Joseph Force Crater was a New
York Supreme Court associate justice and the president of the Tammany Hall
Cayuga Democratic Club. He grew up in Pennsylvania and went on to attend
Lafayette College and Columbia University Law School. He started practicing law
in New York City in 1913 and was a prominent figure in the city for the next
nearly twenty years. He disappeared on August 6, 1930; he was 41 years old. He
was known for some time after the incident as the “Missingest Man in New York.”
Judge Joseph Crater and his wife
Stella were spending the summer of 1930 at their cabin in Belgrad Lakes, Maine,
when Crater got a mysterious phone call. After the call, he informed his wife
that he needed to go back to New York City to “straighten these fellows out.”
He went to New York City the next day and then headed to Atlantic City with a
showgirl. He returned to New York on August 3, 1930. On August 6, he went to his
office and sorted through his files. He sent his assistant to cash two checks that
equaled 5,150 dollars and then he left the office at 12:00 p.m. with his
assistant and two briefcases.
Judge Crater went to his
apartment and then dismissed his assistant. Later on, he went and bought a
ticket to a show that was playing that night. He then headed to West 45th
Street to eat dinner at the Billy Haas’ chophouse. He saw another lawyer there,
who was an acquaintance, and so he sat down to eat with the man and his date.
The man said later that there seemed to be nothing amiss with Judge Crater. He
said that he behaved like his normal self. After dinner, the couple parted ways
with the judge outside of the restaurant and Joseph Crater got into a cab. That
was the last confirmed sighting of him. It is unlikely that he ever made it to
the show.
After Crater had been gone for
ten days, his wife got nervous. He had said that he would be returning to
Maine, so she called a few friends of his and asked if anyone knew of his
whereabouts. She learned nothing. No other searches were conducted until he
failed to appear in court on August 25, at which time his co-workers began to
search for him. The police were not alerted until September 3, nearly a month
after the man had vanished. A grand jury called up 95 witnesses and a total of
975 pages of testimony was acquired, but no one knew where the judge had gone
or what happened to him.
Judge Crater’s safe deposit box
was empty and no one is quite sure what was in the two briefcases he had
brought home the day he disappeared. He also had dealings with corrupt
politicians. All of this points to the possibility that the judge slipped away
on purpose. However, no one could turn up a reason for an abrupt decision to
leave. There is also the fact that he seemed to have a good relationship with
his wife, despite his liking for showgirls, which makes one wonder why he would
leave without telling her. Crater also left some cash, checks, stocks, bonds
and insurance policies in a bureau in his apartment. Why would he leave without
these things?
There is also the possibility
that Judge Joseph Crater was murdered after he got into that cab. It is
possible, if not likely, that he made enemies during his career and that one of
those enemies thought it was a good idea to get rid of him. He may have known
something that he wasn’t supposed to know or have done something he shouldn’t
have. However, there is no proof of any of this. At this point, and possibly
forever, we can only speculate about the fate of Judge Crater. There is simply
not enough evidence to tell us what happened to him. He was declared dead on
June 6, 1979.
Sources
Taylor, Troy, Judge Crater
Vanished, retrieved 11/3/09, prairieghosts.com/crater.html
Maeder, Jay, Missing Person:
Judge Crater, 1930, ils.unc.edu/`mornj/ww2/popups/crater.htm
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