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#Post#: 6629--------------------------------------------------
Re: ADDISON COUNTY UNKNOWN DOE: W, 9-11, found with two others n
ear an old logging road - 15 May 193
By: Akoya Date: June 12, 2020, 8:51 am
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HTML http://www.suncommunitynews.com/articles/the-sun/search-continues-for-1935-triple-murder-remains/
MAY 12, 2011
Search continues for 1935 triple-murder remains
MIDDLEBURY-Two Addison County women are continuing their
self-financed search for clues about a trio of unsolved murders
that occurred in East Middlebury in 1935. The women are jointly
writing a book about Vermont's oldest, unsolved multiple murder.
On May 1, Roxanna Emilo of Middlebury and Kathy Brande of
Bristol joined a team of searchers from Green Mountains Treasure
Hunters, Inc. The firm is owned by Jack Dapsis from Bridport.
Dapsis used the technology of metal detection to locate missing
metal objects or in our case to possibly unearth forensic
evidence at the scene of the murders just north of the
Middlebury State Airport.
"We also had a few family members, and friends come to help
explore the gravesite of the three skeletons found at the base
of the Green Mountains in 1935," Emil said. "The hope was to
discover anything that might be related to that event."
In 1935, according to the women, three bodies presumed to be a
mother and her two children were dumped on the road leading from
the Case Street Road to the old Brookins-Blackmer Camp in the
foothills four or five miles from downtown Middlebury.
"Each had been shot through th head and then dumped by the side
of a lonely road leading from East Middlebury to Bristol," Emilo
said. "It was a road not traveled much on even in 1935. Each had
been shot through the head. The skull of the female retained a
.38 caliber copper jacked bullet."
Both Emilo and Brande said other crime scene evidence included
grommets, pulleys, a green and buff striped canvas awning, rope
fragments, blanket, silk, pearl button, probable pillow
feathers, and some hair.
"They were wrapped in the awning and dumped in a heap-covered
with branches about 18 inches from the logging trail," Emilo
said.
"In 1935, this was a very isolated spot. Now there are homes
dotting the pavement that runs parallel to the logging trail as
well as the VAST Snowmobile Trail which runs right beside the
spot where the bodies were wrapped and dumped," according to
Brande.
Further back in the wood was the old Brookins-Blackmer campsite.
#Post#: 6630--------------------------------------------------
Re: ADDISON COUNTY UNKNOWN DOE: W, 9-11, found with two others n
ear an old logging road - 15 May 193
By: Akoya Date: June 12, 2020, 8:55 am
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HTML http://www.addisonindependent.com/2015051935-murder-victims-buried-mystery-persists
1935 murder victims buried; mystery persists
Posted on May 13, 2015 |
By John Flowers
HTML https://i.imgur.com/4k0upnL.jpg
EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY three victims in an unsolved 1935 triple
murder case in Middlebury took a step forward last year with the
production of three-dimensional casts of the faces of the
deceased.
EAST MIDDLEBURY — It was a brisk day last fall when Walt
Ducharme stood at the side of a freshly dug grave at the
Prospect Cemetery in East Middlebury. The mortal remains of
three people were at last given a final resting place after
reposing in nondescript boxes in an office cabinet for 80 years.
But with eternal rest does not always come closure.
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#Post#: 6631--------------------------------------------------
Re: ADDISON COUNTY UNKNOWN DOE: W, 9-11, found with two others n
ear an old logging road - 15 May 193
By: Akoya Date: June 12, 2020, 8:56 am
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Burlington Free Press
Fig2_EntranceWoundMotherSkull
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#Post#: 6632--------------------------------------------------
Re: ADDISON COUNTY UNKNOWN DOE: W, 9-11, found with two others n
ear an old logging road - 15 May 193
By: Akoya Date: June 12, 2020, 8:58 am
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Burlington Free Press
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#Post#: 6633--------------------------------------------------
Re: ADDISON COUNTY UNKNOWN DOE: W, 9-11, found with two others n
ear an old logging road - 15 May 193
By: Akoya Date: June 12, 2020, 9:00 am
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HTML http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/.../history-space-middlebury-cold-case/92958366/
History Space: A 1935 Middlebury cold case
DETECTIVE KRIS BOWDISH and STATE ARCHIVIST TANYA MARSHALL, For
the Free PressPublished 12:17 a.m. ET Oct. 30, 2016
What happens to an 80-year-old cold case that hasn’t had a lead
in more than 70 years?
