Last week I went on an epic wikipedia journey that took up the better part of my Thursday afternoon... I'm not sure how or why I started my journey exactly but I do know that I spent somewhere between 2 and 3 hours reading about obscure unsolved disappearances.
This happens to me a lot, and I suspect it's a fairly common occurrence; you go to wikipedia to try and figure out exactly why Wesley Snipes thought he could refuse to pay taxes for a decade under guise of being a "tax protester", you click on a link that leads you to another link, and before you know why or how it happened you've spent half the day reading about Charles Manson, (who I personally think was railroaded, but that's a story for another day).
But getting back to my point, while I was reading up on mysterious cases of disappearance I decided it might be a good idea to post the facts of a case here on FITS so we could kick around theories and play amateur detective for a bit.. Depending on how it works out I may put up some more mysteries in the future... There is no shortage of weird shit unexplained shit to find on wikipedia.
Anyway, the inaugural mystery to be explored was an easy pick for me... When I was in middle school I checked out an "unsolved mysteries" book from the library for a paper I was writing on Amelia Earhart... And while her disappearance is fascinating, it was another story in the book that grabbed my attention and became a bit of an obsession for me. It was the case of a missing judge from NY named Joseph Crater.
This is the link to his wikipedia page, but to make things easier I'll summarize the facts right here:
Joseph Force Crater (January 5, 1889 – ???) was an associate judge on the New York State Supreme Court who suddenly disappeared on the night of August 6, 1930.
He was last seen leaving a restaurant and entering a taxi. He had just been appointed to the bench four months earlier.
The strange details of the case start earlier that summer when he and his wife were vacationing at their summer cabin in Maine. The vacation was going fine until the Judge received a phone call. When he got off the phone he told his wife that he had to return to NYC right away "to straighten those fellows out."
His wife didn't press him for any details because those were the good days when women knew their place! (I'm kidding, just wanted to make sure you were paying attention)
So Crater goes back to the city but instead of going into the office or dealing with anything urgent, he decides to head to Atlantic City with a showgirl... this gives us the first glimpse at what kind of man the Judge was... (the kind of guy I'd like to hang with!)
Without ever attending to any business or checking in at the office, the Judge heads back to Maine on August 1st, but he only stayed there two days before leaving on the 3rd to return to the city once again... The Crater's generally spent their summers in Maine, and because the Judge was a busy guy it was not all that uncommon for him to head back to the city on business when needed throughout the summer. Lets remember that there was internet back in 1930.
Before making this final trip back into the city Crater promised his wife he'd be back in time for her birthday which was on August 9th... He never made it back.
Once back in the city the Judge took some time out of his busy 'showgirl banging' schedule to head into the office for a few hours on August 6th. While he was there he had his assistant, Joseph Mara, cash two checks for him that amounted to $5,150... According to wikipedia, this would be the equivalent of something around $60,000 today.
At noon, he and Mara then when back to his apartment carrying two locked briefcases. After dropping them off Crater told the assistant to go ahead and take the rest of the day off.
Later that day he bought one single ticket for a Broadway comedy that night with a 9 pm show time... Then he went to dinner and ate lobster with his mistress, Sally Lou Ritz (also a showgirl but NOT the same showgirl he went to Atlantic City with a week earlier!), and a lawyer friend who may or may not have also been sleeping with Sally Lou.
They finished up their dinner at a little after 9 (keep in mind the show he bought the ticket for had started at 9, so he was already late) and got into a cab, alone, and was never seen or heard from again.
When Crater didn't return for his wife's birthday on the 16th she started phoning friends asking if anyone had heard from him or perhaps seen him. Nobody had.
Of course it wouldn't have been completely out of character for him to disappear for a few days, but when he didn't show up for work when courts reopened on Aug 25th his friends, family, and colleagues started a private search.
When that search came up empty the police were finally notified on September 3rd, 28 days after he had disappeared!
It was around this time that Miss Sally Lou Ritz also disappeared. Although the exact date and details of her departure remain sketchy, she was never seen or heard from again either.
The news of the missing judge quickly became the leading story in the country and stayed that way for months. A grand jury was convened in October and although they interviewed 95 witnesses and ammassed a mountain of information, they never came across any substantial leads.
They did however uncover some slimy details about NYC politics in general, and Judge Crater in particular. Aside from his adulterous ways it also became apparent that the Judge knew some shady characters and was involved in a suspicious real estate deal right around the time he was appointed to his seat on the court.
