MISSING JUDGE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22512, 16 December 1947, Page 4

MISSING JUDGE

17 YEARS DISAPPEARANCE POLICE THINK HE LIVES NEW YORK, Nov. 24. Although 17 years have passed since Justice Joseph Force Crater, of the New York State Supreme Court, disappeared, the City police believe Crater merely decided to “get away from it all," unless he has died of accident or natural causes. The Crater disappearance gained a place high on the list of world-famour disappearances, and it seems as though it is destined to remain a permanent mystery. Crater, who would be 58 years old if alive today, was believed at the time of his disappearance to be a man with everything to live for. He had only recently reached his professional goal—the New York Supreme Court bench. He had many friends in all walks of life, he had reasonable wealth, and it was generally supposed that he had a very happy home life.

The possible causes advanced for his disappearance- were many and varied during the first months. Some thought he was a victim of amnesia. His counsel believed he had been slain _by blackmailers, but never had sufficient evidence to warrant placing the possibility before the District Attorney. There was talk of his having been murdered as a result ox an unfortunate friendship acquired in Broadway night life, in which he indulged occasionally. The police believed, and still do, that he “took a run-out powder.”

Particular interest was added to the initial surprise of Crater’s disappearance by the discovery that he had drawn, without explanation, a large sum of cash from a bank just before he vanished. Some say the amount was in five figures.

There was also the seeming indifference of his wife over the disappearance, which occurred when she was at a summer resort in Maine.

BotM police headquarters and the District Attorney’s office are weighed down with huge piles of documents purportedly bearing on Crater’s departure from the circles. The Surrogate’s Court declared him dead — officially—years ago. The insurance company paid the “widow” the 20,000 dollars (£0214) on Crater’s life insurance policy. And Mrs. Crater remarried.

Through the years almost countless persons sought to explain Crater’s disappearance. Hundreds reported seeing him. One recognised him posing as a sheepherder in the north-west Pacific country. Someone else said he was a ranchman in the south-west.

Another recognised him hiding out as a hermit in northern New Brunswick, Canada. The police were told he operated a huge bingo game somewhere on the North African coast during the last months of the war. Last December a man reported that he had spotted Crater seated opposite him on a train in the west. The man who saw Crater was at the time reading a detective story magazine which reviewed the Crater case and carried his picture. The police followed up all these clues, no matter how fantastic and-im-probable, but nothing ever came of any of them. The December tip was the last one received, but the police believe that through the years there will always be new tips to check. They know human nature.