In the autumn of 1940, a shadow stretched over Washington, D.C., a threat that moved through the city largely unnoticed until it was too late. Mattie Steward, a 48-year-old African American woman, was living in the nation's capital during this uneasy time. Her life was violently ended on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1940, a day of family and gratitude that became a marker of profound loss.
Her death by strangulation was not an isolated tragedy but part of a string of brutal killings that had not yet fully captured the city's attention or fear.
Mattie was one of the earlier victims of a man who would come to be known as "The D.C. Strangler," Jarvis Theodore Roosevelt Catoe. For years, Catoe, a part-time taxi driver and handyman, had been preying on women. His criminal record dated back to 1935 with arrests for indecent exposure. That same year, he committed his first murder, a crime for which another man was wrongly convicted and imprisoned. This miscarriage of justice seemingly emboldened Catoe, who went on to rape and murder several more women over the next six years.
The investigation into these slayings was tragically slow to coalesce. Mattie Steward was one of at least five Black women murdered by Catoe between 1935 and the beginning of 1941. These violent deaths, including those of Florence Darcy, Josephine Robinson, Lucy Kidwell, and Ada Puller, failed to generate a significant public alarm or a unified, high-priority police response. It was a grim reflection of the era's deep-seated racial inequalities, where the lives of Black women were afforded less urgency and attention. The pattern of a serial killer at work was overlooked until the spring of 1941.
The tenor of the investigation and the city's concern shifted dramatically when Catoe began targeting white women. In March 1941, he murdered Rose Abramovitz, a newlywed who had hired him to wax her floors. Three months later, he killed Jesse Strieff, a secretary for the War Department whom he picked up during a rainstorm as she mistook him for a taxi driver. The murders of these white women sparked a public outcry, leading to a massive police investigation and even a Congressional inquiry into the police department's failure to catch the killer.
The manhunt for the "D.C. Strangler" concluded not in Washington, but in New York City. In August 1941, Catoe strangled a waitress named Evelyn Anderson and stole her watch. His decision to pawn the stolen item proved to be his undoing. New York police meticulously traced the watch through several hands back to Catoe, who had since returned to D.C. He was arrested on August 29, 1941.
Under interrogation, the 36-year-old Catoe confessed to a horrifying series of crimes. He admitted to killing eight women in Washington and New York, though he suggested the total might be closer to ten. He also confessed to numerous non-fatal sexual assaults. He claimed he was troubled by "spells" that gave him an uncontrollable urge to kill.
Jarvis Catoe was brought to trial in October 1941 for the murder of Rose Abramovitz. He attempted to recant his detailed confession, claiming it was coerced by police while he was "sick and weak." The jury was unconvinced, deliberating for less than 20 minutes before finding him guilty of first-degree murder and recommending the death penalty. On January 15, 1943, Jarvis Theodore Roosevelt Catoe was executed in the electric chair. His reign of terror was over, but for the families of his victims, including the loved ones of Mattie Steward, the pain would endure.
