| Murder of Cissy Stuart | |
|---|---|
  Princeton  Princeton  Princeton | |
| Location | 40°20′49″N 74°39′52″W / 40.3469°N 74.6644°W / 40.3469; -74.6644 34 Mercer Street Princeton, New Jersey |
| Date | April 2, 1989 Bet. 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. (EDT) |
Attack type | Stabbing (homicide) |
| Weapon | 2-inch (5.1 cm) knife |
| Deaths | 1 (Cissy Stuart) |
| Coroner | Raafat Ahmad |
On April 2, 1989, 74-year-old American newspaper owner Emily "Cissy" Stuart was stabbed to death in her home in Princeton, New Jersey.[1] Her body was discovered two days later in the basement, but her killer has never been identified, and the case remains unsolved.
Background
Emily "Cissy" Stuart (née Cowenhoven) and her husband, Donald Stuart Jr., were a prominent couple from Princeton, New Jersey. Donald, a Princeton University graduate, founded a local newspaper in 1946 together with his wife, which was called Town Topics. In 1953 the couple moved into a Victorian house at 34 Mercer Street.[1] The couple had two sons—Donald "Jeb"[1][2] and Charles—and four grandchildren. The couple divorced in 1968,[1] with Stuart's ex-husband dying in 1981. By the time of the murder, Jeb and his wife Sheila were working at the newspaper,[2] with the former having assumed the role of editor-in-chief.[1][2]
Stuart was an opinionated woman who did not hesitate to speak her mind. She was known to invite into her home door-to-door solicitors who offered religious books, if only for the opportunity to present the counternarrative. Despite the fact that she had an old money background, Stuart was in the habit of doing her own household chores, such as gardening, splitting firewood, shoveling snow, and repairing things around the house.[2]
Murder
Stuart began her final day at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, April 2, 1989 by having breakfast in her home with her sister, Margaretta Cowenhoven. A little over an hour later, Stuart announced that she was going to do some gardening, at which point her sister left the house. At half past noon, Stuart's friend Doris Mellinger dropped by. Stuart often drank alcoholic beverages such as beer and bourbon with her guests, and on this occasion the two enjoyed Bloody Marys. Mellinger left the house at 1:15 p.m. Police initially assumed that Mellinger was the last person to see Stuart alive; but at around 4:30 p.m. (or not long thereafter) Stuart was outside gardening again when she saw Elias "Bloxy" Baker—a local businessowner—driving by on the way to his lumberyard, and she waved to him.[2]
At 1:20 p.m. the next day, Jeb walked over to the house from the nearby Town Topics offices for his daily lunch with his mother, which she usually prepared for him. He used his own key to enter through the front door, walked into the kitchen, and noticed that the side door leading to a back porch was ajar, the storm door was left unlocked, and her copy of The New York Times was thrown down on the porch. His mother was nowhere to be seen, and Jeb found all of this to be incongruous. After checking upstairs, he next unlocked the interior hallway door which led down to the basement, opened the light and called out for his mother, with no response. After not finding her in the yard, Jeb noticed that the padlock on the door leading from the yard to the basement was locked.[2] He thought this was odd, since his mother normally left that door unlocked in order to allow herself easy access to her gardening tools in the basement; she would usually simply insert the shackle in the latch and turn the lock body to make the door appear to be locked, but without actually clicking the lock shut.[1][2] Jeb later told investigators that having found the basement locked from both sides, he became convinced that no further checking in that space was necessary. After making himself a sandwich and eating it, he locked the side door behind him and went back to work. At 3:30 p.m., Sheila entered the house using her husband's key in order to attempt a search for Stuart, but soon she also returned to the office. The couple returned again to the house at 6:30 p.m., and this time in the living room Sheila found Stuart's coat, and her purse was found on the floor, which appeared to be intact and not disturbed in any way. Jeb called the police to ask if they heard anything from his mother, but they had not. They offered to send over a patrol car, which he refused, and the couple returned home to nearby Hopewell Township after leaving the light on for Stuart. After making a few calls to acquaintances, all they managed to learn about was Cowenhoven's Sunday breakfast meeting with Stuart. Sheila returned to the house at 9:00 p.m. to check the property, and Jeb continued to call the house until 1:30 a.m.[2]
