19 April 1920
LUNATIC KILLS DR. JAMES W. MARKOE AT SERVICE IN ST. GEORGE’S CHURCH; WOUNDS
DR. G.E. BREWER AND J.M. JONES
CELEBRATED SURGEON SHOT
Tragedy Occurred as Dr. Markoe Was Passing Plate.
BULLET GRAZES AN USHER
Dr. Brewer Shot in Leg Grappling with Assassin He Had Chased Into Park.
DID NOT KNOW HIS VICTIM
Slayer Just Escaped from Insane Asylum - An Army Deserter Suffering from Cancer.
Near the close of the morning service in St. George’s Protestant Episcopal
Church, Stuyvesant Square, yesterday, a lunatic, recently escaped from an asylum,
arose from a seat toward the rear of the church, fired a revolver and mortally
wounded Dr. James Wright Markoe, the celebrated surgeon, who was walking up the
aisle bearing a collection plate.
A second shot grazed the cheek of J. Morgan Jones an usher, and a third barely
missed Herbert L. Satterlee, brother-in-law of J. Pierpont Morgan, who also was
carrying a contribution plate, walking by the side of Dr. Markoe. Later when the
man was caught outside the church he wounded Dr. George E. Brewer in the leg.
Dr. Karl Reiland, rector of the church, whose congregation includes many men and
women prominent in New York, had just preached a sermon making an earnest appeal
to his parishioners, asking them to be friendly to strangers visiting the
church. No one could know, he said, how lonely and oppressed a stranger sitting
beside one might be and how far a kind word might go.
The organist began pealing out the offertory anthem, and vestrymen walked up the
aisles to make the collection. The lunatic, who was a stranger to all in the
church, was seated about the twelfth row from the rear. He fired at Dr. Markoe
without a word.
Dr. Markoe fell with a wound in the forehead. The stranger started up the aisle,
waving his revolver from side to side. John C. Tiedeman, sexton of the church,
blocked the man’s way. He fired another shot. The sexton dodged and the bullet
grazed the cheek of J. Morgan Jones, an usher, who was behind the sexton and
lodged in the oak panel on the south side of the church.
The stranger then fired another shot, which chipped a bit of plaster from the
rear wall and ran into the street. The organist kept on playing.
Capture of the Lunatic.
William Fellowes Morgan and other members of the congregation,
including
Dr. George E. Brewer, F.H. Kinnicutt, Robert H. Fowler, Dr. Morton S.
Paton, Mr. Satterlee and the sexton, pursued the lunatic, who fled through
Stuyvesant Park.
Mr. Morgan and Dr. Brewer were the first to reach the fugitive. Mr. Morgan
clutched him so tightly that the man was unable to pull the revolver out of his
inside pocket, so he pulled the trigger inside his coat. The bullet set fire to
his coat and inflicted a flesh wound in Dr. Brewer’s leg.
The lunatic was overpowered and gave the name of Thomas W. Simpkin, of Duluth,
Minn. He told the police he had escaped from an insane asylum. In his possession
the police found writings which caused them to conclude he was suffering from
religious delusions and that he was obsessed about the League of Nations and
profiteering.
Tragedy Just After Sermon.
Dr. Reiland’s sermon was from Ephesians, fourth chapter, eighteenth verse.
The text was : “Ignorance of God, through a darkened understanding and blindness
of heart.” The rector advised the congregation to be friendly to every stranger
who came into the church, to talk to the visitors who attended the services.
Christian courtesy was the main theme of his discourse.
“We know very little frequently of how oppressed and lonely someone sitting
beside us might be,” the minister said. “A kind word to such a person carries so
much cheer and accomplishes so much that a Christian should extend his hand
whenever possible, and do whatever possible for strangers.”
Dr. Reiland said that he might even ask the members of his congregation some day
particularly to speak to those sitting beside them, even though they were
strangers, and to extend to them the hand of Christian fellowship.
