Murder in Des Moines's Whitechapel District (1902)

Isaac Finkelstein

 Isaac Finkelstein was a bit of a rabble-rouser. One local newspaper described him as somewhat “contentious,” saying he “never hesitated about standing up for his rights.” That may have been because he was a Republican politician on Des Moines’ east side, or maybe the former policeman in him showed through. Whatever it was, Finkelstein constantly urged the police or city officials to go after someone.

He’d been on a one-person crusade for years, trying to shut down Des Moines’ gambling parlors. Not so much on moral grounds, reported The Bystander, but to get revenue for the city. Eight gambling dens currently ran wide open, and the city wasn’t making any money on them. Moreover, Finkelstein believed the gamblers had to be tied in with city officials. Otherwise, the municipality would be getting its share of the take.

The police raided three gambling joints because of his complaints. They arrested fifty-one men, seized $900 for the city, and destroyed $2,000 in gambling paraphernalia.

As expected, Finkelstein made a few enemies, so it didn’t surprise anyone when he turned up dead in an alley on August 5, 1902.

      As was his custom, Isaac Finkelstein visited Max Coplin’s shoe shop on East Walnut Street, across from the East Des Moines fire station. Then, finally, he headed home at about 9:30 p.m., stopping for a moment in front of Kennedy’s Saloon on Fifth and Walnut Streets. Then he continued walking east toward his home at 317 Seventh Street.

A half-hour later, Dan Harkins, E. W. Scott, and two Brucher brothers saw a man lying across the sidewalk near Sixth Street and Walnut. They figured it was a drunk and walked over to see if it was someone they knew. The man had a large gash on his head and was lying in a pool of blood, but he was still breathing.

Harkins went to the drugstore and called Dr. Leir. Leir dressed the wound, but Finkelstein was too far gone. He died within the hour.

Leir said Finkelstein was struck on the temple, just over his left ear. The entire area was crushed. Finkelstein probably would have lived if the blow had been higher up.

Detective Hardin was the first police officer on the scene. He found the murder weapon, a bloodstained three-foot singletree (a bar used to balance the pull of a draught horse), three feet from the body.

Detectives quickly tracked three suspects to Harris Levich’s furniture and second-hand shop. They arrested Levich and two colored men—Butch Dellahoyt and John Walker.

George Huffmire brought his hounds to Levich’s store the following morning, where they were given the scent. The dogs followed it to the alley, turned east, crossed Sixth Street, and went to the Walnut Street end of the alley where Finkelstein was killed. Then, they turned around and retraced their steps to the wagon at Levich’s store.

Harry Levich

That seemed to confirm that Levich, Walker, and Dellahoyt were in on it.

Most of the early evidence was circumstantial at best. Detectives believed that Harry Levich put John Walker (a negro) up to it. Dellahoyt’s alibi checked out, so he was released.

It was believed the killing stemmed from a personal grudge Levich had with Finkelstein. Milton Brackett, Chief Brackett’s brother, and Sergeant Pattee said that “on at least one occasion Levich told of his intention to have a man do Finkelstein up.”

Seven other people overheard Levich talking about getting even with Finkelstein. Three of them heard him talking about having “Finkelstein done up” the day before he was murdered. They implied Walker was the man he hired to get Finkelstein.

Other witnesses connected Levich and Walker, saying they were seen driving together the night before the murder. The following day, Levich bought Walker lunch at an east-side restaurant.

Joe Neyman told detectives he saw a “very black and very burly negro” on the porch outside Hyman Levich’s store. “He was sitting in front of the store but not talking to Levich. He got up and walked down Walnut Street [past the Copola Shoe Shop], nearly to the Northwestern tracks and back, and stood about on the sidewalk. I could not say how long he was there, but it was probably an hour and a half.” Harris Levich sat on the bench from 7 to 10 p.m., so he couldn’t be the guy.

Chief Brackett wasn’t bothered by the testimony showing Levich couldn’t have committed the murder. “We don’t care where Levich was when the crime was committed,” said Brackett. “Our theory of Levich’s connection with the crime is not that he actually committed it.” Instead, they had a different angle on his participation in Finkelstein’s death.

