In the spring of 1954, the city of New York was on edge, rattled by a series of brutal, seemingly random attacks on women. The sense of security for many was shattered, a fear that would become tragically real for a young mother from the Bronx named Kathleen Stewart. At 25 years old, Ms. Stewart, a female, was building a life for her family, a life that would be cruelly extinguished on the night of May 28, 1954, by a man who would come to be known as "The Dreaded Strangler."
That Friday
evening, Kathleen was making her way home, a routine journey she had likely made many times. After exiting the subway, she began the final stretch to her apartment building near the Harlem River. She was unaware that she was being followed, stalked by a predator who had selected her at random in the bustling transit system. Her assailant, 18-year-old Norman Roye, shadowed her through the streets until she reached the familiar surroundings of her own building.
Just moments from the safety of her front door, Roye confronted Kathleen. He threatened her, pretending to have a knife, and forced her away from her home and into the shadows of a nearby parking lot. There, in the darkness, he subjected her to a horrific assault before strangling her to death. Kathleen Stewart, a young wife and mother, was left in a poorly lit area near the Polo Grounds, her life stolen and her family left to face an unimaginable loss.
The investigation into Kathleen’s murder was part of a larger, more frantic search for a killer who was terrorizing the women of Upper Manhattan. Roye had struck before, murdering 40-year-old Margaret Branch in her Harlem apartment complex four months earlier. His spree of violence was marked by a chilling escalation of brutality, using strangulation and bludgeoning to overpower his victims.
The break in the case came just ten days after Kathleen's murder. On June 7, 1954, Roye attacked and killed his third victim, 66-year-old Isadora Goomes. In a bizarre and brazen act, he lingered near the scene of the crime, eating a box of crackers he had purchased with the five pennies he had stolen from her. Detectives, canvassing the area, noticed his strange behavior and arrested him. In custody, Norman Roye confessed to the murders of all three women, providing detailed accounts of his crimes.
The legal proceedings that followed were swift. Roye was tried for the murder of Isadora Goomes. In February 1955, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder. Given the heinous nature of his crimes, they did not recommend mercy, which made a death sentence mandatory. On March 5, 1955, Norman Roye was formally sentenced to die.
While on death row at Sing Sing Prison, Roye reportedly turned to religion. He received no visitors in the 10 months leading up to his sentence being carried out. On January 19, 1956, Norman Roye was executed by electric chair, bringing a legal end to his reign of terror. For the families of Margaret Branch, Isadora Goomes, and Kathleen Stewart, the execution marked the final chapter in a devastating ordeal, though the loss of the lives he so violently took remains a permanent scar.
