Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
I got a revolver to protect us, and I soon had use for it, declared Constance Connie Copp when interviewed about the intruders intimidating her family under the cover of darkness at her home. Connie's assistance with the arrest of an ex KHN making threats against her and her sisters led to her role as the first female appointed Deputy Sheriff of Bergen County, New Jersey. Let's talk about how Connie got there at a time when women were not
so much welcomed into such work. Welcome to Criminalia and to our first episode of a brand new season about blackmailers. I'm Maria Tremarki.
And I'm Holly Frye. On a summer morning in nineteen fourteen, silk factory owner Henry Kaufman crashed his brand new car into CoP's family buggy at the corner of Carroll Street and Broadway in Patterson, New Jersey. The buggy was carrying Connie and her two sisters, Norma and Florett. There are some conflicting reports that suggest that it was just Connie and Norma in their buggy that day, and not their youngest sister. But truthfully, it really doesn't matter how many
sisters were in that vehicle. The women were not injured, but their buggy was a wreck. The accident had broken its shaft, and Kaufman, who was reportedly one hundred percent at fault, refused to pay damages.
So Connie sued Kaufman in an effort to make him pay, and was awarded by a civil court fifty dollars for damages caused by the crash. However, Kaufman failed to pay her. You can imagine her frustration. Fast forward not too far, and Connie saw opportunity. One day, while walking in downtown Patterson, she recognized Kaufman's automobile on Main Street and she ran after itvoting for other pedestrians to help her stop the vehicle, and indeed, she created such a spectacle that Kaufman was
forced to stop. Some reports suggest there were just too many pedestrians surrounding him for him to continue. As luck would have it for Connie, a patrolman nearby spoke with Kaufman. He was forced to pay the fifty dollars court ordered payment He did so and was allowed to drive away.
But things didn't end there. Connie's lawsuit plus the street scene touched off a blackmail slash extortion campaign against her and her sisters that included demands for money, threats of arson, as well as threats to the sisters themselves. On November twenty second, nineteen fourteen, the cop sisters received the first of several anonymous threatening letters, each similar to the style
of what are known as black hand letters. So a black hand letter was and is basically extortion through written correspondence. Menacing letters would be sent to victims, threatening things like arson or kidnapping, or perhaps even murder unless a specific amount of money was paid. These letters were signed, but not with a traditional signature. Black hand letters were most commonly signed with an ink drawn human hand, which is
where their name black hand came from. Their practice began, or was at least popularized, among Italian and Sicilian criminals in New York City, and then it spread across the United States. These letters were in heavy circulation in the early twentieth century, and if you didn't give into the demands of a black hand letter, you suffered the consequence.
The first letter Connie received stated quote, Madam, we demand one thousand dollars or we will kill you. Give money to a girl dressed in black at the corner of Broadway and Carroll Street, Patterson, Saturday night. If you don't pay, we will fire your house. We know your horse and wagon. We live in Patterson. Sisters received this first one, and those that followed were usually signed with things like friends of h K or similar sorts, Unlike traditional black hand signatures.
How will Connie ever figure out whose initials those could possibly have been? Well, let's just keep going. So.
In addition to receiving these demanding letters asking for ransom, the Cop family also began to see prowlers on their property, and those prowlers did things like discharge revolvers and shotguns under their bedroom windows at night. This was at their home on Wickoff Farm.
Things seemed to be escalating quickly, and Connie spoke with authorities. Though some local deputies pretty much ignored her story. Bergen County Sheriff Robert Heath, on the other hand, took her concerns seriously, and he assigned a deputy to guard the CoP's farm. Connie later spoke about his efforts stating quote, we lived in constant terror, but Sheriff Heath came to our distance and provided us with a guard at our home. He even took the trouble to bring the deputy from
Hackensack every day. I don't know what we would have done without his assistance.
We are going to take a break here for a word from our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll talk about what happened when Sheriff Heath gave Connie and her sister's guns for their own protection.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how about a year or so after the crash, Connie sued Henry Kaufman in criminal court and won.
Around the same time that Connie took her case to the sheriff, she had another run in with Henry Kaufman. This time Kaufman, who was inebriated, spotted her walking along the street as he drove his car with some friends. He pulled over and then proceeded to verbally berate her until he was arrested by a patrolling officer who happened to be nearby. He was fined five dollars for harassment.
Though Sheriff Heath was unable to stop the blackmail and apprehend those behind it. This wasn't a quickly closed case. He was a progressive minded sort who took a non traditional route to keep the cop safe. In the meantime, he armed the cop sisters each with a revolver and trained them how to use it. As you may imagine, the newspapers went into a frenzy when this became public. This was unheard of, and they printed caricatures of the women as three gun toting sisters snooping about in their
quote petticoats. One really long headline read quote, oh for a chance to shoot at the nasty prowlers, the missus cop maintaining siege at home, would just love to turn guns on blackmailers. Among other headlines was quote silk manufacturer fine for fracas with woman. The sisters, though, took this very seriously, said Connie, quote, if we ever catch a strange man sneaking around our house after dark, we will use our revolvers.
