First City, First Cold Case

St. Augustine, Florida — the nation’s oldest city and, as far as we know, home of Florida’s first unsolved cold case.

One hundred eighty-eight years before the brutal slaying of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley on the front steps of her Marine Street home, long before Frances Bemis left for her usual evening walk never to return (both cases unsolved to this day), there was the unsolved murder of Lieutenant Guillermo Delaney. Delaney was stabbed and beaten as he walked along a dark stretch of Charlotte Street late in the cool Northeast Florida night in the waning weeks of 1785. Delaney succumbed to his wounds in January of 1786, dying in the same month as Lindsley would many years later with his assailants never having been identified or brought to justice.

Ancient City in the Dark

In November of 1785, East Florida was stabilizing post evacuation of around 10,000 British loyalists who had fled to the area during the period of the American Revolution. St. Augustine was, at the time, home to approximately 2,700 inhabitants with civilian population counting for less than 1000 of those. The majority were military personnel stationed at the Castillo de San Marcos along with their families. A garrison town, St. Augustine was then as it still is in many ways — insular, with everyone knowing everyone and everyone’s personal business being a matter of public discussion — in which daily life was structured by military rank.

Delaney, having served in a unit seeing much action during the Revolution, served as lieutenant in the Hibernia Regiment of Spain’s Irish Brigade. He was stationed at the Castillo de San Marcos by 1784, by all accounts a seasoned soldier continuing his tenure at a quiet post. But November 20, 1785 changed that.

Some time, between the hours of 9:30 to 10:00 that night, as Delaney was walking along Charlotte Street (at the time, known as San Carlos), a block north of current-day Treasury Street, he was attacked suddenly and without warning — stabbed and beaten by persons that he was unable to identify. Severely wounded, he made his way to the residence of one Josef Gomila to which he was already deliberately heading. This detail may be a significant clue.

Possible Motive Revealed

Testimony would later reveal that Delaney had been having an affair with one Catalina Morain. Morain, a seamstress of Anglo-American parentage, lived at the Gomila house. Morain’s personal life was complicated, to say the least, as it would be revealed that she was involved with a number of men other than Delaney including Distinguished Sergeant Juan Sivelly and Corporal Francisco Moraga. Both men served in an artillery corps attached to the Castillo. Sivelly had been imprisoned by the governor directly months earlier for “scandalous behavior.” It was reported that Sivelly ordered Moraga to cease his relationship with Morain though Moraga did not comply.

Among the townsfolk, jealousy was the obvious motive. The task before the authorities was proving it.

The Investigation — A Dead End

Investigators had almost nothing to work with. Delaney’s description of the attackers simply referenced figures in hooded cloaks obscuring their physical features on the dark, unlit street. It didn’t help matters that this description fit most of the soldiers stationed at the garrison, all of whom would have worn such cloaks in winter and looked nearly identical.

The other known suitors of Morain were questioned, Moraga and Sivelly. Both men claimed to have been nowhere near the Gomila residence during the time of the attack on Delaney. Neither had concrete alibis though Moraga had a partial one — he claimed to have been at a play rehearsal at St. Francis Barracks, however, his walking route to the rehearsal ran directly past the crime scene.

A number of witnesses were questioned as well but no one could or, more likely, would, say anything beyond acknowledging that they had heard cries of alarm and saw cloaked figures moving through the streets.

What the Records Tell Us

Delaney never recovered, dying of his wounds on January 4, 1786, six weeks after the attack. He was laid to rest at Tolomato Cemetery on Cordova Street, one of the most historically layered burial grounds in the United States. Tolomato holds Spanish governors, Irish soldiers, Civil War dead, and Haitian generals on the small parcel of land.

The investigation quickly turned cold and was overshadowed by greater pressures upon the administrators of Florida in early 1786, namely those of food shortages, the constant flux of displaced peoples, and the logistical demands of a new colonial government.

At the time, the Delaney murder would have been quite the sensation. St. Augustine of the period, remarkably, experienced little to no recorded violence, particularly murder. This is worthy of note considering the diversity of the population from soldiers to sailors to traders from a dozen or so different nations, mostly young men. Such social stability was, no doubt, the result of the tight military structure imposed upon the town and, perhaps, even indicative of a generally high social order. In any case, the Delaney murder was the only violent crime to disrupt life in St. Augustine during the formative years of the Second Spanish Period.

This adds considerable weight to the case itself — in a small city in which most everyone knew everyone else, a murder went unsolved and the community in which the crime was committed said as little as possible to investigators. There is more than a hint that this was deliberate and conspicuous.

For anyone familiar with the unsolved homicide of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley, the dynamics of the Delaney case will seem familiar. The community, no doubt, knew more than it would say. Whether out of fear, loyalty, or other reason we may never know.

The Delaney case would turn out to be the first, but most certainly not the last, murder in St. Augustine that went unsolved not because of lack of leads or evidence but, rather, silence among the people and competing institutional demands. One of a number of victims who died without receiving justice.

The century and the names are different. The pattern is the same.

Lieutenant Guillermo Delaney is buried only six blocks from where Athalia Ponsell Lindsley was murdered. While the lids to the coffins have been closed, their case files have not.

This is Florida Unsolved.