Strange Times 74: On His Way to the Death Chair

Today brings a single story of a rush to execution in the courts of Perth Amboy. Lawyer up for…

March 15, 1921

• At the White House, President Harding’s dog chases former President Wilson’s cat up a tree.

• A Chicago psychologist claims there has been a 25% increase in insanity over the last year, and blames it on toxic bootleg liquor. 

• Caruso improves steadily, showing no fever and demonstrating a healthy appetite.

• The Weather: Cloudy, with occasional showers, today and Wednesday; moderate temperature; fresh southeast winds.

Before we get into today’s story, a content warning: This article is, even by the very low standards of the 1921 Times, extremely racist. The description of the accused killer (whose guilt the paper does not question), the prosecutor’s promise to have him tried in an hour and executed the next day, the glee with which the Times describes his “brutal imagination,” all of it is sickening, and if you don’t feel like reading that, I don’t blame you.

Despite that content, I decided to share the story for two reasons. The first is the dateline. This is a story about a black man, George Washington Knight, whose arrest and confession inspired his town to “open talk of lynching.” If this were the deep South, that would not be surprising, but this is the north, specifically New Jersey, a region we prefer to imagine as free of the stains of Jim Crow. The second reason is that, as with all similar stories I’ve encountered in the 1921 Times, the echoes of modern news coverage are too striking to ignore.

So read on thoughtfully, and if it makes you feel sick, feel worse because none of this stuff ever really goes away.

PERTH AMBOY, N.J., March 14.—Mrs. Edith Wilson, the girl organist found dead here late Saturday night, died of shock when a drunken negro assaulted her.

The negro, George Washington Knight, 22 years old, confessed after he was seized at his home in Cliffwood this afternoon. Feeling against Knight was so bitter, after news of his capture and confession spread through the town, that he was taken to the county jail in New Brunswick. The streets teemed with open talk of lynching, and there are many here tonight who insist the case would have been taken out of the hands of the authorities had a leader arisen while Knight was still here. 

Reports he received from Perth Amboy late tonight led Sheriff Wyckoff, in New Brunswick, to mobilize seven Deputies and place them on guard under his personal command in the County Jail. He armed them heavily and put two pistols in his own pockets. As a further precaution the heavy outside door of the jail was locked for the first time in many years. The Sheriff declared he believed the force adequate to repel any attempt at invasion. He lives over the jail, but tonight did not retire, remaining on the alert until a late hour.

The County Jail is of the most modern construction and is ideally built for defense, so that a small force could withstand an attacking mob indefinitely. Four or five negroes are confined there for various offenses, and general uneasiness was noticed among them tonight until the Warden had assured them they were in no danger. Police headquarters is just across the street from the jail and a relief party could be sent to the aid of the inside defenders, in case of need, in a few minutes.

Prosecutor Joseph Strickler took special measures to assure the public Knight would get justice without undue delay. The negro was held without bail by Acting Recorder Stephen F. Somoeyi, who, like the police, attested his confession.

Grand Jury Called for Friday

Mr. Strickler immediately called a special session of the Grand Jury for next Friday. He said Knight would be indicted then for first degree murder and would be put on trial on Monday. The trial should not take more than an hour and the negro, it was said, should be on his way to the death chair by noon of that day.

The local police tonight raided the saloon kept by Mrs. Mary Sturm at Thomas and State Streets, where Knight said he bought the gin which inflamed his brutal imagination. A quantity of liquor was seized, it was said, and Isador Klotz, brother of the proprietor, and William Vroncka, the bartender, were arrested on charges of selling liquor in violation of the State law. They were held in $500 bail each. Mrs. Sturm has not been arrested.

Knight was found by detectives, who followed a broad trail opened up by Charles Hauser, a trolley car motorman. When Hauser read of the killing he told the police a young negro whom he knew to be a resident of Cliffwood had boarded his car early Sunday in Perth Amboy. His clothing was streaked with mud and blood and he was restless and excited. He tipped the motorman 25 cents to speed up his car and alighted hurriedly when the vehicle reached Cliffwood.

Stolen Jewelry Recovered

In the home of Mrs. Joe Harris, a negress with whom he boarded, Knight was found. He confessed at once and freely. Mrs. Harris was wearing the dead woman’s diamond engagement ring and gold wedding ring, which Knight had presented to her. A wrist watch that Knight had stolen from his victim was recovered from Benjamin Crenshaw, a negro, to whom Knight sold it for $2.50 on Sunday after Knight lost all his own money in a craps game.

Knight, Crenshaw, Joe Harris, Robert Bates and Roher Faulkes, all negroes, were laborers in the Creighton brick yard. Knight said Bates, Faulkes and Harris, who is the husband of his boardinghouse keeper, all three of whom have been arrested as material witnesses, were with him Saturday night when they drank four pints of gin, which they bought for $2 each, he said, at the Sturm place.

After they had drunk that, Knight left his companions, determined to seize the first white woman he found alone. He prowled along until he came upon the 26-year-old organist and attacked her.

Examination by the County Physician Suydam showed the attack was fiendish rather than degenerate and that Mrs. Wilson’s skull was not fractured as had been suspected. Knight himself said the young woman, whose heart was weak, became unconscious the instant his fingers closed about her throat and never came to.

Husband Hears Confession

Knight’s cold-blooded confession was made in Perth Amboy police headquarters in the presence of Harvey Wilson, a chemist for the Roessler & Hasslacher Chemical Company of Manhattan and Perth Amboy, from whom Mrs. Wilson was separated. The police here had announced that they wanted to question Wilson and had asked the police in several places to look for him. Wilson hurried meantime form New York, explained that he was in a Manhattan club when the crime was committed, and was about to leave when the detectives brought in Knight. It was Wilson who telephoned to his wife’s widowed mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Marshall, that her daughter’s slayer had been found.

Four detectives hurried Knight to the jail from Perth Amboy as soon as his confession was completed. They gave him no opportunity to escape form the automobile. They removed his shoes and stockings before starting and securely shackled his feet and then handcuffed his hands behind his back. The detectives had their pistols ready to repel any attack by indignant citizens, but no one molested them.