So back to those letters. After receiving the first black hand letter, Connie asked for Sheriff Heath's help in regard to meeting with the girl in black on that Saturday night. As requested in a letter, Connie waited at the corner of Broadway and Carol, while Heath waited nearby to confront anyone who approached her with a concealed revolver in her handbag. Connie waited for an hour until about nine pm, but no one showed. She returned home, and authorities never found
a girl in black asking for money. Despite that no show, the threats and attacks against the sisters kept happening. Not only did they continue to receive threats in the mail. One night, Connie and Norma had to fight. They are at men that they spotted in their back garden, and those men shot back.
The black hand threats then began to target the youngest Cops sister, sixteen year old Florette, specifically with threats to kidnap her. The first abduction letter read, in part quote, I heard a deep laid conspiracy to abduct floret This can be settled, and you and I and the gang are the only one to know it. Keep your head. Don't go and publish anything in the newspapers where it will spoil our plans. Again, Connie asked Sheriff Heath for help,
and the two began working together on the case. Connie was instrumental in the work leading to the arrest of ex convict George Johnson from Somerville, who was a co conspirator with Kaufman in the threats against her family. It was this assistant she provided that was what ultimately qualified her for the role of deputy sheriff.
On June second, nineteen fifteen, nearly one year after the car accident that started this whole conflict, Connie and Norma Copp sued Henry Kaufman, this time in criminal court. Their case alleged that he had written the black hand letters demanding money and warning of violence and kidnapping against the cop family. As a consequence, the suit also alleged that he was responsible for sending armed men to their farm to terrorize them at night. It had not just been
Connie and Sheriff Heath working on this case. County detectives and federal authorities had also been brought in on the investigation. As reported in the December third, nineteen sixteen edition of The Record, a newspaper out of Hackensack, Kaufman was arrested by a detective Francis Butler, in Newark on a federal
indictment that charge was improper use of the mails. At the trial, Sheriff Heath testified about the threatening letters and the men found on the property, fully corroborating the CoP's sister's story.
Another important witness for the prosecution was a man named William kim Kinsley, who was a handwriting expert from New York City. He confirmed to the court that the person who wrote those threatening letters to the Copp's sisters was indeed Henry Kaufman. The handwriting matched. Kaufman denied all accusations against him, but a jury found him guilty.
We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors, and when we return, we will talk about Connie's appointment to the role of deputy and how it quickly ended.
Welcome back to Criminalia. And now this is the part of her story where Connie is appointed to sheriff's deputy.
Because of her excellent work in the case under the order of Bergen County Sheriff Robert Heath. In nineteen fifteen, Connie became the first female sheriff's deputy in Bergen king New Jersey. That's right. In an effort to get out from under a bunch of bullying blackmailers. She made history. Although Connie was not the first female deputy sheriff appointed in the United States, she did join a rather shortlist
of women in law enforcement. Included on that list would have been Margaret Adams, who joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as a deputy in nineteen twelve. She's largely considered the first female appointed to the position in the United States. And there's also Emma Doherty, who is considered the first appointed female sheriff in both Texas and the
United States. That didn't happen until after Connie's case, when Coleman County commissioners empowered her in that role in nineteen eighteen.
To put all that into some context in United States history, for women during Connie, Margaret, and Emma's lifetimes, the landscape was quite different than today. This was before women had the right to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment wouldn't become law until August of nineteen ten. Zip ahead a few decades and you see that Connie, who could arrest criminals, was not allowed to participate in other parts of the justice system. For example, though the Civil Rights Act of nineteen fifty seven.
That's decades after her debt gave women the right to serve on federal juries. It wasn't until the nineteen seventies when all fifty states did so.
Connie often worked in partnership with Sheriff Heath, and all accounts suggest she was good at the job. On December nineteenth, nineteen fifteen, for instance, they found an escaped prisoner near a subway entrance in Brooklyn. It was Connie who apprehended and physically restrained the Reverend doctor Hermann Albert von Mettesias, who was accused of horrific crimes by three boys in
his employment. Of that arrest, Connie stated, quote, I had worked many days and nights on this case, and twice doctor von Mettezias got away from us when we thought we had him. So I was determined to hang on to him, no matter how how rough he might be. None of the men nearby offered to come to my assistance, and I felt relieved when I heard the Sheriff's voice. It seemed as though the doctor was about to strike me when the sheriff grabbed his arm and forced him back.
