New York Sun, May 15, 1933
The murder of Edward A. Ridley and his two secretaries in the grim Allen Street dungeon in which they labored — poring over ink-stained ledgers, adding long columns of figures, counting the money that poured into Ridley’s pocket — provides a fascinating mystery tale, and a true one. Absorbing, intriguing, its details are enough to excite the envy of any imaginative writer of detective yarns.

“Old Ridley” they called him on the lower East Side — Old Ridley, who lived and died in an atmosphere of mystery, whose very taciturnity and aloofness appear to have been transmitted to his few associates, making them as mysterious as he.

Old Ridley lived in the shadows. He preferred the dark and chilly gloom of his underground office to the sunshine and laughter and babble of tongues 35 feet above him in crowded Allen Street.

He spent his lifetime amassing a fortune that he would not spend — a fortune that could have given him ease and leisure in bright and healthful surroundings. He accumulated about $2 million in cash and property, only to die in the sub-cellar to which he was so attached — murdered with Lee Weinstein, his secretary, in a manner almost identical with the slaying of Weinstein’s predecessor, Herman Moench, two years ago.

The last of a long line of successful merchants, Ridley was a familiar figure on the lower East Side for more than half a century. But no one knew much about him. He had few friends, if any; he had no intimates. He rarely spoke to anyone. He was the East Side’s mystery man — old, extremely eccentric and strictly business.

A PICTURESQUE figure he was. Old Ridley might well have been a character out of Dickens. A flowing, white beard concealed most of his ruddy face. A black derby was clamped on his head. He wore an overcoat — sometimes two — every day, winter or summer, spring or fall. Under the topcoat was a faded and shiny frock coat which he wore year in and year out. He carried an umbrella and wore rubbers, rain or shine.

They say the old gentleman’s one slogan was, “Practice economy and industry.” He practiced it. He wore his clothes until they were little better than rags, buying new ones only after much persuasion from his landlady, Miss Emma Boucher, in Fanwood, New Jersey, where he lived for 35 years or more, commuting from there to his damp and cheerless office.

Nor was his eccentricity and thrift confined to his habits of dress. The story is told that Old Ridley would arise every Sunday morning in Fanwood, board a train and ride to Jersey City and back just to use up his commutation ticket.

He insisted on dining alone. He made it a point to enter the dining room at his boarding house before or after the other boarders had eaten. If others entered the dining room while he was there, he would get up from the table and leave his meal unfinished. He likewise refused to wear a coat of any description in the house, even when dining.

WHILE TACITURN and aloof, the old man was not unpleasant. He usually was courteous when spoken to and pleasant enough when he spoke to anyone else. He just didn’t talk much. His conversations at his Fanwood boarding house were nearly always confined to a pleasant “good morning” as he was leaving the house and “good evening” when he returned.

In business, Ridley had the reputation of a man who drove a hard bargain, who asked no quarter and gave none. He was strictly honest, lived up to his contracts to the letter and insisted on others doing the same. He expected to get the last penny owed him and on the date it was due, no matter how sorely pressed those indebted to him might be.

Owner of considerable real estate, Ridley collected good rents. He never was known to reduce rent. Apparently, with Edward A. Ridley, there was no such thing as extenuating circumstances.

So much, then, for the character of this queer old man who was marked for a violent death. It was the kind of death he had expected ever since the murder of his first secretary two years ago.

An Englishman by birth, Ridley came to this country as a boy. His father, Edward Albert Ridley Sr., had been a merchant in Newark, England, but fled from the country to escape a debtor’s prison after he had met reverses. For two years the father peddled goods from door to door, acquired some capital, and, in 1851, opened a small dry goods store at 311-1/2 Grand Street.

From that small beginning there arose in Grand Street the department store of Ridley & Sons, occupying the entire block bounded by Grand, Allen and Orchard Streets. It was a great store in its day — one of the first and the largest department store of a Victorian New York.

WHEN THE FATHER died in 1883, the sons — Edward A. and Arthur Ridley — inherited the business. The store reached its peak in 1887. That year it had 2,500 employees, maintained a delivery service that required many horses and wagons, and did a $6 million business.

In the years that followed, however, the shopping trend shifted. The once flourishing business of the Ridley department store dwindled. In 1901 the Ridley brothers gave up. They sold the stock and fixtures of the store for $300,000 rather than leave the scene of their early success to follow the uptown trend. Arthur Ridley, now dead, went into the brokerage business. The lower East Side remained New York to Edward Ridley, and there he stayed.

Seeking solitude, he moved into the five-story building at 59-63 Allen Street, once the stable maintained by the great Ridley store. He wanted to work without annoyance from the rumbling elevated trains overhead, so workmen dug the sub-cellar, 35 feet below the street level. Ridley moved in. A young man named Herman Moench, who had worked as errand boy in the store, became his sole helper.

