The 3-X Murders

"Brooklyn Standard Union," June 18, 1930, via Newspapers.com

A major reason serial killers such as Jack the Ripper, “Son of Sam,” and “Zodiac” have gained legendary fame is the fact that they (allegedly, in the Ripper’s case) wrote cryptic, taunting letters to the public, thus adding an element of mystery and intrigue to their evil acts.  Curiously enough, however, the murderer who wrote arguably the weirdest messages of all soon became almost forgotten.

The night of June 11, 1930, kicked off an eerie reign of terror in New York City.  19-year-old Catherine May and a grocer named Joseph Mozynski were sitting in Mozynski’s parked car on a street in Queens.  Then a man suddenly walked up to them and shot Mozynski dead through the open window.  The assassin then calmly pulled May out of the car and walked her to a bus stop.  Before leaving her there, he gave the girl a sheet of paper, warning her not to read it until the following day.

"New York Daily News," June 20, 1930

The paper had the name “Joseph Mozynski” rubber-stamped in red ink.  Under it was stamped “3X” and “3-X-097.”  Unintelligible as this message was, it did make it obvious that this was no random crime; the grocer had, for whatever reason, been targeted in advance.  The paper’s watermark failed to provide any clues to who might have bought it.

Shortly after this, the murderer began sending the “New York Evening Journal” letters signed “3-X” that were as verbose as they were bizarre.  He claimed to be “the agent of a secret international order” who had shot Mozynski in order to obtain “international papers” the grocer supposedly had in his possession, but, alas, his victim was not carrying them at the time.  Most alarmingly, “3-X” asserted that he would soon kill again in Queens.  His intention was to murder thirteen men and one woman.

If 26-year-old salesman Noel Sowley and 20-year-old Elizabeth Ring were aware of this ominous warning, they seem to have ignored it.  This was unwise.  On the night of June 17, the couple was sitting in Sowley’s car on a deserted back street in Queens, not very far from where Mozynski had been murdered.  (Although Ring had recently married, she and Sowley--an old flame--continued to see each other.)  A stranger walked up to the car, pointed a gun at Sowley, and ordered him to produce his driver’s license.  After studying it, the man announced, “You’re going to get what Joe got,” and fired two instantly fatal blasts into Sowley’s head.

As had been the case in the previous murder, “3-X” treated the female witness with a curious sort of gallantry.  After depositing a newspaper clipping about the Mozynski murder into the dead man’s pocket, the killer shepherded Ring to a bus stop and gave her yet another paper.  It was stamped in almost identical fashion as the paper he had given Catherine May.

"Brooklyn Times Union," June 18, 1930

Tests proved what everyone already suspected: that the two men had been killed with the same gun.  May and Ring described the murderer as about 5’6”, with a strong accent--Ring thought he was German.  He was in his thirties, with a thin face and “peculiar teeth.”

"New York Daily News," June 19, 1930

The day after Sowley’s murder, “3-X” sent the “Evening Journal” a note announcing that he was about to murder a man in College Point, Queens.  Naturally, that entire area quickly became what the “New York Times” described as “an armed camp.”  The streets of the Queens were packed with over 400 plainclothes detectives, two thousand patrolmen, and bands of motorcycle, auto, and gun squads.  It was the largest manhunt the NYPD had seen up to that point.

The police presence backfired by being just too obvious.  The murderer may have been insane, but he was obviously not stupid.  “3-X” was nowhere to be seen.  The police could only throw up their hands and warn couples to avoid parking in isolated streets--advice which was, at this point, probably superfluous.

On June 18, John Gallagher, the chief detective in Queens, received a 3-X letter:

For your information, one more of J. Mozynski’s friends was sent to meet him.

V-5 Solwey was shot near Floral Park and not very far away from police signal station.

I enclose the two empty shells--some of our money was found on his person and the N.Y. document.

The girl was, as in the case of Miss May, put aboard a bus and sent home--but no clues were left for you this time.  Thirteen more men and one woman will go if they do not make peace with us and stop bleeding us to death.

P.S. These facts have been disclosed to the New York Evening Journal.

The letter also mocked the police for failing to capture him.  As indicated in the note, the killer sent a similar letter to the “Evening Journal,” as well as Catherine May.  “3-X” told the “Journal” that “The young lady involved in this case is a victim of unfortunate circumstances.  Her story is clean.  I happen to know something of what happened Wednesday night.  Mozynsky was a rascal.  He had important papers belonging to us.  We feel sorry for his wife and children, but is for the best that they shall not know what he was.”

