Double Murder For Robbery?
John Favaloro, a Sicilian shopkeeper and his daughter are slaughtered in their home at Perdido St. and Roman St., both being shot through the hearts in expert style, without a clew as to the thieves’ Identity, although negroes in the neighborhood are suspected. The wife rises from a bed at the hospital to visit the scene and says silk and two hundred dollars are missing.

Burglars have given the police a new sensation, for they butchered John Favaloro, an old Sicilian and his daughter, Annie, a girl who had just turned 19 years, some time early yesterday morning in their little living room back of the “quartee“ grocery and fruit shop on Perdido, near Roman street.

The crime upset the neighborhood all yesterday, but in the excitement there was not a man, woman or child who came forward with any story which would help the bluecoats in working out the identity of the villains.  They are only guessing at police headquarters, and in the first precinct station they say that Negroes did the work, and already half a dozen blacks are under lock and key in one of the jails.  Perhaps the guess is correct, but as in all such cases, there are some theorists who cling to the idea that Favaloro’s countrymen had a hand in the affair.

Everything shows that the first and principal aim of the villains was to rob the Sicilians, for they ransacked the little room, and even went so far as to upset the bedclothes in their hunt for money.  Whether they gained any booty or not is a hard matter to say, for old John seemed to guard his business pretty well, and only his wife knew anything about the affairs of the grocery.  But she is confined to the hospital, where she is undergoing a surgical operation and only a word or so was gotten from her before she understood that her husband and step daughter were dead.  After that she became grief stricken, and the surgeons would not bother her with more questions so the police are made to work in the dark.

Back there on Perdido street there are plenty of blacks.  Right next door Negroes resided.  They are the ones who are UNDER SUSPICION and the heads of the police department are not going to let them alone until they find out every movement of Charles Camouche, the Spaniard who works for the Chicago Star, an insurance concern.  He is the head of the house next to the Sicilians, and his little excursion yesterday, which seemed to end only with his arrest, has set the bluecoats to thinking.  And then his mistress left the house before the crime was discovered, and she was gone all day and was only taken last evening.  Then the sister of the Spaniard’s mistress, a toothless yellow woman, played such a part in the whole matter, that the police took her, too, with her black-faced friend, Louisa Hale.

Little or no powers of analysis have been displayed by the bluecoats and it looks more as if the men and women in jail now are under the same sweat holding them with the hope that some word will be dropped to build up a clew which will work against one or all of them.  Quite often the Favaloros complained that they were annoyed by thieves, always negroes, the old Sicilian said, and half of the neighbors out there now agree that some of the ugly blacks shot the old man and his daughter.

Old Favaloro, when he came from Italy, went out into the neighborhood and established himself, first as a fruit peddler, and then as a shopkeeper and since he has been there he seldom got into any trouble.  He married one of his countrywomen and Annie was born to them a little over nineteen years ago.  She was just three years old when her mother died and after a time John married Catherine, the woman who is in the hospital now.

The girl suffered beatings often.  Often she was threatened with billets of woods thrown at her head and the lash of a whip was nothing new to her in the last year or so.  But for all that she stood by her father and shared the miserable living they had in the little house.  Old John could have given both the woman and the girl more comfortable and respectable quarters, for he did well with his small stock and it was the talk among the negroes out there that old John was WORTH A GOOD DEAL OF MONEY.  His thrift helped him save considerable sums and only a short time back he put about $300 in one of the banks.   Whether that has been drawn out or not, no one has been able to tell.

Only Tuesday the woman was removed to the hospital, because she had a serious complaint and Annie assumed charge of the household, to say nothing of helping her father in the shop.  It was something like 10 o’clock when old John and his daughter retired Tuesday night.  The old man took the ill-varnished bed while the girl laid down on the cot which was placed against the window in the rear of the living room which is next to the poorly sorted stove.  Above the cot is a window which looks out on the back gallery.  Going to that gallery is a door which is on a line with the foot of the old man's bed.  As was his wont, old John pulled the batten door on the gallery, made them fast with an iron catch, then the glass doors were locked.  Both slept soundly after that for they were early risers and hard workers.  Just when the thieves made their play for the house is hard to say: it must have been about midnight, for one of the neighbors on Poydras street and another on Roman street had waited up until after 12 o’clock and had  there been a shooting, both men remarked that it could not have been heard for the air was still when they went to their beds.

