[dramatic music]
Tonight, a missing person's case
that nearly derailed a presidential campaign.
Imagine the repercussions.
It might bring down the Democrats
and FDR with them.
It dominates mainstream media
for over five decades.
The keys to the lab are pulling
a Judge Crater on us.
Probably the equivalent of a Jimmy Hoffa
or even Amelia Earhart.
Now we examine the top theories
behind the so-called
Missingest Man in America.
Crater knows where all the bodies are buried,
and sometimes you just know too much.
He's never tried to shake down a heartless thug
like Legs Diamond. He's in over his head.
And Tammany Hall bigwigs silence him
so he cannot testify.
Will a deathbed confession
finally solve the mystery?
When I opened the box, it was in a sealed envelope,
it said "In Reference to Judge Crater's disappearance."
What really happened to New York City's notorious
Judge Joseph Crater?
[theme music]
At 9:15 p.m.,
41-year-old State Supreme Court Justice
Joseph Force Crater
steps out of a chophouse on West 45th Street.
He's been dining with a couple of friends
and says that he's running late to a Broadway show.
So, he leaves the restaurant,
hops into a cab, heads west.
From that moment, he's never seen
or heard from again.
Now, people go missing all the time,
but when it's Judge Crater,
it's a big deal.
Because, at this point, Joe Crater has just hit
the political primetime, as it were.
He's a big up-and-comer who was recently
appointed to the New York State Supreme Court
by then-Governor of New York State,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
That appointment is only for the rest
of a vacated term, and by the time
of his disappearance, Crater is actually
gearing up for an election of his own.
If he wins re-election in November,
the sky's the limit.
It's an election that's crucial for Judge Crater
and for FDR.
And this is great, because the opportunity
to ride the coattails of FDR
meant that you would have unlimited potential.
A lot of people believe that, once FDR is president,
Crater will be a nominee
to the United States Supreme Court.
And he's kind of a man-about-town in New York.
He knows all the cops, he knows all the politicians.
He knows the Broadway producers, the dancers.
He is a widely-known celebrity in the city,
and at the time, if you're a New York celebrity,
you're a nationwide celebrity.
The disappearance of Crater is huge.
It's probably the equivalent of a Jimmy Hoffa
or even Amelia Earhart.
Now, Crater's wife Stella is going through his rolodex
and calling up every political bigwig
that she can get her hands on
to find out if any of them know
what happened to him. It's even possible
that FDR might've gotten a call.
But Stella's pleas aren't taken seriously at first.
Crater is kind of a ladies' man,
and it's not uncommon for him to sometimes be gone
for several days at a time with other women.
He's nicknamed "Good Time Joe."
He's gone off on benders and disappeared for a while
in the past, where they've had to cover for him before.
It was an open secret that he had a few women on the side,
so one of the first things that people think...
seems to be the most obvious one.
Maybe...
he just took off with one of his mistresses.
[soft music]
Leading up to the disappearance,
on August 2nd,
Crater and his wife Stella
go to their vacation home in Maine
to stay there till the 25th
until court comes back in session.
But a day later, on August 3rd,
Crater receives a phone call and then tells his wife Stella
that he has to head back to,
quote, straighten some fellows out.
Now, she assumes it's just some business
or a legal issue, but he promises
to be back by her birthday on August 9th.
Stella's birthday comes and goes on the 9th,
and Crater is a no-show, he's nowhere to be found,
and she's a little worried because she's not used
to her husband breaking personal promises to her.
And Stella's calling around to all these powerful men
to try to figure out what happened to her husband,
and powerful men will do
what powerful men normally do.
They're gonna cover up for their friend.
Now, his friends tell her, don't worry about him,
I'm sure he's fine, he's probably just super-busy
with work or some other commitments.
They honestly don't really know where he is,
but they're just assuming that he's off
with one of his girlfriends, and they would gladly
cover for him, because they would assume that
he would do the same for them
when they're cheating on their wives.
The upcoming election
is also a factor.
Now, Crater's friends are all involved in politics,
in one way or another, so they're either working
on their own campaigns, or they're hoping
that Crater wins his election in three months' time
so that they can just ride his coattails.
Crater's a key part of the ticket
that the Democrats hope will get FDR re-elected
as governor, as long as there are no scandals.
And it's apparent if he wins there,
he will be a shoo-in for the nomination
for the presidency of the United States.
In 1932, any Democrat's going to beat Herbert Hoover.
But this Crater business could sink the whole thing.
So, better to keep it quiet.
