SKELETON IN THE CLOSET

This was the family skeleton in the closet. My paternal grandmother and her sisters were tired of the local newspapers rehashing stories about the 1906 New Jersey murder that took place in their family. They were proper, well-respected people who viewed scandals with disdain. Sometime in the 1950s they took legal action against the media and successfully managed to stop all public mention of the murder until after they were all deceased.

Eventually, all the older members of our large family died off - - and none of the younger ones knew anything about the murder, except me and my mother. My mom happened to have a scrapbook that contained several old newspaper articles about the murder.

As a child, I became completely fascinated with stories of the murder, mainly because I was related to the murderer, Frederick Lang, and also to his innocent victim, Kate Gordon.

When I got older - after my grandmother's death - I spent several years researching the murder and compiling every shred of information that I could find concerning it. This was difficult and grueling work, since it was before the onslaught of the Internet.

As a former journalist, I was used to digging deep for information and being ruthlessly persistent. I managed to find the original transcript of the July, 1906 court case, all of the briefs and files of the attorneys, legal information of the 1908 sanity hearing, letters and notes concerning the murder, and every published newspaper article between 1906 and 1909 (when the execution took place). In 1997, I published an article about the murder in the New Jersey Monthly. Since then, I obtained more information.

There is nothing particularily unusual about the murder, nothing at all of a mystery. It was merely a crime of passion - - but there are unexpected twists and turns.

In April, 1906, twenty-two year old Frederick Lang murdered his eighteen-year-old niece Katalin Gordon. He was passionately in love with her, to the point of complete obsession. 

She spurned his advances and refused his marriage proposal. Lang decided that if he couldn't have her, no one else could have her, either. He told one of his friends that he'd rather shoot Kate then to see her with another man. His threat wasn't taken seriously.

An uncle lusting after his niece? There was only a four year difference in their ages - - and there is a  murky family rumor that Lang was possibly illegitimate, only a half-blood relative of Kate. As if that might be a (fictional) saving grace.

So, what is my relation to these people? 

Frederick Lang was my great-grandmother's brother. So he was my great-uncle.

Kate Gordon was my grandmother's sister, and my great-grandparent's daughter. That makes her my great-aunt.

My great-grandparents John and Justinia Gordon had twelve children. Kate was the eldest child. At the time of the murder, in 1906, my grandmother Anna was ten years old. She remembered picking violets from the garden and placing them in Kate's hands as she laid in the open casket.

The two eldest Gordon children, Kate and Rose, were born in Hungary. The rest of the children were born in America. Frederick Lang was also born in Hungary. He came to America in 1903, when he was about eighteen.

At that time, my great grandfather John Gordon was the foreman on the elevation of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Frederick Lang worked with him for awhile, but later worked in the steel mines in South Bethlehem, PA.

In 1906, at the time of the murder, my great-grandparents and their children lived on a farm located on Dunham's Hill near Piscatawaytown in New Jersey.

Their three eldest daughters - Kate 18, Rozsa 16, and Mary 14 - worked at the Hirschorn, Mack, and Co. cigar factory in New Brunswick - - which, at that time, mostly hired Hungarians.

Frederick Lang occasionally visited the Gordon family, traveling by train to New Brunswick, then walking the long trek to the farm on Dunham's Hill.  He incidentally carried a pistol for protection, since there were robbers and ruffians along the way.

In April, 1906, Lang visited the Gordon family just after Easter. Things went smoothly, but Kate made it clear that she had no interest in Frederick's marriage proposals. He seemed to silently back off with his matrimonial pursuit, but under the surface he was undoubtedly seething.

On Friday April 20th, the three eldest girls - Kate, Rozsa, and Mary - had breakfast at around 6:00 a.m. then left the house and walked down the hill to the narrow country road. This is where the trolley stopped every morning to take them to work in New Brunswick.

It was a foggy, dank morning. The girls called after their Uncle, who finally came out of the house and joined them. Fred intended to ride the trolley with them to New Brunswick, where he would then ride the train back to Pennsylvania.

Near 6:30 they heard the distant rumble of the trolley heading their way.

Kate was standing right next to her Uncle. She suddenly teasingly asked "What are you going to bring me back from Pennsylvania, Uncle Fred?"

"Bring you back?" he said, rather puzzled.

"Why don't you bring me a nice young man whom I can Marry?"

They were Kate's very last words.

Exactly as the trolley was pulling up before them, Frederick pulled out a revolver and shot Kate in the neck at close range.

Kate dropped to the ground, bleeding to death with a severed carotid artery. The two girls and the passengers on the trolley were stunned.

Frederick's mindless rage exploded. In a blind fury he fired the gun at Rozsa, but his shaking hand caused a miss. Rozsa escaped behind the trolley and managed to run toward the house.

Mary ran screaming down the road with Lang in hot pursuit. He shot at her. The bullet grazed her elbow, but she managed to climb a fence on the Gordon property and fell into a pond.

John Gordon - who was in the barn tending the horses - heard the screams and came out. He saw Lang running away and chased after him. Fred fired at him but missed. Gordon, unarmed, picked up rocks and threw them at the assailant.

Lang reached the edge of a forest. He dramatically held the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, but there were no bullets left. He then quickly vanished into the thicket of trees.

John Gordon went back to the gate where the trolley was. He picked up the lifeless body of his daughter and carried her back to the house.

Then he quickly saddled a horse and rode to New Brunswick for help.

Jon V.

This is quite long. If anyone is interested, in my next post I'll write about the capture and execution of Frederick Lang.

More photos in next post

My great-grandfather John Gordon ( Janos von Gurdon)

My great-aunt Kate Gordon (Katalin Gurdon)

The Hirschorn, Mack, and Co. cigar factory where the Gordon girls worked in 1906.

New Brunswick NJ 

1906 trolley car