WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.379 Picture New York City. It's August 1930. The 00:00:04.379 --> 00:00:07.719 heat is just stifling, clinging to the pavement. 00:00:08.439 --> 00:00:11.279 The roaring 20s are gasping their last breath. 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:13.099 And the Great Depression is really just starting 00:00:13.099 --> 00:00:16.000 to dig its claws into the city. Setting the scene. 00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:19.980 Exactly. So you're standing on West 45th Street, 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:22.359 right in the heart of the theater district. It's 00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:25.660 loud, it's chaotic, it's alive. A man steps out 00:00:25.660 --> 00:00:28.379 of a chop house, adjusts his fedora, and walks 00:00:28.379 --> 00:00:31.109 into the night. And then nothing. He doesn't 00:00:31.109 --> 00:00:34.530 just leave. He basically evaporates. And we aren't 00:00:34.530 --> 00:00:36.829 talking about some anonymous grifter here or 00:00:36.829 --> 00:00:39.109 a tourist who took a wrong turn. We are talking 00:00:39.109 --> 00:00:41.570 about Joseph Forrest Crater. Yeah. A sitting 00:00:41.570 --> 00:00:43.429 justice of the New York State Supreme Court. 00:00:43.469 --> 00:00:46.649 Which is wild. It is. One minute he is a titan 00:00:46.649 --> 00:00:49.009 of the legal world and the next he's a ghost. 00:00:49.310 --> 00:00:51.250 And that's the hook that grabs you, right? A 00:00:51.250 --> 00:00:53.549 Supreme Court justice vanishing into thin air. 00:00:53.630 --> 00:00:56.189 It became the biggest missing persons case of 00:00:56.189 --> 00:01:00.020 the 20th century. The press dubbed him the missingest 00:01:00.020 --> 00:01:04.180 man in America, which is just a fantastic, if 00:01:04.180 --> 00:01:06.739 slightly grim title. But as I was going through 00:01:06.739 --> 00:01:10.120 the stack of historical files and the old police 00:01:10.120 --> 00:01:13.379 reports for this deep dive, I realized this isn't 00:01:13.379 --> 00:01:15.760 really just a story about a missing person. No, 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:17.480 it's much bigger than that. Yeah. If you look 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:19.859 at the context, the sources we have on the political 00:01:19.859 --> 00:01:22.900 climate of 1930 Crater's disappearance is really 00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:25.980 like a core sample of a rotting city. Yeah, it's 00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:29.219 a snapshot of the jazz age crashing into the 00:01:29.219 --> 00:01:32.140 reality of deep political corruption. It marks 00:01:32.140 --> 00:01:34.519 the moment when the unchecked power of the political 00:01:34.519 --> 00:01:37.019 machines in New York finally began to crack. 00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:39.180 So that is our mission today for this deep dive. 00:01:39.219 --> 00:01:40.980 We are going to unpack the mystery of where he 00:01:40.980 --> 00:01:43.620 went. Sure. But to understand the disappearance, 00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:46.400 we have to understand the man. And Joseph Crater 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:49.040 was a complicated guy. On the surface, you have 00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:50.799 the Honorable Justice Crater, the pillar of the 00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:53.040 community. But dig a little deeper into these 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.450 witness statements and you find Good time, Joe. 00:01:55.670 --> 00:01:58.469 Good time, Joe. I mean, here is a man straddling 00:01:58.469 --> 00:02:02.670 two totally incompatible worlds. You've got the 00:02:02.670 --> 00:02:05.170 high society legality of the Supreme Court bench 00:02:05.170 --> 00:02:08.530 on one hand and the illicit underground nightlife 00:02:08.530 --> 00:02:11.509 of Prohibition era New York on the other. Let's 00:02:11.509 --> 00:02:14.030 rewind the tape a bit. Who was this guy before 00:02:14.030 --> 00:02:16.629 he became a milk carton legend? Because looking 00:02:16.629 --> 00:02:20.069 at his early life, he seems pretty pretty buttoned 00:02:20.069 --> 00:02:23.229 up. On paper, he is the American dream personified. 