Stuart's maid arrived as usual on Tuesday morning a little after 9:00 a.m. for her weekly house cleaning chores, and found that Cowenhoven, Jeb and Sheila had arrived at the house a half hour earlier. The family informed the maid that although Stuart was missing, she should proceed to do her chores as usual, and then Jeb walked over to the Town Topics offices. Stuart's doctor called the house at 10:30 a.m. to say she missed her appointment, so Sheila walked over to the office to inform Jeb, and together they walked over to the Princeton Police Department to officially report Stuart missing. They arrived there at 10:38 a.m., where they met with Princeton police Sergeant Anthony V. Federico. In the meantime, Cowenhoven and the maid decided to do their own search of the house. At 10:50 a.m., they unlocked the hallway door which led down to the basement using the skeleton key which was still in the keyhole.[2] Upon descending the wooden staircase, they saw Stuart's body lying on the basement floor at the bottom of the stairs, and—too frightened to approach the body themselves—they called the police.[1][2] At that moment, Jeb and Sheila were standing with Federico in the lobby at police headquarters; upon hearing the news, they got in the car and in one minute they were at the house, where Federico found the victim on the basement floor. She was lying face down slightly on her right side with her arms beneath her chest and her eyeglasses still clutched firmly in her right hand. She was found fully dressed in her gardening clothes, which consisted of a beige cardigan sweater on top of another sweater, Lee jeans and blue plimsolls. There was blood on her back, and her Seiko watch—which showed the correct time—was still on her left wrist.[2]
The next day, police did a walk-through of the house with Jeb and others to see if they noticed anything amiss. Everything was found to be in order, with even Stuart's wallet—which contained $3.42—lying undisturbed on the kitchen table, along with her keys and another pair of eyeglasses. Stuart was buried in nearby Rocky Hill.[2]
Investigation
The fact that Stuart was found lying on top of an outstretched electrical wire connected to an overhead porcelain light fixture initially led detectives to believe that she had been electrocuted. But after the body was examined by Mercer County medical examiner Raafat Ahmad, it was determined that Stuart had been stabbed to death, and that this had occurred on April 2nd sometime between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m., the latter time corresponding to sunset.[2] Five stab wounds made by a 2-inch (5.1 cm) knife were found on her back.[1][2] Investigators determined that there was no clear sign of a struggle, which pointed to the possibility that Stuart was familiar with her killer, as she might have felt comfortable turning her back to the perpetrator. The stab wounds being almost horizontal indicated that the killer may have been standing by her side.[2] Police and others have stated that the basement door having been padlocked suggested that the killer must have been familiar with the house.[1]
Later that year, a spate of knife-related assaults in Princeton was attributed to a Haitian man who was later convicted and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. Police have not said whether they believe he is a suspect in the Stuart case.[1]
As of June 1992, the family was offering $50,000 for any information as to the identity of the perpetrator.[1] Federico died in 2009 without the case having been solved. As of December 2024, Stuart's murder was the last to have been recorded in Princeton.[2]
In popular culture
Charles Stuart directed a documentary about the case called My Mother's Murder (1992) which aired on the HBO documentary series America Undercover.[1]
See also
- List of unsolved murders (1980–1999)
- Albert Einstein House – a similar house as the murder location, located down the street
References
- King, Susan (June 14, 1992) "Charles Stuart: When Mom is Murdered". Los Angeles Times. Archived April 6, 2019, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved June 29, 2026. (subscription required)
- Shea, Kevin (December 17, 2024) "Who Killed the Grand Dame of Princeton? Join Our Investigation". NJ.com. Iselin, New Jersey. Archived December 20, 2024, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved June 29, 2026. (subscription required)