Regional Murder Mysteries

[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

[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]

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,

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

[Steve S]

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

[Observer]

this seems like a job for Bicycle Repairman



all the best
observer

[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.

[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.

[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]

Hi Jeff,

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

[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.

[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]

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.

[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]

Stand by for update!