It was just after the sermon that the tragedy occurred. It took place at
12:20 P.M. in the south aisle. The church faces on Rutherford Place between
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, the entrance facing east. There are two
aisles. The north aisle parallels Seventeenth Street and the south aisle
Sixteenth Street. Mr. Satterlee walked up the south side of the south aisle
nearest Sixteenth Street passing the collection plate to the worshippers in those
pews. Elbow to elbow with him was Dr. Markoe, passing the plate to the people
sitting on the north side of the south aisle.
When Dr. Markoe approached quite close to Simpkin, two or three feet, witnesses
said, the lunatic reached into his inside coat pocket, pulled out the revolver, snapped
it to position like an experienced marksman and shot the physician. The
collection plate with the money on it clattered to the floor. Mr. Tiedeman, the
sexton, heard the report from where he stood in the rear of the church.
“It sounded like an automobile backfire,” he said, “but it was louder than that.
Then I saw the smoke. I rushed down the aisle and saw a man coming toward me
waving a smoking revolver from one side to the other. He fired a shot at me and
I dropped to the floor. The bullet grazed the cheek of J. Morgan Jones, who was
right behind me in the aisle. The man fired another shot, and when I got up he
was running into the park opposite. He ran diagonally across the park toward an
exit at Fifteenth Street and Second Avenue. As he approached the gate some
people were coming in. He swerved to the left and started crossing a grass plot.
“By this time Dr. Brewer was close to him, and with Mr. Morgan and others
seized him. Dr. Brewer grabbed him by the right arm, and as he did so the man
fired a shot. The bullet grazed Dr. Brewer’s side. Then Patrolman William J.
Burns of the East Twenty-second Street Station came up, and the man, who said
his name was Shelley, begged us to let the policeman take him.”
The church was crowded at the time of the shooting and the worshippers were so
affected by it and by the continuation of the service that all except those who
chased the fugitive remained until the end.
Dr. Markoe’s wife was in the gallery of the church when her husband was killed.
From where she sat she did not see the shooting, but heard the revolver shots.
“Is anybody hurt?” she asked Morton Payton, a friend, who witnessed the affair
and who went to her immediately.
“Yes, your husband,” he said, and escorted her to the hospital. She is now
prostrated and under care of a physician at her home, 12 West Fifty-fifth Street.
In spite of the excitement in the church while the tragedy was in progress,
the service was continued. The organist played the offertory anthem to the end,
the choir and congregation joining. Dr. Markoe smiled as he was being carried to
a waiting automobile and said, “I’m all right.”
The Doxology was rendered. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” sang the
congregation. Dr. Reiland’s voice shook as he spoke a prayer. The worshippers
bowed their heads. The rector uttered the benediction. When he ended the people
filed out calmly. Only when they reached the street did some members of the
congregation emerge from the daze into which the tragedy plunged them. Friends
of the physician wept in the street.
Dr. Markoe died soon after reaching the Lying-in Hospital, over whose destinies
he presided for many years and which he was instrumental in having the late J.
Pierpont Morgan erect. The hospital is within a stone’s throw of the church,
almost diagonally opposite, at Second Avenue and Seventeenth Street. Dr. Markoe
had been a vestryman in the church since 1889. He was the physician of
J.P. Morgan the elder.
Dr. Charles Norris, the Medical Examiner, performed an autopsy on the
physician’s body and said that the bullet penetrated the brain, fracturing the skull.
It entered above the left eye and flattened out.
A Canadian Army Deserter.
From letters found in Simpkin’s valise at the Pennsylvania
Station it appeared that he had a friend in the Government Printing Office at
Washington. The police thought he had once been employed in the office. He said
that he arrived in New York at 6 o’clock yesterday morning, checked his bag at
the station, had breakfast, and then went to Dr. Reiland’s church.
Simpkin first gave the name of Thomas W. Shelley. Later he said that Shelley was
his wife’s name. He said he was born in England and came to this country
seven years ago. His effects showed that he was a deserter from the Canadian
Army. He is about 5 feet 4 inches tall, with a pinched haggard face, thin gray
hair, smooth shaved and pale blue eyes that constantly shift. He appeared to be
anxious to answer all questions that were put by detectives and other officials,
and spoke in a high and querulous voice.
