The 1936 Murder of Nancy Titterton

The year was 1936. Nancy Titterton was 33 years old at the time. She lived at 22 Beekman Place in New York with her husband of seven years, Lewis Titterton, an executive at the National Broadcasting Company. Nancy was a writer and a gifted one at that. The two were very happy and known to be completely devoted to one another. Lewis' world was forever shattered one dreary Friday when Nancy was found murdered in their own home.

Theodore Kruger and his young assistant, Johnny Fiorenza, went to 22 Beekman Place to return a loveseat that they had repaired for the Tittertons. The door was ajar, so Kruger called out Nancy's name. She did not answer and the two gentleman heard the sound of running water. They slowly entered the house and followed the sound to uncover a grisly sight: Nancy was lying face down in an empty bathtub with a pajama top tied around her neck. She had on nothing but a pair of stockings and the shower was left running. Fiorenza phoned the police and Assistant Chief Inspector Lyons reported to the crime scene.

The torn undergarments on the bedroom floor implied that the motive was of a sexual nature. The door showed no signs of forced entry, which suggested that Nancy knew her killer. The initial search of the Titterton home yielded no concrete clues. It was not until Nancy's body was being removed from the tub that the first piece of evidence came to light: a 13-inch long piece of severed cord was found underneath the victim's body.

Marks on Nancy's wrists indicated that she was bound. The killer took the cord with him, but overlooked the small fragment that was hidden under Nancy's body. The knife that was used to cut the cord was found nearby, but there were no fingerprints on it. The fact that the killer brought the cord with him, took it with him when he left, and wiped the knife clean suggested that the attack was premeditated. The killer would not have bothered leaving with the cord had he not felt that it might implicate him. Lyons and his fellow detectives worked to trace the cord to its source.

The cord was the kind used in Venetian blinds and therefore very common. While the police tried to trace the cord, they got another lead: a smear of green paint on the bed sheets. The building was being painted that exact shade of green, which implied that the killer brushed up against the wet paint and unknowingly left some on Nancy's bed. Lyons also began to wonder if the killer could have been one of the four painters who were working in the building. The lead turned out to be a dead end: only one of the four painters was working that day and the other tenants in the building confirmed his whereabouts at the time in question.

Dr. Alexander Gettler, a toxicologist, made an interesting discovery while examining the bedclothes from the crime scene: horsehair, similar to the kind used to stuff furniture. The horsehair was not only used to stuff furniture, but also matched up to the hair used to stuff the loveseat that Theodore Kruger and Johnny Fiorenza repaired for the Tittertons.

Lyons paid a visit to Kruger's upholstery shop. He found Kruger there alone and questioned him about his whereabouts on that fateful Friday. Kruger claimed that he was at the shop working. When asked about the whereabouts of his assistant on the day in question, Kruger revealed some interesting information: Johnny was not working that morning because he had a meeting with his parole officer. Given this new information, Lyons looked into Johnny's past and learned that he was arrested four times for car theft and incarcerated for 2 years.

Lyons soon realized that the day that Nancy was killed was Good Friday. Upon checking he learned that the parole office was closed on Good Friday. Then came the confirmation that Lyons needed to interrogate Johnny: the cord found under Mrs. Titterton was manufactured by Hanover Cordage Company in New York and records showed that a roll of that exact cord was sold to Kruger's upholstery shop. Johnny Fiorenza was brought to the police station for questioning. He was interrogated for nearly five hours before finally confessing that he had become infatuated with Nancy Titterton and went to her apartment early that Friday and killed her. He was found guilty and executed via electric chair at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York.