On Saturday, Feb. 17th, information was received by Captain Irving, the efficient New York detective, that a dangerous gang of confidence operators, who have been fleecing tradesmen, had victimized B. Williams, 773 Broadway, of $171 worth of lace by the furnished apartment dodge. This consists in part of a gang going to a shop and ordering goods, which when sent to the address given by the swindlers, are received by a confederate. The detectives soon arrested Libby Davis, a good-looking girl of 20, who acted as confederate in swindling Williams. She was locked up at the central office. The next evening officers succeeded in arresting Eva G. Vallee, identified by Williams as the person who called with a man and ordered the lace. She is 28 years old, of genteel appearance and a good conversationalist. The police say she has been in trouble before. Eva was locked up with Libby, while the detectives went to look for the male confederate. Next morning Eva had or simulated a fit. She began to rave violently, and attempted to dash her brains out against the walls of the prison. This did not satisfy her, and she climbed up the window grating and tried to cut the arteries of both arms by breaking the window and rubbing her wrists against the broken glass. Libby, meanwhile, screamed lustily, and when help arrived, Eva was bleeding freely. She was entirely nude, and it required six men to hold her while the ambulance doctor strapped and bound her. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital.

Illustrated Police News, February 22, 1872.

Robbed of Her Tresses. 

An unknown tramp the other morning entered the residence of Augustin Wentzel at Boyertown, Pa, and, seizing Mr. Wentzel’s daughter, Della aged sixteen years, who was alone in the house, he held a cloth saturated with chloroform to her face. She soon became unconscious and when she recovered, a half hour later, she found that the villain had cut off her luxuriant tresses, which had hung nearly to her hips. Miss Wentzel suffered no other violence. She at once gave the alarm an searching parties were immediately formed to hunt for the unknown criminal.

The National Police Gazette, January 1, 1887.