#murderedwomen

[latenightsleuth]

Margaret Martin Murder 1938 - UNSOLVED

The Unsolved Sawmill Murder – Margaret Martin

An article by Emily Thompson 6th February 2018

On 17 December, 1938, Margaret Martin went to meet a man for an alleged job interview. She was never seen alive again.

19-year-old Margaret Martin from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was known as a shy but friendly girl that had many friends. “I liked to dance, but she never went to dances. She was very popular, very studious,” her friend Betty Hopkins fondly recalled.1

Martin graduated from Kingston High School in 1937 and took a couple of classes at Wilkes-Barre Business College to gain secretarial skills. She graduated with honours.

On Saturday the 17th of December, 1938, a neighbour who took phone calls for the Martin family informed Martin that a man had called with a job offer for her. The anonymous caller said that he was new in town and was setting up an insurance agency and was looking for a secretary. It was just 17 days after her graduation and she assumed that Wilkes-Barre Business College must have recommended her to this potential employer. A chuffed Martin took the phone call and arranged to meet the anonymous caller at Kingston Corners, just a short distance from her family home on Covert Street.

The last time Martin was seen alive was when a man who lived in an apartment at Kingston Corners spotted her climbing into a brown Plymouth. The man who was driving the car was said to be between 25 and 30-years-old and was slightly overweight.

When Martin didn’t arrive home, police were contacted and a search was launched.

Due to a six-month strike at the local newspapers, her disappearance wasn’t well publicised but there were a few articles detailing her disappearance. An “Evening Star” article noted that police were checking into the possibility that she had been lured away by a man who was running a “white slave ring.”2

On the 21st of December, 1938, 19-year-old muskrat hunter, Anthony Rezykowski, made a gruesome discovery as he was laying traps alongside the icy cold water of Keelersburg Creek in Northmoreland Township, Wyoming County. As he approached a disused bridge, he spotted a burlap sack bobbing up and down with the flow of the water. Protruding from the burlap sack was a human hand.

The search was over: it was Margret Martin and she had been viciously abused.

She had been slashed across the abdomen and leg. It’s presumed that the killer had attempted to dismember her. In addition, she had been bludgeoned with a heavy rock. Her body was bound with a clothesline: both legs were jammed up underneath her chin. She was raped before being strangled.

Martin’s mother had the traumatising task of identifying her body.

50 State troopers were called in to search the isolated, snow-covered countryside where she was found. Within days, they expressed the belief that Martin had been murdered by a “sex maniac with a cruel, distorted mind.” They soon received an anonymous tip from somebody who claimed they had overheard the anonymous caller making the telephone call to Martin in which he offered her a job. He was described as being between 25 and 30-years-old with sandy hair. He was said to be “neat” and “suave.” This was the only tangible clue they had to go on. 3

While the search of the surrounding area was unfruitful, investigators reached a breakthrough several weeks later when they discovered the site where Martin had been tortured and murdered. Inside a steam boiler of an abandoned sawmill near Forkston, approximately 15 miles away, was a pile of burnt clothes. The burnt clothes matched what Martin was wearing on the day of her disappearance. Also discovered in the ash were several pieces of jewellery that Martin had been wearing on the day of her disappearance.

Outside the abandoned sawmill, investigators found footprints of a man and a woman in frozen mud. At one point in the track, the woman’s footprints disappeared and thereafter there were signs that some kind of object had been dragged.4

A man living nearby the sawmill reported seeing light from the sawmill fire as somebody opened the door at approximately 9PM on the same day Martin disappeared. He told investigators that he had fired several warning shots in the direction of the sawmill but didn’t think to investigate any further as he assumed it was just a trespasser. Was the killer disturbed as he attempted to dismember Martin and dispose of her body in the sawmill? Investigators believe so.

While families worldwide were getting ready to celebrate the Christmas festivities, Martin was buried in the cemetery of St. Ignatius Church on the 24th of December. It was the day she had planned on attending a Kingston High School alumni dance. Around 1,000 mourners arrived to pay their last respects. Several plain-clothes officers mingled around the crowds on the possibility that the killer would show his face; it certainly isn’t unheard of for killers to show up at their victim’s funerals. It was to no avail.5 Martin was buried beside her brother, who she watched die of a childhood disease when he was just 4-years-old. In a cruel twist of fate, he too was buried the day before Christmas.

Investigators gathered around the creek where Martin’s body was found.