They hope Joe will turn up soon enough.
But Stella's not convinced
and starts investigating on her own.
Mrs. Crater sends her chauffeur,
Fred Kahler, back to New York
to look for the judge.
What he finds is unopened mail,
and he can't get into the apartment.
Furthermore, he tries to talk to a bunch
of Crater's colleagues, but they discourage him
from looking too hard,
and this information drives Stella crazy.
Why does no one want to find where her husband is?
What is going on?
When Judge Crater doesn't show up for work
on August 25th, an astonishing 19 days
after he was last seen in public,
it's clear something is wrong.
At this point, even Joe's buddies
have to accept that he's missing.
It's been 19 days.
Crater was obsessed with the law.
He loved it, so if he didn't show up
on August the 25th, there's got to be
a very good reason.
So now a real investigation begins.
But, because we're dealing with a lot
of high profile politicians, the NYPD wants
to keep this investigation a bit more
on the hush-hush side. So they quietly
start interviewing witnesses.
The police speak to William Klein,
who dined with Crater the night he went missing.
William Klein is an attorney
for the Shubert family,
the most powerful theater empire
in the entire country at the time,
and Klein connects important people, like Crater,
to Shubert's slate of showgirls
in exchange for professional favors.
They actually ask Klein if he thinks that
Crater may have disappeared with one of his girlfriends.
And Klein says, "Actually, yeah."
According to Klein, Crater is taken
with one dancer in particular...
He'd been out with Elaine as many times as he could
in those few weeks before his disappearance.
She's described as an attractive blonde
with a Southern accent, and he bought her
lots of gifts and jewelry.
William Klein has watched Joe Crater go out
with several showgirls, but Elaine is
clearly special to him.
She's got a power over him,
and it may be that she may have seduced him
into leaving his entire life behind for her.
Detectives try to track down Elaine Dawn.
But when they arrive at her apartment,
she's nowhere to be found.
So, now Crater's gone, and his main squeeze is gone.
Something is really wrong here.
In the meantime, the Crater family hires
a private investigator, and he speaks
to Crater's assistant, Joseph Mara.
Mara was at work with Crater the day before he disappeared.
And Mara stated that it was a very strange and unusual day.
Crater is in his chamber all morning,
rifling through files, putting documents in boxes,
and even destroying some documents.
He has Mara cash two personal checks for him
totaling over $5,000,
which is about $90,000 in today's money,
which Crater just casually puts in his coat pocket.
Then he and Mara haul about eight boxes
and briefcases and put them into a taxi cab
to take them to Crater's New York City apartment.
According to Mara, it's really clear that
his boss is preparing something big.
So Mara's looking at Crater like,
what's going on with this guy?
Something is clearly wrong here.
Within a few days, an anonymous source leaks
Crater's story to the press,
and the philandering judge becomes
front page news nationwide.
You know how a scandalous story,
like the O.J. Simpson trial or Jeffrey Epstein
gets so big that it touches
almost every aspect of pop culture?
This is the same thing that happens with Judge Crater.
Even in 1930, the top comedians at the time
are dropping jokes about Crater in their acts.
Radio hosts are making fun of him.
Groucho Marx famously quipped,
"Judge Crater, call your office."
- Oh, hi, Mel. - Sally.
Well, Judge Crater returns.
[audience laughter]
The phrase "pulling a Crater" became synonymous
with anyone who runs off and disappears.
This is a nightmare for anyone that's in Crater's orbit,
but the media is loving this.
Okay, you've got a sex-obsessed judge,
you've got the city's top showgirls,
you've got some of the top politicians
all entangled in this.
Imagine the repercussions
if this thing scandalizes FDR.
So it's up to the police
to kind of quell this media firestorm.
On September 4th,
Police Commissioner Edward Mulrooney
holds a press conference.
Commissioner Mulrooney comes out and says, look,
clearly the guy planned this, okay?
Look, he's taken files, right? He's cashed checks.
He decided to voluntarily leave on his own, okay?
This is not a police matter,
because there's no crime here
other than dereliction of duty.
It's clear that he just ran off with a showgirl.
There's nothing to be terribly seriously investigated.
Everyone can move along. Nothing to see here.
But before long, Mulrooney's theory falls apart.
It turns out Judge Crater doesn't run off
with Elaine Dawn at all, she's actually found
at a local hospital. She has an illness
described as rheumatism brought on
by an acute case of gonorrhea.
Now, she does confirm that she and Crater
had seen each other,
but she insists that it was only casual.