00:02:23.370 --> 00:02:25.610 He wasn't even a native New Yorker. He was born 00:02:25.610 --> 00:02:29.050 in 1889 in Easton, Pennsylvania. His father ran 00:02:29.050 --> 00:02:32.189 a produce market. So it was a very solid middle 00:02:32.189 --> 00:02:34.550 -class upbringing. He was the first in his family 00:02:34.550 --> 00:02:36.590 to go to college, the Lafayette College, and 00:02:36.590 --> 00:02:38.129 then he went straight to Columbia University 00:02:38.129 --> 00:02:40.210 for law. And he didn't just drift into the city 00:02:40.210 --> 00:02:43.150 after that. He really attacked it. He opens his 00:02:43.150 --> 00:02:45.669 law office at the equitable building in Manhattan. 00:02:45.669 --> 00:02:48.110 Right. Which is not a cheap address for a young 00:02:48.110 --> 00:02:50.810 lawyer. It screams ambition. It definitely does. 00:02:50.909 --> 00:02:53.310 Oh. But Crater was smart enough to know that 00:02:53.310 --> 00:02:56.650 in 1920s New York, a fancy office just wasn't 00:02:56.650 --> 00:02:58.750 enough. If you wanted real power, you needed 00:02:58.750 --> 00:03:01.370 friends. And not just any friends. You needed 00:03:01.370 --> 00:03:04.250 the Cayuga Democratic Club. OK, we need to pause 00:03:04.250 --> 00:03:07.169 on that because the sources mentioned this Cayuga 00:03:07.169 --> 00:03:10.349 Club a lot. For anyone listening who isn't a 00:03:10.349 --> 00:03:13.629 historian of New York politics, that is basically 00:03:13.629 --> 00:03:16.990 code for Tammany Hall, right? It is. And Tammany 00:03:16.990 --> 00:03:19.650 Hall is a phrase people hear, but I don't think 00:03:19.650 --> 00:03:21.930 everyone realizes the sheer scale of it. Right. 00:03:21.949 --> 00:03:23.930 It wasn't just a political party. Exactly. It 00:03:23.930 --> 00:03:26.629 was a machine. It controlled everything. If you 00:03:26.629 --> 00:03:29.409 wanted a job as a cop, a fireman, a contract 00:03:29.409 --> 00:03:32.990 to build a school or a seat as a judge, you didn't 00:03:32.990 --> 00:03:35.669 just apply based on merit. You went through Tammany. 00:03:35.729 --> 00:03:38.139 You went through Tammany. You paid your dues, 00:03:38.740 --> 00:03:40.919 quite literally and figuratively. Now, we are 00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:42.759 just looking at the historical records of how 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:45.259 this operated at the time, not taking any sort 00:03:45.259 --> 00:03:47.939 of political stance today. But back then, that 00:03:47.939 --> 00:03:49.879 was just the reality of the system. And Crater 00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:52.280 wasn't just a member. He was a mechanic for this 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:55.120 machine. He aligns himself with a district leader 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:57.879 named Martin J. Healy. He becomes the club's 00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:00.939 lawyer handling election law cases. Right. Basically, 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:03.340 he's the guy making sure that the machine keeps 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:06.419 running smoothly in the courts. And that loyalty... 00:04:06.460 --> 00:04:12.319 pays dividends. Fast forward to April 1930. This 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:14.439 is only four months before he vanishes. Just 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:16.600 four months? Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, 00:04:16.939 --> 00:04:19.600 yes, the future president, appoints Crater to 00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:21.680 the New York State Supreme Court to fill the 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:24.500 vacancy. Which sounds like the absolute pinnacle 00:04:24.500 --> 00:04:27.079 of a career. But this is where the good time 00:04:27.079 --> 00:04:30.180 Joe persona and the corruption really start to 00:04:30.180 --> 00:04:32.199 bleed together because the financial records 00:04:32.199 --> 00:04:35.500 from that spring are, well, let's call them highly 00:04:35.500 --> 00:04:38.259 suggestive. That is a very polite way of putting 00:04:38.259 --> 00:04:40.899 it. The records show that right around the exact 00:04:40.899 --> 00:04:44.040 time of his appointment, Crater