Shadows of Death (True Crime Box Set) by Ramsland Katherine

Author:Ramsland, Katherine [Ramsland, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Notorious USA
Published: 2015-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

The Vanishing Judge

AN ENDURING MYSTERY is that of Judge Joseph Force Crater, who simply vanished one day after stepping into a cab in Manhattan. Born in 1889 in Easton, PA, he attended Lafayette College before going to Columbia University Law School in Manhattan. He took up the practice of law in New York and became president of the Democratic Party Club. President Roosevelt appointed him as Associate Judge of the New York Supreme Court, and just days before the appointment was to be announced, Crater withdrew $20,000 from his bank account, probably for the standard bribe for Tammany Hall officials who’d put his name forward for this honor. That’s how things worked.

During July of 1930, Crater was with his wife at their vacation home at Belgrade Lakes, Maine, when he received a phone call. He said he had business in the city, but did not identify the caller or the nature of his business. He just said that he had to “straighten those fellows out.” Circumstances suggest the caller was a showgirl with whom he was having an affair, as he subsequently accompanied her to Atlantic City. Afterward he returned to Maine for a brief period before going back to Manhattan. This was the last that his wife ever saw of him.

The last known sighting happened on August 6, 1930. Judge Crater had just been with friends at a restaurant, but said he had tickets to the theater and had to leave. They recalled that he’d been in a good mood. They’d seen him hail a cab and get in. Then Judge Crater was gone.

At first, no one missed him. A week later, his wife began to wonder she hadn’t heard from him. Generally he checked in every few days. She called friends and acquaintances, but no one had seen him recently. Then Crater failed to show up for the opening of the courts.

Now people were concerned. An investigation turned up information that on the day he disappeared, he’d asked his assistant, Joseph Mara, to cash two large checks for him, to the tune of over five thousand dollars. He’d also taken $20,000 from campaign funds, but had not said what it was for. Around noon on the day he’d disappeared, Crater and Mara carried two briefcases to his Manhattan apartment. He’d then purchased a single ticket to a Broadway play that evening, Dancing Partners. Prior to the show, he went out to dinner where he ran into friends. They described how he’d gone out to get a cab to make it to the show.

There were no more leads, but the story grabbed headlines: a prominent New York judge had virtually disappeared. His safe deposit box was empty and the two briefcases that Mara described were missing as well. Leads began to pour in from all over the world, but most were false. There was even a grand jury hearing, but despite the testimony of nearly 100 people, the police had nothing to go on.

In the New York apartment, Mrs.

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