This remarkably wordy killer sent yet another letter to the police advising them that he had revised downward his projected death toll; he would murder only seven people instead of fourteen.  The maniac also warned that Mozynski’s brother would be killed if “the secret papers” were not returned.  The understandably terrified Mozynksi family insisted to detectives that they had no idea what the killer was talking about.

“3-X” then sent the “Evening Journal” his longest and nuttiest letter:

Dear Sir: "V. R. V8 of C. P. has returned the Philadelphia XV346 to me tonight after reading your paper--also 37,000 dollars of the black mail money--thanks to God--if I may use his name.

This means the following persons will be spared:

W. R. VS College Point.

S 12 College Point.

K 2 Brooklyn.

Z 3 (the woman in question, the tall blonde).

M 6 N.Y.C.

XX V (NYC Police Dept. Detective).

The following document still is missing--NJ 4-3-44--and 39,000 dollars for this document, the following people still are marked for death:

X-14.

X-7.

X-21. 

X-1.

Y-2. 

Y-4. 

L-6.

All initials withheld--too much of a clew for the super detectives of Bayside.

Mozinsky's number was R-9.

Sowley's number was X-4.

Please print this final message to the seven men left on the death list:

N. J. CCK-2-33-VV 3-K-RQS-4MLT-R. P. 49-6.

As in the Mozinski case, the girl with Sowley was sent home. She, also, proved to be an iron woman. I had to put the gun close to her breast to quiet her. She even tried to start the car.

But when I told her I would fire she then, to my surprise, began to say her prayers, and to prepare herself for death.

This saved her, as God is the only one I fear, and I could not shoot a woman showing such courage.

Both Miss Catherine May and this young lady are splendid women--I never thought there were such women in this life.

Well, I have told you that J. Moissett was innocent. Who was right? I repeat it again. Miss Catherine May is innocent. I have written to her mother about it. Here is something to prove it. On the night Mozynsky was shot I told Miss May that I was after some important papers.

I told her Mozynski had them, but I could not find them. I told her that Mozynski 'was a blackmailer and a drug peddler. I also asked her if she knew Mozynski and she told me no, that he just picked her up for a ride.

So I thought the girl would be o.k. and I burned some papers near the car, they were envelopes addressed to Miss Catherine May, but stained with blood so as not to leave any clews against the girl as I did not want her to suffer on account of me.

But it seems she forgot her coat and that's what lost her. Well, the poor girl is in a terrible mess now but I will do all I can to prove her innocent.

The shooting of Sowley should show it by now, and also a second warning to the rest. I know who the other girl is, and where she lives, and, as she happens to be of good family, she has nothing to fear, I never will reveal who she is. I have never seen women act like that before.

As for the detectives, and their commanding officer, to my estimate well, what's the use?

Sorry for them that's a black mark against them. But they never will find out who I am. One word from any one means death or a long term to state or federal penitentiary. Again thank you for your kindness.

I told Sowley's lady friend that we knew who we were after. No one needs fear me, only those marked for death, and I hope they heed the warning. I will not shoot any until they decide their own fate. I am only too glad to give them a chance.

I have been in the war. in the very thick of it, but to kill like this is terrible, but it had to be done.

We trailed Sowley as we knew he was in the habit of taking his girls there. I was on the highway waiting for him with A2 and M2 with M5 were trailing in our car behind. Sowley must have recognized me as he tried to run me over.

His business--you would like to know--well, here it is, everything--there is money, easy money, in it.

Does it not seem funny that both Mozinski, R9, and Sowley, X4, were very mysterious? Both are ladies’ men--and it takes a lot of money these days to keep ladies going.

There is a dead account in a Flushing bank, the money belongs to Mozinski. but it is not under his right name. We know where they got the money from. I did not like to shoot.

But, I sent a code signal for mercy.  Unfortunately the answer came back from the car “No--fire.” I had to obey, or get it myself. You see. I have turned up the king of diamonds.

A V 3 X)

P.S.S. Later I will explain the meaning of the triangle and the V.

This masterpiece of Crazy certainly drew a great deal of attention to the killer, but--even though his letters indicated he must have genuinely been somehow acquainted with his victims--they were of no help in establishing his identity.