withdrew $7 ,000 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:46.939 from his bank account and liquidated stock investments 00:04:46.939 --> 00:04:49.860 worth another $16 ,000. And we have to do the 00:04:49.860 --> 00:04:51.759 inflation math here for the listener because 00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:54.579 $23 ,000 in 1930 doesn't sound like a massive 00:04:54.579 --> 00:04:57.800 fortune today. But in modern purchasing power, 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:01.300 that is something like $400 ,000. Yeah. He pulled 00:05:01.300 --> 00:05:03.439 nearly half a million dollars in cash out of 00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:05.160 his accounts. And he didn't buy a house with 00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:07.600 it. The prevailing theory, which has stood for 00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:10.360 90 years in these sources, is that he bought 00:05:10.360 --> 00:05:13.459 the Judge ship. That money was the price tag 00:05:13.459 --> 00:05:16.000 paid to the Tammany bosses to secure the nomination. 00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:18.519 It was a purely transactional appointment. But 00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:20.300 he's sitting on the bench, he's got the robes, 00:05:20.319 --> 00:05:23.819 he's made it. Why is he so stressed out? Because 00:05:23.819 --> 00:05:26.500 the reports from the summer of 1930 describe 00:05:26.500 --> 00:05:29.240 a man who was constantly looking over his shoulder. 00:05:29.379 --> 00:05:32.379 Because the bill was coming due. At this exact 00:05:32.379 --> 00:05:35.079 moment, the heat was turning up on Tammany Hall. 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:37.399 You had the Seabury Commission starting to form. 00:05:37.459 --> 00:05:40.660 Right. This was a massive, aggressive anti -corruption 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:43.459 investigation, specifically looking into the 00:05:43.459 --> 00:05:45.939 magistrate courts. They were hunting for exactly 00:05:45.939 --> 00:05:48.300 the kind of backroom deal Crater likely made. 00:05:48.620 --> 00:05:50.639 And Crater had actually put a target on his own 00:05:50.639 --> 00:05:53.319 back years earlier. I found a note in the research 00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:56.000 that back in 1927, he gave a speech celebrating 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:58.970 another judge. George Ewald. Oh, yeah. And Ewald 00:05:58.970 --> 00:06:01.709 became the absolute poster boy for this corruption 00:06:01.709 --> 00:06:03.889 scandal. All right. So imagine Crater's mindset 00:06:03.889 --> 00:06:07.269 in the summer of 1930. He has achieved his life's 00:06:07.269 --> 00:06:09.529 ambition, but he knows it's built on a bribe. 00:06:09.709 --> 00:06:11.709 He knows investigators are snishing around his 00:06:11.709 --> 00:06:14.329 friends. He is walking a tightrope. And how does 00:06:14.329 --> 00:06:16.810 a man like Crater deal with that kind of pressure? 00:06:17.050 --> 00:06:19.910 He parties. He parties hard. This is the good 00:06:19.910 --> 00:06:22.990 time Joe's side. He was married. He met his wife, 00:06:23.230 --> 00:06:25.709 Stella, back at Columbia, but that didn't slow 00:06:25.709 --> 00:06:28.540 him down at all. The marriage story is wild on 00:06:28.540 --> 00:06:31.480 its own. He helped Stella get a divorce from 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:33.899 her first husband and then married her seven 00:06:33.899 --> 00:06:36.860 days later. The man moved fast. He did, but he 00:06:36.860 --> 00:06:39.279 wasn't faithful. He had a long -term mistress 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:41.819 named Connie Marcus, and he was a fixture in 00:06:41.819 --> 00:06:44.019 the Broadway scene. He loved the nightclubs, 00:06:44.120 --> 00:06:46.300 he loved the jazz, and he specifically loved 00:06:46.300 --> 00:06:48.420 the showgirls. Right. He was living a double 00:06:48.420 --> 00:06:51.480 life. Judge by day, playboy by night. Which brings 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:54.319 us to the timeline of the disappearance. This 00:06:54.319 --> 00:06:57.300 is where the story shifts from a political biography 00:06:57.300 --> 00:07:00.480 to a straight -up noir thriller. It really does. 00:07:00.759 --> 00:07:03.920 It's late July 1930. Crater and Stella are on 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:05.939 vacation in Belgrade, Maine. It's supposed to 00:07:05.939 --> 00:07:08.720 be idyllic, a cabin by the lake, but Crater is 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:11.600 just pacing the floor. He's completely restless. 