption, Ben Ali was released after serving 11 years and left for his native Algeria shortly afterward.

No substantial evidence has proven that Jack the Ripper was responsible and the case remains unsolved. It has been stated by writer Philip Sugden that if the murder was committed by Jack the Ripper, one possible culprit could be George Chapman, a Ripper suspect who moved from London to the US around this time,[1] although recent research suggests that he only moved to the US after this murder.[2] Another possibility suggested by writer James Tully is James Kelly, a Ripper suspect who murdered his wife by slashing her throat and was committed to Broadmoor Insane Asylum, which he escaped from just before the Ripper murders. He may have traveled to New York after the Ripper murders in London stopped.[3]

Wikipedia
=====
BIOGRAPHY
Carrie Brown (1834 - April 24, 1891) was a New York prostitute who was murdered and mutilated in a lodging house. She is occasionally mentioned as an alleged victim of Jack the Ripper. Although known to use numerous aliases, a common practice in her occupation, she supposedly won her nickname of Shakespeare for her habit of quoting William Shakespeare during drinking games. She has often been erroneously referred to as Old Shakespeare in later news articles and books.

MURDER
The badly mutilated body of Carrie Brown, a longtime Bowery prostitute, was found in a room in a squalid lodging house known as the East River Hotel on April 24, 1891. Newspapers were quick to report the murder as proof of the alleged arrival in America of Jack the Ripper, whose murders of prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district were well known during the time. News of the possibility that Jack the Ripper had arrived in New York posed a challenge to NYPD Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes who had criticized Scotland Yard for its inability to capture Jack the Ripper.

As the murder of the middle-aged prostitute was soon becoming one of the most publicized in the city's history, the pressure was on Byrnes to solve the murder as quickly as possible and soon after, an Algerian named Ameer Ben Ali (who also went by "Frenchy" or "Frenchy No. 1") was arrested for the murder. However, the evidence against Ben Ali was largely circumstantial and based primarily on the claim that unidentified bloodstains had been found leading from the room where Brown was killed into the room he was staying in. Reporters who had been at the scene of the crime said that no such bloodstains were there. Due to testimony from doctors who made claims that could not be supported by medical tests at the time, Ben Ali was tried and convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, despite his claims of innocence.

However, a group of reformers pointed out instances of police misconduct in the investigation and evidence to support Ben Ali's innocence. The group was able to prove the NYPD had made no attempt to find the missing key to the locked room or the unidentified man who witnesses claimed she had last been seen with the night before.

Years later it was claimed that a man in a New Jersey farm had found the missing key to Room 31 and a bloody shirt in a bureau drawer of a room he had rented out to a man who had disappeared shortly after the murder. Faced with this testimony, coupled with the longstanding belief of many for years that Ben Ali had been set up and the fact that Byrnes had been removed from office for corruption, Ben Ali was released after serving 11 years and left for his native Algeria shortly afterward.

Although no conclusive evidence proved that Jack the Ripper was responsible, the case remained unsolved nonetheless. If the murder was committed by Jack the Ripper, the culprit could be George Chapman, a Ripper suspect who may have moved from London to the US at roughly this time, although recent research suggests that he only moved to the US after this murder. More likely would then be Francis Tumblety, an already popular Ripper suspect who had returned to the US on 24 November 1888.

peoplepill.com

Gravesite Details

https://www.casebook.org/victims/carrie.html


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  • Created by: Lance
  • Added: Apr 30, 2012
  • Find a Grave Memorial ID:
  • Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89386829/ellen_caroline-brown: accessed ), memorial page for Ellen Caroline “Carrie Old Shakespeare” Brown (1834–24 Apr 1891), Find a Grave Memorial ID 89386829, citing Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts, USA; Maintained by Lance (contributor 47786092).