On the night of June 19, hundreds of police again patrolled the streets of Queens in search of “3-X.”  At around 10:30, Morris Horwitz, president of the Municipal Underwriters insurance firm, sat in his car outside his Brooklyn home, talking to his wife, Rose, who was sitting on the porch.  Suddenly, a short, blond, “crazy-looking man” forced his way into the car.  He ordered Horwitz to move over to the steering wheel, “start the car and keep going.  If you don’t, I’ll shoot you.”  Before Horwitz could comply, the man shot him in the shoulder and fled.  Thankfully, Horwitz survived his injuries.  It was unknown if this was yet another attack by “3-X” or just a random robbery attempt.

“3-X” informed the “Evening Journal” that he had murdered one Harold Bridenbach (code name “X8W-9”) and that the body could be found on the Boston Road in the Bronx.  No body was found on the Boston Road, and, as far as the police could tell, no such person named Harold Bridenbach even existed.  The handwriting on the letter differed from the previous “3-X” letters, so it is possible this message was just an example of the sick hoaxes that surround all notorious crimes.  This was followed by a letter in the now all-too-familiar “3-X” writing threatening to kill actress Margalo Gillmore.  Fortunately, this plan was never carried out.

On June 21, the prolific “3-X” wrote the “Journal” that they would hear no more of him.  His work for the “Russian Red Diamond Society” was complete, and he was about to fly back to Europe in a secretly chartered airplane.  “Three X is no more,” he proclaimed.  “My mission is ended.”

In his farewell message, the killer claimed to be an ex-German army officer who during WWI, served in the Wilhelm St. office, Berlin.  He explained his coded signature.  “The first sign means A, the supreme tribunal of the order.  The second V it’s secret agent.  The two combined form the Red Diamond of Russia, a secret order all over the world.  Anyone breaking its rules is marked for death.”

He went on to say that the men he murdered had been dismissed from the order for treason.  One of his victims stole certain documents and tried to use them to blackmail certain of the Red Diamond agents in America.  “3-X” had been chosen by the order to punish, and, if necessary, kill the traitors.

On June 19, he explained, he recovered the documents he wanted, making it unnecessary to commit the third murder he had planned.  He added, “I am deeply sorry for having stained your country with blood...Quiet your people and tell them 3 X is no more.  If any more letters come they are fakes.  I am leaving today on my way back to Russia.  Please note I do not write U.S.S.R.  We do not recognize them.”

The murderer again paid tribute to the courage of Catherine May and Elizabeth Ring, and expressed how wounded he had been when one of the women described him as having “fish eyes.”  “I have no fish eyes--the police have fish eyes.”  He “signed” the letter “H.P. 12. W.A.”

Despite receiving this entirely rational and believable explanation for his actions, the police continued their hunt for “3-X.”  Who knew who might be designated next as a traitor to the Red Diamond.  For some time, they pursued increasingly weak leads.  Several days after the killer’s swan song, a drifter named Dewey Ede told police that at a restaurant outside of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, he met an oddly talkative stranger.  The man’s wallet contained a bunch of papers written in code.  According to Ede, his new friend confided that he had murdered two men in Queens and tried to kill a third.  He claimed to be “3-X,” chosen assassin of the Red Diamond of Russia.  He was on his way to Harrisburg, and then to New Orleans, where he would take a boat back to his homeland.  Ede’s description of the man matched those provided by other witnesses.  Was this “3-X,” or had Ede invented a nifty way to get his name in the newspapers?  No one could say.  It’s a very odd story, but then, we are dealing with one very odd killer.  Several men who, for various reasons, aroused the suspicions of the police were taken in for questioning, but May and Ring did not think any of them could be “3-X.”

On June 23, it briefly looked as if the murderer had broken his promise to leave the country and kill no more.  The police received a letter, purportedly from “3-X,” threatening to kill a Brooklyn man named Meyer Newmark if Newmark did not turn over document “U.J. 4-3-44.”  The coded signature differed slightly from earlier letters, but the handwriting seemed similar.  Fortunately, Newmark--who professed to have no idea why he was being targeted--remained unharmed.

The case faded from the newspapers until October 1931, when the police received a note warning “I am back.  I will pay every cop a visit.”  Handwriting experts believed it was a genuine “3-X” message.  If such was the case, the killer again failed to go through with his threat.

