The dead body of Kate Ryan, known in the Red-Light District of Davenport as Rose Earl, was found under a tree in Fairmount Cemetery, with a bullet in her head and every sign pointed to murder.
The killer was likely Peter Shardis, aka Pete Sardine. No photos
exist, but the name conjures up pictures of a scrawny weasel-like guy with
bulging fisheyes popping out of his head. Probably a sinister look on his face
or a jagged scar across his cheek. Maybe both.
A worker at the Fairmount Cemetery found the body on his way to
work. There was a horse standing by the road, and just past it, a buggy wrapped
around a tree, and further down the lane, a whip.
“The body was in a ravine about a hundred feet away,” reported The
Daily Times, “face down, stretched over the ground, with its head just over
the hill. When the police rolled the body over, the girl had a bullet hole
between her eyes.”
The girl had a hat pin clenched in her hand. Her clothing
was badly torn, suggesting she’d struggled with her attacker.
The reporter noted Kate was dressed entirely in black—skirt,
jacket, and hat. She wore high black heels, and her underwear were bright white
in contrast to the rest of her outfit. And jostled, as if the killer had tried
to slip them off, then gave up.
There wasn’t any blood on the body, but three or four dark marks
on her neck showed the attacker had tried to strangle her before pulling his
gun. That led detectives to think Kate got in a few good sticks with the hat
pin before the killer pulled the gun.
The police did a little checking and discovered Sardine had
rented a buggy at Brick Munro’s livery. The next morning, it was found wrapped
around a tree at the Fairmount Cemetery, fifty feet from the body.
It was almost too perfect, the way everything lined up. Pete Sardine had been in and out of Babe Foreman’s
place all day. He followed her around, hanging out in the lobby between
customers. The girls were scared and tried to get him to leave, but Sardine was
drunk and out of his mind—pacing and muttering in that Greek, none of them
understood except Kate and Pete.
He pulled two of the girls aside and accused
Kate of cheating on him—threatening to kill her if he found out she was
cheating.
He insisted Kate was his girlfriend and they
were getting married.
Babe Foreman, the owner of the house Kate
worked in, figured Sardine would eventually give up and go away. Instead, he paid
her $3.00 for a couple of hours of Kate’s time. Babe warned Kate not to go, saying
she was afraid of those Greeks, but she went anyway.
They left the house about 6 p.m. Edith Swartz,
an inmate at Babe Foreman’s house, saw them at Pete the Belgians tavern at 7
p.m. Kate took a dollar from a man there and went upstairs with him. That threw
Sardine into a rage.
After that, they went to Simon Yann’s and the
Pariser Garden. They rented a rig at Brick Munro’s livery stable around 8 p.m.
Kate told Harry Rush, the attendant, she was out for fun. She’d be back later
to rent a hack with another man. Then she’d have a big time. Rush remembered
Sardine shot her a look like he would kill her.
It sounded like Kate was playing with fire.
Sardine was drunk and jealous, yet she continued taunting him. She took time
from their date to make love with one man, then said she had another date lined
up when she left Sardine. The little guy’s head must have been spinning.
Police Officer Behm thought he saw the couple
headed towards Fairmount Cemetery around 3 a.m.
It sounded like an open and shut case against
Sardine, but there were so many unanswered questions. Why did Kate leave with a
man who threatened to kill her? And who was the other man Kate planned on
meeting? Did she meet up with him later that night? If so, maybe Sardine followed
Kate and killed her after her date? Or maybe the other man killed her?
For all the detectives knew, Pete Sardine wasn’t the man Officer Behm saw Kate Ryan riding with at 3 a.m. It might not have been Kate. It was foggy that night, so identifying anyone would have been impossible unless he stopped them. And he hadn’t.
A little backstory is necessary to explain how
things worked in Bucktown.
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| Detectives investigating the Kate Ryan murder site in Fairmount Cemetery |
The system was flawed,
but it kept things running. The girls didn’t have to worry about raids, and
their customers didn’t have to worry about diseases or arrests. Babe Foreman
paid the $25 brothel fee plus $10 for each of her girls, so Kate was legal in Davenport.
The police interviewed Babe Foreman, and
the girls at her house the next morning. No one liked Pete Sardine. Several of
the girls had warned Kate not to go out with him that day, but she wouldn’t
listen.
Pete pulled Edith Swarz
aside, complaining that Kate only liked him for his money, and told her if he
caught her cheating, he would “shoot her like a dog.” As they headed out the door,
Pete said it again. He was going to shoot her.
Daisy Thomas, another inmate at Babe’s house, told
detectives Sardine came to the house nearly every day for the past few weeks. The
day Kate was shot, “he acted awfully strange and said he would shoot her as they
left the house.” He said the same thing earlier that day, He’d shoot Kate. “She
only cared for his money.” Edith Swarz seconded that thought, saying Kate didn’t
care for Sardine, but “he gave her lots of things,” so she tolerated him.
Previously, Sardine had threated to kill Kate if she saw
other guys. Apparently, he didn’t see the irony, considering the line of
business she was in and how many men passed through the house daily.
Several of the girls saw
Pete and Kate at Pete the Belgians saloon on East Second Street the day before.
Pete thought they were on a date, but Kate took a dollar from a man there and
went upstairs with him. When she came down, she acted like it was nothing. Then
she did it again the night she was killed.
Pete paid three dollars for her time that
night. Babe said she pulled Kate aside and begged her not to go, but she
wouldn’t listen. He paid for her, and she was going.
That was the last they’d seen of Kate
until her body turned up at the cemetery.
From all indications, Pete Sardine, aka Peter Shardis, 35, was a closed-mouth loner who spent most of the day with his head in a bottle. He was short, maybe 5’2”, and walked with a decided limp. He’d came over from Greece about eight years before and had spent most of that time in Davenport and Moline.
He worked at the Union Malleable Iron Works in Moline
but lost his job the previous September. Since then, he’d worked odd jobs.
Moline police described Sardine as a “troublesome character,” who was in and
out of jail for petty crimes.
He’d dated Kate Ryan for the better part of three years.
A letter found in his room suggested he wanted to marry her, but others showed
Kate didn’t return his feelings.
She was just after his money.
Pete didn’t mail the letter asking Kate to
marry him, so maybe he had doubts about her answer. Or it could be he got the courage to ask
Kate to marry him, and she laughed in his face. That might have pushed him over
the edge. And rather than lose Kate, he killed her.
No one can say for sure
what happened to Kate Ryan. The police built a circumstantial case against Pete
Sardine, but that’s all it was. No one saw Kate and Pete after 8 p.m., so what
happened was anyone’s guess. However, that didn’t stop the coroner’s jury from determining
Kate died from a pistol shot, most likely fired by Pete Sardine. A few months
later, when the grand jury met, they indicted Pete Sardine for the murder of
Kate Ryan.
In the days after Kate
Ryan’s murder, Pete Sardine was spotted in a half dozen towns, including Iowa
City, Buffalo, Ottumwa, and Muscatine, but when detectives investigated, he was
gone. Eventually, they learned he’d headed to Chicago and had likely hopped a
boat back to Greece. After that, the trail went dead.
If Pete Sardine killed
Kate Ryan, he’d gotten away with murder.
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