New Haven’s Lurid Jennie Cramer Murder Trial

The murder of Jennie Cramer in 1882 combined sex, the wealthiest family in New Haven, CT, and allegations of bribery and witness tampering, and triggered Connecticut’s most sensational trial of the 19th century.

When oysterman Asa Curtiss started his day on the waters off the Savin Rock section of West Haven on Saturday, August 6, 1881, he made a discovery that would launch a sensational true-crime scandal and a well-publicized trial.

Asa found the body of Jennie Cramer—a 21-year-old daughter of a New Haven cigar-maker who was well-known for her beauty and an active social life among the city’s wealthy and elite.

Immediate suspicions that Jennie had drowned, or had possibly committed suicide, were set aside as soon as doctors began examining her body. Her lungs and stomach didn’t have any water in them. The examination also showed she’d been raped in the past 24 to 48 hours.

The authorities turned their attention to Jimmy Malley, the nephew of department store owner Edward Malley. At the time, Edward Malley was New Haven’s wealthiest resident and the city’s largest taxpayer.

Just before Jennie’s Cramer’s death, Jimmy Malley was trying to court her, and the couple had been double-dating with Walter Malley—who was Jimmy’s cousin and a son of retailer Edward Malley—and a woman named Blanche Douglass.

Blanche was a New York prostitute who Walter had fallen in love with, and was trying to introduce into New Haven social circles. (Without mentioning the prostitution part.)

In the days before her death, Jenny Cramer had been seen socializing with the Malleys and Blanche Douglas.

Jennie’s Last Week

On the night of Wednesday, August 3, Edward Malley was vacationing in Saratoga and his mansion was empty. His son and his nephew took advantage of having an empty house, and together with Blanche and Jennie, they spent a drunken evening at the mansion.

When she returned home the next morning, Jenny Cramer had an argument with her mother about having stayed out all night, and the implications for her reputation. Jenny stormed off, and her mother would never see her alive again.

On Thursday night, the quartet was seen at the Savin Rock amusement park, near Edward Malley’s beach cottage.

Accounts differ about the quartet’s location on Friday. Some witnesses saw them at Savin Rock, but Walter Malley and Blanche Douglass had checked into a hotel in Branford.

And the next morning, Jennie’s body was found off the coast at Savin Rock.

Malleys Under Suspicion

When they were first questioned, the trio said they had been with Jenny on Wednesday night but hadn't seen her since Thursday morning.

During the coroner’s inquest that followed, Blanche testified that the quartet had gotten drunk at the Malley mansion on Wednesday night. Jimmy had dragged Jenny into a different room, from which Blanche could hear shouting, crying, and screams.

A later autopsy revealed that Jenny had been given a lethal dose of arsenic.

Jimmy and Walter Malley were arrested on August 15, and charged with murder. Blanche was charged soon after.

During a probable cause trial that was held before the criminal trial, five counts of murder were reduced to one specific charge: murder by arsenic poisoning. This one charge, based on circumstantial evidence, was difficult to prove. And, after a short trial in April of 1882, the jury quickly returned a verdict of not guilty.

The trial, understandably, was a media sensation, with accounts of the testimony in daily newspapers. At least two songs were written about the murder. And a small booklet describing the murder entered a second printing, reportedly after the Malley family tried to buy all copies of the first printing.

Despite rumors of witness bribery and a feeling in the court of public opinion that the Malleys were responsible for the death of Jennie Cramer, they were acquitted in the only court that mattered: the criminal court.

After the trial, fate treated the Cramer and Malley families very differently. Despite rumors and popular opinion that the Malley boys had gotten away with murder, the Malley’s retail business continued to thrive.

As Jimmy’s generation passed, the rumors largely died with them. And New Haven residents still shopped at Malley’s, which remained a popular department store until closing for good in the early 1980s.

Jennie’s family was understandably devastated by the murder and what they felt was a lack of justice. Her father took his life before the trial ended. And her mother’s extreme grief led to mental issues and her own suicide in 1891.

And in another twist, the Cramer family plot in New Haven’s Evergreen Cemetery is a short walk along the same avenue where the oysterman who discovered Jennie’s body, Asa Curtiss, rests in his family’s plot.

Jennie Cramer and oysterman Asa Curtiss were two people who probably didn’t meet in life. And whose paths first crossed when one of them was the victim of an unsolved murder.