Newspapers / Zebulon Record (Zebulon, N.C.) / Oct. 8, 1937, edition 1 / Page 9
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Murder%> Answer Baffling- Crater Mystery —-=- ehb&v il tJH Rk f 111 4. iJ R - ■ iH| jfl /3Pr^ Seven years ago Justice Joseph Force Crater (right) stepped Into a taxicab, waved a jovial good by to friends and drove off into ( oblivion. EVEN years have passed and Mis. Stella M. Crater is bringing action to have her husband declared le gally dead —but Justice Joseph s Force Crater still is missing and unac counted for. This despite the fact that a 300-pouncl desert prospector, 100-pound night club nifties and many other people have told their tales of seeing the missing judge since that August night in 1930 when he left a New York restaurant, stepped into a cab, waved a goodby to friends and drove off into the darkness of ob livion. Since that night reports have had Crater in Cuba. Nova Scotia, New Jer sey, Ohio, the Adirondacks, Ma.i», back in New York several times, and in many other places. . Police have dragged lakes in Maine; they have searched the southern Cali fornia desert. They have sent “dodgers” into every police station in the world. Every day of the last seven years they have moved relentlessly, if unsuccess fully, to find the missing jurist. And following Mrs. Crater’s recent sensational statements at her summer home in Belgrade Lakes, Mb., they will continue the search. Mrs. Crater said she now believes that her husband was murdered for political reasons. She also charged the police with inefficiency after her husband’s disappearance. Perhaps the case would not be termed one of the greatest mysteries of all time, if Justice Crater had not been such an important figure in New York. Here was a man appointed to the New York Supreme Court by Franklin De lano Roosevelt, then governor of that state. Crater was the law partner of Senator Robert F. Wagner, and con sidered Wagner his political sponsor. He was prominent in political circles, having been active in politics since 1920 4 ND so the New York authorities will •* continue the search, although the general belief now is that Crater, if he is not dead, is destined to become a life member of the “missing” that phantom 2 per cent of those who dis appear and stay that way. Ninety-eight per cent of all missing persons are found eventually. Perhaps Judge Crater simply hied himself off to some faraway and peace ful place where his troubles would be no more. Such an escape to nowhere might be easily understood: The judge had plenty of both worries and dollars with him that night. He was known to have carried more than SSOOO when he got into the taxi cab. And as for worries: He was up for re-appointment to the 14-year Supreme Court term that fall. (He was named to the court after the retirement of Justice Joseph M. Pros kauer.) Indications were that he would not be re-appointed. Such a political slap in the face would be difficult to explain away. Then it was charged that Judge Cra ter had been friendly politically with former Magistrate George F. Ewald. who was charged with buying his office for SIO,OOO from Martin J. Healy, Tam many district leader and member of the Cayuga Democratic Club, to which Crater had belonged. And there was the Libby Hotel busi ness. One paragraph of a note written by Crater to his wife before he disappeared read: “Libby Hotel—There will be a very large sum due me for services when the city pays the condemnation.” Since Crater had acted as receiver in the hotel’s bankruptcy proceedings and had referred earlier in the note to the SIO,OOO due him for those services. It was charged by investigators that his connection with the condemnation was not a legal one. They hinted that the justice had disappeared voluntarily to avoid possible ouster and disbarment. <l’ht>t© copyright, New York World-Telegram) Mrs. Stella M. Crater, wife or widow of Judge Crater. . . . She now believes her husband was murdered because of political connections. 'T’HEN there were the night club girls. •“■ Judge Crater seems to have enjoyed even wider acquaintance in those cir cles than in political ones. The girls who knew the jurist were not few, it seemed from the number of stories they told after his disappearance. But if Judge Crater is alive today, wherever he may be, he would be con spicuous because of his physical appear ance. He was a big man, 185 pounds and 6 feet tall. But his head and neck were extremely small in proportion to his general body build. He wore a size 14 collar and size 6% hat. That collar size would be about right for a man weighing around 130 pounds, and very few adult men, whatever their build, wear hats*smaller than size 6 3 /<. The corollary chapters in the story of Justice Crater would fill several bound volumes. Some of than are perhaps stranger than the disappearance itself. There was, for example, the tale of Connie Marcus, who told police that she knew the judge very well indeed and that the cause of his disappearance was a religious fervor which had of a sud den possessed him and which had im pelled him to seek a monastic life in old Mexico. But this theory is about as thoroughly discredited today as is the story of “Lucky Blackie” Blackeit. It was “Blackie” who inspired the craziest of all the searches for the jurist. “Blackie,” a grizzled desert prospec tor weighing more than 300 pounds and proud possessor of two awesome mutton chop sideburns, told his story in the summer of 1936. He had, he insisted, encountered the bullet-headed missing justice in the desert country near War ner’s Hot Springs, Calif. “We talked a while, and he admitted he was Judge Crater,” Blackeit in formed police. “Then he told me, ‘ln one more year I’ll be legally dead * hope I can stick it out.’ ” Two policemen and 15 newspaper men started out with Blackie to search for Crater. Next day five more news papermen and another official joined the party. But Blackie delayed things a bit. Ask ing the assemblage, “Think I got noth ing better to do but play nurse to a bunch of city coppers?”, the prospector eased his 300 pounds into a sitting pos ture and refused to move until he was paid SSO. He relented for the $25 which reporters and photographers chipped in. however, and the search was renewed. But despite Blackeit’s mutterings about a “ghost’s house” where Crater had gone “sure’s shooting.” the hunting party netted nothing more than numer ous sore feet and a lot of sunburn At frequent intervals the headlines have told similar stories during the years that Crater has been missing Last told and possibly most impor tant of them all, was Mrs. Crater’s re cent outpouring from her Maine sum mer home. “It's’ time to talk," Mrs. Crater de clared. “I would like to talk about all the rottenness there is in polities. I would like to be able to prove all my suspicions.” AND despite the fear that “the sinister something that took Joe away from me might come after me if I talk too much,” Mrs. Crater voiced her be -*f that her husband had been murdered, and blamed politics. “I am convinced that Joe is dead. I am convinced that he went away because of a sinister something that was connected with politics.” Leo Lowenthal, a police headquarters detective at the time of Judge Crater’s disappearance, termed the theory of a political crime “absurd." “In my opinion Judge Crater is dead,” he said. “It is absurd to think that he was killed for political reasons.” It is Lowenthal’s belief that Crater was killed for the money he carried and that the murder was the work of the driver of Judge Crater’s taxicab or the driver’s confederates. Crater had hailed a “night hawk” cab (not a company cab, but one operated individually). Neither the cab nor its driver has been found. But despite the complicated mixup of theories, reports, rumors, charges and counter-charges, there is a new hope that the mystery may be solved. That hope is based on the action Mrs. Crater is bringing to have Judge Crater de clared legally dead (under the New York seven-year disappearance statute). Refusal by the insurance companies to pay the $20,000 life insurance which Crater carried for his wife might bring out new and important angles in the case. In the event of a legal contest both Mrs. Crater and the insurance com panies would subpoena Crater’s friend* and business associates. They might be compelled to tell their stories under oath. Far from closing the case, the court action may bring out all the suppressed facts.
Zebulon Record (Zebulon, N.C.)
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Oct. 8, 1937, edition 1
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