WORKER WHACKS

Dastardly deed nets just $20 and trip to the electric chair

The house on Hempstead Ave. in West Hempstead had once been a Long Island showplace — a 15-room Victorian with three chimneys, a crows-nest cupola, and glorious gardens.

But the property had deteriorated in the five years since the death of the owner, George W. Bartlett, a wealthy oil merchant.

Bartlett’s widow, Minnie, let go of her domestic help and gardeners. The 10-acre estate became overgrown with weeds, an unkempt lawn, and blankets of rambler roses, according to Edward D. Radin in his 1946 book, “Twelve Against the Law.”

It was not surprising when, in 1921, Bartlett, 50, put the house up for sale.

Around 12:30 p.m. on June 22, Bartlett phoned her sister, Mrs. Robert Seabury, and said a potential buyer — a “rough-looking person” — made her uneasy.

The stranger, dressed in shabby clothes and sporting a stubbly mustache, told her that his name was Nicholas Steffins, a Garden City radiator shop owner. They haggled over price — she wanted $45,000, he offered $22,000 — and then he left, saying he would return later with his wife. Minnie begged her sister to come over.

Seabury rushed to Bartlett’s home, arriving around 2 p.m.

The place was silent. Seabury and a relative forced a rear window open and found Bartlett dead on the dining room floor with several puncture wounds in her face. Police first assumed they were bullet holes, but the coroner later determined that they had been made by a sharp implement.

Bedrooms on the second floor had been ransacked, pointing at robbery as a motive. But police were puzzled when they found several hundred dollars in an envelope on a dressing table and a jewelry box filled with pearls, diamonds, gold chains, and bracelets.

A search for a radiator dealer in Garden City with a name that sounded anything like Steffins came up empty. More than 100 volunteers fanned out into the densely wooded areas around the home. Highly-trained dogs sniffed for clues, and a stunt pilot volunteered to fly over the woods at the tree line.

But even a $1,000 reward offered by the Village of Hempstead failed to produce any real leads.

Then a break came from a surprising source.

“Slayer’s Wife, Betraying Him to Police, Puts Duty Before Love,” noted a Daily News headline on June 26, 1921.

Mrs. Bertha Kubal said her husband, Lawrence, 36, a Polish farm laborer, had gone looking for work in Hempstead the day of the murder. When he returned, she noticed that he had shaved off his mustache.

For a full day, he hid under the bed, telling her that he was afraid to come out because he had killed a woman. He did not say who.

Pictures of Bartlett in newspapers convinced her to turn her husband in.

Mrs. Kubal was about 30, pregnant, the mother of two young children from a previous marriage, and worn beyond her years. Her husband could not support the family. She was terrified that he was going to kill her.

Mrs. Kubal did not speak enough English to tell her story, so she asked her brother-inlaw to talk to police.

It took only about an hour for investigators to pull a detailed confession out of her husband.

“I was passing the Bartlett house that morning when I saw some boys stealing cherries on the place. I asked them if they were not afraid of getting pinched,” he said. “They told me that a rich widow lived in the house alone and that she would not have them arrested.”

Using the ruse that he was interested in the house, Kubal convinced her to let him in. Then he left, saying he’d be back later with his wife.

Kubal returned alone and demanded $500. She tried to throw him out, he blocked the door, and she screamed.

That was when Kubal decided she had to die.

“I had a chisel in my pocket. I struck her with this. I grabbed her by the throat, and she clawed at me,” he said.

With the chisel and his fists, he continued to pound on her. Then he covered her corpse with scatter rugs and snatched a bracelet, a watch, and about $5 in cash. All told, the murder netted him less than $20.

Eleven minutes was all it took for a jury to find Kubal guilty at his July 1921 trial. The sentence was death in the electric chair.

He remained calm in prison until he learned that his execution would mean a windfall for his widow.

“Slayer Kubal’s Blood Turns to Bread For Brood,” The News reported on Aug. 8, 1921. The Village of Hempstead gave Mrs. Kubal and her brother-in-law the reward for information leading to her husband’s arrest. Her share was $900.

“I will buy bread, bread for my two children. And I will get clothes for the baby who will be born later,” she said.

Kubal became morose over the idea of his wife getting a reward for betraying him. Twice, he tried to hang himself with a noose made of bedsheets. Later he went berserk looking for a machine gun that he believed was hidden in his cell.

As his execution date neared, his wife begged the governor to spare his life, but her efforts were in vain.

“Kubal, Betrayed By Wife, Dies in the Electric Chair,” The News reported on March 24, 1922. According to the paper, his last words to his death-row cellmates were, “Good-bye, boys. Pray for me.”

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