In the spring of 1935, Florence Dancy was a 65-year-old widow living in Washington, D.C. Fifteen years had passed since the death of her husband, John C. Dancy, a prominent Black Republican politician, journalist, and former Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. Their home at 2139 L Street N.W. had once been a hub of social and political life, but now, it was the place where Florence’s life would be brutally cut short, setting in motion a tragic miscarriage of justice.
On the
morning of April 12, 1935, Florence Dancy was found murdered in her home. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted the previous night, April 11. The crime shocked the community, and the Washington police were under pressure to find the person responsible. Their investigation soon focused on a man named James Matthew Smith, a former roomer at Mrs. Dancy’s residence. In August 1935, Smith was arrested and charged with her murder.
The case against Smith was built on a foundation of coercion and questionable police tactics. During his detention, he was reportedly subjected to continuous questioning, as well as physical and psychological torture. In a particularly egregious act, an officer forcibly dyed Smith’s graying hair black before placing him in front of witnesses for identification. Despite the lack of a confession to the murder, Smith was convicted of second-degree murder in 1937 and sentenced to life in prison. For years, he maintained his innocence from behind bars, the victim of a justice system that had failed him.
The truth remained hidden until 1941, when the city was gripped by fear of a serial killer dubbed "The D.C. Strangler." The man responsible was Jarvis Theodore Roosevelt Catoe, a handyman who preyed on women across the city. After his arrest for another murder, Catoe began to confess to a string of killings, admitting to as many as eight, with up to eleven suspected victims between 1935 and 1941. His method was consistent: he would gain entry to a woman's home, often under the guise of work, and then strangle her.
Among his confessions was the murder of Florence Dancy. He told investigators that she was the first woman he had ever killed. His detailed account of the crime left little doubt that he was the true perpetrator. Following Catoe’s confession, the injustice done to James Smith became undeniable, and newspapers reported that steps were being taken to secure his release from prison.
However, Smith’s path to freedom was not straightforward. In a cruel twist, Jarvis Catoe later retracted his confession to the Dancy murder, claiming he had been sick and coerced by police into making false statements. While Catoe was ultimately convicted for the first-degree murder of another victim, Rose Abramowitz, and executed by electric chair on January 15, 1943, the retraction complicated matters for Smith. Court records show that appeals made on Smith's behalf were dismissed due to Catoe's recantation, leaving the wrongfully convicted man in a state of legal limbo.
The case of Florence Dancy is a tragic story on multiple levels. It is the story of a woman who was violently killed in the sanctity of her own home. It is also the story of a serial killer who terrorized a city for years. But most poignantly, it is the story of a profound and devastating failure of justice, where one man was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, while the real killer remained free to take more lives. The final chapter of James Matthew Smith's life, and whether he was ever officially exonerated and released, remains a somber and unsettling question in the history of crime in the nation's capital.