The last time she had seen him was on August 4th,
two days before his disappearance,
at a place called Club Abbey.
So, now investigators are almost back at square one
in their hunt to determine where Judge Crater is
and who he might've run off with,
but I say "almost" because
they're not quite done with Elaine Dawn just yet.
In August, 1930,
famed politician Joseph Crater
enters a New York City taxi cab
and vanishes into thin air.
Police initially suspect he's run away
with his new mistress,
Broadway dancer Elaine Dawn.
"Good Time Joe" has run off with women before,
but that's not the case this time.
Now, Elaine is still in New York,
hospitalized with an illness.
But police suspect that
she still might know more
than she's actually letting on.
At the time Crater disappears,
some of the showgirls in New York--
and Elaine may be one-- are at the whim
of the men in their lives. They're passed around
among the city's political and business elite.
Apart from Judge Crater, Elaine Dawn has
what she describes as a boyfriend--
some would say pimp.
While Elaine's in the hospital,
this guy's threatening producers of the show,
claiming lack of income while she's sick.
The police entertain the idea
that he and Elaine
are extortionists.
Detectives dig deeper into Elaine and her boyfriend.
They ask around to the nightclubs they frequent.
They ask around to the Broadway circle
that Elaine is a part of.
And everybody says that Elaine and her boyfriend
are completely harmless.
She may have dated Crater a few times,
but it's highly unlikely that she's involved
in any sort of rackets or schemes.
But the work by police isn't entirely wasted.
While they're digging around in these nightclubs,
they actually hear about another person of interest.
The barflies tell police that there's another dancer
in Crater's life. And around that same time,
they receive an anonymous letter
directing them to the home of June Brice.
The letter states that Brice is
an intimate friend of Judge Crater's.
She may also have been one of the last people
to see him alive.
Several folks claim that June has plans with Crater
after his dinner at the chophouse.
According to them, despite making up a story
about heading to a Broadway show,
Crater is actually heading to June's midtown apartment
the night he disappears.
Based on information from Crater's assistant,
detectives think this visit may be more than personal.
Remember, Joseph Mara says that Crater was cashing checks
that's equivalent to about $90,000
on the day of his disappearance.
Mara also tells detectives that,
when he and Crater finish packing up the boxes,
he has Mara take the boxes down to a taxi,
while Crater is waiting at the top of a stairwell,
hiding behind some columns. When Mara signals
that the taxi is ready, Crater runs down the stairs,
glances around fearfully to see if anybody is watching him,
and then immediately jumps into the cab.
Crater is known as kind of a happy guy.
He's charming, he's witty, he's upbeat.
But on this day, he's very sullen,
he's very quiet, he's very pensive.
This is not really the behavior of a man
who's ready to escape into his dream life.
Detectives know that Crater is preparing for something
on the day that he disappears.
But, if the money
isn't for him and for his lover
to enjoy on vacation, what is it for?
Maybe Crater isn't running away
with a woman... but from one.
He definitely has a lot to lose.
And he definitely has his fair share of scandals
that somebody could blackmail him about.
Police suspect that June Brice may be involved
in an extortion plot against Judge Crater.
But they're unable to locate her.
Brice is nowhere to be found,
which is suspicious in and of itself.
But an investigator does find a woman
who was June's roommate in August of 1930
and corroborates the story that Crater did indeed
go to June's apartment that night.
The roommate says that June's been carrying
a dreadful secret about Crater, and her life's
actually been threatened over it.
According to the roommate, like many of these
showgirls, Brice has a boyfriend who is
kind of a scary guy,
and he also visits the apartment
the night that Crater is there.
She states that June's boyfriend threatened Crater
with exposure of their relationship
unless he paid them $5,000.
On August 6th, Crater arrived with the money,
but the boyfriend ups it to $50,000.
Crater balks; and the boyfriend
works him over, before ultimately killing him.
Now here's the thing, the roommate didn't
actually see this happen.
She heard some of it before leaving
the apartment that night and was later told by June
the rest of the story. So, it's hearsay for now.
Brice's mother also provides some secondhand details.
In a newspaper article, June's mother stated that
Crater and June were acquainted,
and that Crater assisted June
in getting parts in Broadway plays.
June also told her mother that a man she was,
quote, "supposed to marry"
was killed in an accident.
Could this have been Crater? And, if so, where is the body?
Thanks to this fresh evidence,
June Brice is called by the Manhattan District Attorney
to testify at a grand jury hearing
in late 1930.
From the fall of 1930, the D.A. keeps
an open grand jury on the Crater disappearance.