In April of nineteen sixteen, while Connie and Sheriff Heath were transporting a prisoner named Tony Poynotzka. The prisoner escaped from the vehicle and jumped into the Hackensack River, attempting to drown himself. Connie jumped into the freezing water after him and pulled him back to shore safely as he combatively struggled to keep himself underwater. She was treated for
hypothermia because of the river's cold temperature. Of note, as she had commented about apprehending the reverend doctor von Mantesius, here again, she was the only one who jumped in of the event, she was quoted saying, Hoynatzko was my prisoner, and if he had drowned or escaped, I would have been held responsible. I simply did my duty.
Newspapers referred to Connie as the quote plucky girl sheriff. According to a nineteen sixteen article published in The New York Times, Connie received a quote gold plated badge and a gold plated pair of handcuffs, which she carried quote in her handbag. She did carry a revolver in her handbag, and she was given a badge in handcuffs, but that
gold plated part. Today historians consider that to have been an embellishment of the press of her new job, Connie stated, quote, some women prefer to stay at home and take care of the house. Let them. There are plenty who like that kind of work enough to do it. A woman should have the right to do any sort of work she wants to, provided she can do it.
Though she was good on the job as deputy sheriff, on November fourteenth, nineteen sixteen, Connie lost her badge when a man named John Carter was sworn in as the new sheriff, a man who claimed he quote couldn't find anything for miss Copp to do. In reply, Connie stated that under the newly adopted civil service law, employees who'd held their position for forty five days prior to the election of a new sheriff were legally protected. They were to be legally retained no matter who won or lost
the position of sheriff. She was correct, but despite that and her solid work, she, as well as at least one other sheriff's deputy, a male deputy, spent months fighting for their jobs, but their efforts failed.
It is believed that Connie and Norma and perhaps Floret, although history does not give us a lot of solid information on that eventually operated their own detective agency years later, possibly in Hawthorne Heights, New Jersey.
I'm dying to know what she called the cocktail mocktail for this particular episode in this season.
I think for the season, we're gonna call this segment coercion concoction. And today's drink in particular is called the Petticoat Revolver, and it involves some of our favorite ingredients but also some we haven't used really before, and I don't think we've ever combined them in quite this way. So you are going to start with your shaking tin with some ice and put in an eighth of a
teaspoon of black pepper. To that, you're going to add a quarter ounce of lemon juice, a half ounce of rost syrup, a half ounce of chili liqueur, and an ounce of Rye whiskey, and you're gonna shake it like the Dickens. And I see the happy looking because Rye has entered the.
Check every ingredient in this drink.
I'm like, yes, I don't mess around with Rye that much historically, but I'm getting into it. You're gonna shake that with ice. Listen, if you like a straight up slapper of a drink. You can absolutely drink this as is. I topped it three ounces of ginger beer and that was delightful. And this is an interesting one because you get this may just be my palette, but for me each sip was like a different experience where it'd be like, oh,
now I really taste that rose note. Oh no, now that I've actually swallowed, I just have pepper on my tongue. The thing is, if you don't want any pepper flex in your drink, or you want to minimize it, I would double strain it, So strain it with your hawthorn strainer or your regular strainer on your cobbler shaker through a mesh strainer to get all of the little bits. But if you like a little pepper in your drink,
I do leave it. And then there would be some zips where I was like, oh hot, wait is there a flower in there? Like I and then others where I was like, none of them are really the dominant note in this sip. But it's pretty yummy. And it is another one of those that is dangerous in that it does not really telegraph to you how much alcohol is in it be careful, drink responsibly always. For the mocktail,
this one is pretty easy. In lieu of the chili liqueur, you're gonna do any kind of like chili or hobernuro syrup. And then in lieu of the rye, here's what I would do. You're gonna make your black tea. But when you pour your hot water over your tea bag or your tea in your little container however you like to do it, already have the pepper in your mug or whatever vessel you're using, because you want that hot water to really open up the pepper and get that flavor
infused in your tea. And that way you skip adding the pepper later when you make your mocktail. But it's already, it's way in there. It is gonna give you a stronger presence than if you just do the tea on its own and add the pepper. So that is my advice. That is the Petticoat Revolver, which is hopefully as fun for you as it is for me. I sure liked it. I was actually surprised at how much I liked it,
because initially I was gonna just make it. The rye and the rose syrup with pepper and maybe another note. And then I was like, I want to put a chili.
Liqueur s icy like Connie copp.
Yeah, Connie's a spicy goalt. I really have to admire her. And it's one of those things where the fact that people thought it was worth making fun of her and her sisters and their petticoats with their weapons, it's like, does not take in the measure of who they clearly were as people, because they were ready. They took it, as we said, seriously. It wasn't like they were like they clearly were instructed in how to use them by
Officer Heath, and they clearly knew what to do. And Connie especially level headed in a moment that most of us would probably be terrified it.
She chased down a vehicle.
Yeah, she would be like, don't add the ginger beer drinket, but I like the ginger beer a lot. So that is the petticoat Revolver and our first of our coercion concoctions. We are so thankful that you're here with us in this new season. We hope you'll be back next week for another story and another drink. Criminalia is a production
of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.