Asked whether he was an I.W.W., Simpkin said : “ No. They don’t take brains into
consideration.”
Simpkin said that whenever he came to New York he was accustomed to drop in at
one of the churches and said he visited St. George’s a year ago. It was only
chance that led him into the church yesterday, he said. He is 42 years old, and
was an inmate until recently of the Williamburg Eastern State Hospital,
Virginia. He had cards bearing the name of Thomas W. Simpkin, “representing
the Swift
Country Printing Company and the Clerkhover Banner.”
In his suitcase was a card addressed to him at the Sheltering Arms Hospital,
Richmond, Va., dated March 4, 1920, and written by J.R. McCullagh of 3308
Fourteenth Street, N.W., Washington. The card gave the address of the “Hon.
Clarence B. Miller, 1921 S Street, Washington, N.W.” He also had a draft
registration card that was signed by the District Board of Bariboo, Sauk County,
Wis., made out to Thomas W. Simpkin, and dated Sept. 12, 1918.
A long letter from McCullagh told of gossip in the Government Printing Office
and spoke of Secretary Daniels’s visit there.
At the West Twenty-second Street Station, Simpkin told a rambling story, jumping
from one topic to another, and gave a garbled version of Dr. Reilland’s sermon.
Excited by Rector’s Metaphor.
“During the sermon, I heard the minister say that all the
trouble in the world is due to money and that the people should wake up, even if
you need to stab them with a dagger.” he said.
“I thought this was the right time to wake them up, so I shot a man near me.”
Detectives asked him if he knew Dr. Markoe or bore the physician any grudge.
“No, I never saw him before in my life,” he replied. “Any man who had been there
would have got the same thing.”
When he was pressed to tell why he went to St. George’s Church, he said : “ I
just wanted to listen to the services. That’s all.”
As for the revolver, he said : “Oh, I had that a very long time. I always carry
it with me. I escaped from the hospital on Thursday.”
When Assistant District Attorney Dineen questioned him further concerning the
shooting and Dr. Markoe, Simpkin said : “I never knew him, so help me God."
Had Love Letter and Tracts.
Many letters, a great jumble of religious tracts and newspaper
clippings on profiteering were found in Simpkin’s suit case. There were
some letters written from 5,118 Peabody Street, Duluth, Minn., signed “Girlie,”
and addressed to “Dear Daddy.” One letter said : “You say you will
have to give me up or you will give yourself
up as a deserter. You know they are now drafting in Canada up to the age of 40.
“Yes, Daddy Simpkin, we were surprised to hear you had been in the war.”
The letter concluded with the words, “With lots of love and kisses from me and
the babies. Your Girlie.”
The letter was written on Jan. 9, 1919 and was received by Simpkin at the
Sheltering Arms Hospital, Richmond, Va.
On a piece of manilla paper was scrawled an emblem that looked like a snake,
but was meant to be a family tree of the Simpkin and Shelley families. It bore
the caption “The Rattlesnake.” The sheet of paper bore the words, “Fifteen
points of peace.” On another piece of paper were scrawled some paragraphs on
Christ, who was referred to as “she.” The writing said : “She was found in the
manger. She was a feminine.”
A bulletin of St. George’s Church, dated March 9, 1919, was also in the bag.
Simpkin said he attended the church on that occasion, and that there had been a
discussion on the League of Nations.
Simpkin told the police that he brought his wife and two children to Canada from
London seven years ago. As he was about to sail overseas, at the outbreak of the
war, with a Canadian contingent, he received word that another child had been
born. Thereupon he asked to be transferred to an organization stationed near his
family, but was refused because he was “too valuable a man.”
Tells of Desertion from Army.
“I figured that if I was too good a man for the outfit to lose,
I was too good for my wife to lose,” continued Simpkin. “I jumped the outfit and
entered the United States, and later brought my wife and children over. Here I
took my wife’s name, Shelley, and wandered about as a tramp printer for a while.
