Authors: Harold Schechter
Tags: #History, #United States, #State & Local, #Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA), #Psychology, #Psychopathology, #General, #True Crime, #Murder
The Mad Sculptor
Also by Harold Schechter
NONFICTION
The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
(with David Everitt)
Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster
Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America’s First Serial Killer
Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Fiendish Killer
Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original “Psycho”
Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer
Fiend: The Shocking True Story of America’s Youngest Serial Killer
Psycho USA: Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of
Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment
The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why of the World’s Most Terrifying Murderers
The Whole Death Catalog: A Lively Guide to the Bitter End
NARRATIVE NONFICTION
The Devil’s Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial
That Ushered In the Twentieth Century
Killer Colt: Murder, Disgrace, and the Making of an American Legend
FICTION
Nevermore
The Hum Bug
The Mask of Red Death
Outcry
The Tell-Tale Corpse
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 by Harold Schechter
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Publishing, Seattle
Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc. or its affiliates.
eISBN: 9781477850671
Cover design by Rodrigo Corral Design / Rachel Adam Rogers
Author photograph © Kimiko Hahn
Cover art © Superfly Images / Getty Images
In Memory of Harvey Shapiro
Contents
Part III The Shadow of Madness
Cast of Characters
The Beekman Place Murders
VERA STRETZ
, the “Skyscraper Slayer,” mistress and murderer of Fritz Gebhardt.
FRITZ GEBHARDT
, prominent German industrialist with high political ambitions, Vera’s “Nazi Loverboy.”
NANCY TITTERTON
, the “Bathtub Beauty,” editor, writer, murder victim.
LEWIS TITTERTON
, Nancy’s husband, head of the script department of NBC radio.
JOHN FIORENZA
, upholsterer’s assistant, Nancy’s killer.
The Artist and His Mentors
ROBERT IRWIN
, the “Mad Sculptor,” artist, divinity student, mass killer.
CARLO ROMANELLI
, renowned Hollywood sculptor, Robert Irwin’s first mentor.
LORADO TAFT
, famed Chicago sculptor who took Irwin under his wing.
ANGUS MACLEAN
, professor of religious history and future dean at the St. Lawrence University Theological School.
The Irwins
BENJAMIN HARDIN IRWIN
, evangelist, founder of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, philanderer, father of the Mad Sculptor.
MARY IRWIN
, Benjamin’s wife, religious fanatic, member of Florence Crawford’s Apostolic Faith Mission, mother of the Mad Sculptor.
VIDALIN IRWIN
, older brother of Robert Irwin, juvenile delinquent, future inmate of Oregon State Penitentiary.
PEMBER IRWIN
, younger brother of Robert Irwin, juvenile delinquent, also a future inmate of Oregon State Penitentiary.
The Gedeons
ETHEL GEDEON
, older daughter of the Gedeon family, object of Bob’s amorous obsession.
VERONICA
“
RONNIE
”
GEDEON
, party girl, artist’s model, murder victim.
JOSEPH GEDEON
, Hungarian-born upholsterer, head of the Gedeon family, suspect in the “Easter Sunday Massacre.”
MARY GEDEON
, Joe’s wife, speakeasy operator, landlady, murder victim.
JOE KUDNER
, Ethel Gedeon’s second husband.
FRANK BYRNES
, waiter at Manhattan’s Racquet and Tennis Club, boarded with the Gedeons, murder victim.
BOBBY FLOWER
, briefly married to teenage Ronnie.
The Shrinks
FREDRIC WERTHAM
, prominent New York psychiatrist who would treat and befriend Irwin.
CLARENCE LOW
, president of the board of Rockland State Hospital and Bob’s patron.
DR. RUSSELL E. BLAISDELL
, superintendent of the Rockwell State Hospital.
The Cops
FRANCIS KEAR
, Deputy Chief Inspector, NYPD.
JOHN A. LYONS
, Assistant Chief Inspector, NYPD.
ALEXANDER O. GETTLER
, renowned “test tube sleuth” of the NYPD crime lab.
LEWIS VALENTINE
, Commissioner, NYPD.
The Newsmen
WEST PETERSON
, editor of
Inside Detective
magazine, offered one-thousand-dollar reward for help in Irwin’s arrest.
HARRY ROMANOFF
, city editor of the
Chicago Herald-Examiner.
JOHN DIENHART
, managing editor of the
Herald and Examiner.
The Good Samaritan
HENRIETTA KOSCIANSKI
, Cleveland hotel pantry girl who recognized Bob from
Inside Detective
article.
The Suits
SAMUEL LEIBOWITZ
, the “Great Defender,” lawyer for clients ranging from Al Capone to the Scottsboro Boys.
