Nancy Titterton was a bright young woman, and an aspiring writer. It was a wicked twist of fate that she would become the subject of a murder mystery – the genre she loved the most.
Nancy Evans was a bright, motivated young woman. All she’d ever wanted to do was write. As a young woman, she had a few short stories published in magazines, and also worked her way up to the editorial room of a publishing house.
In the late 1920s, she worked for the New York Post. It was there that she met her future husband, Lewis Titterton. In 1929, the couple married, and Lewis was promoted as an executive of the National Broadcasting Company – known today as NBC.
The couple lived in a fashionable area of Manhattan, New York City, near the East River. In 1935, Nancy was offered a book deal, having caught the attention of the public, and the publishing industry as a whole, following the publication of one of her short stories.
Nancy had one main focus – murder mysteries. She loved the puzzles, and intricacies of the whodunits that she loved to both read and write. Her love of murder mysteries was so great, she established a publishing company exclusive for crime stories called The Crime Club, Inc.
Nancy was young, bright, gentle, and shy. She had a bright future ahead of her. Then it all came crashing down in April of 1936.
On April 10th, 1936, two furniture repairmen attempted to deliver a sofa to the Titterton apartment. Nancy had hired them the day before to reupholster a sofa. She wanted the job to be a bit rushed – it was the Easter weekend, and the Tittertons were expected to host some company. They needed to sofa to accommodate their guests.
On the morning of April 10th, Theodore Kruger and John Fiorenza called up to the Titterton apartment, but received no response. Figuring Nancy maybe hadn’t heard the door, the two men entered the building, and made their way up to the apartment. There, they found that the door had been left open, which was highly unusual.
Kruger and Fiorenza called out to Nancy, but received no response. They entered the apartment, and set the sofa down. Then, the two decided to look to see if anyone was home. They wandered further into the apartment, eventually making their way to the bathroom. There, they were met with a ghastly sight – Nancy Titterton was facedown in the bathtub, and her clothes were apparently torn off of her.
Kruger and Fiorenza immediately called for the police. Police arrived on scene shorty thereafter, led by Assistant Chief Inspector Lyons. His first order of business was to inform Nancy’s husband of what had transpired in their apartment.
Lewis Titterton informed investigators that he’d left for work around 8:00 AM, and then called his wife around 9:00 AM for a quick chat to say good morning, and wish her a good day.
Investigators also discovered that a friend had called Nancy around 10:30 AM. The friend said Nancy sounded just fine, and seemed excited for the holiday weekend.
These phone calls led investigators to believe that the murder had clearly occurred after 10:30 AM, but before noon, when the furniture repairmen had arrived. It was’t a big window of time, but it was enough.
Theodore Kruger and John Fiorenza were the initial suspects, and they were questioned by police.
Kruger told investigators that he owned the shop that Nancy had hired to reupholster her sofa, and Fiorenza was his assistant. Kruger was seen by multiple witnesses as having been working around his shop during the time of the murder. Kruger also vouched for Fiorenza, stating that he must have been nearby, as they had Nancy’s rush order to complete and deliver.
While Kruger’s alibi satisfied investigators, there was no definitive evidence that Fiorenza was at the shop with him. Investigators were still suspicious of Fiorenza, but didn’t have much to hold him. They decided to let him go, and continue with their investigation – mainly, they had the scene of the crime to continue to analyze.
In the apartment, investigators found two things of extreme interest.
The frist was on the bedspread in the Titterton’s bedroom. The bedspread had smears of mud on them, as if someone had stepped on it. Within those smears, investigators found a pale strand of horsehair.
At the time, horsehair was often used to stuff furniture – especially furniture that had been reupholstered. Investigators were able to match the horsehair on the bedspread to that used to reupholster the sofa that had been delivered to the apartment.