Evidently the thieves worked their way to the rear of the house by going into the alley that leads to John’s place.  It opens into Roman street.  A stranger in the neighborhood would hardly have found the gate that would take him to the yard of the Sicilian’s home.

“I am convinced that the thieves who ever they were” said a detective, “ENTERED BY WAY OF THE ALLEY, and after the murder and robbery passed out to Roman street.”

Back of the cistern and against the fence that separate the old man’s yard from that of Camouche, were three boxes.  Any one could mount them and climb over the fence and descend to the Camouche yard.

“What significance should be attached to them?” was asked.

“None,” returned the detective.  “First of all, they were there previous to Tuesday.  That ladder has been against the fence for some time.  And admitting that the boxes and ladder were put there for the purpose of robbery, you would naturally suppose that everything should lead up to Camouche.  Well, no one would be more familiar with the open back way than the next door neighbors.  Camouche and his people, and it would be simpler for any of them to walk back into their yard and walk around the rear gallery of the old man.  Then, to get into Camouche’s yard, the thieves certainly must have gone through the alley, and I am thinking that they would not parley around with ladders and boxes when they could have made the walk so much easier and again, who would have piled the boxes in the old man’s yard when the thieves were on the other side of the fence?  I would not look at that for a clew for a second time.”

Going on the rear gallery, the thieves there were more than one, for the bloody work could not be carried out very well by a lonely burglar, pulled at the batten doors and got them open.  Then, the glass of the inner doors were broken.  The lock was handled.

The old man must have gotten up on his elbows then and in the light of the caper the thieves could see him.  To go on with their work, they pushed in and sent a shot for the old man.  That bullet buried itself into footboard of the bed and old John tumbled to the floor determined to fight  the thieves.  He got around to the front of the bed and must have met the thieves at the door.  What ever the struggle was it was short, but during the row one of the thieves broke another pane of glass for the pieces were found on the gallery beyond the door sill.  The girl got to her feet then.  She was just in time to see her father drop with A BULLET THROUGH HIS HEART.  He fell with his right hand clenched, and the left hand was cramped as though he was getting ready to ward off a blow.  Confronted by the thieves, the girl seemed resigned and was willing to surrender, but she must have known the scoundrels, and they were taking no chances with her, and a bullet was sent at her.  That caught her in the heart.  She fell with head close to the fireplace.  Her arms went back of her head.  Her feet were wide apart.  Her petticoat was thrown above her waist.  With the man and the girl dead, the thieves went through the room, ransacked everything and went away.  They never bothered with what was in the store.

In passing out, the thieves left the batten doors open.  They could have remained within the room until almost daybreak, for no one disturbed them and the Camouches next door swear that they never heard the pistol shots, let alone the other racket, although the three shots were fired in rather quick succession.

The finding of the dead was made by an old Negro, Simon Baldwin, a rough carpenter, who had a task of fixing the rear fence of the property which belongs to Mrs. Berkerey.  It seems that there were quite a number of old John’s customers who tried to get into his store to make some morning purchases but they found the place closed and went away thinking that he was sick and did not care about opening the place.  However, Mrs. Berkerey sent her daughter to buy something from old John and when the girl returned saying she could not get in, the little one was sent back to make some inquiries.  She found old Baldwin back in the alley way working on the fence.

“I ain’t seen nuttin’ of him”  remarked the Negro when he was asked about old John.

“See if you can’t find im” insisted the girl.

Baldwin went into the place, calling for the old man, but GOT NO ANSWER.  Then he went upon the gallery and looked through the batten doors.  He nearly fell.  He was horrified to see old John lying on the floor dead his feet almost under the cot where Annie slept.