THOMAS DEWEY
, Manhattan District Attorney, future governor of New York and Republican presidential candidate.
JACOB J. ROSENBLUM
, Assistant District Attorney, Dewey’s right-hand man, assigned to try Robert Irwin.
PETER SABBATINO
, lawyer hired by Ethel to represent Joseph Gedeon.
Prologue
268
EAST
52
ND STREET
,
NEW YORK CITY
April
1937
From the window of his rented attic room, he can look across the low rooftop of the adjoining building and watch the hectic scene in front of the police station on 51st Street: the grim-faced detectives shoving their way through the clamorous mob of reporters, the squad cars delivering a steady stream of witnesses and suspects, the neighborhood gawkers jamming the sidewalks. On a couple of occasions, he spots the old man being hustled in and out of the precinct house, doing his best to ignore the shouted questions of the newshounds.
By midweek, his meager provisions, the stuff he removed from their icebox, have run out. He will have to risk a trip outside for some food. Luckily, the scratches on his face have begun to fade. She had mauled him like nobody’s business. Put up a hell of a fight. Must have taken her twenty minutes to die.
He waits until nightfall, then slips downstairs and out the front door. After a hasty bite at an all-night cafeteria, he returns to his room with a sackful of groceries and the final editions of the Mirror, the
Journal,
and the
News.
The papers are full of the story: “The Mystery of the Slain Artist’s Model,” “The Easter Sunday Murders,” “The Beekman Place Massacre.” Not one fails to mention its “curious parallels” to the Titterton killing during Holy Week a year before. Or to the Stretz case of 1935, also in the ritzy neighborhood of Beekman Place.
1
He counts more than twenty photographs of Ronnie in the tabloids, most in cheesecake poses, her nakedness barely concealed by a gauzy, airbrushed veil. By contrast, he finds only a couple of Ethel, bundled in a fur coat, her face drawn, her frowning husband beside her. The grainy pictures do nothing to capture her perfection.
He is sorry to have caused Ethel grief. If she had been home that night, none of this would have happened. Otherwise, he feels not a twinge of remorse. Why should he? They aren’t really dead. Sure, they might be gone from this plane. But their lives aren’t lost. You can’t destroy one atom of matter. How are you going to destroy spirit?
2
He reads about the growing list of suspects—Ronnie’s countless boyfriends, Mary’s former boarders, the Englishman’s shady acquaintances. Every cop in the city is on the lookout for the “mad slayer.” And all the while, he is right under their noses, holed up just a block away. He has made absolutely no effort to cover his tracks. Must have left dozens of fingerprints all over the apartment. Didn’t even bother to go back for the glove when he realized he’d left it behind. The incompetence of the police and their supposed scientific experts amuses him.
Still, he knows it is only a matter of time before his name comes up. By the end of the week, he decides to skip town. Someday, when he has made his great contribution to the human race, he will be able to travel just by visualization. Time and space will mean nothing. For now, he will have to rely on more prosaic means.
On Sunday, April 4, exactly one week after the Easter morning slaughter, Robert Irwin boards a train to Philadelphia.
Part I
Beekman Place
1
Dead End
B
EEKMAN PLACE
—
A TRANQUIL
East Side enclave just north of the United Nations and one of Manhattan’s most exclusive addresses—hasn’t always been home to the rich. Its name derives from the Beekman family, whose American branch dates back to 1647, when the wealthy Dutch merchant Wilhelmus Beekman arrived in the New World on the same ship carrying Peter Stuyvesant. In 1763, his descendant James Beekman built a stately country home on the high bank of the East River at what is now 51st Street. Furnished with costly imports and the handiwork of the finest colonial craftsmen, Mount Pleasant (as the picturesque white mansion was named) was commandeered by the British during the Revolutionary War and used as their military headquarters. The patriot-spy Nathan Hale was tried there for treason in September 1776 and held overnight in the greenhouse before being hanged the next morning in a nearby orchard. Following the war, George and Martha Washington are said to have paid frequent visits to Mount Pleasant, where “Mrs. Beekman would refresh them with lemonade made from fruit which she gathered from her famous lemon trees.”
1
Abandoned by the Beekman family in 1854 when a cholera epidemic drove them from the city, the venerable mansion stood for another twenty years. By the time of its demolition in 1874, the once-bucolic area had been transformed into a stretch of stolid middle-class row houses, bordered by a shorefront wasteland of coal yards, breweries, and so many cattle pens, tanneries, and meatpacking plants that the neighborhood just to the south was known as Blood Alley.
2
Following an evening stroll around Beekman Place in 1871, the diarist George Templeton Strong wryly noted its “nice outlook over the East River,” which included “a clear view of the penitentiary, the smallpox hospital, and the other palaces of Blackwell’s Island.”
3