00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:14.600 And then the phone rings. We don't know who was 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:17.220 on the other end, but the effect on Crater was 00:07:17.220 --> 00:07:20.220 immediate. He hangs up and... tells Stella he 00:07:20.220 --> 00:07:22.439 has to go back to New York City. And I want to 00:07:22.439 --> 00:07:24.220 quote him directly here from the records because 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:27.319 his choice of words is chilling. He says, I have 00:07:27.319 --> 00:07:29.439 to straighten those fellows out. Straighten those 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:31.920 fellows out. That isn't the language of a man 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:34.259 going back to sign some routine court paperwork. 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:37.319 No. That implies a conflict. It implies a threat. 00:07:37.540 --> 00:07:40.300 So he gets on a train and heads back to the sweltering 00:07:40.300 --> 00:07:42.800 city, but he doesn't go to the courthouse to 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:45.339 work. He goes to his apartment at 45th Avenue, 00:07:45.420 --> 00:07:48.439 drops his bags, and then immediately heads to 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:51.379 Atlantic City with the showgirl named Sally Lou 00:07:51.379 --> 00:07:54.100 Ritz. It's such erratic behavior. He's supposed 00:07:54.100 --> 00:07:56.379 to be handling a major crisis, but he's taking 00:07:56.379 --> 00:07:59.300 a beach trip with a mistress. Yeah. It screams 00:07:59.300 --> 00:08:02.100 of someone who is spiraling. Yeah. He actually 00:08:02.100 --> 00:08:04.879 goes back to Maine on August 1st, then turns 00:08:04.879 --> 00:08:07.240 around and goes back to New York again on August 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:09.959 3rd. He promises Stella, I'll be back for your 00:08:09.959 --> 00:08:12.250 birthday on the 9th. A promise he definitely 00:08:12.250 --> 00:08:16.230 did not keep. Let's zoom in on August 6, 1930. 00:08:17.069 --> 00:08:20.089 The day he vanishes. The details here are so 00:08:20.089 --> 00:08:22.990 specific it's frustrating. We can track his movements 00:08:22.990 --> 00:08:25.930 almost hour by hour until the very end. The morning 00:08:25.930 --> 00:08:28.670 starts in his judicial chambers. He spends two 00:08:28.670 --> 00:08:32.240 hours there. But he's not writing opinions. No. 00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:35.080 He's destroying documents. His assistant reported 00:08:35.080 --> 00:08:37.039 that he was shredding files and filling waste 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:39.220 baskets. He was cleaning house. And not just 00:08:39.220 --> 00:08:42.100 paper. He calls his law clerk Joseph Mara. He 00:08:42.100 --> 00:08:45.100 writes two checks to cash, totaling $5 ,150. 00:08:45.759 --> 00:08:48.100 He sends Mara to the bank to get the money. Right. 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:50.659 Again, adjusting for inflation, that's roughly 00:08:50.659 --> 00:08:53.360 $80 ,000 to $90 ,000 in today's money. Just walking 00:08:53.360 --> 00:08:55.440 around money for good time, Joe. Right. So he 00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:58.200 has nearly 100 grand in his pocket. He has destroyed 00:08:58.200 --> 00:09:00.950 his personal files. And then, and this is the 00:09:00.950 --> 00:09:03.830 detail that keeps me up at night, the briefcases. 00:09:04.230 --> 00:09:07.070 The two locked briefcases. He and Mara take them 00:09:07.070 --> 00:09:09.370 from the office to Crater's apartment. He dumps 00:09:09.370 --> 00:09:11.950 them there, and then he dismisses Mara. He tells 00:09:11.950 --> 00:09:14.389 him, take the rest of the day off. Wow. That 00:09:14.389 --> 00:09:16.870 is the last time his staff ever sees him. But 00:09:16.870 --> 00:09:19.750 the day isn't over. This is where it gets weirdly 00:09:19.750 --> 00:09:23.460 mundane. He goes to a ticket agency and buys 00:09:23.460 --> 00:09:26.240 a single seat for a comedy called Dancing Partner 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:28.679 at the Belasco Theater. Which makes no sense. 