The Disappearance of Percy Fawcett and Other Famous Vanishings
136
The Disappearance of Percy Fawcett and Other Famous Vanishings
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Overview
While looking for his mythical Lost City of Z, Percy Fawcett vanished. Amelia Earhart did the same while circling the earth on her historic flight. Much like these two historical figures, there has been a slew of cases that have never been solved—noted author Ambrose Bierce, Czar Alexander I, Judge Joseph Force Crater, famed adventurer Richard Halliburton, and others who never managed to return from their adventures. This book examines and documents each case in extensive detail, in an attempt to bring together some of the loose ends.
History.com writer Evan Andrews provides a detailed foreword to add some contemporary insight into the accounts of the vanished in The Disappearance of Percy Fawcett and Other Famous Vanishings.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781631581816 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Racehorse |
| Publication date: | 04/04/2017 |
| Pages: | 136 |
| Sales rank: | 620,252 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.10(w) x 5.10(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Evan Andrews is a researcher and writer for The History Channel, History.com, and the History Here smart phone app. He resides in Richmond, Virginia.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
A JUDGE ON THE LAM
On a hot summer night in New York City, Judge Joseph Force Crater stepped into a taxi on West 45th Street, waved goodnight to two dinner companions, and was never seen again. The resulting investigation of his disappearance covered the United States and many foreign countries, and his "jacket" in the Bureau of Missing Persons of the New York City Police Department, File 13595, still marks an open case.
Judge Crater does not fit the picture of a remote white-haired jurist who spends quiet evenings playing chess and reading the Yale Review. He was a sporty character well-known on Times Square and Broadway, and some of his best friends were the long-stemmed American beauties who graced the chorus lines and name roles of popular musicals. While other disappearances from the streets of New York have received a certain notoriety (there was Dorothy Arnold who went shopping on December 12, 1910 and never came home; and Jesus de Galindez who vanished in an improbable political shuffle on March 12, 1956), the Crater case received an avalanche of publicity — and for good reason. The combination of personal scandals brought to light about the judge, and the linking of his disappearance with odorous political corruption in the city's administration makes him the most famous missing person of that area.
The world-wide tracing of clews followed telephone tips, letters, personal visits of informants, notes written on playing cards found in floating bottles. Judge Crater was seen as the occupant of a neighboring deck chair on ocean liners; as the quiet resident of a pension in Italy; as a heavy better at the races; as a monk in a monastery in Mexico; as a visitor to Sing Sing. Although he had never learned to drive a car, Judge Crater was recognized as the driver of a variety of vehicles by motorists in many states. No missing man has ever had more doubles.
On August 6, 1930, when Judge Crater disappeared, he was forty-one years old. Today, thirty years after his disappearance, the search for him continues. Do the facts show that the judge may live a respected citizen in some community? Was he killed in a roughing-up administered by gangster friends of a woman who was blackmailing him? Did he commit suicide because of the personal and political scandals that prevented him from achieving his life-long goal? Was he robbed and murdered by a man he had never seen before? The facts are these.
In April 1930, less than four months before his disappearance, Joseph Force Crater, relatively unknown politically, was appointed Justice of the New York State Supreme Court by Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was a compromise appointment to the unexpired term of resigning Judge Proskauer, and in order to secure a full fourteen-year term as Justice, a political plum paying $22,500 a year, would face election in November of that year.
Born in a small town, Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1889, and educated in a local school, Lafayette College, in his home town, Joseph Crater had allied himself in New York City with the Tammany Democrats. For over ten years he had acted as President of the Cayuga Democratic Club in the nineteenth district. From 1920 to 1926 he was secretary to State Supreme Court Justice Robert F. Wagner. Judge Crater's legal practice, involving many receiverships, paid well. So well that he had become a heavy and successful speculator in the stock market. One of his several brokers accounts showed a turnover of $120,000. Judge Crater's other professional activities included teaching at Fordham University and at New York University, where he had the academic rank of Assistant Professor and the reputation of the most entertaining lecturer in the law school.