WITH MOENCH as his right hand man, Ridley attended to his real estate, collecting his rents, foreclosing his mortgages when they were not paid, selling and buying additional property. The years rolled on, but old Ridley and Moench seemed to go on forever.

On January 3, 1931, the white-haired Ridley, then 86 years old, arrived at his cave-like office at 11:30 a.m., his usual hour. Methodically he removed his overcoat and overshoes, placed his umbrella in a corner and sat down to work.

Moench had preceded him to work, as usual. He had left a batch of checks on the desk for Ridley to sign. For a few minutes only the scratching of the pen could be heard as the old man worked. Then he finished and called Moench. There was no answer. Ridley arose and walked around the thin partition that separated their desks.

Moench was slumped in his chair, as if asleep, Ridley shook him, but he did not awake. Then he noticed a thin trickle of blood down the side of the chair. Moench was dead from two bullet wounds in the chest.

Police, after a lengthy and fruitless investigation, put the murder down as motivated by revenge. Old Ridley always believed the slayers had meant to kill him and would have done so had he been at the office. He probably was right. But the killing of Moench never was solved.

DEEPLY SHAKEN by the tragedy, but trying bravely not to show it, old man Ridley said, “My work must go on. I shall continue at the same old stand and I shall get a new assistant. Death is not a tragedy; it must come to all of us.”

Strangely enough, Ridley refused to provide for Moench’s family in Brooklyn, although he had known Moench man and boy for more than 50 years.

“Why should I do anything for them?” he demanded petulantly. “I paid him his weekly salary, didn’t I?”

No, he had not made a will, he informed his questioners peevishly. Why should he?

But something caused old man Ridley to change his mind about that will. On March 4, 1932, one year and two months after Moench’s death, he drew up a will and in it he made a new secretary, Lee Weinstein, a beneficiary to the extent of $200,000.

The Moench murder virtually was forgotten and Ridley continued with his work. Relatives pleaded with him to give up his damp, gloomy office. He refused. His life was threatened, his relatives said. Old Ridley ignored the threats.

ON LAST Wednesday about 10:30 a.m. Lee Weinstein’s brother, Harry, who operates the garage on a sublease, telephoned. He told Joseph Fiduccia, an employee, to tell Lee that he wanted to see him later. Fiduccia promptly forgot all about it. Harry called again at 2 p.m. Fiduccia ran down the long ramp that leads to the sub-cellar.

Stretched on the floor well in the office lay the body of Lee Weinstein. Near the door was Old Ridley’s body. Weinstein had been shot to death — shot seven times. Ridley had been beaten, his skull crushed, his face mutilated, part of his white beard plucked out by the roots. Several .32 caliber cartridge shells were scattered on the floor of the barren, dimly lighted office.

Inspector Francis Kear, who had charge of the Moench murder investigation, took charge of this one. Here are some of the clues as unraveled by the police: Herman Moench and Lee Weinstein were slain by bullets fired from the same pistol — a .32 automatic. Ridley was beaten to death with heavy instruments, including the high office stool, which was bloodstained.

Police hold to the theory that revenge, deep hatred of Ridley and his secretary, was the motive, probably as the result of some business transaction. They are convinced the same person or persons who killed Moench also killed Ridley and Weinstein.

RIDLEY'S WILL, found in one of his old-fashioned safes the day after the murder, leaves $200,000 to Weinstein, who also was named as executor, on the condition that Weinstein was alive at the time of the testator’s death. In the event of Weinstein’s prior death, the money was to revert to the residue, which is divided among Ridley’s grandnieces and grandnephews. Bequests of $50,000 each are made to seven nephews and nieces.

There is considerable mystery about Weinstein. Investigation revealed he had been living a double life. He had been married eight years and was living with his wife here under the name of H. Lee, supposedly without the knowledge of members of his own family.

Harry Weinstein told the police he did not know Lee was married, but this statement is under investigation, since Harry was seen emerging from the suite of Lee’s wife in the Hotel Belvedere when two detectives went there to question her.

AND HERE ARE some of the questions which baffle the police:

How did Lee Weinstein so impress his old employer that he was named beneficiary of $200,000 — the largest bequest made?

What caused Ridley to change his mind about making a will?

Why was he so generous with Weinstein, whom he had known only a year and two months after Moench’s death, when he had refused to reward the family of Moench, who had served him faithfully so many years?

But mystery seems to be piling upon mystery in the Ridley Riddle. On Saturday, the dark sub-cellar yielded another secret — a brick-walled room which was used until recently, police learned, by a gang of bootleggers as a cutting plant. Lee Weinstein is believed to have known about this plant, but Ridley did not. Its discovery serves to deepen the mystery.