As it so transpired, the anonymous caller had called the Wilkes-Barre Business College at approximately 9:15AM on the morning of the 17th of December. The school secretary gave the man the name of two students along with their phone numbers. The second student she named was Martin. The caller never called the first student, just Martin. This makes one wonder if he knew the school would suggest Martin and share her phone number with him.

The inch-by-inch search of the craggy surrounding area turned up no clues that could point investigators in the direction of the killer. Unfortunately, just moments after the body of Martin was found, the skies opened up and snow fell down, turning the crime scene into a winter wonderland. If there were any footprints or tire tracks, the snow had obliterated them.

One main theory was that the killer was a local due to the fact that he was clearly familiar with the rugged terrain. The abandoned sawmill wasn’t in an easy location to find. Presumably he knew exactly where it was and knew that it was abandoned. Another theory amongst the locals was that the killer was a serial killer from another town but police didn’t have the ability to track such a killer during the time.

Four years after the murder, 21-year-old Orban Taylor from New York City handed himself into authorities and confessed that he had killed Martin. A former resident of Wilkes-Barre, Orban was brought in for extensive questioning and after 20 long hours, admitted that he had fabricated the confession. While some of what he had said matched the facts of the case, the majority contradicted evidence. Nevertheless, police had to investigate his claims. They could find no evidence to substantiate his claims and he wasn’t charged in relation to the murder of Martin. He was, however, charged with second degree assault in an unrelated crime. Two years later, he died in prison after drinking a cocktail of typewriter cleaning fluid, orange juice, sugar and water.6

The search for Martin’s murderer gripped the Wyoming Valley for years and even left many Kingston residents too terrified to venture outside. Pennsylvania authorities never close the cold cases in their archive. In fact, every year, unsolved murders are reopened and reviewed each and every year and Martin’s murder is no different. However, over the forthcoming years following her murder, tips and leads have dwindled significantly and police aren’t hopeful that this case will ever be solved.

Footnotes:

The Times Ledger, 24 January, 1999 – “A Gruesome Murder that went Unsolved”

Evening Star, 22 December, 1938 – “Girl, 19, May Be Detained”

Evening Star, 23 December, 1938 – “National Guardsmen Join in Search for Girl’s Slayer”

The Evening Sun, 30 December, 1938 – “Footprints Discovered”

The Times Leader, 27 April, 2009 – “Cold Murder Cases Live On”

Star-Gazette, 25 May, 1944 – “Inmate Dead from Poison Cocktail”

Full Article: https://morbidology.com/the-unsolved-sawmill-murder-margaret-martin/

[ourblackgirls]

It’s not exactly known when 25-year-old Aletha Jo Williams disappeared, but police speculate it could have been as early as 2001. The mother struggled with drug addiction and left behind a young son. She was also six-months pregnant when she went missing. Because of her drug offenses, criminal history, and habits of dropping out of sight for periods of time, Utah police didn’t take her missing person case seriously. Authorities finally reopened her case in 2014 after witnesses came forward with new information that Aletha Jo was a victim of murder. ••• They searched bodies of water for her remains and found nothing. Later, they arrested a man named Ricky Lee Vincent for felony obstruction of justice in connection with Aletha Jo’s case, but he wasn’t named as the killer. In an interview, Vincent said that his brother murdered Aletha Jo, but no one has been charged with the crime and Aletha remains a missing person. ••• Anyone with information regarding this case is urged to contact the Salt Lake City Police Department. Aletha is our sister and her life matters. ••• Ourblackgirls.wordpress.com #utah #saltlakecity #slc #missingwomen #missing #missinggirls #truecrime #blackgirls #blackwomen #blacklivesmatter #blackwomenmatter #blackgirlsmatter #children #blackculture #blackvictims #news #blacknews #missingperson #murder #murderedwomen #coldcase #mystery https://www.instagram.com/p/BoXLlrSAzPh/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=howu25phumy4

[seo-lenc]

Top Side of Women Issues

Top Side of Women Issues

Women’s issues ought to be taken seriously because, without women, the state wouldn’t exist. Women, however, worry this situation may result in more sexual discrimination on the job. Quite a few women were sexual victims of the military Japanese previously, and they’re known as Korean comfort women.

The matter of sexual assault cannot merely be a women’s issue. It isn’t only the place of women to…

[latenightsleuth]

Strangled Body of Missing Student Hidden in Apartment Crawl Space

“Who killed Leah Hickman?”

By Rivy Lyon

Leah Nicole Hickman (Source: Find A Grave)

The identity of Leah Hickman’s murderer remains unknown. She vanished just before Christmas and was found several days later, her body hidden where no one would think to look. The last time her father had spoken with her was on her birthday, just a few weeks before her death.

