1888: Alexander Goldenson, San Francisco obsessive
1 comment September 14th, 2017 Headsman
Alexander Goldenson, an emigre “young, hot-tempered fellow [who] affects the style of dress adopted by the hoodlum element of the rising generation,” was hanged in San Francisco on this date in 1888 for gunning down 14-year-old Mamie Kelly, with whom he had apparently become obsessed. He went to the gallows clutching a photo of his victim — hoping he was about to join her in paradise.*
The story has a timeless quality to it: a smart but disturbed adolescent careening into sexual derangement; a young girl whose first crush became her budding stalker.
It also has a distinct 19th century throwback feel: implausibly esteemed “the first of the Hebrew race who has in this country committed the crime of murder,” Goldenson was the target of a lynching attempt — a would-be revival of a San Francisco tradition from gold rush days. When they finally noosed him under color of law 22 months after the murder, the sheriff issued too many invitations and “the capacity of the jail was overtaxed, many with tickets were unable to get in, and the crowd was one of the noisiest and most turbulent that ever thronged Broadway in front of the old jail.”
Goldenson is the subject of at least two very fine profiles already existing in this vast World Wide Web with ample primary research which we can scarcely hope to improve upon.
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Our longtime friends at Murder by Gaslight profile “The School-girl Murder” here
Shades of the Departed found an intriguing artifact of the crime in an online auction and followed the threads to produce this great three-parter: Part I | Part II | Part III
* He converted to Catholicism hours before his execution, perhaps with this very object in mind. It didn’t work as far as the mortal remains went, anyway: pissed about the conversion, his Russian Jewish mother refused to release his body to the priest for a Catholic burial; and, pissed about the conversion, the Jewish cemetery wouldn’t take him either. He had to settle for the Odd Fellow’s Cemetery.
On this day..
- 1812: Juan Jose Crespo y Castillo, Huanuco rebel - 2020
- 2014: Darfur rebels for killing Chinese oil workers - 2019
- 1568: Jan van Casembroot, Lord of Backerzele - 2018
- 1979: Nur Muhammad Taraki, grandfather of the Afghan War - 2016
- 258: St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage - 2015
- 1814: Not William Beanes, anthem enabler - 2014
- 1459: Pietro di Campofregoso, former Doge of Genoa, stoned to death - 2013
- 1767: Elizabeth Brownrigg - 2012
- 1894: Enoch Davis, like a cur - 2011
- 2000: Cheng Kejie of the National People's Congress - 2010
- 1932: Paul Gorguloff, who assassinated the French President - 2009
- 2004: Mamoru Takuma, for the Osaka school massacre - 2008
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,California,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Hanged,History,Jews,Murder,Sex,USA
Tags: 1880s, 1888, alexander goldenson, san francisco, september 14
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