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shyscyberchamber.com
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UNSOLVED CRIMES |
Date
Added |
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The Disappearance of
Good Time Joe |
February 2003 |
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With a leggy showgirl on his arm, Judge
Joseph Crater stepped out of a plush nightclub on New York's 45th
Street and hailed a taxi. He gave his companion an affectionate
squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. 'See you tomorrow Ruby,' said
the Judge, whose unorthodox social life had earned him the nickname,
Goodtime Joe. But he didn't. A little later, he was seen
buying a theatre ticket for the Broadway hit, Dancing Partners.
From that moment, on 6th August, Judge Joseph Crater vanished, and it
happened so mysteriously and in such politically scandalous
circumstances that in America 'pulling a Crater' is sometimes still
used to describe a baffling disappearance. In New York, he is
still officially listed as missing, although he would now be 93 years
old, and the police department still checks regular reports of
sightings.
Judge Crater was a sentimental family man - and a womanizer on a grand
scale. He was a pillar of society, yet he enjoyed the company of
rogues. He believed fervently in the sanctity of the law but
became part of the most corrupt administration in New York's history.
He had been a brilliant professor of law at New York University, but
he wanted to be rich. As a lawyer with an obvious interest in
making money, he was welcomed by the city's then shady administration.
In the summer of 1929 he acted as a receiver when the bankrupt Libby
Hotel was sole to a finance company for $75,000. Six weeks
later, the hotel resold to the city of New York to be demolished in a
road widening scheme. The price: $2,800,000. Many members
of the administration, including Crater, mad a lot of money from the
deal.
By 1930, he had the lifestyle of a very rich man. More good
fortune came his way when Franklin D Roosevelt, then Governor of New
York State, made him a justice of the city's Supreme Court.
Crater had finally made it. He was rich and powerful.
Then, on the evening of 2nd August, something happened to threaten his
cozy world.
He was on holiday with his wife at their summer cottage in Maine when
he received a mysterious phone call. It was enough to send the
Judge hurrying back to New York. 'I've got to straighten some
fellow's out', was all he told his wife, promising to return for her
birthday a week later. She never saw him again.
In New York on 6th August he wrote two cheques for a total of $4,100
and sent his assistant Joe Mara, to the bank to cash them. When
Mara returned, Cater had stuffed papers from his office files into
four large portfolios and two briefcases. He told Mara he was
going 'up Westchester way for a few days'.
That evening, however, he turned up at his favourite nightclub on 45th
Street, but after a few drinks, with showgirl Ruby Ritz he left,
saying he was going to the theatre.
Amazingly, it was four weeks and a day before the disappearance of one
of the city's top judges finally leaked out. Friends and enemies
alike, terrified at the idea of a scandal which might implement them,
were desperate to hush up the affair. Manhattan District
Attorney, Thomas Crain, was anxious to question Mrs Crater. She
refused to talk and the judge's politically powerful friends kept
Crain at bay.
Soon, reports of alleged sightings were coming in from around the
world.
In 1955 a photograph of Crater was shown to the Dutch clairvoyant
Gerard Croiset. He claimed that the judge had been murdered on
the first floor of a farmhouse near the Bronx, New York and his body
buried in the garden. |
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