Regional Murder Mysteries

[Mayerling]

Hi Stan,

The problem with living in the New York Metropolitan area is that too many of the unsolved (and solved) cases are well known - actually Chicago has a similar problem. I might have added two or three bombings:

1920 - Wall Street - over forty killed - the perpetrator was never discovered.
the late 1970s - Faunces Tavern in Manhattan, and LaGuardia Airport, both killing about a dozen each. The F.A.L.N. of Puerto Rican Nationalists were blamed but nothing was ever proven nor anyone brought to trial.

I'll try to find some more obscure ones.

Jeff

[sdreid]

Thanks Jeff. I have heard of most of those but I bet few out of my area know anything about the ones on my list. Being from a large population area makes a difference, I think. You certainly have some interesting and very big unsolved cases there.

[Mayerling]

HI Stan,

Pretty interesting, and remarkably more difficult than I imagined.

1) Giuliana Sands (December 1799) in lower Manhattan (the "Manhattan Well Murder", or the Sands - Weeks Affair.

2) Disappearance of New York State Chancellor John Lansing, when he went to the Albany mail boat to post a letter in December 1829 - Accident or murder?

3) Helen Jewett (1836) - or the Thomas Street Murder in Manhattan.

4) Mary C. Rogers (1841) - the "beautiful "seegar" girl" case that influenced Edgar Allan Poe.

5) The Benjamin Nathan Murder (1870) - of the "23rd Street Murder" in Manhattan.

6) Carrie Brown (1891) - in a dive/hotel in lower Manhattan.

7) Dolly Reynolds (1897) - in a hotel in Manhattan in the West 20s. Questions remain if she was killed for trying to blackmail a lover - possibly a dentist who resided in Staten Island.

8) Disappearance of Dorothy Arnold (1910) - last seen on Fifth Avenue in the East 20s.

9) Joseph Elwell in the West 60s of Manhattan (1920). Shot in his brownstone mansion.

10) Disappearance of Justice Joseph Crater (1930) - last seen on Broadway in a taxicab.

11) Odd death of Starr Faithfull (1931) - body found in Long Beach, in Nassau County.

12) Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (1932) - Hopewell, New Jersey, but planned in the Bronx (at least I think so). Despite an official solution still debated.

13) Sergei Rubinstein (in his mansion on Park Avenue) (1955). Probably the only murder on this list where everyone wants to give the killers medals.

14) Alice Crimmins (1964) - bodies of her two children found near the New York World's Fair Grounds in Flushing Meadows (the killings were done nearly four miles from my then residence in Flushing, in Queens).

15) Etan Patz (1979) - Greenwich Village in Manhattan. Although most people feel poor Etan was kidnapped, ravished and slain - and a likely suspect has been found - we don't know.

There are others - and note most of these were in Manhattan. There are others not in the main borough of New York City.

Jeff

[sdreid]

It seems, every locale has its own set of interesting unsolved murders and that most of them are not that well known outside the area. I'd be interested to hear about yours. Here are my top ten murder mysteries in chronological order within 60 or so miles from me. I'll give a more detailed account on each in subsequent posts.

1-Johnny Cantwell in 1881 near North Pekin
2-George McNear in 1947 at Peoria
3-Bernie Shelton during 1948 in Peoria
4-The evanishment and assumed murder of Fay Rawley in 1953 near Summum
5-Janice May in 1955 at Canton
6-Susan Hendricks and her three children during 1983 in Bloomington
7-The Trick-or-Treat murders in 1984 at Decatur
8-The disappearance and probable slaying of Veronica Blumhorst in 1990 at Mendota
9-Tammy Zywicki during 1992 near Utica
10-Dalton Mesarchik in 2003 at Streator