Richard Demandy held as the Denver Strangler for the Mysterious Murders.
April 19, 1895, Headlight, Deming, New Mexico – The fiendish crimes of the Market street strangler will be released in the criminal court here. Richard Demandy will be placed on trail for the murder of Lena Tupper. Whether or not this Frenchman is guilty of murders that resemble the work of Jack the Ripper in the White Chapel district of London will be decided by a jury. The district attorney claims to have startling evidence that will prove as conclusively as is possible by circumstantial evidence that Demandy at least strangled the first victim.
A tragic feature of the case that may play an important figure in the trial is the information gathered from the racings of Demandy’s beautiful sister, Madame Fouchett, who suddenly became a maniac several weeks ago. It is claimed that she lost her reason brooding over her brother’s arrest. She was taken to the county hospital and detectives have been there for hours listening to her demented and somewhat incoherent talk. At times she would break out in denunciation of Demandy’s accusers and talk of the crimes. At other times the ghost of one of the strangled women seemed to appear to her and she would suffer the wildest delirium.
The trial will probably occupy about two weeks. The defense alone has summoned 45 witnesses.
The Denver Strangler was an unidentified serial killer operating in Denver, Colorado from 1894 to 1903. He was responsible for killing three prostitutes in the span of 10 weeks in 1894, and although many suspects were arrested, nobody was convicted of any of the murders. The Strangler is also supposedly responsible for the 1898 murder of clairvoyant Julia Voght and 1903 murder of Mabel Brown, but this remains only speculation.
