True Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Stories Part VI

The Disappearance of Judge Joseph Crater

Joseph Force Crater (January 5, 1889 – disappeared August 6, 1930; declared legally dead June 6, 1939) was an American lawyer who served as a New York State Supreme Court Justice and mysteriously vanished shortly after the state began an investigation into corruption in New York City. Despite massive publicity, the missing person case was never solved and was officially closed forty years after Crater was declared dead.

Early life and education

Joseph Crater was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, the eldest of four children of the former Leila Virginia Montague and Frank Ellsworth Crater, a produce market operator and orchard owner. Both had emigrated from Ireland. He was educated at Lafayette College (class of 1910) and Columbia University, where he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. During his time at Columbia, he met Stella Mance Wheeler, who was at the time married and helped her get a divorce. They married seven days after her divorce was finalized, in the spring of 1917.

Career

Crater opened an office at the Equitable Building in Manhattan, joined Tammany Hall district leader Martin J. Healy's Cayuga Democratic Club, and spent time organizing election workers and representing the club in election law cases.

Four months before his disappearance, on April 8, 1930, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then New York governor, appointed Crater as Justice of the New York Supreme Court for New York County, which is a trial court, despite the designation "supreme" (New York State's highest court is the Court of Appeals). He issued two published opinions: Rotkowitz v. Sohn, July 11, 1930, involving fraudulent conveyances and mortgage foreclosure fraud; and Henderson v. Park Central Motors Service, dealing with a garage company's liability for an expensive car stolen and wrecked by an ex-convict.

Attention was later drawn to Crater's liquidating investments worth $16,000 and withdrawing $7,000 from his bank account that spring (together equivalent to about US$402,912 in 2022), a possible pay-off for his judgeship. He had also given the congratulatory speech at the dinner celebrating George Ewald's judgeship in 1927; accusations of Tammany Hall corruption in that appointment was an initial impetus in the opening of what would become the Seabury Commission in mid-1930.

Disappearance

In the summer of 1930, shortly after the anti-corruption inquiry began, Crater and his wife were vacationing at their summer cabin in Belgrade, Maine. In late July, Crater received a telephone call. He told his wife nothing about the call other than to say that he had to return to New York City "to straighten those fellows out". The next day, he arrived at his apartment at 40 Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village, but instead of dealing with business, he went to Atlantic City, New Jersey with showgirl Sally Lou Ritz.

After returning to Maine on August 1, Crater traveled back to New York on August 3, promising his wife that he would return by her birthday on August 9. She stated that he was in good spirits and behaving normally when he left. On the morning of August 6, Crater spent two hours going through his files in his chambers, reportedly destroying several documents. He then had his law clerk, Joseph Mara, cash two checks for him that amounted to US$5,150 (equivalent to about US$90,217 in 2022). At noon, Crater and Mara carried two locked briefcases to Crater's apartment, where Crater told Mara to take the rest of the day off.

That evening, Crater went to a Broadway ticket agency run by a friend, Joseph Gransky, and reserved one seat for a comedy called Dancing Partner at the Belasco Theatre; Gransky was surprised because he and Crater had already seen a preview of the show. Crater then ate dinner at Billy Haas's Chophouse at 332 West 45th Street, with Ritz and William Klein, a lawyer friend. Crater's dinner companions gave differing accounts of his departure from the restaurant. Klein initially testified that "the judge got into a taxicab outside the restaurant about 9:30 p.m. and drove west on Forty-fifth Street." This account was initially confirmed by Ritz: "At the sidewalk, Judge Crater took a taxicab." Klein and Ritz later changed their story and said that they had entered a taxi outside the restaurant, but Crater had walked down the street.