Six months after his disappearance, Crater's wife found a hidden trunk in their house that contained $6000 in cash, 3 life insurance policies, a list of people who owed him money, and a note that read, "I am very weary. Love Joe"
In 2005 authorities came across a letter written 50's years prior by the wife of a former NYC police officer. In it, the letter claimed that her husband the cop, along with another cop and a pair of mob associates had murdered the judge and buried him under the boardwalk in Coney Island. That location was later renovated and became what is today the New York Aquarium.
It has been confirmed that skeletal remains were in fact found at that spot in the 1950's, but the bones were buried in a Potter's field along with thousands of other unidentified bodies... So there is no way to check the remains for DNA and verify if the account in the woman's letter was true.
The main theories are this:
-He ran off with the show girl
-He fled to avoid some imminent discovery of his shady dealings
-He was murdered for his shady dealings
-He was the victim of some random murder
-He killed himself
Personally, this is the way I see it:
The judge was indeed involved in dirty politics with shady characters. Naturally, he had a long list of enemies and people he'd pissed off over the years. Now that he had obtained such a high profile position, some of those people began making life uncomfortable for him.
He knew it was only a matter of time before he was either exposed or knocked off so he decided to skip town with his mistress. But he didn't want to totally leave his wife out in the cold so he left her the cash, life insurance policies, and the list as a sort of consolation prize to help ease his own personal guilt.
Even though his case was so famous it was 1930 and he could have disappeared and started a new life fairly easily. His shady real estate deal by most accounts left him with a rather large sum of money that is still unaccounted for. He could have lived off that and used it to start a new somewhere in Europe, Canada, or anywhere really.
My explanation for the letter discovered in '05 goes something like this: That lady's husband and his associates probably did murder somebody and bury him under the boardwalk, and because it happened around the time of the Crater case she assumed it was him.
Had those four men really robbed and murdered the judge I fail to see how they could have kept a secret like that for so long. Especially in a case so high profile. Those guys would have wanted to brag about what they had done, not to mention they would have been spending that small fortune of money he had like crazy. It only takes one guy to get liquored up and run his mouth a bit too much to ruin a secret, and yet we're supposed to believe that four men of questionable character were able to keep a lid on something that big for all that time? No way.
But again, that's just my theory. What's yours?
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Farting in the Shower is a ramblingand ecclectic mix of short stories, embarrasing confessions, pictures, and fast food reviews.
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Here's what really happened:
The esteemed and honorable Judge Crater may have had his vices, but he's clearly the victim in this equation.
He was appointed Associate Justice of the New York Supreme Court during a rough time in history. The "roaring twenties" as they are called, were a wild time with lots of money flying around before the Great Depression. As with any wild time where lots of money loosely trades hands, there were lots of shady deals.
Judge Joeseph Force Crater was caught in a whirlwind of shady deals. He'd payed a lot of dues to get to his position, and he got involved with some unsavory characters. His friends were the kind of people that hook you in. You can't make the mistake of getting involved with people like that at the wrong time. Otherwise they'll have their teeth sunk in you for the rest of your life.
And so it went for Judge Crater. A shady real-estate deal was just another day at the office. He had low-lifes involving him in schemes all the time. Once someone has any kind of dirt on a public official, that official becomes an unconditional friend. Judge Crater had made a mistake any of us could have made. He wanted a little extra to provide his endearing wife with some of the finer things he never knew growing up in Pennsylvania, so he cut a corner. Nobody got hurt, but it became the jump-off point that scumbags and hustlers would use to hold over Judge Crater's head to enlist his cooperation in their own scams. After a while, Judge Crater's public life became just a shell of the man's true dealings. This vicious cycle had already claimed the life of the man long before his body went missing on that hot August night in 1930.
It was a tough life for Judge Crater. Sure, he had wealth. His wife got all those things he sacrificed for. But he was always owing people favors. His SOUL was always indebtted to someone else. Eternally frustrated, where could our Judge turn? Not to his innocent wife. She was his angel. He would never involve her in his earthly damnation. He needed another woman to talk to, to voice his burdens to. It turns out, poor Judge Crater had enough burdens for a hundred women! And what could be nobler than our judge choosing to vent his frustrations on the soft flesh of Broadway showgirls rather than batter his wife in a fit of jealousy for her ignorant bliss!
(Continued in next post...)
Eventually, things started catching up to Judge Crater. He grew resentful of his lot. Of his "friends". He thought ceaselessly of ending his involvement with them forever. It was an option only the suicidal could entertain. But even the greatest of men can be driven to dream such thoughts! Women could no longer numb his pain. Money was no cure for his anguish. Even his wife's happiness was just a stinging salt for his invisible, festering wounds.