00:09:28.860 --> 00:09:31.139 The source material notes that he had already 00:09:31.139 --> 00:09:34.419 seen a preview of that exact show. Yeah. Why 00:09:34.419 --> 00:09:37.740 go see a mediocre comedy alone on the night you 00:09:37.740 --> 00:09:39.740 were supposedly straightening fellas out and 00:09:39.740 --> 00:09:42.279 carrying a fortune in cash? Maybe he needed a 00:09:42.279 --> 00:09:44.360 public place to meet someone or maybe he just 00:09:44.360 --> 00:09:46.480 needed to kill time. Anyway, he buys the ticket. 00:09:47.059 --> 00:09:49.480 Then he goes to dinner. Billy Haas' chop house 00:09:49.480 --> 00:09:51.940 on West 45th. He's with his lawyer friend, William 00:09:51.940 --> 00:09:54.240 Klein, and the showgirl we mentioned, Sally Lou 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:56.519 Ritz. And this is where the narrative completely 00:09:56.519 --> 00:09:59.340 fractures. For decades, the accepted story was 00:09:59.340 --> 00:10:01.700 that they finished dinner around 9 -1 -5 p .m. 00:10:01.820 --> 00:10:04.840 They walk outside. Crater hails a taxi. He waves 00:10:04.840 --> 00:10:07.139 goodbye to his friends, gets in. The cab drives 00:10:07.139 --> 00:10:09.899 west. And he is never seen again. Exactly. Judge 00:10:09.899 --> 00:10:12.220 Crater, call your office. That's the image everyone 00:10:12.220 --> 00:10:14.799 has. The man getting into the taxi. But we have 00:10:14.799 --> 00:10:17.240 to be really careful with that image. Because 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:20.259 that account relies entirely on the initial testimony 00:10:20.259 --> 00:10:24.159 of Klein and Ritz. And later, when the investigation 00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:26.740 turned up the heat on them, they changed their 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:30.139 story. They recanted. Essentially, yes. Later, 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:31.940 they claimed that they were the ones who got 00:10:31.940 --> 00:10:34.279 in a taxi to go to Coney Island, and they left 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:36.539 Crater just standing on the sidewalk. That is 00:10:36.539 --> 00:10:38.940 a massive discrepancy. I mean, if he got in a 00:10:38.940 --> 00:10:41.799 cab, the driver is a witness, though no driver 00:10:41.799 --> 00:10:44.279 ever came forward, but he was standing on the 00:10:44.279 --> 00:10:46.460 street. Anybody could have grabbed him. Or he 00:10:46.460 --> 00:10:48.519 could have just walked away into the crowd. It 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:51.340 muddies the water significantly. It suggests 00:10:51.340 --> 00:10:53.279 Klein and Ritz might have been trying to distance 00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:56.059 themselves from whatever happened next. So August 00:10:56.059 --> 00:11:01.440 6th ends. August 7th begins. And silence. But 00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:03.899 nobody hits the panic button. This is the good 00:11:03.899 --> 00:11:07.360 time show tax. Because he was so known for disappearing 00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:10.460 on benders or spending weekends with women, nobody 00:11:10.460 --> 00:11:13.799 panicked. Stella waited 10 full days before she 00:11:13.799 --> 00:11:15.460 even called his friends to ask if they'd seen 00:11:15.460 --> 00:11:18.230 him. Ten days. I mean, I panic if my pizza delivery 00:11:18.230 --> 00:11:20.710 is ten minutes late. A Supreme Court justice 00:11:20.710 --> 00:11:23.169 is missing for ten days and nobody calls the 00:11:23.169 --> 00:11:25.470 cops. The court didn't even realize he was missing 00:11:25.470 --> 00:11:28.470 until August 25th when the new session started 00:11:28.470 --> 00:11:32.490 and his chair on the bench was just empty. Unbelievable. 