Among other suggestions I have received from correspondents was one from a minister requestin’ that I should not omit in these reminiscences an allusion to what is known as the Jeffards-Walton murder, the story of which goes to prove that though a notorious criminal did escape a charge for a murder on an alibi, an avengin’ Providence brought him to grief at last.
This allusion to Charles Jeffards brought up the whole story of the murder, or rather the two murders he committed. This Charles Jeffards was one of the “boss” criminals of his time, and the story of his double crime, his double escape and his punishment at last is very interestin’.
Charles Jeffards was not a bad lookin’ young fellow and belonged to a respectable family. He had been well educated and loved his mother very dearly. This is about all the good that can be said about him. He had a terrible temper, loved rum, was addicted to gamblin’, was a first-class liar and only cared for himself, and for his mother just so far as she was a part of him and because the lady herself worshiped him and did everythin’ he wanted.
This mother had married a second time–married a man in pretty good business, called Walton, with whom she didn’t get along very well; perhaps if it hadn’t been for Charles Jeffards she might have got along better with Walton. But Walton and young Charles were all the time quarrelin’, and of course the mother took the part of her son, right or wrong, and that embittered the husband against the wife. So at last the two separated, and a suit for divorce was pendin’ between ‘em.
About this time Charles Jeffards was boardin’ at a small hotel in Brooklyn near the South Ferry. One Saturday night he got drinkin’ heavily, and then the devil came to him in drink and he determined to get rid of the old man Walton forever. He took a loaded pistol with him and came over to New York, loafed round till midnight and then hid behind a tree in Eighteenth street, near Third avenue, on the road old Walton would have to pass on his way from his place of business–where he always stayed late on a Saturday night–to his home.
It was a cold night in the early part of January, just nineteen years ago, and Jeffards shivered as he waited behind the tree. But he didn’t have to wait long. Pretty soon a heavy step was heard approachin’. Jeffards recognized the step and knew the figure of the comin’ man. The step grew heavier; the figure came closer; old Walton passed the tree. Then Charles Jeffards stepped out, and drawin’ his pistol, takin’ deliberate aim, fired a bullet right through old Walton’s brain. The man fell dead with only a faint groan, and Jeffards, frightened for the moment at his own devilish success, fled for his life thinkin’ at first no one had seen him but the Almighty, who don’t count when men are committin’ a murder.
But a man, a married man, I believe, called Matthews, had been passin’ on the other side of Eighteenth street, and saw the deed. He gave the alarm and chased Jeffards. Matthews was a strong fellow and a good runner and gained on Jeffards.
For a minute more or so, Jeffards ran fast and Matthews ran faster. Then all of a sudden Jeffards stopped, drew his pistol for the second time in three minutes, took aim at Matthews, fired, and Matthews fell dead upon the sidewalk.
In less than five minutes Charles Jeffards had put two murders on his soul.
By this time the firin’ of two pistol shots had alarmed the neighborhood, and quite a crowd had collected. “Murder!” was shouted, and six or seven men chased Jeffards, who gave himself up for lost, though he still kept runnin’.
All of a sudden he came to fence round the corner. He jumped the fence and hid behind an area on the other side of the fence, while his pursuers passed him down the street. A servant girl in the second story of a house opposite saw a man jumpin’ the fence, but she didn’t know what it was all about just then.
Jeffards waited two or three minutes, till the crowd with some distance away, then he leaped the fence into the street again and ran to Fourth avenue; then he jumped into a car goin’ up-town, not havin’ yet made up his mind where to go. Then another horse car came along goin’ down-town, and by this time he had made up his mind just what to do, so he jumped on this second car. He rode in it all the way down to the Astor House, though every minute must have seemed like an hour, and when he reached the Astor House, he ran down Broadway, along Whitehall street to the South Ferry. The ferryboat was just leavin’ the slip, but Jeffards gave a jump and got on board. He was in luck that night–murderer’s luck–and got to his hotel in Brooklyn very speedily.
Havin’ reached his hotel, he quietly dropped into the office, asked carelessly what time it might be, lingered a minute, took a partin’ night-cap and went to bed, just as if he had been spendin’ the evening with some friends, or at the theatre.
The next day the Sunday papers were full of the double murder, and some of the articles hinted strongly about the ill-will between Charles Jeffards and his step-father. These hints grew stronger every day, and at last Jeffords resolved on a bold step. Knowin’ that he was suspected, but calculatin’ that he could prove an alibi, he put on the airs of an innocent man, and surrendered himself for trial.
