Brooklyn Standard Union July 7, 1931 News Articles L. I. FARMER AND SEAMAN DIE in WATERFRONT DUEL AFTER FIGHT OVER WOMAN Sailor, Ex-Convict, Found Clutching Knife--Other Two Blocks Away The bodies of an ex-convict two months out of Sing Sing and a Syosset farmer were found in the gutter two blocks from each other early today near the Brooklyn waterfront, just outside the border of Red Hook. One was dead with a bullet wound and the other of a knife wound. At 12:10 A.M., Detective Jacob BROOM of the Hamilton avenue station, answered a call that a man was lying in the gutter in front of 54 President street, and found the body of Oscar GONZALES, a Chilean seaman with a bad police record, former inmate of Sing Sing and also a drug addict. A stab in the groin had stained the ground about him with blood and he held a pocket knife clutched in his hand. SYOSSET FARMER DEAD A little later the Hamilton avenue station received another call to the effect that the body of a man was lying in the gutter before 29 Carroll street, and Detective Vincent GIORGANO of the homicide squad, went to the scene and found Thomas RUSSO, a farmer of Syosset, lying in a pool of blood. Dr. GAVEGAN of the Long Island College Hospital arrived on the scene and pronounced the man dead. It appeared he had bled to death from a stab wound in the eye and a bullet in his stomach. He held a cigarette in his hand. RUSSO was identified by his father and brother, whom he had been visiting over night at 548 Hicks street. He had come in from Syosset during the afternoon and last evening he and his father had called at a friend’s house between Van Brunt and Columbia streets on President street. There were several visitors there, and they were drinking red wine when GONZOLES, a stranger, had broken in on the party. At first he had been accepted quietly, but trouble had started when he became interested in one of the women present. RUSSO argued with him, words passed between them and they went outside into the street to fight the matter out. CAN’T FIND GUN Police think that in the course of the fight RUSSO shot Gonzales in the stomach, but not before he himself received a stab in the abdomen which resulted in his bleeding to death. There is a mystery, however, in the lack of any revolver with which the shooting might have been done. Nowhere on the scene was any firearm found. Lieut. David McCLUNN, of the Tenth Division detectives, who took charge of the investigation, has been unable to find anybody in the neighborhood who claims to have witnessed the murder or heard shots fired. Although the police have the record of the hasheesh smoking Chilean GONZALES, who lived at 23 Union street, they have no record for RUSSO, who was a widower and leaves five children. The police are today busy with an investigation and a number of detectives have been assigned to the case. Transcribed for the Bklyn Info Pages http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~blkyn/Bklyn.Info.Page.html