Regional Murder Mysteries

[Mayerling]

Some more cases

1928 - Arnold "the Big Bankroll" Rothstein (creator of the style of modern organized crime, alleged mastermind of the 1919 fix in the Black Sox Scandal, and the original for "Nathan Detroit" in GUYS AND DOLLS) killed at the Park Sheridan Hotel after a night of card playing. Was he shot by a fellow gambler, a racketeer, who? He never said although he lived for several hours afterwards. [When badgered by the police, reputedly he angrily spat out, "Me mother!!"]

1941 - The Blue Moon Hotel in Coney Island, Brooklyn. A day before he was
to give testimony against the leaders of "Murder Inc.", Abe "Kid Twist" Reles fell out of a twelve story window from the hotel. The police guard said he tried to flee (and there were a few pitiful tied up bed sheets from the window. Most people have assumed differently. Reles, who had been singing against his old associates to save his carcass, is recalled as "the canary who could sing but could not fly!"


1944 - the Wayne Lornegan Case. Wayne Lornegan, a Canadian who married an heiress, was accused of her murder. There was a big trial that resulted in his conviction, but doubts caused his sentence to be reduced to life imprisonment. He was released in the 1960s and died in the 1980s protesting he did not kill his wife. Many still believe him.


1957 - The Park Sheridan is a fine hotel, but deadly to organized crime figures. Albert Anastasia went into the hotel for his hair cut. While his face was covered by a steaming towel, a bunch of four men came in whom the staff realized did not want shaves. The staff (wisely) turned their backs, while the gentleman pumped Mr. Anastasia full of bullets. Then the four men left. Remarkably, none of the staff could describe these men very clearly.
They remained wise and healthy. The only possible solution that came out was when a few years later a rumor spread that Joey Gallo (talking to some cronies after the events) said, "Just call me and the boys the "barbertshop quartet"."

Jeff

[sdreid]

Since I think we can consider the Trick-or-Treat murders just solved, I'll add a replacement.

X -- In Normal, Illinois on August 28 of 1993, Jennifer Lockmiller was found murdered in her apartment. The co-ed had been strangled with an electrical cord and stabbed with scissors. Alan Beaman, her former boyfriend, was convicted of the slaying. After 13 years in prison, the guilty verdict was thrown out by a higher court and the State quickly dropped the charges. The case remains unsolved. Interestingly, one of Beaman's biggest champions was Jennifer's mother who always thought he was innocent. Some believe that the original verdict was due to the defendant's perceived cocky attitude.

[sdreid]

9 -- Twenty-one-year-old Tammy Zywicki left New Jersey on a trip to her college in Iowa. Along the way, she dropped her brother off at his college in Chicago. On August 23 of 1992 near Utica, IL, her derelict car was found. Passers-by later told of seeing Tammy talking to a truck driver with the hood of her car up. Nine days later, her stabbed body was found in Missouri. The truck had a rather unique paint scheme but it was never traced. With the close proximity to Veronica Blumhorst, some thought a serial killer might be about. The so-called Truck-Stop Killer was mentioned but the case is still unresolved.

10 - On March 26 of 2003, 7-year-old Dalton Mesarchik was taken while waiting for a church bus in Streator, IL. The next day, his beaten remains were found in a river south of town. It was determined that the murder weapon was a bench-top sledgehammer that came from K-Mart. His killing is still a mystery.

OK, that's my list at present.

[sdreid]

7 -- On October 31 of 1984 in Decatur IL, Sherry Gordon, 12, and, her cousin, Theresa Hall, 9, vanished while out trick-or-treating with Theresa's 7-year-old sister. They were later found strangled and sexually assaulted in an abandoned building. The younger girl was found hiding but was too traumatized to identify the attacker, thus leaving the case unsolved. UPDATE: Just last week, Decatur police announced that DNA from the crime scene had been matched to a convict named Melvin Johnson who'd died in 2003. It looks like we can probably consider this one solved.

8 -- Veronica Blumhorst, 20, left her job at a Mendota, IL grocery store in the early morning hours of September 20, 1990 and was never seen again. She had arrived at the home she shared with her parents because her car was in the garage. Acquaintances were questioned but the assumed murder is a mystery.

[sdreid]

Stand by for update!

[sdreid]

5 -- On November 26 of 1955, 8-year-old Janice May vanished in Canton, IL. She was soon found beside a set of railroad tracks. The little girl, who died a short time later, had been raped and beaten with a piece of broken concrete. A cab driver, named Lloyd Miller, inexplicably left town right after the crime and was eventually arrested. Police also found a pair of red stained undershorts, reportedly belonging to Miller. He was convicted of the slaying and sentenced to the electric chair. After eleven years on death row and ten execution dates, the "bloody" boxers were finally tested and the stains were found to be paint. He was released and had no further trouble with the law but his innocence is still the subject of debate. Legally, the murder is still a mystery.