This proved to be the last anyone heard from “3-X.”  No one ever managed to even find a plausible suspect for these extraordinarily strange murders, and at this late date, it is virtually certain that no one ever will.

The "Servant Girl Annihilator"

Jack the Ripper is an enduring monument to the powers of a good press agent. The anonymous fiend's lingering, and likely eternal, stature as history's most famous serial killer obscures the fact that he was hardly unique in his era. Just four years before Jack began his murderous spree in the East End, the women of Austin, Texas suffered through an equally brutal and mystifying reign of terror. And yet, this string of unsolved murders is relatively unknown.

On the night of December 30, 1884, a cook named Mollie Smith was lying asleep next to her common-law husband, Walter Spenser. Someone broke into their bedroom and knocked Spenser unconscious with an ax blow. When he finally, painfully came to, he saw that Mollie was gone. Her body was found lying in the snow behind the home of her employers. She had been raped, after which some heavy implement had been used to bash her head in. On May 6, Eliza Shelly, who was also a cook for a prominent Austin family, was found on the floor of her home. She had probably been raped, and an ax had nearly split her head in two.

On May 23, Irene Cross, another domestic servant, was attacked with a large knife which nearly scalped her. She briefly survived the attack, but was unable to give any information about her assailant.

In September 1885, another servant named Rebecca Ramey was sleeping quietly with her eleven-year-old daughter Mary. During that night, someone broke into her home, knocked her unconscious, and dragged Mary to a washhouse in the backyard, where the girl was raped and fatally stabbed in the head.

This crime was soon followed by a multiple attack, on Gracie Vance, her boyfriend Orange Washington, and Lucinda Boddy, a friend of Vance's who was unlucky enough to be a houseguest of the couple. As the trio were sleeping in a shanty on the property of Gracie's employer, someone came in and smashed Washington's head in with an ax. Boddy was then struck in the head and raped, but she survived the attack. The killer then forced Vance to her employer's stable, where she was raped and beaten on the head with a brick until she was dead.

Austin was naturally horrified by this series of baffling, gruesome killings, but as the victims had all been working-class African-Americans, the white elites felt little sense of personal peril. As if to mock this attitude, the killer soon shook them out of their complacency. On Christmas Eve 1885, Susan Hancock, a white woman who moved in Austin's most elegant society, was discovered by her husband in their backyard. As was the case with most of the earlier victims, she had been sexually assaulted, and then her skull had been crushed by an ax. Just one hour later, the naked body of a beautiful young socialite named Eula Phillips was found in the alley behind the home of her father-in-law, in Austin's most expensive neighborhood. Someone had dragged her from the house to this dark spot, raped her, and split open her head with an ax. Inside the home, her husband, Jimmy Phillips Jr., was found knocked unconscious. Their little boy, who had been in the bedroom with them at the time of the attack, was unharmed.

This slaughter of two of the city's most prominent citizens made all of Austin half unhinged. People gathered together in panic, scanning the headlines that screamed of this "horrible butchery." Men and women armed themselves to the teeth. Others, in the belief that such a savage and mysterious murderer must be some sort of demonic entity, spent their nights lighting candles and praying for divine protection.

The day after Hancock and Phillips were killed, over five hundred of Austin's leading citizens gathered together to find some way to fight back against their invisible tormentor. Many plans were suggested, from using large lamps to light the city at night, to putting all Austin under lockdown, but no one could really agree on what to do. It was many years before the phrase "serial killer" would even be invented. Such an unprecedented, almost supernatural series of motiveless killings was beyond their comprehension.

As it happened, any action would be irrelevant. After the killings of the two high society women, the butcher of Austin vanished. It seemed as if having made his point that no one in the city was safe from him, he felt his work was done. However, the climate of fear and anger that was his legacy took years to fully dissipate.

Investigators continued to do their utmost to find the murderer, but the Austin police force of the day was clearly out of their league in dealing with a murder spree of this magnitude. Unfortunately, they were fixated on the theory that a black man must have committed the killings, which led to a long persecution of the city's African-American males. Virtually every black man in Austin was treated like a suspect. Race relations in Austin, which had, before the murders, been relatively progressive, quickly deteriorated, as many whites convinced themselves the bloodbath was proof that blacks were hopelessly uncivilized.