Baldwin hurried out into the yard and ran over to Roman street, where he called one of the white gentlemen of the neighborhood and asked that he come over to the old man’s house, for he saw John dead.

They went back to the yard, passed on to the gallery and the Negro asked for a match.

“It's dark in there,” he said.  The white man hurried out for a match and in the meantime Baldwin had gotten a candle.  They passed into the room and saw the dead body of the girl.  When they were sure that both the man and the girl were beyond all help, the white man went into the street and notified the police.

The central station was first to get the news.  That was about 10:30 o’clock in the afternoon, and Captain Boyle with Corporal Leroy and several officers, lost no time in getting to the place.  They were followed by Detectives Dale and Roone.  By that time the neighborhood was excited.  Men and women were crowding into the yard and it was as much as the police could do to get in the place themselves.  They began clearing the place, and a call was made for the coroner.  Assistant coroner Mioton, with his men, went to the place,  and after looking at the bodies, ordered the police to take them to the morgue.  The first precinct patrol wagon was called and took the corpses away.  The assistant coroner went through the house with the police and examined the papers and searched around for valuables but nothing of any importance was found, save the insurance policies of the man, woman and girl.  They calied for a small amount all were insured in small companies.

Some of the police suggested that perhaps that the girl had been outraged.  Dr. Mioton satisfied himself on that point and when he finished his examination remarked,
“No, that was NOT A PART OF THE MOTIVE of the crime.” The room was in a bad state.  Ordinarily it is dirty, but when the thieves got through, they scattered dirty clothes everywhere.  The bed was rumpled  and the mattresses were turned.  The clothes chest was wide open.

The police went about the place trying to find some clew, but they gathered nothing, and then Captain Boyle began making inquiries about the Negroes who lived next door.  There was no one in the house.  Patrolmen went out in search of Camouche but none of the neighbors could tell anything about him, save that he works for an insurance company as collector.  The man’s mistress was gone, but the police happened to learn that Ida Olivier was a half sister to Camouche’s mistress and she lived only a half a square from the house where the murders were done.

Captain Boyle got them.  She was flustered and her answers to his questions were not satisfying.  First she said that Camouche was working; then she said that he had gone fishing.  They asked her when she was at the house of her step sister.  She answered that she had been there early in the morning and left with some coffee.  When pressed she corrected herself and said that she returned to the house and saw her sister leave in fact she left the house with her.  Camouche had gone long before that.

The police left her after getting that much, but they did not intend that she should go scot free, for officers were left to keep a watch on her.

Chief Gaster took a hand in the investigations and there were quite a number of conferences with Captain Boyle and one head of the police, and all day stories were worked out in the hope of finding something about the murder.

It was in the afternoon when Assistant Coroner Mioton held the autopsies on the bodies in the morgue.  He first got through with the case of the little boy who was killed by an electric car.  Then a jury was formed and the old man’s body was first put on the table.

The doctor was deeply interested in the work for he was struck by THE SIMILARITY OF THE WOUNDS on both the man and the girl.  His jurymen followed him closely, and when the labor was over, the assistant coroner wrote that both the man and the girl came to their deaths by unknown hands.

In regards to the death of Annie Favaloro, the assistant coroner found that she was killed with a 38 caliber bullet, the same caliber of bullet that killed her father.   The bullet first entered the body one inch to the right and on a line with the left nipple.  It passed from left to right in a downward course, and made its exit below the ninth rib.   In its travel, the bullet pierced the pericardium, the heart and the diaphragm and even cut through the right lobe of the liver.

As in the case of the girl, the old man’s death was instantaneous.  The bullet struck him in the left breast one and one half inches to the left and one half inches below the left nipple.  It went from left to right, downward and backward.  The bullet fractured the seventh rib on the right auxiliary line.  The bullet cut through both lungs, the pericardium and the heart.

Never before in the case of a double murder, has there been such a similarity of wounds.  The man who fired the fatal shots was a good marksman for he struck the heart in both cases.