How do you identify the victims of a violent crime 80 years
after they were discovered?
Can the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration be the
link to solve a 1935 triple homicide cold case?
Wednesday, May 15, 1935, began like any other day in Vermont.
For Mary Dague and her 18-year-old daughter, Inez Perry, that
day included an afternoon walk in the woods in search of
mayflowers. They were on an old logging road a little more than
4 miles outside of Middlebury. On the way back from their hunt,
a white rock caught Inez Perry’s eye and, without much thought,
she gave it a kick. But the rock did not roll out and tumble
across the ground as expected, instead, it turned to reveal that
it was not a rock at all but rather a skull.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/HYqsAPe.jpg
A gravestone in Middlebury where the three unknown victims of a
1935 homicide are buried. (Photo: Courtesy of Middlebury Police
Department)
The three victims
By nightfall, Middlebury Sheriff Ralph G. Sweet and Addison
County State’s Attorney John T. Conley, along with several
residents, uncovered the skeletal remains of a mother and her
two children. The case was immediately classified a homicide, as
all three had suffered apparent gunshot wounds to their skulls.
The case was vigorously investigated by Detective Almo B.
Franzoni of the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.
A nationwide search of missing persons, as well as possible
suspects, was launched but neither the victims, nor their
killer, have ever been identified. After haunting Vermont public
officials and law enforcement for more than 80 years, archival
records recently helped shed some light on the case’s many
twists and turns.
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The entrance wound in the skull of mother, as photographed by
the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in 2011. (Photo:
Courtesy Vermont State Archives and Records Administration)
The victims in this case were reported to be a mother,
approximately 35-45 years old, and her two children, one about 9
to11 years old and the other 13 to15. Further examinations, by
various doctors at the time, concluded that the three victims
were all members of the same family due to similarities in their
bone structures and what appeared to be a tendency of anemia.
Early reports show the children were a boy and a girl, and then
later two boys.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/nXY2KhT.jpg
The entrance wound in the skull of youngest child, as
photographed by the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in
2011. (Photo: Courtesy Vermont State Archives and Records
Administration)
The most striking evidence in this case, and perhaps the
greatest lead, was found within the skulls. While all had some
form of dental work done on them, one of the victims, the eldest
child, had extensive dental work including a gold band
encircling the entire set of teeth in the upper jaw with an
Angle’s ribbon. The dental work was valued at $1,500 at the
time.
The crime scene
The three skeletal remains were found on the side of a remote
logging road leading to the Brookins/Blackmer hunting camp in
East Middlebury. Reported by a local newspaper as being “dumped
unceremoniously under a pine tree right near the road,” the
bodies were discovered under a thin layer of pine needles and
leaves and bound tight in what was initially described as an
Army duffel bag. A small tree root, about a half to
three-quarters of an inch thick, had grown over the leg of one
of the victims. That evening, Sheriff Sweet returned to the site
with Dr. Lewell S. Walker, the regional medical examiner. Walker
reported that he was unable to determine the gender or age of
the three victims but that each had died from a “shot clean
through the head.”
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A crowd gathering at the crime scene, as photographed and
published by the Burlington Free Press on May 20, 1930 (Photo:
Courtesy Vermont State Archives and Records Administration)
In the following 48 hours, details of the crime scene started to
take shape. While the bodies were originally reported as being
found naked, the reality was that only bones remained, meaning
that they had been exposed to the elements for at least three to
five years. All three victims appeared to have been killed in an
identical manner — one single shot to the temple —a crime that
investigators thought possibly occurred while they were sleeping
since remnants of a pillow were also found.
