Kron admitted to the Times that he had been hired by an editor friend of his to trail the Count and Countess Károlyi when they visited the United States. Kron said he knew his friend was also a close friend of László Széchenyi and that this fact was the only truth of the story; there was no forgery scheme. “I do not deny knowing Count Szechenyi or that I worked for him,” Kron said. “But not on this case. I deny having received a fee from him.” Since the reproduced letter showed that Kron had not been paid at all, his words were true.
Kron said that though Károlyi had met some shadowy people during his trip, he could not link him directly to the Communists. “I wasn’t able to find anything detrimental to either the Count or the Countess Karolyi all the time they were here,” said Kron. “I don’t consider him a Bolshevik, but I do consider him a radical in the European sense.” Kron was adamant that he had done this for his friend, and for himself, not for any governmental power. At the same time, Kron didn’t disguise his personal views. “Count Karolyi was plotting while he was here to overthrow the present Hungarian Government,” Kron told the Times reporter. The Daily Worker ran three more front pages with photos of letters from Kron complaining about not being paid. The final letter from Kron authorized a Washington lawyer to initiate a lawsuit against the Hungarian prime minister for the lost wages.
Among his many self-proclaimed talents, Novitsky was a forger of some renown. Some wondered if the allegedly forged maps and lists reprinted by the clanky presses of the Worker were really his attempts at setting Kron up. There was evidence, but it was untrustworthy. But the next time the beautiful countess applied to enter America, she was denied entrance. The State Department would not say why, only that it had proof that she was engaged in questionable activity, probably of the Communist sort. On the floor of the Senate on February 27, Senator Burton K. Wheeler, of Montana, a left-wing, pro-labor Democrat, was furious about Károlyi’s being denied entrance to the States. Wheeler wanted to give the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the secret report of detectives who shadowed the count and his wife. Wheeler said that the report was made by the Julius Kron Detective Agency of New York City.
Jacob Novitsky would return to the national spotlight during the investigation of the missing Lindbergh baby in 1932. Novitsky was suspected of using his skills at forgery to extort thousands from the Lindberghs, much of it never recovered.
Julius J. Kron was admitted to the Joint Disease Hospital in Manhattan on November 16, 1934. He suffered from inflammation of the gall bladder. During an operation to remove it on November 24, 1934, he died on the table. He was forty-nine years old. On his death certificate, his occupation read “Detective.”
He was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, the following day. His death certificate read that he was married to Estelle Kron, who claimed his body. Estelle and their daughters lived in Manhattan at 231 East Eighty-sixth Street. At the same time, Kron had a residence in Brooklyn with a woman named Claire Schwartz, who was first listed in census records as his housekeeper and then later as his wife. They had a son, George, who was sixteen in 1930. Kron’s daughters with Estelle were Sylvia, Lilian, and his eldest girl, named Ruth.
FRANK McGEE
Detective Sergeant Frank McGee retired in September 1919 after serving, according to the Evening World, “twenty-six years without a blemish on his record.” He was, however, “hot under the collar” because he was somehow reduced from the first grade to the second grade with a salary reduction of $2,450 to $1,950 a year. McGee’s New York Times obituary said that he couldn’t devote more time to searching for Ruth because his primary secret assignment was to hunt down German spies. He had a wife, Minnie, and a son, Harold, who was a member of the New York Police Department’s homicide squad.
MAYOR MITCHEL
The New York City mayor John Purroy Mitchel, after losing a patriotic, anti-immigrant bid for reelection in 1917 to a farmer turned train conductor (and Tammany man) named John F. Hylan, joined the fledgling air service with hopes of flying in the war. On July 6, 1918, eight months after losing his bid for reelection, Mitchel was flying when his plane turned and went into a steep dive. Mitchel, who had failed to fasten his seat belt, was dislodged from his plane and fell to his death in a Louisiana swamp. Mitchel Air Force Base on Long Island is named for him.
J. J. LYNCH
J. J. Lynch left the city controller’s office in 1921 to run in the mayoral primary, but lost. A few years before that, his former partner, Thomas J. Morris—now his bitter enemy because of business failings—lay critically ill in his home. Without saying a word, Lynch walked to the home of his old friend, lay down beside him, and gave him the full blood transfusion that saved his life. They never spoke again. Lynch died, leaving a wife and four children, on November 24, 1931, Thanksgiving, at age sixty.
LeROY PERCY
Percy was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy and served from 1910 to 1913, before being defeated by James K. Vardaman, who ran on a platform whose major plank was white supremacy. On March 1, 1922, Percy stomped through the streets of his beloved Greenville and straight into a rally of the Ku Klux Klan that was denouncing Jews, blacks, and Catholics. Percy stood in the crowd and heard Klan leader Joseph Camp’s speech. Percy ran up to the podium and dismantled every point of Camp’s speech to booming applause. “Let this Klan go somewhere else!” Percy bellowed. They left Washington County soon after. Senator Percy died in Greenville, Mississippi, of a heart attack on December 24, 1929. His place of burial is marked by an iron knight holding a great sword.
CHARLES STIELOW
After Charlie Stielow was finally released, he had another son, Edward, named after his father. Charlie died on August 9, 1942, in Orleans County, New York. He was eighty-four. His daughter Ethel, who wrote the letter that may have saved him, lived until 1987, also to the age eighty-four.
THE BLACK HAND
Once they were captured, Black Hand leaders Morello and Lupo were both sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor in Atlanta. After both had their sentences inexplicably shortened (possibly due to prosecutorial deals), they returned to the streets. Morello was caught again, sent to prison, and, when he got out, was killed by a rival gangster while filing paperwork in 1930. Lupo was stripped of his criminal power and ran a small lottery in Brooklyn. When he died in 1947, very few people knew his name. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery, near Joe Petrosino.
ARTHUR WOODS
Woods became a full colonel in the army and served as assistant director of military aeronautics. In 1920, he was awarded medals from three different countries: the Distinguished Service Medal, the British Order of St. Michael and Saint George C.M.G., and the French Chevalier of the Legion of Honor (France). At the end of the war, he worked under Secretary of War Newton D. Baker to help returning servicemen adjust to home life. He restored historic Williamsburg with John D. Rockefeller and was one of the first to work on national economic programs to help combat the early days of the Great Depression. He died on May 12, 1942, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
JOHN LAGARENNE