Assistant coroner Mioton stopped a minute or so in his work when he was examining the body of the old man, to say that the murderer stood away from both of his victims, say about four feet, and fired.
- and fired.
Heart of the old man” the doctor remarked showing the organ to the jurymen “This heart was greatly excited. It was beating at a rapid rate and had the man fired a fraction of a second before or after this old man would be living now.  THE HEART MET THE BULLET in its throbbing and was cut but had the bullet been fired as I said a fraction of a second before or after the heart would have throbbed one way or the other and escaped.  He would have lived and with hard work could have been put on his feet again and then the police would have had a story about the crime.

The bodies were given over to Undertaker, P.J. McMahon, on Dryades, and were dressed there.  They will be buried from his establishment this afternoon.

The police tried to get to Favaloro’s  wife, who was in the hospital in one of the wards waiting to be operated upon.  Dr Bloom, the house surgeon, said that he would try and find out what he could from her, but he would not think of letting anyone interview her because the talk would very probably worry her.  So he went and asked questions.  She gave little or no information - only said her husband was one of the best men in the world and had no enemies.   When the police and newspapermen had withdrawn,  one of the sisters broke the news of the tragedy to the woman and her cries were heard without.

Captain Boyle thought that he would do best by rounding up the Negroes and Corporal Rawlings, Leroy and Smith with several patrolmen went out to the quarter in the evening  and in a little while Ida Olivier, Louisa Hale, Ada White, who is known as McKenna, having lived with a man by that name previous to being the mistress of Camouche.  Then Aristide Solomon and Desire Solomon, two ugly blacks, of Poydras and Magnolia streets were taken.  Just what the police have against any of them is hard to say, for the bluecoats have put them all down as being subjected to the orders of the superintendent of police.

“I think the Negroes know something of this killing” said Captain Boyle, “and with hard work we may be able to trace out who did the shooting.  I am convinced that Negroes did the work and in arresting the mistress of Camouche and her sister, as well as the men, I believe that we have struck people who know something.”

CAMOUCHE WAS TAKEN by Corporal Leroy.  He was brought to the first precinct station and in his talk said the he had gone fishing early yesterday morning – about 6:30 o’clock.  He went out with a friend named De Blanc.  He knew nothing of the tragedy until he returned in the evening.  As for hearing the shots, he says he heard no row of any kind in the old man’s house and altogether he showed no disposition to give  the slightest information to the police.

The woman, Ada White, made several statements but none of them helped the police any, though they are convinced that she is hiding something.

The wife of Favaloro would not stay in the hospital after she heard of the tragedy, and got out of the ward determined to go to her home and see for herself what had happened.  The surgeons and sisters tried to persuade her to stay, but she would not remain.  Doorman John Dantonio, of the superintendent's office, met her, and in talking to him, she said that she was sure the killing was done by the Negroes – the Solomon's.  She said one of them, Desire, was peeking over her fence, and twice before they tried to enter her home and rob the place.

She went to the home with Mr. Dantonio.  In looking around she saw that about $100 worth of silk, which was gotten for her stepdaughter's trousseau, was gone.  Then she had left $200 in the house, $25 of which was in the keeping of her stepdaughter, while the balance was kept by the old man.  This is missing, too.

“They waited until I went to the hospital”, she said, “before they tried to get into the house again.  Had they known I was around, they never would have gone into the place.

The poor woman is heart-broken over the tragedy.  She is now in the protection of her brother, Louis Genovise, who lives on Bourbon, near Conti street.  Besides him she has two brothers in Italy, one of whom is a priest.

With the new information Captain Boyle went at the Solomon’s, and had them admit that they loafed about the corner and went into the yard of the mistress of Camouche.  But the woman denied having seen the men about her place, but when pressed remarked that they could have been in the yard without her knowing it, for they came to her place with clothes several times.

Late last night Captain Boyle had Camouche and his colored mistress, Ada White or McKenna, arrested and got their written statements as to their movements since Tuesday night.  However, nothing in particular was gleaned from this.