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0:55

stepped outside the Billy Haas

0:58

Chop House on 45th Street

1:00

in Manhattan after dinner with

1:02

friends. He was six feet tall, about

1:04

185 pounds, wearing a long brown coat

1:07

and a Panama hat. The hat, size

1:09

six and one eighth, was

1:11

noticeably small for a man his height.

1:13

He was on his way to a Broadway

1:15

theater, not far away. The single

1:17

ticket he had purchased was in

1:20

his pocket. The 41-year-old man

1:22

stepped inside a cab and disappeared.

1:24

At least, that's how this seriously

1:26

mysterious story began. The man's

1:29

wife Stella had last seen her

1:31

husband at their summer home located

1:33

in Great Pond, Maine, four days

1:35

prior on August 2nd. She stated

1:37

in a later interview that he

1:39

had left suddenly to return to

1:41

his office in New York City.

1:43

He told her that he had received

1:45

an urgent phone call. It wasn't unusual

1:48

for Joseph Forrest Crater to spend a

1:50

lot of time at the office. After

1:52

all, he was the recently appointed justice

1:54

for the New York State Supreme Court,

1:57

and his office was the New York

1:59

County Courthouse. However, several days went

2:01

by and his disappearance was not

2:03

noticed until Justice Crater failed to

2:05

show up to preside over his

2:07

scheduled court cases. On top of

2:09

that, he had promised Stella that

2:11

he would return to Great Pond

2:13

on August 9th, just in time

2:15

to celebrate her birthday. The 9th

2:17

came and went, with no word

2:19

from her husband, so she picked

2:21

up the phone and began to

2:23

call friends, family, and his colleagues.

2:25

No one had seen him. No

2:27

one knew where he could have

2:29

gone. Was this simply a man

2:32

running away from his life or

2:34

perhaps an occupational hazard of his

2:36

role in the courts? Strangely, the

2:38

disappearance of the justice would not

2:40

reach the ears and eyes of

2:42

the public or even the police

2:44

until the following month on September

2:46

the 8th. Why the delay? And

2:48

where exactly did this man go?

2:50

I'm John Lorden and today we're

2:52

reviewing a historical case. The disappearance

2:54

of Justice Joseph Crater. Investigators traced

2:56

Justice Crater's steps from the moment

2:58

he left the great pond home.

3:00

According to his secretary Joseph Mara,

3:02

Crater spent three days in his

3:04

chambers at the courthouse. On that

3:06

third day, Crater was seen shredding papers

3:08

and he loaded four cardboard boxes as

3:11

well as his briefcase with even more

3:13

papers. Crater then sent Marra to the

3:15

bank to cash two checks for over

3:18

$5,000. When Marra returned, Justice Crater left

3:20

the courthouse with the boxes and the

3:22

boxes and the cash. From there, it

3:25

appears that Crater went to his Manhattan

3:27

apartment on Fifth Avenue, though it said

3:29

that he mentioned Amara that he was

3:32

planning on heading to Westchester to go

3:34

for a swim. We're pretty certain that

3:36

that did not occur, but he did

3:39

go to purchase the theater ticket, visiting

3:41

the ticket agent, a friend of his

3:43

by the name of Joseph Gransky, at

3:46

6.30 that evening. The play was called

3:48

Dancing Partner, which was running at the

3:50

Blosco Theatre on Broadway. An hour later...

3:53

Crater was seen at the Haas restaurant

3:55

where he dined with female acquaintances Sally

3:57

Lou Ritz and Elaine Dawn along with

4:00

his friend William Klein, an attorney. They

4:02

and other witnesses claimed one of two

4:04

things. They either saw him right off

4:06

in a cab once they left the

4:08

restaurant or had last seen him walking

4:10

down the street from there. Detectives struggled

4:13

to track down the supposed cab driver.