The Judge, according to his wife, the former Stella Mance Wheeler, a slim, attractive blonde, was most punctual in his habits. He always let her know when he would be away from home for dinner, and whenever he would be delayed or absent, he telephoned or sent a telegram. Perhaps he sent such messages rather frequently because he was often seen in the speak easy nightclubs of the era, and in popular restaurants. Judge Crater was described as gregarious. His friends included fellow jurists, politicians, professional men, show men, and show girls. He enjoyed the theater and frequently attended plays and musicals.
But there was something enigmatic about this sociable, friendly man. He often attended the theater alone. He contributed to the maintenance of several women other than his wife. Sylvia Marcus, a pretty red-haired salesgirl, had received an allowance from the Judge for over seven years, and he was a regular visitor to her apartment. Fred Kahler, the Crater chauffeur, testified the Judge's destinations were often vague. He seldom went to any specific address, but left the car at street intersections, and arranged to be picked up on corners rather than at any house or building.
In physical appearance, Judge Crater was tall, of robust build; he had brown eyes, graying hair, parted in the center, his upper and lower teeth had been replaced. An injury in a car door had permanently deformed the end of his right index finger. Although a tall man, he walked with very short steps. Because of his unusually long, thin neck (collar size 14), he wore high white collars. He had a head markedly small for his stature (hat size 6 5/8). The judge was customarily quiet and deliberate in manner, and, although a social drinker in moderation, he was known as a sparing user of alcohol.
The backdrop of politics before which the Crater disappearance and investigation were enacted was a montage of bribery, graft, corrupt practices. The Seabury investigations, shortly to get under way, revealed some of the payoffs that were the order of the day in New York municipal administration. The findings of the investigations, The Seabury Report completed several years after Judge Crater's disappearence, caused Governor Roosevelt to request the resignation of Mayor Jimmie Walker.
Two cases of graft were closely related to the Crater case: The Ewald Investigation, and the Libby's Hotel Scandal. The Ewald payoff came to light when United States Attorney General in New York, Charles P. Tuttle, began a routine check into the activities of the Cotter-Butte Mining Company, which had been charged with using the mails to defraud investors of millions of dollars. Mr. Tuttle uncovered incidental evidence that City Magistrate George F. Ewald had paid $12,000 for his appointment to Martin J. Healy, a leader of the Cayuga Democratic Club, of which Judge Crater was president. Although federal investigators checked the judge's bank accounts, and his father, F. E. Crater, testified he thought his son's disappearance the result of the Ewald investigation, Judge Crater was not proved personally involved in the payoff.
There was some question as to whether the judge, in turn, had paid for his appointment. Several weeks after his appointment was confirmed, he sold securities and withdrew money from the bank to total the approximate amount of his annual salary as Justice — $22,500. A. E. McCabe, a broker, testified that the judge received $16,000 for the stock sold, and that J. L. Mara, the judge's court attendant, called for the cash payment. Judge Crater's regular brokers had no record of the judge selling any of his securities at this time. It is an open political secret that the rule of thumb for pricing such political appointments was "one year's salary." Coincidence might account for the closeness in amount of the judge's annual salary and the cash he secured, which was never accounted for.
The Libby's Hotel Scandal more specifically involves the missing judge. The Libby's Hotel, a substantial brick building on the East Side, was one of the many property receiverships Judge Crater handled in his law practice. On June 27, 1929, the Hotel was sold to the American Mortgage Company, a subsidiary of a New York City finance company, for $75,000. Although the title to the property changed hands, no cash was paid for the Hotel as taxes and other judgments against it were in excess of the purchase price. Less than two months after this sale, the Libby's Hotel was bought by the City of New York for over two and a half million dollars. Purpose: Street widening. The judge's estate received his legally established fee for handling the property during five months of receivership, some $10,000, but an additional "very large sum" the judge noted was due him when the city purchased the hotel, was denied owing and never paid by the American Mortgage Company. The street widening project never started, and when Mayor La Guardia was questioned on the transaction several years later, he replied, "Page Mr. Crater."
