Hello! It’s pouring buckets of water here in California. The clap of thunder and the spark of electricity always conjures feelings of something ominous in the clouds. With that backdrop, I want to talk to you about the “missingest” man in New York. I am unsure how the term “missingest” applies to the disappearance case of Judge Joseph Crater. However, research correlates the term with famous crimes. If Marilyn Monroe or Stephen Spielberg should vanish, it would be a big deal, and the world would consider it as the most essential disappearance of all time. Joseph Crater rose to that status in the social circles where everyone knew his name.
Joseph Crater began his career as a small-time lawyer. He met his wife, Stella Wheeler, during her divorce case. Seven days after she completed the separation, Crater and Stella were married. The couple enjoyed an amicable relationship. However, with fame and money came temptation. Joseph became known as “Good Time Joe,” with a reputation for affairs with showgirls.
Crater opened a law office in New York. Soon after, he became friends with a New York politician named Martin Healey, who had ties with Tammany Hall, the political headquarters for the Democratic Party. Both faced accusations of engaging in shady dealings with political leaders, who desired higher positions in government.
Four months before his disappearance, witnesses claim Crater asked an associate to withdraw $7,000 from his bank account and liquidate $16,000 from investments. Historians allege Crater used the funds to bribe Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt’s staff to appoint him to the Supreme Court.
On August 1, 1930, Crater and his wife vacationed at their second home in Maine. A few days after their arrival, Crater received several phone calls, which angered him, according to his wife. He told her he needed to return to New York to “straighten some people out” but promised to return by her birthday on August 9.
According to reports, Crater spent two hours destroying files in his New York office. That same day, Crater asked his law clerk to cash two checks totaling $5,150 (equivalent to $93,000 in 2023). When the clerk returned, he and Crater carried two locked briefcases to his New York apartment.
On August 6, Crater purchased a ticket to a Broadway show, then took a cab across town to have dinner with a showgirl named Sally Lou Ritz and his friend, William Klein. Both Klein and Ritz tell different stories about what happened after dinner. At first, both stated that the judge took a separate cab to the play but changed the story and said Crater walked alone to the theater.
Either way, no one saw Crater after that night.
Many people believe Crater returned to New York to testify against the corrupt officials associated with Tammany Hall and then used his liquidated funds to start a new life under another name. However, in January 1931, six months after the police searched Crater’s New York apartment, Stella found several envelopes with her name on them, containing stocks, bonds, checks, cash, and a note from Crater dated that same month.
In 1979, after a jury found no sufficient evidence to prove Crater’s death or kidnapping, the government closed the case.
However, in 2005, relatives of New York Detective Robert Good learned of an envelope in a safe deposit box revealing the truth about Carter’s death. According to the letter, Robert Good discovered that Charles Burns, an NYPD officer, killed Crater and buried the body near West Eighth Street in Coney Island, Brooklyn, at the current site of the New York Aquarium.
Authorities researched the Builder’s excavation records, but they did not report finding any bodies during that time of the Aquarium’s construction.
Although the Crater’s name slipped from the memory of high society, the phrase “pulled a Crater,” which referred to people and objects going missing, lived on for several decades.
So, what do you think? Did Crater live under a new name? Or did his secret dealings do him in?
Let me know your thoughts.
Harper
HARPER GALE BOOKS 