Professor Lewis B. Allyn was considered one of the leading experts of Pure Foods in the early 20th century. (Photo from the Westfield Athenaeum)
WESTFIELD- Police Capt. Michael A. McCabe delivered another lecture on the 1940 killing dubbed the “Pure Foods Murder” as part of a reboot of the Westfield 350 Historical Lecture Series.
McCabe said Nov. 21 he had been investigating the murder of Professor Lewis B. Allyn since he first became a detective in 1989. Where he lives on Hawthorne Avenue is mere steps away from the house at 69 Western Ave. where Allyn was fatally shot on May 7, 1940.
McCabe conducted his lecture after receiving a letter from someone related to a major investigator on the case. Just days before he gave his last lecture on the topic in August, he was given the letter that contained notes “contemporaneous to the investigation” according to McCabe.
The notes, which he had not had enough time to really go over before the previous lecture, turned out to have been written by investigator Malcolm Donald, who would later become the Chief of Police.
The letter would urge fellow investigators to look at Allyn’s conduct while a professor at the Westfield State Teachers College (Now Westfield State University). It stated that there was some “animosity and jealousy” between the male faculty of the school due to some being “favorited” by the young women receiving their education there.
“Get ahold of some of the old timers, not necessarily the former students, but Westfield businessmen,” said McCabe as he read from the notes, “Not only does the gossip of that sort never quite die, but a personality of Allyn’s [SIC] does not change.”
The letter was signed by Ellery Queen, a fictional character created in 1929 by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee. The character is a mystery writer who assists his father in helping to solve absurd murders in New York City. Donald, an investigator at the time, apparently signed the letter with this pseudonym.
To go over the facts of the case briefly, Allyn was a pioneer of the Pure Foods Movement which sought to reduce unhealthy additives in food. McCabe credits Allyn’s work as being a catalyst for the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.
MICHAEL A. MCCABE
On May 7, 1940, Allyn was reading downstairs at his home while his wife was upstairs when a man approached the front door and began an argument with Allyn. His wife reported hearing some commotion before also hearing a series of three gunshots, a pause, and three more shots.
When she went downstairs, the suspect was gone, and her husband was slumped in a chair, barely alive after having been shot several times, including once to the head. He died within minutes.
McCabe believes he can put one particular theory to rest after he was approached by a man following his August lecture. The theory states thatAllyn and the Police Chief at the time, Allen Smith, were simultaneously having an affair with the same woman. The belief was that Smith had Allyn killed in order to prevent that information from becoming public.
The man who approached McCabe said his name was Irving Skerker and that his father was also named Irving Skerker.
Irving Skerker Sr. was the owner of Jack’s Clothing Store on Main Street. at the time of the killing, and around that time he was apparently good friends with CSmith. In time, Irving Skerker Jr. would too become good friends with Smith.
Smith had apparently told the younger Skerker that he was “never with” the other woman that Allyn was having an affair with before the killing. He apparently claimed he had never even met her until she was being interrogated by the District Attorney. As the story went, Smith apparently became smitten by this woman when he saw her really stand her ground against the DA, and the affair began after that.
Assuming that Smith is telling the truth, this would rule out a police conspiracy in the case of Allyn’s death. This leaves little to work with as far as specific theories are concerned, as McCabe had previously ruled out the theory of the Nazis or Soviets being responsible. He also conclusively ruled out the theory of the 14th Westfield Grocer who refused to sign on to Allyn’s pact of not selling certain foods.
The gun that was found years later on the property of the grocer was found to be the same kind of .22 pistol as was suspected of killing Allyn, but the serial number revealed it was not manufactured until 1941.