Brackett told reporters they lacked a link connecting Walker to the crime. Levich was friends with several colored men. However, “he’d been heard to say that a negro named Walker was the man he would hire to get Finkelstein.” The problem was the chief couldn’t prove the Walker he had in custody was the correct Walker.

Detectives worked on the assumption that Levich hired Walker to teach Finkelstein a lesson, not to kill him. But unfortunately, the man struck him too hard.

Chief Brackett emphasized the incident came about because of a personal problem between the two men, not Finkelstein’s gambling crusade. A few weeks before the attack, Levich had arranged the bonds of three women held at police headquarters. Judge Silvara refused to accept the property he put up because of a problem with a previous bond. So instead, Finkelstein put up their bonds. Levich refused to return the $15 the women had paid him, which caused some hard feelings.

Not long after that, Finkelstein caused the arrest of a prostitute named Gill, who ran a disorderly house at one of Levich’s properties. Then, Finkelstein threatened to have more of Levich’s tenants arrested, depriving him of the rents at those buildings.

Since then, numerous people had heard Levich say that he would hire someone to do Finkelstein up. Specifically, he said that he would “find a colored man who would do the job for him.”

Another strike against Levich centered around his delivery wagon. Detectives determined the singletree used to kill Isaac Finkelstein came from the delivery wagon at Levich’s second-hand store.

Chief Brackett assured reporters his men were working “incessantly and without proper sleep.” They would solve the case as quickly as possible.

Within days of his murder, detectives learned Isaac Finkelstein had received numerous death threats.

Judge Silvara said he and Finkelstein received threatening letters after the gambling raids. Silvara threw his letters away and advised Finkelstein to ignore them. One of the letters ended by saying, “this is no joke.” And evidently, it wasn’t because Finkelstein was beaten to death by an assassin.

The judge thought Finkelstein’s mistake was walking alone on those dark streets close to the alley. “I always walk on the outside of the walk when passing an alley,” he said, “so that no man can get me without my seeing him coming and having a chance to defend myself.”

Harris Levich was tried and acquitted in November. John Walker remained in jail awaiting trial. Then, in early December, it looked as if Walker would escape going to trial. The county attorney told reporters, “it would be useless to go to the expense of a trial.” They didn’t have the necessary evidence to convict him.

The funny thing is Walker was held in jail while the prosecution built a new case. Then, finally, as the papers hinted Walker would be freed, the state scheduled his trial in February 1903, saying they had new witnesses.

James Walker went to trial in February 1903. He’d been in jail since August 5 of the previous year.

The prosecution touted Ada Hazlewood as its star witness. Detectives had interrogated her before Levich’s trial but decided not to put on her on the stand. At that time, she insisted John Walker “was innocent, and the crime resulted from the crusade Finkelstein was carrying on against the gamblers.”

However, her character was questionable. Ada Hazlewood was in jail, awaiting transfer to the penitentiary for keeping a house of ill repute on East Fourth Street, between Walnut and Court Avenue. Coincidentally, she leased the building from Harris Levich.

At the trial of Harris Levich, she told detectives that neither Levich nor James Walker had anything to do with Finkelstein’s death. Now, she was telling a different tale.

Her testimony was somewhat disjointed. “I saw John Walker standing in the alley between Sixth and Seventh Streets on the north side of East Walnut Street. He was standing in the shade of a tree. He was not very far back from the street, 10 or 15 feet, I guess. There was another man there, but I could not tell who it was, only it was a smaller man than Walker.”

She saw a tall, heavy man in shirt sleeves about 10 or 15 feet from the alley. She “heard a blow as if somebody had struck something with a covered cloth. I heard a sound kind of as if somebody had said, Oh!” And I turned and saw the man in shirtsleeves fall.”

The prosecution said Bertha Offerd, a colored prostitute at Ada Hazlewood’s place, could corroborate her testimony. However, she was currently in Billings, Montana, and could not testify in the case.