6 -- Susan Hendricks, her children, Rebekah, 9, Grace, 7, and Benjamin, 5, were found hacked to death in their Bloomington, IL home on November 9 of 1983. The weapons were an ax and a butcher knife. Her husband, David claimed to be away on a business trip at the time of the murders but this couldn't be proven. He was also shown to be having an affair at the time. It was charged that he'd killed his family because they were in the way of his extramarital activities. Mr. Hendricks was convicted but later won a new trial which ended in an acquittal. Not everyone agreed with that verdict but the case is officially unsolved.

[sdreid]

Hi Jeff,

The strike was still in effect and had been ongoing for over 5 years. There was a point when the Army was bought in to run the trains for national security reasons. I believe it ended shortly after the murder when a new president took over.

Shelton was a part of the Williamson wars with its tanks and air raids but that county is pretty far south of me.

Doing a good job of hiding a body helps as your examples illustrate.

[Mayerling]

Hi Stan,

I forgot to say that 1881 case was unique - I actually can't recall many cases where a train was used like that as a murder weapon.

I take it the 1947 case stretched back to some strike from the early 1940s - during World War II which ended in 1945.

By the way, I would have included the small war in "Bloody Williamson" in the 1920s-1930s. It has been written up a great deal, but more attention is paid to the Chicago centered Capone activities than that.

Two other cases:

1927 - Eugene Cederholm disappearance (and murder) in Long Island City. Her boarder Edward Lawrence Hall went to prison for forging her checks, and died in Sing Sing. Remains of Ms Cederholm were found in 1953 in the back yard.

December 20, 1933 - Disappearance of Agnes Tufverson (an attorney) in Manhattan after marrying Yugoslavian officer Captain Ivan Powderjay. He certainly boarded the Atlantic ocean liner with his luggage (including a large trunk) but nobody saw her again. It is believed he cut up her body and dumped it into the ocean outside the 10 mile limit (piece by piece). Powderjay was eventually found to be a bigamist, and sentenced to Sing Sing for that - but no trace of Tufverson ever turned up.

Jeff

[sdreid]

3 -- On July 26 of 1948, a sniper gunned down Bernie Shelton, a local gangster, as he exited his tavern in Peoria, IL. He died within the hour. Police found the sniper's nest on a nearby wooded hillside. The case remains officially unsolved. Decades later, a convict related that another hoodlum named Charles "Blackie" Harris had claimed in prison that he'd been behind the slaying. Harris' account lacked details however.

4 -- Fay Rawley vanished from his home near Summum, IL on November 8 of 1953. Rawley was a well-to- do farmer and politician. He was last seen earlier that evening when he left his girlfriend's home in Macomb. There were signs of a struggle in his house. Neither he nor his new Cadillac were ever seen again. A strip mine was being filled in across the road from Rawley's home and the theory was that he was murdered and buried in his car there some 300 feet down. A local sheriff spent years drilling into the mine but never found Rawley or the Cadillac. The case is a total mystery.

[sdreid]

Hi Jeff,

I don't recall those. That last example would be a serial killing of sorts.

[Mayerling]

Hi Stan,

I can add these odd ones:

1826 - William Morgan is abducted by several men after being freed from an upstate jail. He had just written a controvertial book about the Masons that was revealing their secrets (supposedly). Pushed into a buckboard while screaming for help, he was driven away and never seen (officially) again.
A body found in a nearby river a few months later was possibly his.

January 2, 1931 to May 1933 - the 59-61 Allen Street (Manhattan) murders of first Herman Moensch (in 1931) and then of Edward Ridley and Harry Weinstein in 1933. All were killed in an old department store building that was on the lower East Side, apparently by someone with a grudge. Ridley (an elderly millionaire) employed Moensch and Weinstein as secretary and assistant, and as he was a tenement landlord it may have been a revenge set of killings of sorts. Nobody ever figured it out officially.

Jeff

[sdreid]

1 -- On August 21 of 1881, thirteen-year-old Johnny Cantwell was run over by a train near North Pekin, IL. He lived for a brief period and told the locomotive crew that he'd been accosted by a man while walking along the tracks. The man overpowered him and tied him to the rails saying he'd release him when he told the assailant where he could get some money. When the train approached, the men in the engine saw a man bending over the boy but they were unable to stop in time as the attacker ran into some woods. He was never captured or identified.

2 -- As he approached his home in Peoria, IL on March 10 of 1947, George McNear, the president of the Toledo, Peoria and Western Railroad, is cut down by a shot gun. He was walking back from attending a Bradley University basketball game. His company was embroiled in a bitter multi-year strike in which both sides had resorted to goon tactics. A couple of weeks previous, two strikers had been killed in a picket line incident. It was one of the few strikes that occurred during World War Two with the main issue involving the continued employment of steam locomotive firemen even though they were no longer needed on the new diesels. The murder was never solved.

[sdreid]

Steve-Yes, that is a world famous one.

Jeff-Certainly, I understand that issue. I purposely confined "my area" to within about a 90 minute drive expressly not to get too close to Chicago.

[Observer]

this seems like a job for Bicycle Repairman



all the best
observer

[Steve S]

And Leicestershire has the Green Bicycle case.........
Steve