4:15

No expense was spared by the

4:17

New York City Police Department in

4:19

the investigation. It was not an everyday

4:21

occurrence that a state Supreme Court

4:24

justice went missing. His likeness was

4:26

sent to law enforcement agencies throughout

4:28

the country and beyond attached to

4:31

a $5,000 reward. Reported sightings

4:33

came in from all over, and detectives

4:35

traveled the U.S. to follow up, but

4:37

none of those sightings led them to

4:40

Joseph Force Crater. In fact, there were

4:42

so many Judge Crater sightings reported

4:44

that there weren't enough law enforcement

4:47

officers to follow up on them

4:49

all. Many of them... turned out to

4:51

be utter falsehoods, with some of the

4:53

locations of the sightings turning out to

4:55

be fictitious altogether. Were these

4:58

reports practical jokes or clever

5:00

diversions? Despite the intentional or

5:02

unintentional false reports, it was

5:05

soon discovered by investigators that

5:07

the judge had a reputation

5:09

as a lady's man. He had a nickname,

5:11

Good Time Joe. In fact, many of

5:13

the politician associates of the judge,

5:16

likely gave Stella a standard reply,

5:18

designed to cover for their colleague

5:20

whom they felt certain was simply

5:22

off somewhere spending time with another

5:24

woman. It's also interesting to

5:26

know that the district attorney,

5:29

Thomas Crane, found Mrs. Crater's

5:31

late reporting of her husband's

5:33

disappearance, suspicious, and he thought

5:35

that her answers to questions

5:37

from investigators were less than

5:39

satisfactory. Newspapers reported that 10

5:42

days after the report was filed,

5:44

Stella Crater. was to be brought

5:46

before a grand jury and forced

5:48

to testify. Though this inquiry did

5:50

go forward and included approximately

5:53

95 people, Stella herself, flatly

5:55

refused to participate. It's possible

5:57

that since Joseph Crater had a

5:59

due and dubious reputation early on

6:02

in his career as an

6:04

attorney for the mob, that

6:06

law enforcement sought to gather

6:08

as much information as possible

6:10

on mob activity, as well

6:12

as that of Tammany Hall,

6:14

a local political machine that

6:16

played a major role in

6:18

controlling New York City and

6:20

New York State politics at

6:22

the time. It seemed that

6:24

the more investigators learned about

6:26

Justice Joseph Crater, more possibilities,

6:28

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6:32

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Also uncovered during the search

7:41

for the missing Justice Joseph

7:43

Crater was that he was

7:45

about to be sued for

7:47

breach of promise by a

7:49

blonde woman thought to be

7:51

a showgirl named June Bryce.

7:53

Her attorney had come forward

7:55

after the woman had missed

7:57

an appointment, realizing that she...

8:00

like Crater himself, was also

8:02

missing. This incident was well

8:04

publicized in the newspapers, along with

8:06

the possibility that the blonde woman

8:09

had settled out of court for

8:11

$5,000 paid by Mrs. Crater herself.

8:13

An anonymous letter written to

8:15

the press disclosed this, along with

8:18

the supposition that Mr. and Mrs.

8:20

Crater had a serious quarrel the

8:22

night of August the 8th, and

8:24

that Stella was well aware of

8:26

his affairs and his location. It's

8:29

likely that this letter was written

8:31

by one of Crater's extramarital love

8:33

interests. Another theory claims that Bryce

8:35

had met with Crater to reach an

8:38

out-of-court settlement, and when his offer was

8:40

too low, she had two mobsters

8:42

assault him. The assault went too

8:44

far and Crater died. However, this

8:46

possibility could never be fully investigated.

8:49

In 1948, June Bryce was located. She

8:51

had become mentally ill and was

8:53

living out her life in the Pilgrim

8:56

State Hospital in Long Island. During

8:58

this intense search, another woman acquaintance

9:00

of Joseph Craters named Connie Marcus

9:03

could not be found. Police had

9:05

wanted to interview her as she had

9:07

been seen in his company by several

9:09

witnesses from the accounts of her roommate

9:12

at the Mayflower Hotel in Central

9:14

Park West. Connie Marcus simply

9:16

disappeared from their shared room. Marcus,

9:18

who worked as a cloak model

9:20

at Maurice Mandelen Company, simply packed

9:22

up and checked out according to

9:24

the hotel staff, saying not a word to

9:27

her roommate. Oddly, in January

9:29

of 1931, six months after

9:31

the disappearance of Justice Crater,

9:34

Stella Crater visited the Manhattan

9:36

apartment and discovered $6,690 in

9:39

assorted cash and other securities

9:41

in a drawer. With the

9:43

money was a note addressed to

9:46

Stella, which contained a list

9:48

of several of the people who owed

9:50

him money and the line, Am very

9:52

weary, Joe. A cash check bearing the

9:54

judge's signature was dated August

9:56

the 30th. some weeks after

9:59

he disappeared. but still prior

10:01

to Stella's missing persons report. The

10:03

discovery of such items raises

10:05

many questions since the apartment was

10:07

searched by Mrs. Crater and police

10:10

investigators earlier. Another consideration was that

10:12

Joseph Crater's ascension to the

10:14

Supreme Court was not due to being

10:16

elected. He was initially appointed by

10:18

then Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt

10:21

as a replacement. Roosevelt

10:23

and Crater both had an election

10:25

coming up in November of that

10:27

year, and the future president of

10:29

the United States was heavily favored

10:31

to keep his job. Crater had much more

10:33

to do to prove that he deserved a

10:35

stay in his. That would bring on the

10:37

involvement of the group we mentioned

10:40

earlier, Tammany Hall. It was founded in

10:42

the late 1700s to back the interests

10:44

of Irish Catholics and other minority groups,

10:46

and it was said that Tammany Hall

10:49

could make or break a politician's career.