New York Evening Post, May 18, 1933
The great wealth which Edward Ridley, hard-working, generous and pious storekeeper, amassed in the first department store in this country and which lurks behind the mysterious slaying of his son, Edward Albert Ridley, was the cause of the murder of another Ridley, a brother of the eccentric of the Allen Street dugout.

Late on Saturday, November 26, 1874, James Mosley Ridley, another son of the founder, was attacked and slugged to death on Canal Street, a few blocks from the store, which had just closed for the evening. His pockets were rifled. Apparently he had been killed by thugs who believed he had a large sum of money on his person. They got less than $50, it is believed, and they were never arrested.

James Moseley Ridley died at the age of 37. Among his survivors was a son, Edward, then nine years old. This son married in time and today his son, John Longley Ridley, has started action to break the will which was found among the ton of papers in his great-uncle’s subterranean office. In that will, Mr. Ridley and his mother, now Mrs. Samuel Marks, are not named, although other near relatives are named, as well as Lee Weinstein, the old man’s secretary, who was killed with him.

Weinstein, although employed by Ridley for only two years, was to receive $200,000 from the Ridley estate if he survived the old man, while relatives were to receive much less. It was this aspect of the will — a will of which Ridley’s regular lawyers had no knowledge — that caused police to delve into the life of Weinstein and find that he was secretly married and living beyond his apparent income.

INSPECTOR Francis Kear received today from the police of Norfolk, Virginia, a copy of the marriage certificate issued there to Weinstein. Today two detectives will go to Norfolk to investigate Weinstein’s life there and to determine, if possible, if he is the man who, using the name of Lee Weinstein, was arrested there several years ago.

Police investigation of the will found in Ridley’s office revealed it was witnessed by two certified public accountants, George Goodman of 1749 Grand Concourse, The Bronx, and Arthur Hoffman, whose office is at 11 West 42nd Street.

The will was signed by the eccentric millionaire in his office after Weinstein had read it to him and there had been a brief discussion of some of its provisions.

Police also learned Weinstein’s account in the Public National Bank, in which he kept an average balance of $1,000, was opened in 1931, after he became Ridley’s secretary.

Still another murder ushered in the employment of Weinstein by Ridley. Two years ago, in the same sub-basement at 63 Allen Street, Herman Moench, long in the employ of Ridley, also as secretary, was found dead by the old man. Weinstein was then operating the garage on the floors above, leasing that property from Ridley.

THE FATE of James Mosley Ridley was revealed today by Mrs. Marks in an interview with the Evening Post in the apartment of her son at 44 Christopher Street. Her story included many details not only of the white-bearded eccentric, but also of Edward Ridley, founder of the store.

“I last saw Edward Albert Ridley about four years ago when I called on him at his Allen Street Office,” said Mrs Marks.”My home then was in the Middle West and I was in New York for a visit. I went to see him. He was courteous, but, of course, had little to say.

“Even when he was young he used to wear his hair down to his shoulders and have a long beard. He was extremely fond of his parents, but had little to do with other members of the family. He did not even attend the funeral of his brother, Arthur, or of my husband, his nephew.

“The great love of his life was his mother. Until within a year or so, he used to go every Sunday to the family burial plot in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, and stay there throughout the day. The attendants there knew him well, and it was on a recent trip to the grave of Mr. Ridley that I learned from one of them that he had not been there for some time.

“UNLIKE his father, he was always miserly with his money and never helped anyone. Herman Moench, a fine character, had worked for him many years, but after he was murdered, Mr. Ridley did not even give his son a job.

“Edward Ridley, the father, was as generous as he was hard-working. He had been a merchant in Newark, England, and failed. When he came to this country he was deeply in debt. After he had established his store here and made money, he returned to England and repaid the old debts.

“It has been reported that he was Scottish, but he was English. He brought his family of wife and five children to New York. He started selling ribbons on the curb, but soon had a small store. The family lived behind it. There were three sons — James, Edward Albert and Arthur — and two daughters, Emma and Fannie.

“When they became well-to-do, they had a fine estate out at Gravesend Bay. Mr. Ridley used to drive in from there every day to the store. After his first wife died, he married again. Mrs. Clara Gerken was the daughter of that marriage.

“Mr. Ridley gave generously to Methodist churches and missionaries. What is now the Ocean Parkway Methodist Episcopal Church in Brooklyn was once the Ridley Memorial Church.”

John L. Ridley, Mrs. Marks’ son, has a law office at 1 Exchange Place, Jersey City. He is a graduate of New York Law School and enlisted in the Navy during the World War.