I was a member of the typographical union.
“About two years ago I escaped from the insane asylum at Fergus Falls, Minn.,
after trying unsuccessfully three times. Six months later I went to Gary, Ind.,
and there bought the revolver, I have carried it with me ever since.
“They say there is a physical cause for every mental reaction. I was
tubercular first and they cured me of it. Then I got cancer of the stomach and I
was operated on for that. I guess those are the causes. The operation for the
cancer was performed at the Eastern State Hospital, Williamsburg, Va., from
which I escaped on Thursday. I went to my old room at Richmond, got my suitcase
and gun and took the train here. After paying for my ticket to New York I had $3
left. On the train up from Virginia I scratched my initials on each of the
bullets I had in the gun.
“The preacher in his sermon at the church told them to be good to strangers but
no one spoke to me, and I resented it.”
Simpkin is locked up at Police Headquarters on a charge of homicide.
The piece of paper in the maniac’s possession said : “President Wilson says that
all people who talk are fools. Let them talk and you will hear what fools they are.”
William Fellowes Morgan’s Story.
Mr. William Fellowes Morgan, one of the vestrymen who was taking
up the collection, gave an account of the tragedy yesterday as he saw it.
Dr. Markoe and Mrs. Herbert L. Satterlee, Mr. Morgan said, were taking up the
collection in the south aisle of the church. A man sitting about twelve pews
from the end, he said, drew a revolver and shot Dr. Markoe in the eye. He then
fired another shot which lodged somewhere in the walls of the church, and then
began brandishing the revolver in order to keep the members of the congregation
at bay who stepped out into the aisle in effort to capture him, and dashed to
the rear of the church.
When the assailant reached the back of the church he fired another shot and
dashed out of the door. Mr. Morgan and Dr. George E. Brewer were taking up the
collection in the center aisle and seeing the man dash from the church ran after
him. The fugitive ran down Rutherford Place with Mr. Morgan and Dr. Brewer close
behind. When the fugitive reached Stuyvesant Square Park at the end of the
street Mr. Morgan and Dr. Brewer succeeded in capturing him.
While the lunatic was running from the church he concealed the revolver beneath
his vest, and when Mr. Morgan and Dr. Brewer captured him he thrust his hand
beneath his vest in an effort to draw the gun and fire at his captors. Mr.
Morgan seeing that the man was trying to draw his weapon held tightly to his
right hand while Dr. Brewer held the fugitive by the left arm. When the lunatic
saw he could not draw the revolver he fired through his clothing, the bullet
just grazing the leg of Dr. Brewer. Mr. Morgan then grasped the man’s hand and
wrenched the gun from him. By this time a large crowd had gathered and the
police reached the scene and subdued the assailant.
At the time of the tragedy, Mr. Morgan said, Dr. Reiland ran to the rear of
the church after the fugitive and learning of Dr. Markoe’s death returned to the
pulpit and informed the congregation of what had happened and the services went
on quietly without any disorder.
The tragedy occurred, Mr Morgan said, just after Rev. Dr. Karl Reiland, rector
of the church, had finished a sermon urging his congregation to be friendly and
neighborly towards one another. During the course of the sermon, Mr. Morgan
said, Dr. Reiland said, “It is unfortunate sometimes that some people need a
shock or blow for them to realize their responsibilities.” Before the sermon, Mr.
Morgan said, Dr. Reiland made a plea for money and urged the congregation to
subscribe $1,000 for some industrial work in the church.
Mr. Morgan expressed the theory that the assailant of Dr.Markoe interpreted the
word “shock" in the sermon for “shot,” and was overcome with a sudden fear that
he was going to be shot, and while Dr. Reiland was asking for subscriptions for
an industrial work of the church the crazed man interpreted the word “work” for
“wealth,” and was probably harboring a grievance toward the wealthy class and
interpreted Dr. Reiland’s plea from a radical standpoint. With these
thoughts in his mind during the rest of the service, Mr. Morgan said he believed
that when Dr. Markoe reached the crazed man’s pew he thought he was about to be
shot and became excited and fired the fatal shot.