Any and all witnesses are subpoenaed to testify
as they attempt to build a case for what happened.
Various people associated with Crater
have already appeared, but at the time
authorities still have no idea what happened.
So June Brice is their first chance
to potentially crack the case.
They feel strongly about this robbery-homicide angle
and are eager to prove it.
But... June's gone.
She has fled her apartment with an unknown man.
June bounces from hotel to hotel for weeks,
constantly changing her name.
By the end of September, she's admitted
to a neurological hospital with a nervous breakdown.
But to be clear, nobody knows this at the time.
So, to the authorities, she's just missing.
It takes the Crater family's private investigator
several years to finally find her in the mental hospital.
By this time, Brice is in no condition to testify.
The P.I. states that she's barely coherent
and really can't provide any details.
When asked about Crater, she responds,
"We must not remember the things that make us mad."
The problem is that June herself lacks
the mental capacity to verify any of this information
or fill in the blanks. Investigators have hearsay,
they have speculation, but that's it.
Based on her mental illness,
police decline to investigate June Brice any further.
June Brice's testimony probably never
would have held up in court.
But the extortion theory is
the one that seems to be the most accepted today.
It certainly fits with his demeanor
and his actions on August 6th.
He knows he's in trouble, he's preparing for it,
but he's unable to escape it.
The problem with this theory is that the famous Judge Crater
has a ton of people in his orbit.
If he's gonna get killed, is it really gonna be
the June Brice or Elaine Dawn types that mastermind it?
When you start to uncover the other folks
he's hanging out with, you soon realize several of them
are much more likely to commit a murder.
And one already has.
In early 1930, Judge Joseph Crater is
well-respected nationwide as a New Deal progressive
with strong ties to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
But after his disappearance on August 6th,
a seedy dark side of his life is revealed.
Crater cheats on his wife with multiple showgirls,
and he has an active social life
in New York's speakeasy nightclubs.
Keep in mind, this is during the height of Prohibition.
But the city's elite have no problem
finding alcohol to imbibe
in many of the city's illegal bars.
And Crater's favorite is a place called Club Abbey.
Club Abbey is a Jazz Age burlesque club
that's new on the New York scene.
Abbey features a drag-queen emcee
named Jean Malin, comedians like Jimmy Durante,
and in between, there's plenty of dancing
by Broadway showgirls.
It's a brand-new place on 54th Street,
and it's where everybody wants to be.
Club Abbey gets its alcohol from one of New York's
most notorious Prohibition-era gangsters,
Jack "Legs" Diamond.
Legs Diamond starts his life as a gangster
when he becomes a bodyguard for Arnold Rothstein.
Now in case you don't know, Rothstein is most famous
for fixing the 1919 World Series.
And when he is killed in 1928, Legs Diamond takes over
most of his bootlegging operations in Manhattan.
His nickname "Legs" has two meanings.
One is that he's a good dancer.
It's also a play on words
on the amount of times he's been able to outrun
the police or his enemies.
He's already survived two attempts on his life.
And in 1929, he shoots and kills
two men in his club, but isn't charged.
Legs operates out of a few speakeasies,
but by the summer of 1930,
he's spending almost every night at Club Abbey.
And he's running a pretty nasty scheme on the side there.
A scheme that may have ensnared
Judge Crater and gotten him killed.
At Club Abbey, Legs Diamond has
a cohort named Vivian Gordon.
And she used to be a showgirl,
and now she's turned into a professional prostitute.
Vivian Gordon is a swindler,
who gets even more aggressive after two years in prison.
She's known to be hellbent on revenge
against cops and judges, the men who she feels
took everything from her.
And at Club Abbey, with the help of Legs Diamond,
she can get that revenge.
Vivian and Legs set up a routine where she meets
clients at the Abbey and then brings them back
to her house, where Legs is waiting.
Together, they shake their victims down for
everything they can get. They run this scheme
all the time, and Judge Joe Crater
is right in their wheelhouse.
Crater's fellow Supreme Court Justice,
Louis Valente, looks further into this.
Judge Valente hires investigators
to track Crater's movements on August the 6th.
His investigators find evidence that
Crater was at Club Abbey that night.
Valente believes that this is critical evidence,
and he takes it to the press to run with it.
According to this theory, Judge Crater
first meets Vivian Gordon at the Abbey
on the night of August 4th.
They head back to her place for a night of pleasure,
and afterwards, Legs Diamond shows up
to squeeze Crater for some extra cash.
But it's not just cash that he's after.