10:51

In 1929, Joseph Crater had been

10:53

appointed to the position of President

10:55

of the Cayuga Club, a branch

10:57

of Tammany Hall. Meanwhile, rumors of

10:59

corruption had reached the desk of

11:01

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District

11:04

of New York, Charles Tuttle. Tuttle's

11:06

investigation finds possible evidence

11:08

that government jobs are being sold

11:10

for cash through the Cayuga Club.

11:12

Tuttle's attention turned to the

11:15

President of the club. Joseph Crater,

11:17

whom he realized was likely guilty

11:19

of paying for his own position

11:21

on the state Supreme Court. This

11:23

led to the discovery that Crater

11:25

had withdrawn cash from several bank

11:28

accounts totaling $22,000, the exact yearly

11:30

salary for a justice of the

11:32

Supreme Court of the state of

11:34

New York. If all this was true,

11:37

and Tammany Hall had been selling

11:39

appointments and jobs, then that trail

11:41

could lead up to the man

11:44

himself, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. During

11:46

law enforcement search for Justice

11:48

Crater, the case of Tammany

11:50

Hall's suspected paid-for appointees was

11:53

also ongoing, headed by special

11:55

prosecutor Hiram Todd. One of Crater's

11:57

affairs, a prostitute by the name of

11:59

Vivian, Gordon came forward in

12:01

1931 stating that she knew

12:04

detailed information on Justice Crater's

12:06

whereabouts. Less than a week later, she was

12:08

found strangled to death in a

12:10

ditch at Van Cortland Park. Her

12:12

fur coat and diamond jewelry were

12:14

stolen from the corpse. Thankfully,

12:17

the driver of a hired Cadillac,

12:19

a man named Harry Shletton, came

12:21

forward and told the authorities he

12:23

witnessed her murder. Two small-time

12:25

mobsters, Harry Stein and Samuel

12:28

Greenberg, were arrested, and Schletton

12:30

would testify that Vivian was

12:32

strangled in the back of his

12:34

car. Kennebit County Attorney Frank

12:36

Southerd suspected that Justice Crater

12:38

had been the victim of

12:41

foul play, and that Stella Crater

12:43

had something to do with it. Also

12:45

suspected was the family chauffeur, Fred

12:47

Collar, their maid, Margaret Lynch, and

12:49

several others. A search of their great

12:52

pond home and the water just

12:54

offshore of the residence was performed,

12:56

but nothing was found. Nearly nine

12:58

years passed. He was declared deceased,

13:01

and Stella inherited his entire

13:03

estate, including the home in

13:05

Maryland, the residents in Nova

13:07

Scotia, and the Manhattan

13:10

apartment. Stella did not receive

13:12

his life insurance payout, some

13:14

$20,000, until 1939, after a

13:16

lengthy lawsuit. Even though she had

13:18

once been well off in the marriage to

13:20

Crater, Stella fell on hard times.

13:22

Despite the property she had

13:25

inherited, she had somehow gone broke

13:27

and lost it all. To add to

13:29

Stella's part of the mystery, she

13:31

had remarried to an electrical engineer

13:33

by the name of Carl Coons

13:35

on April 23rd, 1938. Coons was

13:37

driving a car when it swerved and

13:40

collided with a tree. Two passengers

13:42

died, and the newspapers jumped on

13:44

the story since the former Mrs.

13:46

Crater had not made her marriage

13:48

to Coons public, and it was

13:51

before Justice Crater was declared

13:53

deceased. As fate would have it,

13:55

Stella and Carl separated in 1950.

13:57

She eventually wrote a book in 1969

13:59

of... about her missing husband, stating that

14:02

the murder was politically motivated and

14:04

insisting that her husband was always

14:06

faithful to her. But many stories

14:08

kept spinning around. In 1954, a

14:10

friend of Joseph Craters, a retired

14:12

butcher by the name of Henry

14:14

Kraus, came forward with an interesting

14:16

tale on what may have been

14:18

Crater's fate. Kraus was elderly and

14:21

felt that his time was near,

14:23

so he contacted a friend of

14:25

his, a police officer, to confess

14:27

his knowledge of the missing justice.