After a long while he was tried for the murder of Walton; but, what with his giving himself up voluntarily, and the fact that the servin’ girl who had seen him jump the fence wouldn’t swear to his identity, and James T. Brady, his counsel, insistin’ that he was seen at his hotel in Brooklyn so very short a time after the murder in New York, the jury couldn’t positively make up their minds that he was guilty, and so acquitted him.
Nelson J. Waterbury was the prosecutin’ attorney in this case, and he was honestly convinced that Jeffards was guilty. He did all he could to prove it, too. Among other things he undertook to show that Jeffards’s Brooklyn alibi didn’t amount to anythin’, because he (Waterbury) got a man to go from Third avenue and Eighteenth street, by the Fourth avenue cars, to South Ferry and the Brooklyn hotel in one minute less than the time between the murder of Walton in New York and the time Jeffards entered his hotel in Brooklyn; but somehow the jury didn’t see Jeffards’s guilt as Waterbury did.
Jeffards and his mother were of course highly pleased with the verdict, and went to Long Island to spend the Summer.
But Waterbury’s blood was up, and although Jeffards had escaped as far as the murder of Walton was concerned, the District Attorney made up his mind that he should yet swing for the murder of the man Matthews. And he was not going to have any slip up this time; he would get all his evidence in advance and make a sure thing of it.
So he hired a man belongin’ to the Eighth Ward, a man who wanted to make a name as a detective, and set him on the track of Jeffards. It was the Eighth Ward man’s first detective case of any account, and he determined it should be a success.
He fixed himself up as a gentleman of leisure on a jaunt to the country, got a lot of gunnin’ and fishin’ traps, and started for the place where Jeffards was stayin’ on Long Island.
The very first man he met in the country was Jeffards himself, whom the Eighth Ward man recognized from the description he had of him from the District Attorney.
“Is there anythin’ about this place to recommend it in the way of sport, sir?” asked the Eighth ward man of Jeffards.
“Plenty,” answered Jeffards, who, like all city men who have to stay in the country, was glad to meet a stranger from town; “plenty.”
“Then I guess I’ll stay,” said the stranger; and he stayed several weeks.
Durin’ this time he and Jeffards were always together. The murderer took quite a shine to the detective, and introduced him to his mother, who took quite a fancy to him, too, and treated him very kindly for her son’s sake. Now, in novels the mother would have had a sort of instinct or fear which would have warned her against the spy who was trackin’ down her son, but in this real case the mother didn’t have nary an instinct.
One day the stranger and Jeffards went on a fishin’ excursion and Jeffards got very drunk. The stranger kept him soaked with liquor and plied him with all sorts of questions, which he had prepared for the occasion. Jeffards in his cups, like a fool, let the whole matter out–made a clean breast of it to his companion, boastin’ of escapin’ the law just as if it was a good joke. The Eighth Warder pretended to look upon the matter as a good joke, too, and the two returned from their fishin’ spree the best of friends.
But that very night the Eighth Warder sat down and wrote the whole account of Jeffards’s confession to the District Attorney, and the next day he got a chance to mail the letter unnoticed, under cover to another party in New York, who was to receive the note and hand it to the District Attorney.
Then the Eighth Warder returned to Jeffards and took him on another fishin’ frolic, got him drunk again, and got some more facts out of him as to where he got his pistol and where are the pistol that had killed the two men was at that very time.
Then, havin’ got the life of her son in his keepin’, the spy spent a quiet evenin’ at Mrs. Walton’s, or Mrs. Jeffards’s, played a game with her, and took tea at her house–a pretty rough thing even for a spy to do. But then he was actin’ in the interests of justice and for his own interest beside.
In a few days he got an answer to his note from the District Attorney, tellin’ him to return to New York and bring young Jeffards with him.
The Eighth Ward man pretended that he was called back at once New York on urgent private business, but said that as he had been treated so kindly by Jeffards he would like to return his hospitality. So he invited Jeffards to accompany him to New York.
Now, in a novel the mother would have had a presentment sure not to let her son go to New York. But in this case of real life and crime the mother didn’t have any presentiment of danger at all, and the Eighth Warder and Jeffards started off for New York together.
Jeffards, as he left the quiet country place, looked back at it a moment, and waved his hand to somebody. He didn’t think that that was the last time he should ever see the place.
When they got to New York, on a Saturday night, the Eighth Warder said that he wouldn’t do much with his business matter till Monday, so he proposed to Jeffards that they go on a spree. You see it was the spy’s point to keep Jeffards drinkin’ all the time, so as to keep him from suspectin’ anythin’, and to set him a-talkin’ more freely about himself and the murder. It may sound strange that a pretty smart man like this Jeffards should give himself away this way to a stranger, but just such strange things do happen, and nothin’ is strange when a man drinks.