A. H. Evans, a down-on-his-luck attorney who was forced to pawn his jacket to Mose Levich for $1.00, corroborated Ada’s testimony. He saw two negroes loitering in the alley. “One was a small, very black negro, and the other a tall, copper-colored negro about as large as Walker.” However, he didn’t think the man was Walker.

The jury found Walker guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to eight years in prison.

Walker’s lawyer was infuriated. He told reporters a black man charged with a crime in Iowa stood no better chance of getting justice than a snowball in the “infernal regions.”

Walker was released on bond in July 1904 when the Iowa Supreme Court set aside the lower court’s verdict and ordered a new trial. They said the evidence produced at the trial was “not sufficient” to convict him. However, the prosecution was sure of a quick conviction. Detectives said they had new and stronger evidence to tie Walker to Finkelstein’s murder. The Des Moines Register hinted that after Walker killed Finkelstein, he got drunk at Kennedy’s Saloon on Court Avenue. While there, he washed the blood off his hands and bragged about his handy work.

When Walker’s bondsmen learned he would be retried, they refused to continue his surety. As a result, he was arrested and taken back to jail in early November.

John Walker received a new trial in January 1905.

The prosecution’s star witness, Nellie Wells, Walker’s paramour, gave the police a written statement, then refused to testify. “I won’t answer a single question,” she said. “I refuse to answer.”

John Walker

Unfortunately, she had signed an affidavit that was read into testimony. In it, Nellie said she had known Harris Levich for years. She first got acquainted with John Walker, alias “Heavy,” in May 1902. They were on intimate terms when Finkelstein died.

“Some three or four days prior to August 5, 1902, John Walker told me that Harris Levich had employed him to do a piece of work for him. Levich had agreed to give him a large amount of money and a deed to some property.”

On Monday night, August 4, Walker told her that “Harris Levich had given him a gun to shoot Finkelstein. He had been laying for Finkelstein that night but had missed him. [Walker] thought Finkelstein might have passed him because he did not know Finkelstein. Then, I saw the gun or revolver,” added Nellie.

Walker left home about 4 p.m. the following day, saying he would do some work for Harris Levich. “I saw him put the gun in his pocket… It was the same revolver he said Harris Levich had given him to shoot Isaac Finkelstein.”

Later, she went uptown to the east side. She saw John Walker standing in front of the Midway Saloon on Southwest Fourth and Elm Streets at about 8 p.m. She didn’t talk to him. Instead, she went to Ida Hazlewood’s place, watched Bertha Offerd dance, and returned home.

She got there between 10:30 and 11 p.m. Walker was lying on her bed reading.  He “called me upstairs and told me that he had hit Finkelstein. He did not know but that he had killed him.”

Harris Levich drove up to the house shortly after that, and Walker went off with him. He returned alone about fifteen minutes later. Levich told him that he hit Finkelstein too hard, and he was dead.

“I asked John what he had hit Finkelstein with. He said it was a piece of wood which Harris Levich had taken off a wagon which was standing in the alley back of Levich’s store.” Levich “told him the revolver would make too much noise. He would get him something to hit Finkelstein with.

“Harris Levich went with him in the alley when Finkelstein was killed and pointed Finkelstein out to him just before Finkelstein got to the alley.” After he hit him, they went upstairs into one of the rooms over Levich’s store.

She said Harris Levich visited her several times before Walker went to trial. He told her to tell Walker to “keep perfectly cool.” He would get him the best lawyers.

More than a dozen new witnesses testified at Walker’s third trial, but the verdict remained unchanged. John Walker was found guilty of manslaughter.

Judge Mulvaney gave him the maximum allowable sentence—six years, seven months, and fifteen days. It was the difference between eight years and the time he had already served.

Walker’s attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, he was taken to the Fort Madison Penitentiary pending his appeal. The court affirmed his conviction in March 1907 and ruled that he must serve his sentence. However, Governor Cummins commuted John Walker’s sentence, and he was released on January 1, 1909.