On Aug. 6, 1927, readers got a double dose of terror in their morning papers. Two violent crimes had disturbed what was usually a mundane aspect of New York City life.
“BOMBS WRECK SUBWAYS,” screamed the Daily News front page. The photos showed the aftermath of two bomb blasts that rocked the I.R.T. and B.M.T. stations at 28th Street shortly before midnight on April 5. The stations were reduced to “a mass of bricks and mortar,” The News reported in a caption under a photo of the destruction.
Then, on page 2, there was another story, linked to the first only by location.
“WOMAN SLAIN IN SUBWAY” was the headline that stretched across the top of the page.
The shooting happened on the morning of Aug. 5 at the City Hall station. No one noticed when it happened. The sound of gunfire probably had been drowned out by the “steady drum of the turnstiles and the rumble of the trains,” The News observed.
At 11:30 a.m., Sarah Lipschitz, 18, entered the women’s restroom in the City Hall B.M.T station.
(News Photo)
Sarah Lipschitz, who found the body in a subway bathroom.
Lipschitz was powdering her nose when she noticed a woman’s foot protruding from below the half door of one of the booths.
She pointed out the strange sight to two other women. One ignored her, and the other shrugged her shoulders.
“It was believed several persons may have passed through the washroom since the shooting without, in the usual rush of subway passengers, noticing anything unusual,” the United Press noted.
Lipschitz peeked under the door, saw a crumpled body and blood on the floor, and ran screaming in search of police.
The medical exam showed that a bullet had entered below the woman’s collarbone on the right and emerged on her left, just under the shoulder blade.
A New York Central Railroad commuter ticket, retrieved from her pocketbook, was issued to Mrs. Emma Weigand. Another slip of paper read, “Admit for operation,” and had the phone number for the Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital on E. 62 St.
Police learned that an Emma Weigand had been to the hospital that day to drop off her daughter, Dorothea, 7, for a tonsillectomy. Weigand, 38, and her children — Ruth, 16, Frank, 14, and Dorothea — lived in the Bronx with her mother, Frieda Ahles, 65. Ahles wept when a News reporter tracked her down and gave her the description of the victim’s hair, facial features, and clothing.
“That is Emma,” she cried.
(Daily News Archive)
Mrs. Emma Weigand
Ahles later positively identified the body at the morgue. “Emma left her husband about two years ago and has supported herself as a milliner,” Ahles told police. “She had no enemies and lived for her children.”
Ahles said Emma and her husband, Frank, 40, split because of his drinking. Frank was brought in for questioning, but he had solid alibis that put him nowhere near the scene. Plus, he had no apparent animosity toward his ex.
“It was too bad,” he said. “She was a nice girl.”
One hundred detectives were put on the case. Robbery did not seem to be a motive because $35 was still in her pocketbook. Someone reported a man running away from the scene around the time of the shooting. But he eluded police.
Theories poured forth, but nothing concrete. It could have been a jealous lover or one of the unsavory characters loitering underground, some suggested. “Degenerates and perverts by the scores have been found in these places,” said Mary Hamilton, who was once in charge of the police department’s women’s bureau. “Too strict a watch cannot be placed on the restrooms.”
Suicide was another notion, but no weapon was found at the scene. This led to some momentary speculation that Weigand had killed herself, and someone came into the restroom and swiped the gun.
By morning, a new possibility had emerged.
“MURDER LINKED TO BOMBS,” was the Daily News page 2 headline on Aug. 7. About 12 hours after Weigand died, a series of explosions rocked the subway stations at 28th Street. There was a possibility, police said, that Weigand had stumbled upon a mad bomber about to set off another infernal machine.
At the time, thousands were protesting the death sentence of two Italian anarchists who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Massachusetts in 1921. The case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had become a “ ‘cause celebre’ throughout the civilized world,” The News noted.
On Aug. 3, Massachusetts Gov. Alvan T. Fuller declared that the trial had been fair and that their executions could proceed. The date was set for Aug. 11.
Strikes and massive protests erupted in cities around the world. Many turned violent, including riots, bombings, and stabbings.
Police suggested that Weigand may have caught a politically motivated subway bomber in the act. But the slim leads to the identities of the people who blew up the 28th Street stations went nowhere, and no connection was ever made to Weigand’s slaying.
By the end of August, detectives were pursuing their next pet theory — death by pervert. One man tried to molest a woman in a subway restroom. The next day, he became the central figure in the Weigand investigation. But they could find nothing to connect him to her death.
(News Photo)
News that a woman had been murdered in the City Hall subway station drew such a large crowd to the subway entrance that police were called to restore order.
The last time The News reported a possible break in the case was in January 1929, when a flapper followed a woman into a subway washroom and tried to assault her.
The “flapper” turned out to be Stefan Wiszuk, 24, a murderer out on parole who disguised himself as a woman. Police tried to link him to Weigand’s slaying, but he was behind bars at the time of her murder.
Emma Weigand’s death remains yet another Manhattan mystery.