The tragedy unnerved Dr. Reiland, but he was not overcome by it until he reached
the rectory, next to the church, following the service, where he almost
collapsed.
Dr. Reiland Visits Hospital.
He made a visit to the hospital and met Dr. McPherson, who
succeeded Dr. Markoe as head of the institution. He was informed that Dr. Markoe
was dead. The rector returned to his study and spent the rest of the day pacing
up and down in his room. When seen there by a reporter, he said that the service
was continued to the end, after the tragedy, and denied an earlier report that a
panic occurred. He refused to say anything further, except that : “It was the
quietest thing you ever saw.” He begged to be excused from further
interrogation.
Dr. Markoe’s daughter Annette was married in St. George’s Church on May 4, 1918,
to William Jay Schieffelin, Jr. The couple are in the West and Mr. Schieffelin’s
father telegraphed them yesterday.
During the service the church was crowded with men and women prominent in the
social and financial world, who make up one of the wealthiest congregations in
New York. Among the members of the congregation are George W. Wickersham, Henry
Monroe, Robert Fulton Cutting, Charles G. Burlingham, H. H. Pike, Dr. E.
Livingstone Hunt, Montgomery Jones, Theodore H. Price, F.H. Kinnicutt and J.
Pierpont Morgan. Mr Morgan did not attend the service yesterday.
The crowd gathered around Simpkin when he was caught, but no effort was made
by anyone to attack him after he was disarmed. Mr. Jones said that it was
fortunate that he fell into the hands of gentlemen who did nothing to him except
take away his gun and turn him over to the police.
The Lying-In Hospital was erected by J.P. Morgan, Sr., through his friendship for
Dr. Markoe. Until a year ago Dr. Markoe had been actively engaged in the
management of the institution.
The organist who had the presence of mind to continue the offertory anthem was
George Stafford, who is a trainer for the Police Glee Club. Dr. Markoe had been
a vestryman at St. George’s since 1889.
None of the ushers in the church remembered seeing Simpkin enter. He attracted
no attention and took a seat quietly on the aisle. There was nothing about him
that attracted the attention of anyone in the church until he was seized by the
maniacal desire to shoot and whipped out the revolver. He wore a dark suit,
neatly brushed, a pair of yellow shoes, a light shirt with a soft collar and a
maroon-colored tie.
Deputy Police Commissioner Frederick A. Wallis took charge of the examination of
Simpkin and the investigation of the shooting. At Police Headquarters the
prisoner, who was charged with homicide, told a story substantially similar to
that he told at the police station.
Bishop Burch Praises Dr. Markoe.
Bishop Charles S. Burch of the Episcopal Diocese of New York was
appalled yesterday afternoon when he heard of the tragic death of Dr. Markoe. “The news
came to me just as I was leaving St. Bartholomew’s Church after preaching at a
service of the Girl’s Friendly Society,” said the Bishop. “It cast a
shadow over all of the clergy there,” said Bishop Burch.
“I knew Dr. Markoe and had the highest regard for him. The last time I saw
him was on Palm Sunday, when I confirmed a class at St. George’s.
“Dr. Markoe was a faithful and untiring worker in St. George’s Parish. He
will be greatly missed.
“Dr. Markoe had been a lover of humanity and he was always active in hospital
and humanitarian work. It is significant that his death came in the hospital he
founded. He was a member of the Serbian Relief Committee, a man of high
character and highly regarded by all who knew him.”
The question has been raised as to whether St. George’s Church will have to be
reconsecrated because blood was spilled. The highest authorities were consulted
and the answer was that it was not known, inasmuch as the Protestant Episcopal
Church had never been face to face with such a question before, no murder having
taken place within her walls so far as could be recollected.
The rule in the Roman Catholic Church is that if blood is spilled the interior
of the sacred edifice must be immediately closed and no service permitted until
it has been reconsecrated, the idea being that the place is unholy.