New-York tribune., 1921-04-03
Youths Stone
Pond; Uncover
Wonan's Body
Boys Target Is Revealed To
BE Human Form as Face
Appears on the Surface
and Frightened Pair Flee
Gems and Cash in Clothes
Victim Identified as Widow
Who Vanished March 3:
Police Detain Her Son

Willie Spear and Charley Mills
probably will not be found abroad
again after sunset for some time to
come. They have been as hardy pair
of twelve year -olds as ever ranged the
dumping grounds on the Greenpoint
frontier of Brooklyn. Those dismal
barrens, studded as they are with mis-
celfaneous treasures discarded by
needless housewives, will know Charley
and Willie 10 more
In particular, the scummy waters of
Cooper's Pond. between Newtown
Creek and Maspeth Avenue, will be
about rs popular with Willie and
Charley as holy water is reported to
be in certain quarters
Willie and Charley were at Cooper's
Pond last night. The fading glow of
sunset, with a lurid tinge due to the
tall stacks that bristed westward
made a sort of pallid gloom about
them. 1t was becoming more and more
difficult to see the vague shapes of the
bits Of fotsam they were stoning. The
Spear home at 1856 Beadle Street and
the Mills home at 1855 Beadle Street
seemed remote asylums of light and
cheer. Willie and Charley were about
to call it day.
Suddenly, with their right arms
tensed for a final volley, both boys
pond was carrying their drifting
target toward them and at that mo-
ment a rift in the smoke pail to the
west permitted a beam of jaundiced
light to strike fairly on the surface Of
the pond.
Vague Form of Face Emerges
1t illuminated the caricature of a
human face emerging from the vague
floating mass at which their stones had
been directed. Straight toward them this
formless horror was making it's way,
and so furtively that not a ripple be-
trayed its progress.
W ords were unnecessary. and neither
Willie nor Charley wasted time or
breath on them. With one accord they
turned and ran. 1t is half a mile of
the nearest house, at Metropolitan and
Morgan avenues. Willie and Charley
can't tell even now how they negotiated
it at ton speed, but their appearance
at the finish left no doubt that they
had done so.
Pallid. trembling and painting, they
gasped out an incoherent story of the
horror in the pond, which was, never
t. Heless. convincing enough to cause q
tolenhone call to be sent for police.
Within 2 few minutes Captain Walling,
ot the Herbert Street police station
Captain Daniel J. Carey of the 18th
Detective Division, and several de-
tectiVes and patrolmen were on the
shore of Cooper's Pond
Body of Woman Is Found
BY that time it was too dark to see
the thing as Willie and Charley had
Sc en- it. but with the aid of automobile
headlights the police discovered the
body of woman floating near the
shore
She was about thirty-five years old
ana looked like an Italian. A rope was
twisted tightly about her neck and be-
meath it was a leather thong such as is
used for a belt on sewing machines
Deputy Medical Examiner Boettnger
said that she probably had been dead
for several weeks. The condition of
the body was such that he could not
say whether she had been strangled.
An autopsy will be performed to-day.
She was dressed all in black cloth
ing of rather poor quality. Inside her
waist was a full-length glove of white
kid into which had been knotted a ring
set with q large diamond, one with
smaller diamond in it, a plain gold ring,
signet ring inscribed "S," heart
shaped gold locket, a S. .goldpiece and
$15 in bills.
At the Herbert Street police station
the body was identified as that of Mrs
Katherine Croft. of II jackson Street,
Brooklyn. Joseph Rastude, her son by
her first marriage, made the identifica-
ton.
Mrs Croft was widow and moved
from the Bay Ridge section of Brook
lyn to the house on Jackson Street to
be near a tile and marble cutting plant
at 10 Jackson Street, to which she fell
heir on the death of her husband, about
six months ago.
Some of her husbands relatives dis
puted her claim to the plant, and her
son said that she felt she must be near
it day and night. She seen last
March going into the shop. When she
disappeared the police sent out gen.
eral alarm for her, and it was through
the missing persons bureau that her
son was discovered. Several other rela-
tives We're called to the police station