00:11:32.789 --> 00:11:34.509 The police weren't officially notified until 00:11:34.509 --> 00:11:36.889 September 3rd. That's almost a full month after 00:11:36.889 --> 00:11:40.250 he vanished. The trail wasn't just cold, it was 00:11:40.250 --> 00:11:42.610 frozen solid. And when the police finally kicked 00:11:42.610 --> 00:11:45.750 down the doors, what they found confirmed everyone's 00:11:45.750 --> 00:11:48.889 worst fears. They opened his safe deposit box. 00:11:49.029 --> 00:11:51.789 Empty. They searched the apartment for those 00:11:51.789 --> 00:11:54.429 two locked briefcases he'd brought home. Gone. 00:11:54.629 --> 00:11:56.690 It was a completely clean sweep. Someone had 00:11:56.690 --> 00:11:58.750 sanitized his life. Which leads to the grand 00:11:58.750 --> 00:12:02.049 jury in October. They call 95 witnesses. They 00:12:02.049 --> 00:12:04.149 produce nearly a thousand pages of testimony. 00:12:04.509 --> 00:12:07.129 And the result? Insufficient evidence. They couldn't 00:12:07.129 --> 00:12:08.850 even determine if a crime had been committed. 00:12:09.409 --> 00:12:11.809 They didn't know if he was dead, if he had amnesia, 00:12:11.929 --> 00:12:13.789 or if he had run away to start a new life in 00:12:13.789 --> 00:12:16.350 Brazil. But there were people who seemed to know 00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:19.129 something. We really have to talk about the dangerous 00:12:19.129 --> 00:12:21.309 women aspect of this case, because every time 00:12:21.309 --> 00:12:23.309 the police got close to a woman in Crater's life, 00:12:23.350 --> 00:12:26.470 she either ran or bad things happened. Start 00:12:26.470 --> 00:12:29.590 with Sally Lou Ritz, the dinner companion. As 00:12:29.590 --> 00:12:32.149 soon as the investigation starts, she flees New 00:12:32.149 --> 00:12:35.600 York. She goes to Ohio, then California, claiming 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:38.360 her father is sick. She effectively runs for 00:12:38.360 --> 00:12:41.480 the hills. Then there's Jean Bryce. Another showgirl. 00:12:41.980 --> 00:12:43.919 She was seen talking to Crater the day before 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:46.580 he vanished. The theory from Stella's lawyer 00:12:46.580 --> 00:12:48.840 was that Bryce was part of a blackmail scheme. 00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:51.200 Perhaps that was the reason Crater needed that 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:54.220 cash. Right. But just as the grand jury is about 00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:57.419 to subpoena her, she vanishes too. And she wasn't 00:12:57.419 --> 00:13:00.080 found until 1948. They found her years later 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:02.320 in a mental hospital. But the most explosive 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:04.700 connection, and the one that really links Crater 00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:07.419 to the broader history of New York, is Vivian 00:13:07.419 --> 00:13:09.980 Gordon. This part of the story blew my mind. 00:13:10.059 --> 00:13:12.360 Vivian Gordon wasn't just a showgirl. No, she 00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:15.679 was a high -end madam. She ran a very exclusive 00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:18.600 prostitution ring. She was connected to Polly 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:21.059 Adler and the gangster Jack Legs Diamond. And 00:13:21.059 --> 00:13:23.340 we know Crater socialized with Diamond. And didn't 00:13:23.340 --> 00:13:26.840 they find Crater's jacket in her apartment? Reportedly, 00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:31.019 yes, but here is the real connection. Vivian 00:13:31.019 --> 00:13:33.840 Gordon was furious about a conviction that cost 00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:37.340 her custody of her daughter. She decided to flip. 00:13:38.279 --> 00:13:40.379 She offered to testify to the Seabury Commission 00:13:40.379 --> 00:13:42.320 about police graft and corruption. She was going 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:44.539 to name names. Five days after she made that 00:13:44.539 --> 00:13:47.419 offer, she was found murdered in Van Cortlandt 00:13:47.419 --> 00:13:50.340 Park in the Bronx, strangled. And that murder 00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:52.940 wasn't just swept under the rug? No. Her death 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:55.480 caused a massive public outrage that actually 00:13:55.480 --> 00:13:58.100 brought down the entire city government. It led 00:13:58.100 --> 00:14:00.279 directly to the resignation of Mayor Jimmy Walker. 