The Cruel Murder of Mina Miller — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Cruel Murder of Mina Miller
John Stuart Mill · en
On Thursday morning he read of the identification, and in H. Luhr’s
liquor store, 587 Tenth avenue, he mentioned that Kenkowsky had known
Mina Muller. Luhr, who knew Kenkowsky, suggested that the description
of the man who was married in Guttenberg tallied with Kenkowsky’s
appearance. Emden made up his mind to see if Kenkowsky was still at
his house, 510 West Thirty-sixth street. As his pretence for calling,
he determined to say that he had a job for the alleged murderer. He
found him in bed, and, when he asked if he wanted the job, Kenkowsky
said that he was engaged as a cook in a Jewish family on Fifth avenue,
and only came home nights. After working hours, Emden went to Capt.
Washburn and informed him of his suspicions, and a policeman was sent
with him to watch the house. In front of the house they found Strang,
the trunkman, who in the meantime had been tracked by Seide. Strang
asked Emden if he could speak German, and, when the latter answered in
the affirmative, requested him to ask the German woman up stairs if
a trunk he was to deliver belonged to her, saying he had left three
trunks there some time previously. Emden went up stairs and asked
Mrs. Kenkowsky if three trunks had been delivered there, and she
said they had not. When Emden came back to Strang with this answer,
Strang requested him to ask again, and this time she replied in the
affirmative; and when Strang brought up Kenkowsky’s trunk, she said, in
surprise: “Why, he told me he had taken it to where he was working in
Fifth avenue.”
Kenkowsky’s wife was found at 510 West Thirty-sixth street. She had
just returned from a visit to her husband in jail. Her eyes were red as
though she had been weeping.
“Philip Emden,” she said, “has been a good friend to me and my poor
little ones. When I told my husband this afternoon in jail that
Philip had been arrested, he threw up his arms and exclaimed: ‘Philip
arrested! Philip, who has always been so good to us? He is innocent,
Katrina, as innocent as I am myself.”
Martin Kenkowsky spent Sunday quietly in his cell in the Hudson County
Jail at Jersey City. He ate his meals regularly and with much relish,
and slept for an hour after dinner. In the afternoon his wife and two
children visited him. He embraced them and had a long conversation with
them in the presence of a turnkey. In the course of their talk the
woman charged him with having stolen a five-dollar gold piece from her
room on the evening of May 3d. That was the day on which the murder
was committed. Kenkowsky admitted that he had taken the money. He said
that after he had left Mina with the two men at Union Hill, he returned
to New York city and went home. There he found the $5 piece, which
his wife had saved, and put it in his pocket. When he was told of the
arrest of Emden he seemed to be very much surprised. He said he knew
Emden, and had become acquainted with him only a short time ago.
“But,” he exclaimed, “he is as innocent as I am.”