This would be the very last time he would ever speak with his daughter.

The memory of Leah Hickman is displayed in a blue hue across the community of Huntington, West Virginia. After all, it was her favorite color. Ribbons of blue are hung around the apartment complex where she was found strangled and stuffed in a crawl space.

Vanished Into Thin Air

Leah was a junior studying journalism at Marshall University. After graduation, she hoped to become a television news reporter. On 8th Avenue in Huntington, Leah shared an apartment with her half-sister, Jessica Vickers. Jessica was the last person to see her alive. Computer records show that on December 14th, 2007, after signing into her Myspace account, Leah decided to go to McDonald’s and called a friend to let them know where she was going.

A receipt from McDonald’s, dated December 14th, was later found in the apartment, confirming her visit there.

Upon entering the apartment the next day, Jessica noticed Leah’s car keys and purse were there, but there was no sign of her roommate. Leah’s car was still in the parking lot. Jessica tried calling her sister’s cell phone, but it just went to voicemail. She then posted a message on her sister’s social media page asking “Oh sister, where are you?” Again, there was no reply.

As a new employee at the local Dress Barn, Leah was very vigilant about arriving to work on time, so it raised concerns when she did not show up for her shift that day. When notified that his daughter was absent, Ron Hickman rushed over to the apartment accompanied by his sister and a preacher. Nothing more was found to indicate where Leah might have gone.

On the 16th of December, her family filed a missing person’s report and emergency search parties were formed to comb the surrounding area over the next 7 days. Dress Barn posted a $10,000 reward for any information on Leah’s disappearance and the Huntington Police Department received numerous tips, but none of them led to her whereabouts. Flyers were posted all over the city pleading for anyone who might know where she was to call in.

It wasn’t long before she was found in the most unusual place.

Uncovered

A week later, on the 21st of December, Leah’s body was discovered in the crawl space of her apartment building, strangled to death. The crawl space could be accessed from the common laundry room and all four of the apartments in the building.

Initially, police had a theory that Leah was killed by someone she knew and that the killer was familiar with the configuration of the complex. Only one apartment was occupied other than the one Leah shared with her half-sister. However, the man living in that unit was out of town during the time Leah went missing, therefore he was excluded from the suspect list.

The city was devastated. Leah was only 21 years old when she died. Dress Barn closed for the Christmas weekend in her honor and paid for all of her funeral costs.

Trace Evidence

Mitochondrial DNA taken from hair fibers at the scene was tested in 2009, but the results were unable to find a match. Detectives were now lacking both witnesses and suspects. Insufficient evidence led to the case going cold.

Leah’s father has asked the Huntington police to have the DNA evidence tested by Parbaon NanoLabs as they have had great success on other cases in the past. Captain Ray Cornwell said the department is hesitant to do this for fear it will lead nowhere and the evidence remaining evidence will be lost. There is such a small amount of the sample left that investigators have to be cautious when deciding to retest. ​At this point, all they can do is wait for a credible lead to come in or for technology to advance enough to finally help solve the case.

Police say they revisit this case frequently and that it is still an ongoing investigation. There are currently no suspects in Leah Hickman’s murder.

In 2014, an anonymous person spray painted one simple question on the side of Leah’s apartment building on 8th Avenue: “Who killed Leah Hickman?” This brought new attention to the case along with the hope that her mystery might finally be solved; unfortunately, no one came forward.

The vandal was never found.

Her Memory Lives On

Ron Hickman prays there will someday be justice for his daughter. He vows to keep fighting for her until her killer is arrested and convicted for this heinous crime. Leah’s loss is not easily forgotten in the Huntington community. A memorial is held for her annually.

Leah Hickman with her father, Ron Hickman. (Source: The Herald-Dispatch/Ron Hickman)

“I pray God will bother the conscience of those involved and they’ll come forth with a confession or evidence.”

— Ron Hickman

Leah was important to many people; so much so that her father is approached by strangers often to tell him about the impact his daughter had on their lives. A blue wristband made by the journalism school was given out in her memory which Ron still wears to this day. “I never take it off,” he said, even insisting nurses wrap it in tape rather than remove it during his surgical procedure. Although there is a chance he may never find out who murdered his only child, he keeps his determination very much alive.

As for now, justice will have to wait until forensic technology can catch up.

If you have any information on Leah Hickman’s murder, please contact the Huntington Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Bureau at (304) 696–4420 or the tip line at (304) 696–4444.