Just seven weeks before Einer Sporrer’s murder, on February 4, Ossido had lured a twelve-year-old girl, Elinor Knapp, into the back room of his barbershop and assaulted her. Arrested for rape, he was indicted on the lesser charge of impairing the morals of a minor and released on $2,500 bail pending his trial. It was not Ossido’s first arrest for crimes involving young girls. In 1931, he was convicted of “misconduct towards a minor” and spent eighteen months in Elmira Prison. In 1935, he had been fined $10 on a disorderly conduct charge for molesting a young girl on the subway.