The murderer and the spy went on their spree and took in some drinkin’ houses along Centre street. Pretty soon they passed the Tombs. The spy thought that the murderer would want to avoid his former prison, but it was just the other way. Jeffards took a whim he would like to see “his former hotel,” as he called it, and insisted on stoppin’ at the Tombs and showin’ his companion all through it. The officers at the prison, who, of course, remembered him and his case, humored his whim, and the two men were shown all through the prison. Jeffards went into the cell as a visitor which he occupied as a prisoner, and seemed to enjoy this new state of things very much.
Not very far from the Tombs was a drinkin’ saloon kept by a man named Walton, a brother of the man Jeffards had murdered. Nothin’ would do for Jeffards but that he and his friend should stop to take a drink in this very saloon. This was the height of imprudence with a vengeance, and so the saloon keeper Walton thought it. He recognized Jeffords at once, refused to serve him with any liquor, and told him to get out of his place. The spy advised the murderer to leave, but Jeffards was too full of bad liquor and bad temper to take any advice. “D–n you,” he said, rushin’ on the saloon keeper. “I killed your brother and I guess I’ll kill you.” So, drawing a pistol he always went around with, he pointed it at the saloon keeper’s head. If the pistol had gone off then Jeffards would have been for the third time a murderer. But the spy did a good thing just then. He took Jeffards pistol from him, took out the ball, and then let him have the now harmless pistol. Then he managed to get Jeffards out into the street, leavin’ behind him in the bar-room two or three men who remembered his words, “I killed your brother.”
The murderer and spy kept up their spree all night, Jeffards little thinkin’ that it was the last “free” night of his whole life.
On Sunday (the next day) all the arrangements havin’ been made, just as the murderer and the spy came out of a drinkin’ shop called “The Store” in Bleecker street, an officer with a warrant stepped up to Jeffards and arrested him for the murder of the man Matthews.
“They’ll hang me this time,” said Jeffards to his “friend,” who still pretended to be his friend, and to console him on his way to prison.
When they reached the Tombs the warden passed in Jeffards, of course, but refused to admit his “friend.”
The murderer, who had by this time taken a great fancy to the spy, took this refusal of the warden very much to heart, and plead so strongly that the warden at last passed the spy in, too.
Once in the prison, Jeffards for the first time seem to realize how much he was at the mercy of his “friend,” and begged him for God’s sake not to tell the authorities what he, Jeffards, had told him.
The spy of course promised the murderer he would not breathe a syllable of it all, and then went right away and saw the District Attorney.
Jeffards for a while boosted himself up in the prison with his belief in “murderer’s luck.” He had already escaped bein’ caught once, and escaped bein’ convicted once–perhaps he would escape this last time.
But when his friend turned against him, and all his own confessions were given to the jury, it was all over, and he was sentenced to be hung by the neck till he was dead.
But “murderer’s luck” hadn’t quite forsaken Charles Jeffards even yet. His counsel applied to the Supreme Court for a new trial. This took some time. Then when the Supreme Court refused the application his counsel carried the case before the Court of Appeals. This gave Jeffards several months more of life and hope. And by the time the Court of Appeals decided that he must die, a law had been passed givin’ every criminal under sentence of death a year first before his hangin’ in State Prison.
In fact, Charles Jeffards remained several years in State prison, and he might have escaped bein’ hung altogether, but retribution overtook him in a way he didn’t look for it.
One mornin’, in a fit of passion, he quarreled with a fellow convict and tried to kill him. The convict protected his life, and finally killed Jeffards by knockin’ him on the head with an adze. Jeffards was buried like a dog, and the man who killed him was never punished for puttin’ him out of the way, he bein’ held justified for what he did.
So murderer’s luck forsook the murderer at last.
[Editor’s notes: The name of the “spy” was William B. Moore. For his work on the Jeffards case, he was named a detective in the NYPD, and worked in that office through the 1860s and 1870s. He then left the department to become treasurer for a theatrical troupe. In 1883, Moore gave an interview in which he claimed that Jeffards was not only guilty of the Walton-Matthews murders, but that he was also the killer of Dr. Harvey Burdell–one of the most sensational murder cases of antebellum America. Moore claimed that Jeffards was motivated by his affair with Emma Cunningham, the woman tried for that murder (and acquitted).
