Schenectadians who had been shocked to learn, back on June 19, 1914, of the discovery of a woman’s torso in a weighted burlap sack submerged in the Mohawk River just downstream of where the new sewage treatment plant was being built, beyond Freeman’s Bridge, must have been relieved to learn a day later that police were on the trail of “a well-dressed young man who, on May 20, rented a boat of Claude Hanlon.”
The AP reported “The stranger loaded a burlap bag and a piece of concrete into the boat just before starting. The torso was wrapped in such a sack and weighted down with concrete. A section of rope which was tied around the bag is declared to have been cut from the boat. Hanlon recalls the appearance of the man distinctly and thinks he was not a resident of Schenectady.
“For several hours before renting the boat the stranger sat on a bench near the river carefully guarding the burlap bag. Finally he approached Hanlon and declared he desired to rent a boat to go fishing. As it was a cold day and no one was fishing Hanlon remarked on this, but the man made no reply. He was not provided with poles or tackle.”
Apparently the stranger deposited the burlap bag and a piece of concrete in the boat, and rowed off, and Mr. Hanlon thought very little of it. Though the stranger left in daylight, and hadn’t returned with the boat when Mr. Hanlon went home at midnight, the boat was at the dock the next morning. “Nothing about it indicated that it had been used on a fishing excursion.” And yet Mr. Hanlon, who lived on Governors Lane in the Stockade section, didn’t say a word until the bag was found by fishermen nearly a month later.
The police had a shadowy suspect, and no real idea who the victim was. “The suspicion that the torso might be that of May Kaeda, 16 years old, who disappeared from her home here four weeks ago proved unfounded today. She was found at a hotel, where she is working. It developed to-night, however, that Sarah Meader, 25 years old, has been missing from the home of her uncle, Thomas McDowell, here for about a month. Police are investigating this case.”