Crater's famous, and everybody knows
who he is, including Legs Diamond.
There's a case coming up on the docket
that Legs needs to have dismissed
in order to protect his business interests.
So he threatens Crater's career
if he doesn't cooperate.
Crater promises to look into the case.
So the next day, on August 5th,
Crater has lunch with another judge
from the Supreme Court.
He's trying to feel out the odds
of getting rid of the case without attracting attention,
but the odds are not good.
Crater realizes that he can't deliver
what Diamond is asking for.
Now he has to figure out how he's gonna break the news
to him, and it's not a very easy task.
At this point, Legs Diamond has killed
at least two people that we know of.
According to Crater's assistant,
the judge collected more than money on August 6th.
He also took several case files home from his office.
These files may pertain to Diamond's case.
And he knows he can't get the case tossed
because of all the poking around
being done by investigators.
So, he brings these papers home
as a sort of insurance policy.
He knows he might need it.
That night, Crater returns to Club Abbey,
and he tells Legs and Vivian that
there's no way he can get this case dismissed.
There's just too much of a spotlight on it.
But as a consolation prize,
here's $5,000 to smooth things over.
Legs won't take no for an answer, okay?
He demands Crater to try again,
but Crater himself is a bigshot with a big ego,
and he fights back.
Crater tells Diamond he has all these files
that ties Diamond to criminal behavior.
He has these documents at a secure location,
and if he doesn't take this payoff,
he's going to make these documents public.
Judge Crater's worked in politics
for many years at this point.
But he's only ever really worked with other politicians
or small-time crooks.
He's never tried to shake down
a heartless thug like Legs Diamond.
He's in over his head.
The New York press runs with this theory,
suggesting that both Legs and Vivian murder the judge
and make sure that the body is never found.
Despite the tabloids' enthusiasm, it's a good story,
but there's not a lot of proof to it.
That is, until February of 1931,
when Vivian Gordon is found dead
in a Bronx park.
Vivian's murdered the day after she offers to testify
against the corrupt officials that have ruined her life.
She's willing to risk her life to bring them down.
When she's found dead, an anti-corruption sentiment
rises to a boiling point in New York City.
Her murder is the biggest story since Crater disappeared.
Governor Roosevelt requests the records himself
and demands a thorough police investigation.
When police search Gordon's apartment,
they find a treasure trove of diaries and documents
connecting her to the city's most powerful figures.
Vivian kept lists of her blackmail schemes with Diamond.
And there on paper, clear as day,
Judge Crater is written down as one of her clients.
The diaries don't say anything about his death,
but the press doesn't care.
The press is eager to make connections
between the two most famous news stories of the time.
When Crater's name is found in Vivian's diary,
the press explodes with all kinds of speculation.
The press also loves a good mafia story.
I mean, who doesn't, right? And there are so many legends
surrounding Legs Diamond,
it's very hard to tell fact from fiction.
But it turns out, there was no evidence
that he is involved in any cases
to be heard by the Supreme Court.
In fact, when he disappears,
Crater only has one trivial case
pending on his docket.
Crater's name is in Vivian's diary.
She may very well have blackmailed him.
She was extorting a lot of people.
But just because she's extorting somebody
doesn't mean she murdered them.
When Judge Joseph Crater disappears in August, 1930,
New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt is
in the thick of campaigning for re-election.
As November approaches, a rival politician
makes a shocking accusation.
If true, it sheds a whole new light
on what happened to the missing judge.
During Judge Crater's time in New York politics,
the Democrats work closely with an organization
that's known as Tammany Hall.
Tammany Hall dominates both New York City
and state politics for more than a century.
Its name becomes synonymous with corruption
under infamous leaders like Boss Tweed.
They do plenty of good things for the people of New York,
but, ultimately, they are a corrupt organization.
But if you're a Democrat, working with Tammany
is how you win elections.
By the late 1920s, Tammany has woven its way
into every level of New York politics.
And in 1929, Judge Crater becomes president
of a key Tammany branch, the Cuyuga Club.
A lot of New York voters are tired of the blatant corruption,
so the 1930 elections are a pivotal point.
For once, the Republicans have a good shot of winning
a number of top seats from the Democrats,
especially the one for governor.
FDR's main rival is
Republican prosecutor Charles Tuttle.
Tuttle is on a crusade to expose judicial corruption.
Prior to Crater's disappearance,
his whole office of attorneys
and investigators are looking into evidence
of judicial corruption rumored to be running rampant
among Tammany Hall's main players.
