Renovo at 150 – Attack of the Alley Bird
by Lou Bernard
The year was 1881. Renovo was fifteen years old. It was a calm community, mostly built around the railroad industry. Not the kind of place you’d expect to find crime sprees and weird villains almost out of a Dick Tracy comic strip.
And yet, on January 20, 1881, the Record ran a headline about just such a person.
The name was the Alley Bird.
The Alley Bird was somewhat weirder than you might expect. A man in a strange outfit, leaping out and frightening people for no reason in the area of Fifth and Sixth Streets. The Record covered the story as best they could.
“Rumors reach us nearly every week about the appearance of an unknown man, in female attire, who has, time and again for months past, been seen lurking about the alleys of our town after nightfall,” the newspaper reported. “He is often spoken of as the ‘Alley Bird,’ and is becoming a terror to nervous women and children.”
The Alley Bird was described as a large man, dressed in a white dress, a bonnet, and heavy shoes. He would leap out at women in the street after dark, staring at them and frightening them. He seemed to be afraid of men, knowing he was outmatched—If a man approached him, he would run away.
“He has been seen in the alley near the old Catholic Church,” the Record stated,”Crossing the railroad tracks, and latterly in the alleys between Fifth and Sixth Streets. It is said at times he suddenly dashes forth from dark hiding places and impudently stares females in the face, as if it were his business to know who they were.”
People who hadn’t seen the Alley Bird questioned whether or not this person was actually real, sort of like Bigfoot or Donald Trump. Everyone who had encountered him knew he was real, for sure. The newspaper called for the local constables, specifically Patrick Shelley, to investigate and arrest the Alley Bird.
This next part is uncertain, but Shelley may have tried. And he may have died doing it.
Patrick Shelley was a good man, a railroad employee who had come to Renovo around 1865. He’d gotten involved in local politics, and held the position of high constable eventually. On December 15, 1882, his body was found by the Susquehanna River in Renovo.
It was definitely murder. Shelley had first been hit with two rocks, thrown from a distance, and then bludgeoned with a nearby branch, which had his blood on it. The weapons suggest that it was unplanned—A crime of opportunity. He was found lying facedown by the river.
His coat and shoes were found almost fifty feet away….Almost as if someone had used them to cover up a distinctive dress while he made his getaway.
Could Shelley have been killed by the Alley Bird?
An oddly plausible case can be made for that. Shelley had last been seen about nine PM the previous night, having a couple of drinks. If he’d headed home and encountered the Alley Bird, Shelley was community-minded enough to attempt to arrest him. The Alley Bird could easily have fended Shelley off with rocks and the branch, killing him and then taking his coat and shoes to cover his unusual clothing during his getaway. Halfway down the street, he could have seen the error of having his victim’s clothing on him, and then abandoned the stolen items.
Patrick Shelley’s killer was never caught.
Neither was the Alley Bird.
There was some concern, for a while, that the Alley Bird was still at large. I mean, as all this happened back in 1882, it’s a fair bet that he’s been dead for a while now. But he could be referred to as the Jack The Ripper of Renovo—He was never caught, and though it’s pretty certain he’s in a Chapman Township cemetery someplace, his identity remains a mystery.