Other evidence included a “few hanks of matted hair,” described
as both blond and dark, possibly auburn, with some of the
strands being several inches long; a small piece of a woman’s
silk dress; badly disintegrated remnants of a black, possibly
green, and buff striped awning; four small block pulleys; the
corner of a woolen blanket; and the snap from an automobile side
curtain. A flattened .38 caliber copper jacketed bullet,
consistent with a Colt automatic, was also found under one of
the skulls.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/Kk4jXVo.jpg
Map to location of crime scene, as published by the Burlington
Free Press on May 18, 1935. (Photo: Courtesy Vermont State
Archives and Records Administration)
The investigation
The investigation began in earnest the day after the remains
were found. Sheriff Sweet returned to the scene with State’s
Attorney Conley and Detective Almo B. Franzoni from the Vermont
Attorney General’s Office.
State’s Attorney Conley brought the skulls to Mary Fletcher
Hospital in Burlington where they were photographed. He then
traveled alone, armed with revolver and blackjack, to see Dr.
Alfred B. Rogers, a Boston dentist who specialized in treating
irregularities of teeth and was also a graduate of the Angle
school. Dr. Rogers concluded that no unusual skill was required
to have performed the dental work done and that the work could
have been done in any dental clinic, including clinics providing
services to those of poor circumstances. Extensive work was done
to contact dentists throughout New England and further but a
match was never made.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/Twm0VuZ.jpg
The youngest child’s facial composite. (Photo: Forensic
Anthropology Department at the New York Office of the Chief
Medical Examiner.)
Detective Franzoni turned his attention to persons of interest
beginning first with R.R. Luding of Buffalo, New York. A guest
of the Middlebury Hotel, Luding had shown “great interest in the
finding of the skeletons” and reportedly followed investigators
from Middlebury to Burlington in an automobile with Indiana
license plates. Police were asked to keep a lookout for him, but
the search was discontinued almost as soon as it started.
Instead, information about a stranger who went by the name
Irving or Arthur Denton caught Detective Franzoni’s attention.
According to Middlebury residents, Denton showed up in August
1931 buying high-price items, including a Ford automobile and a
property on Starksboro Road, and paying for them in cash. He
also whitewashed his property’s windows, blackened its lights,
and warned neighbors to keep away. In February 1932, Denton
abruptly left town ordering the sale of his property with the
money going to the Pacific National Bank in Seattle, Washington.
While recalling Denton, the neighbor living closest to the crime
scene stated that 1932 was the year a dank odor of “decaying
flesh” came from the woods but could not be placed.
Harold Young was another person of interest. Young came to
Burlington in 1929 to operate a store on the corner of Monroe
and Champlain streets, which was part of the Grand Union Tea
Company. Believed to be a bootlegger or in the moonshine
business not too far from Buffalo, New York, persons who knew
him said that Young said “it got too hot” for him there. His
acquaintances also said he owned a .38 caliber Colt. John
Deyette, who owned the building where the store was located,
said Young was taken back after receiving a notice that his wife
and child, a girl about 11 years old, planned to join him in
Burlington. Soon after their arrival, Deyette told authorities
that Young left with his wife and daughter for three days and
returned without them. Soon after, Young also left the area.
