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Saturday, August 20, 2005

Dost Thou Turn Away And Hide Thy Face

Joseph Force Crater
There’s news of a possible break in the case of Joseph Force Crater, the prominent New York City judge who disappeared on August 6, 1930. A recently discovered letter asserts Crater was murdered and buried near the Coney Island boardwalk:

[The] letter ...prompted tabloid headlines Friday about a case that has puzzled authorities ever since the newly minted judge entered a cab in midtown Manhattan and exited in parts unknown.

"1930 CRATER VANISH 'SOLVED,"' proclaimed the New York Post, although police said that wasn't quite the case. A Long Island woman discovered a letter left by her late grandmother, who claimed her husband once heard over drinks that a cop, his cab-driver brother and several accomplices had killed Crater and buried him on the current site of the New York Aquarium.

Police were uncertain about the letter's legitimacy, although they said they were combing through records to determine if any bodies had been unearthed during the aquarium's construction in the 1950s.

On the evening of August 6, 1930, Crater dined at a West 45th Street steakhouse with a group of friends that included a showgirl. Crater had earlier withdrawn $5,150 from a pair of bank accounts. He was last seen at 9:15 p.m., climbing into the cab.

The taxi disappeared into the night.

So did Crater.
Why bring it up? When Johnny Dixon worries about his missing father, shot down during the Korean War, Johnny recalls other missing people such as Amelia Earhart and Judge Crater [The Mummy, the Will and the Crypt; 87].  Are least Harrison Dixon turned up....

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