And so the Judge made contingencies. They were fanciful and unrealistic, but they were the only measure he could take to bring himself a taste of joyful hope. He went so far as to actually plant a large sum of money and other things for his wife at their summer cabin. Such things would never be seen again, he thought, but they delivered him an unparalleled ease, if only for a moment.
A man as strecthed and pulled as Judge Crater tends to lose sight of things. Things slip. The Judge's habits remained, even after they no longer medicated his anguish. One such night in August of 1930, the Judge was dining with one such woman who had been a pillar to him in the past. He had tickets for a show that night. He was already late, but it didn't much matter. No show could bring joy to a soul as plundered and pillaged as Judge Crater's. Nevertheless, he entered his cab with the hopes of being sedated that evening. He thought of the gifts he could present to his wife on her impending birthday. He could not help from dreaming about leaving his life in New York and running away with her forever. His mind slipped to the money buried under the cabin. He had not thought of it in months.
Just as a smile dared to cross the Judge's face as he rode away in his cab, he felt a cold shudder through his weary bones at the recognition of the driver. Our Judge's time had indeed run out. Perhaps his usefulness had come to an end. Or perhaps the men that drove his life through the muck had discovered his disloyal fantasies.
I didn't matter. No one was to see Judge Crater again. With his last earthly thought, he hoped with all of his humanity that his wife might find the stash beneath the cabin: his final gift to her.
...
Now, imagine Paul Winfield narrating over Mike's rendition of "the truth".
Okay, so now we’ve put out a plausible “The Judge ran away” theory, and we’ve also got a very eloquent “the judge wanted plans to kill himself, then entertains running away, but in the end is killed before either can transpire” theory… So I guess the only left is here is a straight forward, “somebody wacked the judge” theory.
here goes...
Let me start by shedding some light on the shady real estate deal that has previously been alluded to.
Just days before his surprise appointment to the State Supreme Court, Mr. Crater withdrew $20k from his savings account.
Crater then took that $20k and purchased a fledgling Hotel on the brink of bankruptcy. He only holds onto the Hotel for eight months however before turning around to sell it for $75,000 to a mortgage company… That’s a sweet $55k profit, and certainly nothing to arouse suspicion. Just a little luck and solid investment skills… right?
But the plot thickens… Two months after Crater sells it, the City of NY decides they want to widen the street where the Hotel sits and they then buy the property from the mortgage company for a whopping $3,000,000!
So in 10 months one struggling Hotel changes hands three times for fees ranging from $20k, to $3 Million… The modern day equivalent of $32.7 million… And that my friends, is the text book definition of the shady real estate deal!
The most common and plausible theory about what happened is this: a City Official, from this point forward to be called Mr. X, knows of the plans to widen the street where it just so happens that a fledgling hotel is located.
Now Mr. X knows he can't buy the property himself because it would be ‘at best’ a corrupt and blatant abuse of power, and ‘at worst’, felonious.
He decides to approach a certain divorce lawyer known to be high on ambition and low on moral scruples and he makes a proposition…
"Wanna be on the Supreme Court?"
The purchase of the Hotel is price of the seat.
But of course Mr. X doesn’t really trust Crater and would also like a little more space between himself and the deal, so he instructs Crater to quietly sell the Hotel to a mortgage company where he has the connections to funnel the money (or at least most of it) directly into his pockets.
Of course that still leaves the small matter of the $55k profit that the Judge made… Who’s money is that? Certainly in the mind of the Mr. X, Crater’s only profit on this deal should be the Supreme Court seat.
But Crater is no stranger to back room deals and secret hand shake agreements. He can play the game with the best of them, and as far as he’s concerned, that money is his.
When he gets a call at his cabin in Maine from Mr. X demanding the money, he tells his wife he has to go back to the city to “straighten those fellows out!”
He calls for a sit down where he plans to play hardball. His offer to Mr. X is $5500 and not a penny more… Mr. X is insulted… And you don’t insult Mr. X.
Hours later and Crater’s bullet ridden corpse is deposited into the concrete beneath the Coney Island Boardwalk.
It’s not nearly as poetic as Mike’s version, but at least now we’ve got all our bases covered… As far as I’m concerned the truth about what happened to the Judge can be found somewhere on this blog post, I’m just not sure exactly where.
Judge Crater was a saint!
It was alcohol. We gotta get rid of all the alcohol.
let's not underestimate the wife. i think she is probably responsible for killing mr. crater and sally lou. i think sally lou or another something-lou-showgirl was probably the reason why mr. crater cut the vacation short and mrs. crater had enough. the cash and life insurance policies were also probably staged by her.
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