"GOOD LUCK JOE, WHEREVER YOU ARE"

 


On August 6, 1930 a man said goodbye to his dinner companions and turned off to head toward a Broadway theater. He'd purchased a ticket for a new show - Dancing Partner. This seems like an ordinary circumstance, but the man was Judge Joseph Force Crater, who remains missing 94 years later. Despite many searches and theories, no trace of Judge Crater has ever been uncovered after that night. Once declared "The Missingest Man In New York," few people remember this shocking missing person's case.

Judge Crater was born in Easton Pennsylvania January 5, 1889. He graduated Columbia Law School in 1913 and began practicing law. He represented Stella Wheeler in her divorce case, and the two married in 1916. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then Governor of New york, appointed Crater associate Justice of the New York Supreme Court in April of 1930. Crater had dealings with Tammany Hall, the New York City political institution corrupt since the Gilded Age.

The simple facts of what happened pre-disappearance are that the judge and Stella were at their vacation home in Maine, with plans to stay the month of August. Crater received a phone call and told Stella he was returning to the city to "straighten those fellows out." Upon arriving at their New York City apartment Crater gave the maid a few days off. He went back to Maine on August 1, after dining out with showgirl Sally Lou Ritz. Crater was back in New York City  a few days later but told Stella he would be back in Maine to celebrate her birthday August 9th. On August 6 he met with his assistant Joseph Mara. Mara cashed two checks that totaled together $5,150. Crater worked in his chambers, then took two locked suitcases to his apartment.

Crater ate dinner at Billy Haas's Chophouse with Ritz and fellow attorney William Klein. The two reported he was in good spirits, but one claimed he walked away after their goodbyes, the other said Crater got into a cab. When Crater did not return to Maine by August 9, Stella called his office. The office said the last he'd been there was August 6, and thought everyone there thought he was in Maine with Stella. When Crater failed to show up for the first day of court on August 25, police began to investigate the situation as a missing person's case. The money Crater took home was found in his and Stella's apartment in January, 1931, along with a note reading - "I am weary - Joe."



Franklin Roosevelt, then governor of New York, called for a committee to examine corruption within New York City's police and legal systems. The Seabury Commission found ties between New York City police and organized crime. Tammany Hall, built in the 1700s, served as New York City's main judicial building. Tammany Hall was home to many corrupt city officials, and Crater's colleagues were no exception. Police and corrupt New York City judicial employees set up a system whereby poor immigrants - mostly non English speaking women - would be arrested on false charges. Cops paid witnesses to corroborate these charges. Police would tell arrestees that they could pay certain city officials to be cleared of their crimes. 51 women were found jailed unjustly through the Seabury Commission. These women were cleared and the bad cops were fired. Many of Crater's associates were caught by the commission, and anyone willing to testify to the commission did not live to tell their tales.


A grand jury was convened to investigate Crater's disappearance. 95 witnesses were called and 975 pages of testimony were taken. Sally Lou Ritz left town in September 1930, but was found in her parents home in Ohio. Ritz claimed she left New York City to nurse her sick father. She never returned to New York, giving testimony at her parents home.


In August 2005 a woman named Stella Ferrucci Good died at 91 years old. Her granddaughter found a letter marked "do not open until my death." The letter claimed Stella's husband, a policeman named Robert Good, killed Crater, with an assist from his partner and partner's brother (a cabbie who did odd jobs for the mob.) They buried the judge's body under the Coney Island boardwalk. Despite no way to verify the letter, police dug under the boardwalk, but turned up no skeletal matter.


As for Stella Crater, she was evicted from her and Judge Crater's apartment in 1937. She took a $12 a week job as a telephone operator. Judge Crater was officially declared dead in 1939. Stella received $20,561 in life insurance. Despite many claims people had seen Judge Crater alive in other places across the U. S., Stella believed Judge Crater to have been dead since his disappearance. Stella died at age 70 in 1969. Every year on August 6, Stella would go to the same bar in Greenwich Village and order drinks for herself and Joe, toasting her long missing husband - "Good luck Joe, wherever you are."




SOURCES :

Jim H. "Judge Crater : 'The Missingest Man in New York City. '." Historic Mystories, 7 June, 2010. 

Judge Crater. Wikipedia.

FURTHER MEDIA ~

BOOKS :

The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress ~ Ariel Lawhon


PODCASTS :

Frey, Holly / Wilson, Tracy V., hosts. "The Disappearance of Judge Force Crater." Stuff You Missed In History Class, iheartradio, 24 February 2014.




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