00:14:01.139 --> 00:14:02.740 So you have to look at Crater in this context. 00:14:03.159 --> 00:14:06.220 Vivian Gordon knew too much and got killed. Crater 00:14:06.220 --> 00:14:08.379 likely knew even more. It connects the dots. 00:14:08.519 --> 00:14:09.960 If he was straightening fellows out, maybe he 00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:11.940 was threatened to talk to. He was a loose end. 00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:14.659 Exactly. He was a liability of the Tammany machine. 00:14:15.019 --> 00:14:17.559 Amidst all this mob violence and political collapse, 00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:21.500 you have poor Stella Crater. She's stuck in Maine 00:14:21.500 --> 00:14:24.700 waiting for a husband who never shows up. Stella 00:14:24.700 --> 00:14:27.059 is really the tragic figure here. She's totally 00:14:27.059 --> 00:14:29.879 in the dark. She comes back to the city and actually 00:14:29.879 --> 00:14:32.379 gets evicted from their Fifth Avenue apartment 00:14:32.379 --> 00:14:35.039 because she can't pay the rent. She is destitute. 00:14:35.559 --> 00:14:38.279 But then six months later, this is January 1931, 00:14:39.299 --> 00:14:41.820 the story takes a weird turn. She's searching 00:14:41.820 --> 00:14:44.059 the apartment and she finds something. She finds 00:14:44.059 --> 00:14:47.100 a hidden stash in a dresser drawer. Right. Envelopes 00:14:47.100 --> 00:14:50.259 containing checks, stocks, bonds, and a note 00:14:50.259 --> 00:14:52.879 from Joe. Now hold on. The police had turned 00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:54.940 that apartment upside down. They searched for 00:14:54.940 --> 00:14:57.000 weeks. They checked every drawer, every nook, 00:14:57.080 --> 00:14:59.740 and suddenly, six months later, there's a pile 00:14:59.740 --> 00:15:02.059 of money sitting there. It is incredibly suspicious. 00:15:02.679 --> 00:15:04.799 The police insisted that money wasn't there during 00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:07.919 their initial search. So was it a plant? That's 00:15:07.919 --> 00:15:10.779 the big question. Did someone sneak back in and 00:15:10.779 --> 00:15:13.799 plant it to help Stella out? Or... And this is 00:15:13.799 --> 00:15:15.980 the darker theory. Did they plant it to frame 00:15:15.980 --> 00:15:18.320 the narrative? How so? If he left a goodbye note 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:20.799 and money for his wife, it supports the theory 00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:23.500 that he fled voluntarily. It takes the heat off 00:15:23.500 --> 00:15:26.580 a murder investigation. Wow. It kept her alive, 00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:29.919 financially speaking, but just barely. Just barely. 00:15:30.539 --> 00:15:32.559 She ended up working as a telephone operator 00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:36.259 in Maine for $12 a week. She lived in poverty 00:15:36.259 --> 00:15:38.919 for years. She finally had him declared legally 00:15:38.919 --> 00:15:42.059 dead in 1939 and got the life insurance, about 00:15:42.059 --> 00:15:45.139 $20 ,000. But she went to her grave believing 00:15:45.139 --> 00:15:47.259 he was murdered. She even wrote a book about 00:15:47.259 --> 00:15:49.720 it called The Empty Robe. So the case officially 00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:53.120 closes in 1979. It becomes a legend, a punchline 00:15:53.120 --> 00:15:56.460 really, pulling a crater. But then in 2005, we 00:15:56.460 --> 00:15:59.620 get one last gasp of evidence from the grave. 