The Cruel Murder of Mina Miller — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Cruel Murder of Mina Miller
John Stuart Mill · en
At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the hour appointed for the continuation
of the inquest, a great throng swarmed in Washington street between
Police Headquarters and the Morgue. Kenkowsky was led through this
crowd by Chief Donovan and an escort of policemen. The prisoner’s
appearance was greeted with the same threatening cries that had been
uttered on his arrival in Hoboken, but he bore up against the clamor
with real or well-feigned indifference. When he entered the hall and
was being led to a seat at the side of the Coroner’s chair his eyes
accidentally fell upon the lay figure that had been draped with the
clothing of the murdered woman. When he saw it he averted his face with
a perceptible tremor. He almost immediately recovered his composure and
dropped into his seat.
The Rev. Dr. Mabon, the pastor of the Grove Reformed Dutch Church,
testified: “To the best of my knowledge I think the prisoner is the man
that I married under the name of Louis Kettler.”
Sarah Jane Rigler, who had directed the couple to Dr. Mabon’s house on
May 3, testified: “I recognize the prisoner as the man who was with the
woman who asked me where she could get a minister to marry them.”
John E. Schumann, the barber who had been called in by Dr. Mabon to
witness the ceremony, said that he believed the prisoner to be the man
who was married on that occasion.
Regina Herkfeldt testified concerning her acquaintance with Kenkowsky.
She identified a watch that was produced as the one that he gave her.
On cross-examination she considerably modified her previous account of
the prisoner’s assault upon her.
John E. Luthy, a watchmaker of 315 West Thirty-fifth street, testified
that the prisoner called at his place on May 16 with the watch and left
it there, taking a receipt for it.
Charles H. Peters, a roundsman of the Twentieth Precinct, this city,
testified to a conversation he had had with the prisoner at the station
on the night of the arrest. Kenkowsky admitted to him that he knew
Mina Muller. He at first denied but afterward confessed that he had
given a watch to Luthy to have repaired, and that it belonged to Mina
Muller. He told the roundsman that after the trunks had been taken to
Christopher street, Mina proposed to him to take a walk, and they went
over to New Jersey and visited the Scheutzen Park. They strolled into
a saloon on the Guttenberg road and had some beer. After leaving it he
told her he wanted to go back to New York, and she objected. As they
were talking, two men, he asserted, came along the road. One of them
said to the woman: “Hello, Mina! what are you doing over here?” When he
heard this familiar language he turned to his companion, and said: “If
you are that kind of a woman, I’ll have nothing to do with you,” and
then he parted from her, leaving her with the two men.