Shot and Gassed
Did socialite Florence Burns kill her lover?
A winter evening in Brooklyn, February 1902. John Earl, the night man at the Glen Island Hotel, watched as the front door opened and a young couple walked in from the cold night. The man was handsome, six feet tall, and retained the solid musculature of a varsity high school athlete. His companion, slightly younger and shorter, was a beautiful blonde with a slender build.
They wanted a room. Earl was in the business of renting rooms. He pushed the ledger across the counter to the man, who recorded their names as “J. Wilson and wife, Brooklyn, NY.” A key and cash changed hands. A bellhop, George Washington, led the couple to room 12A, at the back of the hotel, second floor.
Washington touched a match to the mantles of the gas lights. They flared and began to burn brightly. He took a final look at the woman before closing the couple in the room. She was striking.
An hour later, the couple rang their room bell. “I would like a lemon soda,” the woman told the bellboy when he answered the summons. She was, he later recalled, partially undressed.
When he returned with the drink, she opened the door a crack and flung out a “naked arm” to take the glass. Washington would see no more of her that evening.