Several agencies had attempted to do just that, and for a number of months. The District Attorney of New York City, and the New York City Police Department were looking for the missing judge. A Grand Jury hearing looking into his disappearance called nearly 300 witnesses over a period of four months, and reported its findings in hundreds of pages of testimony. Mrs. Crater, aware of political forces in the investigation, said it was a "burlesque," that politics hampered the police search, and never testified before the Grand Jury.
The investigations detailed Judge Crater's activities immediately before his disappearance:
Sunday, August 3, 1930 Judge Crater, vacationing at his cottage at Belgrade Lakes with Mrs. Crater received a "disturbing" telephone call. He said something to his wife about "having to straighten those fellows out"; told her he had to return to New York and would be back at the Lakes Saturday, August 9. Ludwig Traube, his next door neighbor at the Lakes, telephoned for the judge, as they had an appointment, and Mrs. Crater told him the judge had returned to New York "on a very important matter."
Monday, August 4. Amedia Christian, the Crater's Puerto Rican maid was told by the judge to return August 7 to clean the apartment. Judge Crater attended to routine business in his chambers, wrote a letter to a niece at a camp in Maine, was seen at lunch in a Broadway restaurant, saw his doctor in Greenwich Village that afternoon.
Tuesday, August 5. Judge Crater was seen in the County courthouse and in his chambers. He had lunch with a fellow jurist, dinner at his physician's where he stayed until 12:30 A.M. On this day, a woman, "Lorraine Fay," was consulting another attorney, S. Rucker, a former Deputy Attorney General of New York State, to file a $100,000 breach of promise against Judge Crater. Lorraine Fay was never identified and never seen again.
Wednesday, August 6. Judge Crater appeared in his office at the usual hour, about 11 A.M. J. L. Mara, his court attendant, was given two checks drawn to cash on local banks and totaling $5150. Judge Crater pocketed the cash Mara handed him without taking it out of the envelope. He called Mara to tie up several portfolios filled with papers from his files, and to carry these and two briefcases to a taxi. When they arrived at the Crater apartment, 40 Fifth Avenue, Mara put the files on chairs in the living room. The judge told him, "I'm going up Westchester way for a swim. I'll see you tomorrow." Mara thought the judge seemed depressed. That evening the judge bought a single ticket for Dancing Partner, a new comedy that had just opened the night before at the Belasco Theatre on West 44th Street. Joseph Grainsky, the ticket agent, knew Judge Crater, and told him he would try to locate a ticket for that evening and have it at the boxoffice.
The judge next was seen in Billy Haas' restaurant, 332 West 45th Street, by William Klein, an attorney who handled legal theatrical work for the Schuberts. When he saw Judge Crater, he asked him to join him and his companion, Sally Lou Ritz, a form-member of the Artists and Models company. The judge appeared in his usual good spirits during dinner, and told Klein he was returning to Belgrade Lakes for a three weeks vacation before his court reconvened on August 25. About 9:15 they came out of the restaurant. Crater hailed a taxi, waved as the taxi moved westward on 45th Street — and vanished.
The ticket he arranged for was picked up at the box-office, but the person using the ticket was never identified.
When the judge failed to appear on August 9 at Belgrade Lakes, Mrs. Crater telephoned friends in New York. She was assured that everything was all right, and that the judge would be back home in a day or two. Fred Kahler, the chauffeur, sent by Mrs. Crater to New York to see whether the judge was at their apartment, telephoned her to report that the apartment was in good order, but that the judge was not there. All of the judge's thirty suits, except the brown pin-stripe he wore the day of his disappearance, hung in the closet. All the luggage was there. Also, on the dresser, were the judge's monogrammed watch, card case, and pen, which he usually carried.
Discreet inquiries were made. Judge Crater's political friends warned Mrs. Crater that more direct action would jeopardize the judge's chances for election. Then too, the judge had once before absented himself, for a period of three weeks, and returned safely.
