Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

The newspapers that demanded justice despite the reputation and character of the girl were spoken of as hounding an unfortunate youth to his grave.

The girl was a common blackmailer, argued some of the righteous, and her violent death was a just retribution for the life she had led. On the whole, it seems that while it was generally conceded that Frank Robinson was guilty, it was thought unnecessary to hang a man for killing such a girl.

The first day of the trial brought out about the same evidence as was given at the inquest. The second day opened with an uproar. A mob of more than five thousand excited men and women tried to crowd into the court room and a special force of thirty deputy sheriffs was ordered out to clear the room.

Not until twelve o’clock was order restored. And then after a consultation with the mayor and other city officials, it was decided to exclude from the room all but the members of the bar and the representatives of the press.

The prosecution now brought before the jury the cloak and the hatchet found in the yard adjoining Mrs. Townsend’s. The coroner said the hatchet had the same red stains when first handed to him, and also a white string tied securely to its handle. The cloak had also a piece of string tied to an inner strap.

And, in the opinion of the coroner, these two pieces of string had originally been one. To him, it looked as if the murderer had carried the hatchet beneath his cloak, and the better to hide it, and to leave his arms free to hide his face, had tied it to the cloak with the string.

When he left the house by the rear door, he had had to climb a fence ten feet high. And so the murderer had flung both his hatchet and cloak over the fence and then vaulted over himself. But possibly disturbed by some noise, he had hurried on, leaving the cloak and hatchet behind.

Sewing for Frank

The officers who had found both these articles and who had later searched Robinson’s room testified that in the latter place they had picked up a pair of breeches belonging to the prisoner.

On the front of the breeches and also on the side of the leg were white stains. And it was here dramatically brought out that the ten-foot fence surrounding the yard of Mrs. Townsend had been recently whitewashed. Any one climbing it would have stained his clothes in just the places that Robinson’s breeches were so marked!

Robinson on the night, or rather early morning of the murder, had, when questioned, denied that he owned a blue cloth cloak. But the prosecution now brought forth a witness who testified that on the night of the murder he had walked up Beekman Street with Robinson and that the latter was wearing then a cloth cap and a dark colored cloth cloak with velvet collar.

On being shown the cloak found in the backyard, he identified it as the one Robinson had worn or else one exactly like it.

Under cross-examination this witness said he lived in the same boarding house as Robinson, that he had often seen a blue cloth cloak in the latter’s trunk and had seen him put on the cloak before they went out together that evening.

Another witness, a companion of Helen Jewett in the Townsend establishment, gave even more convincing testimony as to the connection between Robinson and the cloak found in the back yard.

About two weeks before Frank Robinson had asked her to sew a broken tassel on his cloak. She had taken some braid, not like that used to fasten on the other tassels, and sewed on the loose tassel.

When the Clock Struck Ten

When the cloak was first brought into the house, she had told the officers of the tassel and the braid. And on examining the cloak, they had noticed the difference.

Cross-examination did not shake her testimony, but brought out one more fact that helped to identify Frank Robinson as Helen’s caller that night. When he came, she said, she heard Helen say: “Dear Frank has come.”

A porter in the store where Frank Robinson was the bookkeeper was the next witness called by the State. He swore that the hatchet found in the back yard was the one used in the store. He had not seen it in the store since the day of the murder. The hatchet had some peculiar markings and he was sure he was not mistaken.

The third day opened without any disturbance. A few witnesses were called who identified Frank Robinson as Helen Jewett’s caller on the night of her death.

A drug clerk testified that Robinson had tried to buy arsenic from him in order, he explained, to kill rats. He did not get the poison. Nothing vital was produced, and about noon the prosecution closed its case.

The first witness of the defense offered a perfect alibi for the prisoner. A man who kept a grocery store at the corner of Nassau and Liberty Streets said Frank Robinson came into his store the Saturday night of the murder, bought a bundle of cigars and sat down and smoked there until ten.