14:29

Kraus had owned a house in

14:31

Yonkers at the time of Crater's

14:33

disappearance, and he had lent it

14:35

out to political friends for the

14:37

hosting of parties. Kraus said that

14:39

he had gone to the home

14:42

himself after Crater had gone missing,

14:44

only to find the house utterly

14:46

ransacked. There was blood all over

14:48

the kitchen, along with a mass

14:50

of broken liquor bottles. Kraus said

14:52

that he had been threatened to

14:54

keep silent about what he had

14:56

discovered, and wouldn't tell the police

14:58

who had threatened him. All he

15:00

knew was that a sum of

15:03

$90,000 had been gathered by Crater

15:05

and some of his colleagues, and

15:07

that it had been buried in

15:09

the backyard. Henry Kraus passed away

15:11

some time later, and investigators went

15:13

to the Yonkers' home to dig

15:15

up that yard. Nothing was found.

15:17

In 2005, a woman by the

15:19

name of Stella Ferrucci Good passed

15:21

away. Her granddaughter, Barbara O'Brien, found

15:24

a letter in a box with

15:26

several newspaper clippings about the disappearance

15:28

of Justice Crater. On the envelope

15:30

was written, apparently by her grandmother,

15:32

Do not open until my death.

15:34

Obviously intrigued, O'Brien opened the letter

15:36

and read it. Grandmother Stella wrote

15:38

that her late husband, New York

15:40

City police officer Robert Good, along

15:42

with Officer Charles Burns, and Charles's

15:45

brother Frank, a New York City

15:47

cab driver, all took part in

15:49

the murder of Justice Crater. The

15:51

trio then buried the justice under

15:53

a boardwalk in Coney Island. Currently,

15:55

this site is the home of

15:57

the New York Aquarium which was

15:59

relocated. there in 1957. During the

16:01

site's construction, five bodies

16:03

were recovered but not

16:06

identified. To further fuel the

16:08

possibility that one of these

16:10

bodies is Good Time Joe

16:12

Crater, the New York Police

16:14

Department did have an Officer

16:16

Charles Byrne assigned to the

16:18

Coney Island 60th precinct at

16:20

some point during his career,

16:22

which spanned from 1926 to

16:25

1946. Given all these various

16:27

tales, Could Henry Kraus have

16:29

been partially correct? Could crater have

16:31

been killed at the Kraus Party

16:33

House in Yonkers and buried in

16:35

Coney Island? Is it possible that

16:37

officers Good and Burns, with cab

16:40

driver Frank Burns, have been hired

16:42

by someone to kill the justice?

16:44

And if so, who ordered it? Was

16:46

it someone from Tammany Hall, trying to

16:48

cover a trail of corruption? Another

16:51

possibility is that crater

16:53

made himself disappear. Perhaps

16:55

he was tired of the intense, likely

16:57

unsafe life he had worked to acquire

16:59

and feared for his safety. He had

17:01

made it big as an attorney, mostly from

17:03

defending underworld figures, and had money

17:05

coming to him from a real

17:08

estate deal that he had also

17:10

overseen. His disappearance did take

17:12

place just as the investigations

17:14

into Tammany Hall were launched

17:16

by Tuttle, and Roosevelt Seabury

17:18

investigations were also ongoing. Stories

17:20

that crater had relocated to Canada

17:23

or even Europe. seem to be

17:25

just as plausible as the justice

17:27

being murdered. Tammany Hall ceased

17:29

to function in 1950, but the

17:31

questions about the fate of Justice

17:33

Joseph Crater are still found by

17:36

many to be seriously mysterious. Do

17:38

you have any comments or a case

17:40

you'd like to suggest? You'll find

17:42

a comment form and case submission

17:44

link at Lord Narts.com. We would

17:46

like to thank the Daily News,

17:49

the Morning Sentinel, the New York

17:51

Post, The Asheville Citizen Times, The

17:53

Times Colonist, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle,

17:55

The Fresno B, The Telegraph Journal,

17:57

History's Greatest Mysteries on the history.

18:00

Street channel, Buzzfeed and Wikipedia

18:02

for information contributing to today's

18:04

story. This episode was written

18:06

by Frederick Crook, is edited by

18:08

John Lordin and produced by Lordin

18:10

Arts. If you appreciated today's episode,

18:12

please check out the novel Wraithworks,

18:14

another collaboration between Frederick Crook and

18:17

myself. It's available in hard copy

18:19

or audiobook format. You can find

18:21

more info about Wraithworks at LordinArts .com

18:23

or by searching for it on

18:25

Amazon. Thank you to

18:27

our audience here for the live

18:29

recording session hosted on the

18:31

YouTube channel LordinArts Studio 2. Special

18:33

thanks to seriously mysterious financial

18:36

supporters Candy Bishop, Mel Steffen,

18:38

Kira McQueen and Mom

18:40

Jeans. Most of all, thank

18:42

you for listening. I'm John Lordin.

18:44

Please join me again next week

18:46

for another story I know you'll

18:48

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