And if Tuttle can make the case,
it might bring down the Democrats
and FDR with them.
Judge Crater is potentially a key witness.
When Tuttle looks into the Cayuga Club,
he learns something interesting.
Tuttle finds evidence that
the Cayuga Club is actually
selling government jobs.
If you're connected to Tammany Hall,
they can help you get appointed
or elected to a political position.
In return, you pay them one year's salary.
Tuttle has proof of one of these payments:
a $10,000 bribe that was paid
to Tammany Hall boss Martin Healy
by attorney George Ewald
for his position as a city magistrate.
Tuttle's evidence certainly implicates Judge Crater, too.
As President of the Cayuga Club,
Crater has to be aware of what's going on.
I mean, he even serves as
master of ceremonies at George Ewald's
celebration dinner when he becomes magistrate.
The corruption might go even further.
There is also circumstantial evidence
that Judge Crater may have purchased his own position.
When Crater is appointed to the New York Supreme Court,
it is one of the highest-paid positions in the state.
He is paid a salary of $22,000.
It's the same as the governor's and a lot less work.
It's the most coveted seat in New York politics,
and it speaks to the ability
of Joe Crater to manipulate
and maneuver himself into that position.
Tuttle wants to know how he got this job.
One month after his appointment,
in May of 1930,
Crater withdraws $22,000
from various bank accounts.
Which is exactly one year's salary.
Tuttle has no direct proof
that this money went to pay Tammany Hall,
but while he's out publicly campaigning
against the Democrats,
he strongly suggests that it did.
And this scandal could have even gotten Judge Crater killed.
Tuttle's belief is that Crater is at the heart
of the Tammany Hall kickback scheme.
And when Tuttle's investigation closes in on Crater,
and they're going to call Crater as a witness,
Tammany Hall bigwigs
silence him so he cannot testify.
How high does this go?
Is FDR aware? Is FDR involved?
Obviously, this could go very bad for the Democrats
if some massive
"Trial of the Century" is opened.
Although Crater's disappearance
is a thorny issue for Tammany Hall,
it's far better that he goes this way
than testifies against them.
Tuttle can't prove this theory.
But Crater's own wife offers some support.
There's a big mystery about who calls Crater on August 3rd,
which causes him to travel back to New York City.
At the time, his wife Stella does not reveal anything useful.
But, in 1937, Stella tells a magazine
his purpose of the visit was to advise Tammany boss
Martin Healy about the Tuttle investigation.
Stella is sure that the Tammany case is
behind her husband's disappearance.
She's not the only one.
In 1954, an acquaintance of Crater's,
Henry Krauss, makes an extraordinary claim.
Krauss calls an old detective friend of his
and says that he has something he wants
to get off his chest before he dies.
He thinks he knows what happened to Judge Crater.
Back in the '30s, Krauss has a vacation home,
which he frequently let Crater use for parties.
Many of those parties were co-hosted by Martin Healy.
Krauss claimed that, in early 1930,
the two men buried $90,000 in the backyard.
But in mid-August, after Crater's disappearance,
Krauss visits his vacation home
to find the place in shambles.
There are broken glasses strewn about,
there are liquor bottles everywhere,
and when he walks into the kitchen, he says, quote,
"There's nothing there but blood."
And the box in the backyard has been dug up and taken.
A week later, Martin Healy sets up a meeting with Krauss.
Healy warns him that there might be some trouble coming.
He tells Krauss that he needs to deny knowing Crater,
and that he should deny that they were ever at his house.
Krauss goes along with his demands.
And when the detective starts peppering him with questions,
Krauss just keeps repeating that Crater is dead
and he thinks that he is buried at the house.
The police were able to verify part of Krauss's story.
Their investigation showed that Crater had written
at least two checks to Krauss.
And Krauss did indeed have a Westchester home.
Krauss's 1954 revelations
revive public interest in the case.
Life Magazine funds an excavation
of the home's backyard.
Unfortunately, they don't find Crater's remains.
And that's about as far as the authorities can take things.
Some evidence may still bear out
that this theory is correct,
but until that evidence surfaces,
it's impossible to prove.
When Stella Crater loses her husband Judge Joseph Crater,
on August 6th, 1930,
she frantically calls his colleagues looking for him.
But what she neglects to do
raises some eyebrows.
Stella Crater doesn't officially report
her husband missing to the police
for four weeks.
And you could maybe chalk that up
to everyone hoping that
he's just out having an affair.
But four weeks is a pretty long time.
And after she does finally file the report
and police start investigating,
she doesn't seem too keen in helping them.