What made investigators especially curious was how the horsehair had made its way to the bedroom in the first place. The sofa was on the other side of the apartment from the bedroom. How could it have travelled from one end of the apartment to the other? Investigators suspected it travelled with the killer. It seemed that things continued to point towards John Fiorenza.
The second clue was found in the bathtub. When investigators moved Nancy’s body, they found a 13-inch long piece of cord under her in the tub. Investigators surmised that the cord had been used to incapacitate Nancy, as she showed marks on her wrists that matched the cord.
It appeared as though the killer had tried to untie Nancy, and take the cord with them as they left. However, they missed one vital piece.
A third potential clue came to light in the days following the murder, as investigators were following up on the horsehair and the cord.
A smear of green paint had been found in the apartment. The paint did not seem to belong there. The paint itself was the same shade that was used throughout the building, which pointed investigators in the direction of four painters who’d recently been hired to give the apartment building a fresh coat of paint.
However, only one of the four painters was present at the time of the murder. Multiple residents of the building were able to confirm the painter’s whereabouts throughout the day, thus clearing him of the murder. Police were back to relying on their first two pivotal clues.
Assistant Chief Inspector Lyons decided to focus primarily on the cord. He had his team begin to look into where the cord had come from – if they could track its origins, it may very well lead them to Nancy’s killer.
The team found that the cord was made up of a unique mix of materials, giving it an uncommon texture. Trying to track down where this cord had come from, the team sent requests to every rope manufacturer in the area, requesting information about the cord.
A few days after the requests were sent out, investigators received a response.
The cord had originated from the Hanover Cordage Company in York, Pennsylvania. Their records further showed that a roll of the cord had been sold to an upholstery shop in New York – a shop owned by Theodore Kruger.
As Kruger had already been cleared, investigators looked squarely at their most likely suspect – John Fiorenza.
Taking a closer look into their suspect, investigators found that Fiorenza had neglected to tell them that he had a criminal record.
John Fiorenza had been arrested for theft on four occasions, and had spent two years in prison for one of his convictions. During his stint in prison, a psychologist had formally diagnosed him as delusional.
On April 17th, 1936, a week following the murder of Nancy Titterton, John Fiorenza was brought into the police station for questioning.
At first, Fiorenza denied wholeheartedly that he’d had anything to do with Nancy’s murder. He didn’t know her at all, he claimed. She was just a client.
After five hours of denials and questioning, viewing the mounting evidence against him, John Fiorenza finally broke.
He told investigators that when he and Kruger had gone to pick up the sofa on April 9th, he knew that Nancy was the woman for him at first sight. He grew infatuated with her. He wanted her. She had to be his.
The following day, he went back to the Titterton apartment, under the guise of requiring additional measurements to complete the delivery. He confessed his feelings to Nancy, who rejected him. That’s when he saw red.
Deciding that if he couldn’t have Nancy, no one could, he attacked her. He bound and gagged her, and then dragged her to the bedroom. There, he strangled her with her own pyjamas, after sexually assaulting her.
He then left her in the bathtub, went to work, and “discovered” her with his boss when they went to the apartment to complete the delivery. He thought he’d gotten away with murder.
During his trial, Fiorenza tried to plead insanity. The jury didn’t believe him for a single second, and were quick to convict him of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to death.
On January 22nd, 1937, John Fiorenza was electrocuted at Sing Sing.
Nancy Titterton had a lot of amazing things to look forward to. She was never even given the chance to fulfill her lifelong dream of publishing her debut novel.
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Sources:
Nancy Titterton: Horsehair Makes an Important Clue to Murder – George Pallas – georgepallas.com
This Baffling 1936 Murder Was Solved With A Hair And A Piece Of String – Cheryl Eddy – Gizmodo
Caught by a Cord: The Murder of Nancy Titterton – Elisabeth Tilstra – The Lineup
A single horsehair helps solve murder of Nancy Titterton – history.com
A piece of cord busts a 1936 Manhattan murderer – Ephemeral New York
Premeditated podcast – Nancy Titterton