Jack the Hugger--A Different Kind of Ripper

Jack the Hugger would sneak out from the shadows,
hug a woman, and disappear

London had Jack the Ripper. Muscatine had Jack the Hugger. He appeared out of nowhere the day after Valentine’s Day in 1904, randomly grabbing and hugging women on the street.

The Muscatine Journal was at a loss to explain the strange phenomenon and dubbed the perpetrator “Jack the Hugger.” The story quickly went viral, appearing in newspapers throughout the Midwest, and eventually spawned a slew of imitators.

The Hugger assaulted three women on the evening of February 15. The first attack occurred on East Seventh Street. The man jumped out of the shadows and embraced the girl, almost suffocating her in a giant bear hug. He grabbed his second victim as she walked through the cut on East Second Street. The Hugger leaped out and grabbed her tight.

The third assault occurred on the high bridge near Walnut Street. The Hugger was a little more daring this time. He threw his arms around the girl and planted a wet, juicy kiss on her lips. Then, when she screamed, he bit her under the eye and hurried off down the alley.

The Muscatine Journal refused to identify the victims, but the Des Moines Register didn’t share their concerns for the girl’s privacy. The Register identified the victims as Lillie Koll, Grace Bembrow, and Mrs. W. Pembroke.

The girls told detectives the Hugger snuck up behind them, threw his arms around them, and rubbed his bushy face against theirs.

Mr. Potter, the owner of the Dunbar Restaurant in Muscatine, told police he knew who the Hugger was, but he’d be “damned” if he’d tell. His cook knew the man, too, but wouldn’t tell, which was strange because she claimed to be a victim of the Hugger.

By April, the Hugger was reported to have struck in over a dozen cities. He jumped out at Golden Pearl Stone on a deserted Ottumwa sidewalk on April 15. Her screams caught the attention of J. B. Fitch, who arrived just in time to see the Hugger rounding the corner. Fitch described the Hugger as “a tall, well-dressed man wearing a light overcoat and a derby hat.”

The Davenport police arrested C. P. Johnson, a carpenter from Joliet, Illinois, on June 9, 1904. In his late forties, Johnson stood over six feet tall and sported a long, droopy, sandy-colored beard.

Detectives learned Johnson had deserted his wife and kids in Joliet a few months back after being accused of hugging random women there. The authorities in Joliet believed he was “mentally deficient.”

Davenport authorities fined Johnson $50 and released him.

Jack the Hugger struck again in November, this time in Rock Island. Jack chased a young girl all the way to her home, where she fainted on the stoop. When she came to, the girl told her mother Jack the Hugger was after her. He had almost caught her.

He jumped out of the dark and hugged Alma Prest at about 9 p.m. Officer Bishop heard Alma’s screams and chased the Hugger through a dark alley near Alderman Charles Lindholm’s home.

A group of boys and girls chased 
Jack the Hugger at a Waterloo carnival

Johnson acted like a madman during the time he was jailed in December. The other prisoners “are in terror of him,” reported the Tri-City Star, “and are afraid to sleep at night unless he is locked up separately.”

Johnson stood trial in December, charged with four counts of lewdness. The jury found him not guilty on the first count, but he remained in jail until all four cases were tried. Johnson wasn’t as lucky the next time around. Dr. C. L. Barewald, the county physician, swore out a warrant charging him with being insane. A board of insanity declared Johnson insane and recommended he be sent to Mount Pleasant.

When it was over, Johnson couldn’t say what caused him to hug the women. Perhaps he was like seventy-year-old John Murray, a New York Hugger arrested in 1900. Murray couldn’t say what made him do it. All he knew was, “An irresistible impulse came over me to take her in my arms and kiss her.”

C. P. Johnson wasn’t the only Jack the Hugger. Copycats were everywhere—just watching and waiting to find a lone girl.

The Hugger was active in Danbury, Pomeroy, Humboldt, Creston, and Iowa City throughout 1904.

For two weeks in November, the Hugger was hard at work in Omaha, Nebraska, until Helen Pickett stabbed him in the eye with a hatpin. The Hugger ran off howling in pain and was not heard from again in those parts.

He terrorized the girls of Des Moines for nearly a week in early April. The Hugger walked the streets, watching and waiting for an opportunity. When it came, he would grab a girl and kiss her, then disappear into the shadows.

Jack’s victims described him as a powerful, well-built man of medium height, so he was obviously not the tall, older stranger lurking on Muscatine’s streets.

The Waterloo police arrested Thomas McDonald of Farley in late April and charged him with several Hugger incidents. McDonald pleaded guilty, saying he was drunk the entire time he was in the city and did not know what he was doing. The judge fined McDonald $13.85 and ordered him to leave the city immediately.

Dick Connor got into a bit of a tussle when he chased after a young woman on Dubuque’s Main Street. He wrapped his enormous arms around her and gave her a powerful squeeze. Unfortunately for young Connor, police officer Fitzgerald caught him in the act and hauled him off to jail. Connor pleaded intoxication, but the judge wouldn’t have any part of that. He sentenced Connor to fifteen days in jail.

Jack the Hugger had a hay-day at the carnival in Waterloo on September 14. The Waterloo Daily Courier reported Jack jumped out to wrap his arms around several groups of girls as they walked by. But one group got the best of him. They “pounded him on the head and poured confetti down his neck.”

Finding the crowd was against him, the “large, middle-aged” man ran down the street, followed by a mob of young boys and girls that delighted in tripping and kicking him.

Poor Jack!

The Estherville Democrat gave ladies three options to remain safe. “Stay home after night, go with some suitable escort, or in the case you really desire adventure, take a gun along after you have learned to use it. Then, plunk its contents into the first man who makes any move toward you without your invitation.”

Perhaps a bit too extreme of a punishment for a misappropriated hug.

Of course, Jack the Hugger wasn’t an entirely recent phenomenon. One of Jack’s first Iowa appearances occurred in Cedar Rapids in the latter part of 1890. Detectives eventually arrested Jack Harder. It was thought he might be the man Rock Islanders were calling Jack the Grabber. He’d finished his work there just three weeks before the attacks began in Cedar Rapids.

Officer Kroulik arrested a suspicious character on South Second Street at about 3 a.m. on December 15, 1890. The man had three chickens hidden under his coat, “a hand-saw, a tri-square, a two-inch chisel, a file,” a hammer, and some assorted burglary tools, along with a .22 caliber revolver.

Harder told a Gazette reporter he was 21, newly arrived from New York, and a carpenter by trade. He had been in Cedar Rapids about ten days and had been drunk most of that time.

“If I molested any women in the city, I must have been drunk,” said Harder. “Crazy drunk!”

Another Jack struck Dubuque in 1891. The Dubuque Daily Herald dubbed him Jack the Hugger, or Kisser, or Squeezer. He got two women near the head of Julian Avenue on January 8, just as they were coming out of the shadows.

And yet another Hugger was caught in May 1900 in Wilton, Iowa. James Shepherd, a farmhand, terrorized the women and schoolgirls of the small town for a few weeks before the police picked him up.

The good thing was, no one was seriously injured in the Hugger attacks, except maybe a few women’s pride and reputation.