In January 1886, the hunt for the killer took a startling turn. The husbands of the last two victims, Jimmy Phillips Jr. and Moses Hancock, were arrested for the murders of their wives. The theory was that the two men had--utterly coincidentally--chosen the same night to kill their spouses in a way that would look like they had been victims of the murderer of the black servants.

Although the victim's spouse is traditionally the first prime suspect, the case against the men was ridiculously weak. The closest thing to hard evidence brought against Moses Hancock was a letter Susan had written him months before her death. It said that she loved him, but could no longer tolerate his drinking. The DA argued--with absolutely nothing to back it up--that on Christmas Eve, Moses got drunk, and in a rage butchered his wife to prevent her from leaving him.

As for Jimmy Phillips, the 23-year-old was quite the local playboy, a dissipated sort who enjoyed drink, playing the violin, and the company of the ladies. On a far darker note, he was said to be a mean drunk who abused his wife when he was under the influence. Eula--who had married Phillips in 1883, when she was only fifteen--was so miserable with her husband that she reportedly tried to induce an abortion when she was pregnant with their second child.

Eula Phillips

Another detail emerged about the Phillips marriage that must have really made Austin society gasp and reach for the smelling salts: In the months before her death, Eula had taken to regularly visiting Austin's most high-class house of assignation. The home, operated by a May Tobin, was a meeting place for expensive prostitutes and their clients, as well as adulterous lovers. The last time Eula visited Tobin's was on the very night she had been killed. It is not clear whether Eula visited the house because she was carrying on illicit love affairs, or if she had turned to prostitution to make some money independent of her husband's allowance.

May Tobin--no doubt to the secret horror of many of Austin's upper-crust--was said to have told nearly all she knew to the authorities, including the names of Eula's visitors. Among those names was William J. Swain, who was no less than Texas' state comptroller and a favorite to become the state's next governor. According to Tobin, several other prominent Texas politicians were among Eula's lovers. Rumor had it that Tobin was blackmailing many other influential men in exchange for her silence about their visits to her house.

Despite the scandalous revelations, the evidence presented against Phillips at his trial was, to say the least, weak. The prosecution argued that Eula, realizing that her husband had learned of her many infidelities, had armed herself with an ax for self-protection. Phillips raped her, after which she struck him on the head with her weapon. He seized the ax and used it to kill her. He then hauled the body into the alley, in the hope that it would be seen as the work of the servant murderer. The defense countered this theory by demonstrating that a bloody footprint found on the Phillips back porch could not have been made by their client.

Despite the dubiousness of the case against Phillips, the combination of powerful motive and his history of brutal behavior was enough to cause the jury to find him guilty of Eula's murder. However, six months after his conviction, the state's Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, citing lack of evidence. They ordered a new trial, but the DA evidently decided it was fruitless to pursue the case against Phillips, and he was released.

The trial of Moses Hancock was no more successful. After his daughter testified that her mother had never even shown him the letter that was, according to the prosecution, his main motive for murder, the case against him collapsed. There was a hung jury, and he too was set free.

Although various other men--most notably William Swain--were suspected of involvement in the killings, no one else was ever charged with perpetrating these singularly ugly and incomprehensible deaths.

Swain's once-invincible political career, unsurprisingly, came to an abrupt end as a result of the Eula Phillips murder. Moses Hancock and Jimmy Phillips both moved out of Austin and started new lives for themselves. The investigation into the crimes, as well as public interest in the string of deaths, eventually came to an inconclusive end. To this day, there are many researchers in Austin who are as obsessed with trying to solve their city's ghastliest crime as "Ripperologists" are with the Whitechapel killings. (Some have even argued--unconvincingly, in my opinion--that the two sets of murders were committed by the same person.)  The latest "solution" to the mystery came in 2014, when the television show "History Detectives" used modern forensic and psychological techniques to suggest the murders were committed by a young African-American cook named Nathan Elgin. In February 1886--shortly after the last of the murders--he was shot and killed by police while he was attempting to attack a woman with a knife. While Elgin is a plausible suspect, unfortunately, we will probably never know for certain if he was one of the 19th century most horrific killers.

We remain as baffled as our ancestors were in those grim days in the mid-1880s.

[Note: Contemporary news reports generally called the killings "The Servant Girl Murders."  However, writer William Sidney Porter--aka "O. Henry"--who was living in Austin at the time of the crimes, referred to the "Servant Girl Annihilators" in an 1885 letter.  In modern times, his more colorful name for the serial killer has stuck.]