00:15:59.779 --> 00:16:02.360 The deathbed letter. A woman named Stella Ferrucci 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:05.179 Good dies at age 91. She leaves behind notes 00:16:05.179 --> 00:16:07.919 claiming her husband, who was an NYPD detective, 00:16:08.279 --> 00:16:10.220 had learned the truth years earlier. And this 00:16:10.220 --> 00:16:12.480 truth is straight out of a Scorsese movie. The 00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:14.360 notes allege that Crater was killed by Charles 00:16:14.360 --> 00:16:17.299 Burns, an NYPD officer who doubled as a bodyguard 00:16:17.299 --> 00:16:20.399 for A. Brielis. A. Brielis. The Hitman for Murder, 00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:23.700 Inc. The very same. The Enforcer. So you have 00:16:23.700 --> 00:16:26.460 a cop working for the mob. The letter claims 00:16:26.460 --> 00:16:29.059 Burns and his brother killed Crater and buried 00:16:29.059 --> 00:16:31.500 him near West 8th Street in Coney Island. Which 00:16:31.500 --> 00:16:34.120 is a very specific location. That's where the 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:37.139 New York Aquarium is today. It is. So is Judge 00:16:37.139 --> 00:16:41.179 Crater sleeping with the fishes? Literally under 00:16:41.179 --> 00:16:43.539 the shark tank. It is a compelling image and 00:16:43.539 --> 00:16:46.559 it fits the mob hit theory perfectly. But we 00:16:46.559 --> 00:16:48.759 have to apply some historical skepticism here. 00:16:48.970 --> 00:16:51.429 When they built that aquarium in the 1950s, they 00:16:51.429 --> 00:16:54.190 dug deep. They did massive excavations for the 00:16:54.190 --> 00:16:57.210 foundations. The records show no skeletal remains 00:16:57.210 --> 00:17:00.250 were ever found at that site. So the geography 00:17:00.250 --> 00:17:02.669 doesn't quite match the story. Right. And historians 00:17:02.669 --> 00:17:04.750 like Richard J. Toffle point out that this letter 00:17:04.750 --> 00:17:07.269 ties things up a little too nicely. It feels 00:17:07.269 --> 00:17:09.150 like a story a detective might have told his 00:17:09.150 --> 00:17:11.450 wife to impress her rather than hard evidence. 00:17:11.650 --> 00:17:14.410 It lacks real corroboration. So we're back to 00:17:14.410 --> 00:17:17.529 square one. No body, no briefcases, just the 00:17:17.529 --> 00:17:21.369 legend. But the legend matters. I think Crater's 00:17:21.369 --> 00:17:24.430 disappearance is important because it broke the 00:17:24.430 --> 00:17:27.670 spell. You had a Supreme Court justice swallowed 00:17:27.670 --> 00:17:31.190 whole by his own city. It showed everyone that 00:17:31.190 --> 00:17:34.890 nobody, not even a judge, was safe from the corruption. 00:17:35.109 --> 00:17:39.190 Yeah. In a strange way, his disappearance accelerated 00:17:39.190 --> 00:17:42.549 the cleanup of New York politics. He had to vanish 00:17:42.549 --> 00:17:44.920 for the truth to finally come out. It's a hell 00:17:44.920 --> 00:17:47.279 of a legacy. I disappeared so you could see the 00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:49.640 rot. It really is. It forced the city to look 00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:51.819 in the mirror. Before we wrap up, I want to leave 00:17:51.819 --> 00:17:54.180 you, the listener, with a thought, a loose thread 00:17:54.180 --> 00:17:55.940 that really bothers me about this whole thing. 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:59.460 Go for it. We know he took $5 ,000 cash and those 00:17:59.460 --> 00:18:02.779 two locked briefcases. If he was murdered that 00:18:02.779 --> 00:18:05.720 night, the money and the cases presumably disappeared 00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:09.230 with him. But if that note Stella found six months 00:18:09.230 --> 00:18:11.869 later was planted, it means someone had access 00:18:11.869 --> 00:18:14.109 to his personal effects after he vanished. That 00:18:14.109 --> 00:18:16.349 is the chilling part. It means the killers didn't 00:18:16.349 --> 00:18:18.890 just dump the body. They came back. They had 00:18:18.890 --> 00:18:21.109 keys. They walked into his house while his wife 00:18:21.109 --> 00:18:23.269 was crying in Maine. Or he gave him the keys. 00:18:23.630 --> 00:18:26.670 So ask yourself this. Was the note a genuine 00:18:26.670 --> 00:18:29.109 goodbye from a man fleeing the country to sit 00:18:29.109 --> 00:18:32.299 on a beach in Brazil? Or was it a receipt left 00:18:32.299 --> 00:18:34.720 by the people who silenced him? And more importantly, 00:18:34.920 --> 00:18:37.359 what was in those briefcases that was worth killing 00:18:37.359 --> 00:18:39.799 a Supreme Court justice for? That is the question 00:18:39.799 --> 00:18:43.920 that keeps this story alive 90 years later. That's 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:46.460 it for this deep dive into the missingest men 00:18:46.460 --> 00:18:49.200 in America. Thanks for listening. Stay curious.