Murder Monday #15 Elsie Sigel




L-R: Elsie Sigel; Chong Sing (witness); Mabel and Paul Sigel (sister and father). From the Los Angeles Herald, 27 June 1909.

        Elsie Sigel born in 1888 and was the granddaughter of General Franz Sigel. She did missionary work at the Chinatown Rescue Settlement and Recreation Room while her mother taught at a Chinese Sunday school class in St. Andrew's Church. On June 9, 1909, Elsie was last seen leaving her parents' apartment to visit her grandmother and was never seen again until June 18. On June 18, Elsie was found strangled inside of a trunk in  Leon Ling's apartment, a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. Sigel and her mother had met Ling at his chop suey restaurant years prior to her death. In his apartment,  police found 35 love letters signed by Sigel in his apartment, along with numerous letters from other women. However, Sigel also had sent love letters to Chu Gain, the manager of the Port Arthur Restaurant, and Chu also reported that he received an anonymous letter threatening Sigel's life if they didn't end their relationship, leading the police to believe that the motive for Sigel's murder was jealousy. 
    Ling was never arrested for Sigel's murder and it still remains unresolved. Due to the anti-Chinese hysteria at the time, the murder gained widespread notoriety, and some believed that the murder was Sigel's own fault. 

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