130 Years Ago Today : The Murder of Carrie Brown

[Howard Brown]

130 years ago today, Carrie Brown and a man listed on the hotel register by the name of ' C. Kniclo' went to Room 31 of the East River Hotel. She never left the room.
Rest In Peace, Carrie.

[R. J. Palmer]

Hi Howard,

I have nothing of importance to add to your current debate, and I fully realize that 'C. Knicklo' was said to be a fictitious name, but have you ever noticed that there was a 'C. Kniclo' (Carozeo Niclo) who immigrated into New York City from Italy on 15 May 1890--eleven months before the Brown murder? No 'K', of course, but phonetically the same as Kniclo.

From his naturalization papers, he was a laborer who settled in Long Island (across the East River from the hotel), but, having looked around over the years, I have failed to find him in the 1900 Census, etc.

Probably a red-herring, but a slightly odd twist nonetheless. There are blonde Italians.


C. Niclo.JPG

[Howard Brown]

Thanks for that Rajah....I have the bloodhound over here on it and I appreciate you sharing it with us.



Great job, boss.

[Howard Brown]

Almost forgot

This is from the NY Sun ( April 25th).

It's always been a possibility ( imho) that 'C.Kniclo' wasn't actually written that way on the register but guessed at and 'C.Kniclo' is how the 'guesstimate' came out.




Obviously, if this fellow had planned on killing Brown ( IF he was her killer), it is unlikely that he'd write down his real name.

Eddie Fitzgerald was able to write his name and little more....and Mary Miniter, who was not an employee of the hotel, probably (imho) wouldn't write down names in the hotel register. That would have been Tommy Thompson's job...or whoever was managing the hotel that night.

Cannot prove it at this time, Rajah, but I suspect Thompson was one of Byrnes' legion of informants....

[Alan Botter]

Hi everyone, I noticed this post and being Italian I can say that the name "Carozeo" does not exist. I know very well that many Italian names and surnames for an English speaker are difficult to transcribe and in fact, especially at the time, they were crippled. There is the name Calogero, typical of Sicily, which was probably transcribed as "Carozeo". The surname Niclo does not exist, but Nicli does exist. Unless the surname and then the name have been written first and then there are names such as Nicolò, Nicola etc ... and there is the surname Caroleo which could be transcribed as "Carozeo". I also know that there is a stereotype that Italians are all dark and with black hair: this is due to the fact that most of the Italians who immigrated to America came from Southern Italy or Sicily where dark characters are predominant. But above all in the North and in the center there are many blondes and reds of hair and with light eyes (which could be mistaken for Nordic) even if brown or dark brown prevails. Garibaldi and Cristoforo Colombo had reddish-blond hair and were certainly Italians. That said that could very well be a fake name.

[Howard Brown]

Thanks Alan.....nice work !