And this, combined with some other suspicious behavior,
has many theorists wondering,
what if Stella is involved
in her husband's disappearance?
This is basic police work 101.
When someone goes missing, you look at the spouse.
Stella is doing nothing to help avoid any kind of suspicion.
For the early part of the investigation,
Stella remains up in Maine.
But the D.A. vows to bring her down to testify
in front of the grand jury.
Mrs. Crater refuses,
quite steadfastly, to cooperate
with the investigation at all.
The D.A. sends her a list of questions instead.
The way she answers the questions are vague,
ambiguous, and maybe in some ways a lie.
For instance, she stated that she didn't know her husband
was missing until August 25th.
But there's evidence showing that,
for weeks prior, that she was calling
many people, wanting to learn of his whereabouts.
At first, Stella's not a suspect.
They just think she might have more information.
But after she lies to the D.A., all bets are off.
That puts her right in the investigators' crosshairs.
Police already have one motive in mind,
and that's Crater's many affairs.
Most people assume that Stella must have
had some idea that Crater wasn't faithful.
But neighbors report a screaming match
between the couple a few days before he disappears.
Maybe there was finally some last straw
that Stella couldn't handle.
Suspicious, police continue
to track Stella's whereabouts.
Stella stays in Maine for months,
specifically to avoid having to testify
in front of the grand jury. After hearing
from nearly a hundred witnesses,
the grand jury releases a 1,000-page report
that essentially says they have no idea what happened.
A week after the grand jury is dismissed,
on January 18th, 1931,
Stella finally returns to the city
and announces that she's made
an incredible discovery.
Stella states that she opened a drawer
in her bedroom and found four manila envelopes
left for her by her husband.
There's $6,690 in cash.
There's Crater's will, leaving everything to Stella,
and four life insurance policies.
There's a handwritten list of people who owe Crater money
and how to collect that money.
And one of the debts is
$2.3 million.
The envelopes also contain
a supposed letter from Crater to his wife.
The handwriting is hasty, it's messy, you know?
Like he's moving quickly and he's under a lot of stress.
He writes a few times that all of this is confidential,
and she's not to tell anyone about these envelopes.
It's signed, "Love, Joe."
Then, right below that, is a little note.
Now, the words aren't completely clear,
they either say "am very weary" or "am very sorry."
But either way,
it seems Crater is saying goodbye
and is apologizing for what he's about to do.
This all paints a very convenient picture for Stella.
It looks like Crater is trying to take care of his wife,
before either disappearing or maybe committing suicide.
Stella's discovery is met with skepticism.
There have been, at this point,
no fewer than four different searches
of the apartment by police officers,
and no one had found any of these things.
There's no way the police missed those envelopes.
But Stella wants them to believe that they did.
She makes excuses why the police may have missed it.
She stated that the drawer was sticky,
or maybe the key was stuck in the lock.
Meanwhile, a detective recites from memory all the contents
that was in that dresser.
He gets every single item right,
except for those envelopes.
In 1931, police look into the phone records
from Crater's New York apartment.
And after his disappearance, there shouldn't be any.
I mean, Stella's been up in Maine the whole time, right?
Wrong. She made a one-day trip
on August 25th-- she didn't notify the police.
Could this have been when she was
planting special evidence?
There are two very classic motives for murder:
love... money.
And it seems that Stella had both
going on for her at the same time.
But if she killed her husband,
or more than likely had someone else do it
for a share of the money,
it seems that she got away with it.
Police have a lot of suspicion, but their evidence
is circumstantial. It's pretty tenuous.
For years, Stella refuses to speak
to reporters or detectives.
She lays low until 1939,
when she sues to have her husband
declared legally dead,
in order to collect his life insurance.
Stella hires a private investigator
to prove that Crater has been murdered.
She tries to collect on a double indemnity policy
that would be payable if he'd been murdered.
She's half successful and half not.
She is appointed executor,
he is declared dead...
the double indemnity claim is denied.
She settles with the insurance company, and she gets
about two-thirds of the value of the policy.
She also finally consents to an interview with the press.
She makes it clear that she believes
Crater was murdered by Tammany Hall
because of his involvement
in the George Ewald kickback scheme.
I mean, what did you expect... a confession?
In 1979,
after nearly five decades of active pursuit,
the NYPD finally closes
the infamous Judge Crater case.
The case still warrants the occasional
late-night joke on television
or a 60th or 70th anniversary
retrospective in the papers.
But largely, this most famous
of missing persons cases falls out of the public eye.
