Ryan. “Neither victim had a cent on
them, but no robber waits around
long enough to draw red circles on his
victims’ foreheads.”
“That’s true,” said Lieutenant Henry
Flaherty. “But no killer seething with
vengeance or hate would wait around
long enough to empty a purse and a
wallet having committed this carnage.
And no sex fiend would rush off
without assaulting the bodies.”
“It’s too early to theorise,” said Ryan.
“I want every inch of these woods
combed. I need the gun and the dagger
the killer used. Maybe they’re in that
little pool at the end of the lane. Dredge
it.”
By the time Ryan returned to his
office, the bodies had been identified.
Lewis Weiss had been a well-built,
six-foot graduate of Jamaica High
School. An only child, he lived with his
parents in Queens Village and worked
as a clerk with the American Steel and
Wire Corporation which had offices
in the Empire State Building. He was
studying at night to be a civil engineer.
Nineteen-year-old Frances Hajek was
also a Jamaica High School graduate
and an only child who lived with her
parents in Queens Village. During the
day she helped them run their bakery.
At night she attended dress design
and commercial art classes at the
local college. Friends described her as
“bubbly and sparkly, like champagne.”
The first question journalists asked
Ryan was: “Is this the ‘Triple X’ killer
again, inspector?”
Ryan had been wondering the same
thing himself. Triple X had never
been caught and for seven years local
police and residents had feared he
would strike again. Aspects of this new
double-murder, he thought, certainly
resembled Triple X.
During May and June of 1930, a tall,
thin killer had shot three men on three
different evenings. Each one had been
with a girl in a car parked in a secluded
spot.
His first victim, Joseph Mozynski, was
in the driver’s seat with his girlfriend
when the murderer crept
up to the car and shot him
through the head, killing him
instantly. He then pinned a
newspaper cutting on the
dead man’s chest showing a
letter signed “3-X” which
had been received by the
paper three days earlier.
On the cutting the killer
wrote: “Here’s how. 3-X.”
In the
weeks
that
followed,
Triple-X
sent
dozens
of
for his gun.
He then quizzed the hysterical girl
about her religious beliefs, escorted
her to a bus stop, and requested a kiss
goodnight.
Triple X proved the authenticity of
the letters when he wrote to a New York
daily telling them what he had done and
where Sowley’s body could be found.
The postmark preceded even the police
discovery of the body.
A month later he struck again, but
his third victim survived and next
day detectives received a cryptic note
saying: “My mission is ended. You know
what we want you to know. Quiet your
people and tell them 3-X is no more. Do
not let anyone fool you. If any more letters
come, they are fakes. I am leaving for
Russia today. Please note that I do not
say the U.S.S.R. We do not recognise
them. It is settled. Signed 3-X.”
Since then, neither the police noranyone in the close-knit community
of Queens had discovered whether
the killer who called himself 3-X was
a raving psychopath or a spy. With no
closure to the case, people dreaded his
return, and this new horror bore some
of his hallmarks: the boy, the girl, the
parked car on a lonely road, the shots...
But it was different, too. This killer
had murdered the man and the woman,
and used a knife as well as a gun. And
instead of the familiar signature, this
crime bore the macabre symbol of a
crimson circle.
At police headquarters, Ryan
tried to question Frances Hajek’s
distraught mother about her daughter’s
movements the day
she died. Knowing
that the hours after
a murder are crucial
in the process
of detection, he
pressed her harder
than he would have
wished. But she was
incoherent with grief
and only gradually
composed herself
enough to respond.
“Please try and tell
us what Frances did
before she left home,
Mrs. Hajek. The
sooner you can, the
sooner we’ll catch the
murderer.”
Fighting back
tears, she
replied: “At
seven-thirty
on Saturday
night
Frances
went out
and bought
white shoes
to wear at
the Mineola
rollerskating rink.
Then she came
home and waited for
Lewis to call.”
“When did he arrive?”
“He came at eight-thirty and they left
almost immediately.”
“What time did you expect her to
return?”
“They didn’t say, but Frances usually
came straight home.”
At this point she broke down again
and buried her face in her hands.
“She never stayed out late. Never
smoked or drank. She always told me
who she was going out with and where
she was going.”
“Were there any persistent men that
Frances refused to go out with?”
“She had no enemies. Lewis was her
boyfriend.”
“Frances was very pretty,” said Ryan.
“There must have been others.”
“Somebody called her last night and
invited her to a college dance. But she
had to turn him down because she
already had a date with Lewis. Then
there was some guy who fell in loveletters to local newspapers, all saying
he was an ex-German Army officer in
the employ of an international spy ring
called The Red Diamond of Russia.
He accused 13 people of having stolen
valuable papers and swore he was going
to kill them.
At the time, police were unsure
whether the letters came from the killer
or a hoaxer. But six nights later he
struck again. His next victim was Noel
Sowley, a young radio salesman who
was with his date in a car parked on a
dark Queens side road. Triple-X strode
up to the window, tossed a cutting
about Mozynski’s murder on the man’s
lap, and shot him dead as he reachedFrances Hajek and the cryptic
lipstick mark left by the killer on
her brow (above right) using her
own lipstick (below left)