#Post#: 6634--------------------------------------------------
Re: ADDISON COUNTY UNKNOWN DOE: W, 9-11, found with two others n
ear an old logging road - 15 May 193
By: Akoya Date: June 12, 2020, 9:03 am
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continued
Within a year, despite vigorously investigating multiple leads
and including the case in several national journals and
publications, as well as interviewing hundreds of orthodontists
and dentists, the case began to run cold. Then, in January 1938,
Detective Franzoni thought he struck gold.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/ptRApav.jpg
Vermont Certificate of Death for the mother, as filed with the
Vermont Department of Health on September 11, 2014. (Photo:
Courtesy Vermont State Archives and Records Administration)
The Goldens
As part of the investigation, Harvard scientists who examined
the remains while they were in Boston provided a more detailed
report about the victims. Included in the report were the
probable ages of the deceased, the gender of the children and
the year of death, all of which convinced Detective Franzoni the
victims might be Mrs. Cora Golden and her children, Charles Jr.
and Beulah Elizabeth of Milton.
Cora disappeared in 1923 with her children when she was 31 years
old. At the time, Charles Jr. was 7 and Beulah was 4. If Cora
and her children were killed seven years after they disappeared,
the ages and year of death would align with Harvard’s estimates.
In addition, the disappearance of a Milton farmhand around the
same time as the Goldens proved to be related. Detective
Franzoni was able to trace Cora, the farmhand, Joseph Carter,
and the children as having spent time in Hartford, Connecticut
before coming back to Vermont in 1929. After that, however, he
could find no trace of them leading him to believe that the
bodies found in May 1935 were very likely Cora and her children.
Then, in April 1938, Detective Franzoni found the daughter
living with an adoptive family in Connecticut. One would think
that the detective didn’t strike gold at all, given that one
child was indeed found alive; however, in tracking down Cora and
Joseph Carter, Franzoni learned they had a child together in
1924. More important, that child was a boy — the gender Harvard
scientists concluded both children to be. Recent DNA testing,
spearheaded by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, also
confirmed both children were boys and related to each other.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/DjhbjF5.jpg
Francis Joseph Carter’s birth certificate. In September 1924,
his parents marry under the names Thomas Napolean Charest and
Elizabeth Minor but change little about their parents names.
(Photo: Courtesy Vermont State Archives and Records
Administration)
It’s in the records
After decades still believing Cora and her two boys were the
likely victims, State Archivist Tanya Marshall recently found
archival records that prove otherwise. Cora Golden and Joseph
Carter, perhaps taking advantage of Carter’s French roots, used
the pseudonyms Cora LaFlash and Thomas Charest in Vermont vital
records related to their marriage and the birth of their son
Francis. The 1930 federal Census shows the Charest family
residing in New York and following Elizabeth “Cora” Charest’s
death in 1938, Thomas, Charles and Francis all eventually return
back to Vermont. The records have given closure to this lead in
the case. Further work by Detective Kris Bowdish at the
Middlebury Police Department has proven the records to be right.
DNA testing of a living relative of Buelah show the three
unidentified persons are neither Buelah’s mother nor her
brothers.
Vital, Census and other archival records are also shedding light
on the persons of interest Detective Franzoni so actively
sought. Harold Young was most likely Harold C. West of Chelsea.
In 1929, the local newspaper in Fulton, New York, reported that
West, having been the manager at the Grand Union Tea Company in
Burlington, Vermont, was now the manager of Oneida Creamery in
Fulton. The 1930 Census lists West, in Fulton, as a retail
grocer living with his wife Clara. Look a little deeper and it
is a Harold C. West, not Harold Young, who appears in the 1928
Burlington City Directory as the manager of the Grand Union Tea
Company.
So what’s the current status of this 80-year-old cold case? The
mother and her two sons have finally been laid to rest in a
Middlebury cemetery and their grave reads “Three souls known
only to God.” Will archival records be the key to putting names
to these souls? Time will only tell if the 1935 Middlebury cold
case will ever be solved, but without witnesses and physical
evidence, one’s only hope is that it’s in the records.
The authors would like to thank researchers Brian Lindner and
Anne Bielby for providing some of the background information for
this article.
#Post#: 6635--------------------------------------------------
Re: ADDISON COUNTY UNKNOWN DOE: W, 9-11, found with two others n
ear an old logging road - 15 May 193
By: Akoya Date: June 12, 2020, 9:04 am
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