Killer Ends Brief Flight Of ‘Broadway Butterfly’

The maid tiptoed into the luxury suite with the high-priced view of Central Park on the morning of Feb. 2, 1924, careful not to disturb Louise Lawson, who always slept late. Rounding the corner into the parlor, the domestic gasped in alarm at the unmistakable signs of a struggle.  American Beauty roses, Miss Lawson’s favorite, were strewn over the expensive Turkish rugs.  Pictures had fallen from the walls and lay broken on the floor next to overturned chairs.

    The maid tiptoed into the luxury suite with the high-priced view of Central Park on the morning of Feb. 2, 1924, careful not to disturb Louise Lawson, who always slept late.

    Rounding the corner into the parlor, the domestic gasped in alarm at the unmistakable signs of a struggle.  American Beauty roses, Miss Lawson’s favorite, were strewn over the expensive Turkish rugs.  Pictures had fallen from the walls and lay broken on the floor next to overturned chairs.

    The frightened woman called out her employer’s name and waited in vain for an answer.  Receiving none she gently opened the bedroom door and stuck her head inside.

    Wearing a pink silk kimono over a blue silk nightgown, Louise Lawson was lying facedown on the lace-trimmed linen cover of the mahogany bed.  Her hands were tied behind her back with strips of silk stocking, and the same material bound her ankles.

    Louise’s pet dog sat in a corner patiently waiting for its own release.  The terrier was anchored to a chair with an improvised rope of shredded cloth rather than its leather leash, which had been used to secure its owner’s right foot to the sideboard of the bed.

    The maid presumed her mistress was only unconscious until she tried to revive her.  A thick bath towel, held firmly in place by adhesive tape, covered the face of the young woman and had suffocated her to death.

    The hysterical maid ran screaming from the apartment and buzzed for the elevator.  Operator Thomas Kane passed the shocking news onto the switchboard, which summoned the police.

    Within minutes the crime scene was crawling with cops.  They found stacks of letters, mainly from men and most of an affectionate nature, and a half dozen framed photographs of male admirers ranging in age from 25 to 60.

    As the homicide squad combed the premises for clues, the telephone rang and the lead investigator picked up the receiver.  The caller identified himself as Gerhard M. Dahl, chairman of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation.

    Two bells went off in the veteran detective’s head.  First, a portrait photo inscribed “Jerry Doll” prominently displayed on the victim’s dresser.  Second, brokerage receipts showing she was the proud owner of $12,000 worth of BMT stock.

    The living “doll” announced he was ready to answer any questions at a nearby restaurant, where he just happened to be dining with his lawyer and a deputy police commissioner.

    During the discussion, which hardly qualified as an interrogation, Dahl filled in the blanks about Louise Lawson.  A native of Alvarado, a small community south of Fort Worth, she migrated to New York in 1918 to pursue a career on the stage and screen.  After six years in the Big Apple, her lone legitimate credit was a bit part in a silent movie.

    Lovely Louise blossomed into a “Broadway Butterfly,” who went to all the right parties and rubbed elbows with the rich and famous.  She had no visible means of support yet lived in the high-rent district with a chauffeured Pierce-Arrow touring car at her disposal and dressed fit to kill in the latest Paris fashions, jewels and furs.

    “Jerry Doll” professed only the purest motives insisting through his attorney that he “had no interest in the girl beyond a desire to see that she got along in her effort to develop her musical education.”  According to the well-to-do executive, 25 year old Louise had returned in recent months to her first love – the piano.

    Thomas Kane told police that two men carrying a brown paper parcel entered his elevator around eight o’clock that tragic morning.  One of them said, “To 56.  We’re expressmen, and we’ve got a package here for Miss Lawson.”

    Louise’s next-door neighbor heard her answer the doorbell and inquire, “Who’s there?”  The muffled response was, “A couple of expressmen.  We’ve got something here for you.”  She threw on the kimono, admitted the strangers and closed the door.  That was the last sound the neighbor reported hearing.

    Twenty minutes later, the elevator operator returned to fifth floor to find one of the deliverymen waiting.  “Miss Lawson wanted Scotch not rye,” he explained confirming Kane’s suspicion that they were bootleggers.

    The first man got off on the ground floor and quickly vanished.  His accomplice, detectives deduced, slipped down the back stairs with the loot – several expensive pieces of jewelry and an ermine coat.

    Whether the thieves planned to kill Louise Lawson all along was a point made moot by her death.  Family and friends, trusting folks who believed her story about striking it rich on Broadway, buried her on Valentine’s Day not far from the house where she was born.

    New York police thought they cracked the case a couple of years later with the bust of a burglary ring.  But the district attorney could not make the murder charge stick, and no ever stood trial for the killing of the Broadway Butterfly.

    Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at haile@pdq.net or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.  And come on by www.twith.com for a visit!