That is, until 2005...
when it comes roaring back.
In April, 2005,
a Queens, New York woman
named Barbara O'Brien discovers a letter
among the possessions of her recently deceased grandmother.
a letter which may close the case
on a 75-year-old mystery.
My grandmother unfortunately passed away,
and I was the executor of her will.
And I went into her papers to get her will out,
and I came across a metal box.
And I opened the box, and that's when I found
a letter in a sealed envelope,
And on the front of the envelope, it said,
"In reference of Judge Crater's disappearance."
In the letter, she said that her husband,
which was my grandfather, Robert Good,
told her about the missing judge.
According to the letter, Judge Crater was
murdered by a police officer.
Robert had a lot of connections.
He knew cops, he knew crooks.
A lot of them hung out in his backyard
and went drinking with him. He was neighbors
with the Burns Brothers. These guys all have
kind of a little relationship.
Growing up, I do remember the Burns living behind us.
Frank was a taxicab driver,
and his brother Charles Burns was a police officer.
And they used to come over a lot.
One night, Frank comes over, he tells my grandfather
what happened on August 6th, 1930.
He told my grandfather that he picks up
the judge at the steakhouse, and he drives him
to Coney Island, when he met up with his brother.
The judge gets out of the car,
and they wound up killing him and burying him
underneath the boardwalk pilings at West 8th Street.
I mean, wow.
Right? It's been a lifetime
of no answers in this case.
And now, here's a direct confession
to Crater's murder-- it even mentions
the location of a body.
Unfortunately, when the letter is
revealed to detectives in 2005,
the potential burial sits
directly under the New York Aquarium.
Apparently, when they build the aquarium in 1956,
there are reports of some bodies being found
during construction. It is New York after all.
But those bodies are reburied in unmarked graves,
and we don't know where they are.
Could Crater be one of them?
If we can't find the body,
let's try to corroborate the story.
Do the Burns brothers really exist,
and are they connected to Crater?
It turns out that Charles Burns is a real New York City cop,
and on August 6th of 1930,
he is assigned to the Coney Island precinct.
There is also a record of a 32-year-old Frank Burns
who drives a cab at that time.
At least the characters check out.
But why would these two guys want to kill Crater?
Barbara O'Brien believes she knows the answer.
I think that it was mob-related
and went all the way back to Legs Diamond.
Because she had mentioned in her letter,
Legs Diamond put the hit out on Judge Crater.
She believes that Legs Diamond tried to bribe Crater
to have a case tossed, but Diamond was unsuccessful.
After that, Legs knows that, if Crater lives,
he may be sent to prison,
so he hires Charles Burns to take care of Crater.
There's a lot of speculation that
Charles Burns was on the mob's payroll.
In addition to this case, he's conspicuously
on the scene of another mob hit.
On November 12, 1941,
a mafia hitman turned-informant
named Abe Reles is under police protection
at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island.
That day, he's supposed to testify
at a high-profile trial against the mob.
He does not testify because,
even though he was in police protective custody,
he flies out of a window and dies.
According to reports that come out in 2005,
one of Reles's police bodyguards
is Charles Burns.
Charles Burns was actually the one
guarding his room the night that
he supposedly jumped to his death.
Well, other theories think that he was pushed to his death.
Back then, there was a lot of corruption.
Whether it was with the police, with the mob.
There was just a lot of corruption
going on back then.
This might also explain the...
kind of lackluster investigation
into Crater's disappearance overall,
because the police may have known
that their own men were involved.
There was a ton of collusion between cops and the mob
in New York in 1930, so...
it's not outside the realm of possibility.
One thing that one needs to remember
in this entire investigation is that the police are
more part of the problem than they are
part of the solution.
So, taking the police investigation
as having been conducted in good faith,
I think, misreads the historical record.
Everyone thinks they have a theory
on what happened to him, everybody thinks
they have the real story.
With her grandmother's letter serving as new evidence,
Barbara hopes to finally resolve the Crater case.
I'm hoping that they reopen this case.
My grandmother passed away, and she left that envelope.
Of course, that was her way of telling me
she wanted something done with it, she didn't want
to take it to her grave with her.
So, I would just like to try and...
follow through with it, and that's what I've been doing.
And I'm hoping to continue doing it
until, at least,
we have a little bit more answers.
Barbara O'Brien plans to keep digging
into Judge Joseph Crater's disappearance.
But without a body or any other
physical evidence of a crime,
the case remains unsolved.
I'm Laurence Fishburne.
Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."