The Supreme Court session began August 25. When Judge Crater had not reported to his chambers by August 27, when he was scheduled to preside at a meeting of the judges, Supreme Court Justice, Louis A. Valentine telephoned Mrs. Crater at Belgrade Lakes to find out where Judge Crater was. On September 3, over a month after the disappearance, the New York World reported the story of the missing judge on the front page. The following day, the Bureau of Missing Persons of the New York Police Department received a request to look for the judge. Their famous File 13595 was opened.
Rewards for information were posted. The Sun offered $2500; New York City, $5000. The investigation pursued over a period of months cost an estimated $300,000.
There was no trace of Judge Crater. The taxi driver who picked him up in front of Haas' restaurant was not found. "Lorraine Fay," suing for breach of promise, never came forward. A further element of mystery appeared in the case, when Mrs. Crater, upon her return to the Crater apartment on January 21, 1931, found a manila envelope in the top drawer of the dresser. The envelope contained cash, $6690 mostly in bills of large denomination, the judge's 16-line will, written five years before, leaving his entire estate to his wife; insurance policies; securities; and a three page note, pencilled in the judge's handwriting, listing debtors owing him. The Libby's Hotel was listed among the debtors. All debtors denied the obligation and refused payment, with the exception of the receivership fee for the Libby's Hotel. At the bottom of his note, in closing, the judge wrote, "Am very weary. Love, Joe."
The apartment had been thoroughly searched by the police, by the district attorney, and by Grand Jury investigators. There was 24- hour police guard on the apartment. There was speculation that the envelope had been overlooked in the many searches; that Judge Crater had returned to the apartment after the searches; that the envelope had been placed in the dresser by one of the policemen guarding the apartment. The contents of the envelope are customarily stored in a safety deposit box. When Judge Crater's safety deposit box was opened, he was the only person authorized access to it, the box was empty. When and how the envelope was placed in the apartment were never determined.
July 6 1937, Judge Crater was declared legally dead. Emil K. Ellis, attorney acting for Mrs. Crater, sued the insurance companies carrying the judge's life insurance for double indemnity. Ellis claimed he had proof that Judge Crater was murdered in the vicinity of 39th Street and Park Avenue. He claimed the judge offered the $5120, drawn out of the bank on the day of his disappearance, to a show girl who was trying to blackmail him; was accidently killed in an ensuing scuffle with two strong-arm men; his body taken to New Jersey and cremated under a falsified death certificate. No legal action was taken on the evidence presented, but the insurance companies settled for the face values of the policies, $20,561. Several years ago Mr. Ellis repeated his story to the Los Angeles Times. He stated that Judge Crater told friends his life was in danger, and that he had shown them a gun which he carried for protection.
New York District Attorney Crain had tried to find out if Judge Crater's mysterious telephone call that sent him hurrying back to New York from Belgrade Lakes, the day after he arrived for his vacation, told him that he was not going to be nominated for the Supreme Court post.
According to Police Commissoner Edward P. Mulrooney, "Crater's disappearance was premeditated." There are the unexplained papers Judge Crater removed from his files the day he disappeared. There is the finality of leaving his personal papers accessible and in order; his watch, card case, and pen with their identifying initials. There is also the considerable difference in the reported size of the judge's bank and brokerage accounts, and the modest estate he left.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Disappearance of Percy Fawcett and Other Famous Vanishings"
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Table of Contents
Note vii
Picture Source Credits ix
Foreword xi
A Judge on the Lam: Joseph Force Crater 1
The Expendable Frogman: Lionel Crabb 13
The Airy Heart: Amelia Earhart 23
The Sphinx of the North: Alexander I 35
The Stolen Child: Charley Ross 45
The Death of the Sea Dragon: Richard Halliburton 57
The Missing Heir: Roger Tichborne 65
The Secret of the Mato Grosso: Col. Percy Fawcett 77
The Absent PhD: Jesus de Galindez 91
A Gringo in Euthanasia: Ambrose Bierce 109