Murder in 1887 Rahway: Author of 'The Unknown Woman' Speaks at Library Event

The pretty brown-haired girl didn't cause a big splash in her short life. She was neat and trim, but otherwise unremarkable. She wore a bonnet, and carried a small satchel, an umbrella, and a small basket of eggs. 

It was how her life ended - her throat slit, her clothing in disarray, her frozen face half buried in a muddy road - that caused one of the biggest sensations of the era.

The era, by the way, was 1887, and dead woman was found in Rahway. 

The woman is still unidentified to this day, and that is why she is still so fascinating to crime sleuths far beyond the Central Ave. road - then, little more than a rutted dirt path.

is the only name she has ever been known under. It's on the white marble headstone that marks her grave in a Rahway cemetery next to the ancient Merchants and Drovers Tavern on St. Georges Ave. The moniker is also the name of the book which Rahway historian Alex Shipley wrote when he investigated the dead woman, what was known of her murder, the people surrounding her, and his own theories of what might have happened.

Shipley will be speaking at 7:30 pm tonight at the Woodbridge Main Library.

The dead woman was put on view for a month, and thousands of people had a chance to look at her, all in the hope that someone would identify her. 

Shipley's book theorizes that a Jack the Ripper type killer, or the Ripper himself, might've done the poor lady in. He will go into detail about the area's most sensational unsolved mystery tonight in his lecture, which is free and open to the public.