Evening star., 1950-05-13
Police Continue Quest
For Redhead' S Identity
In StrangIing Mystery
BY s,off Correspondent Of The stor

BERKELEY SPRINGS, w. Va.
May 13.-Authorities moved today
to preserve the body of a strangled
woman in hope some
identification can be made before
it is buried.
Possibility that the murder vic
tim might be one of three women
missing from the Washington area
was ruled out as arrangements
were made to move the body to
the morgue in a veterans hospital
near Martinsburg.
More than 1000 persons have
filed through the Hunter funeral
home here since Thursday. None
was able to identify the woman,
whose nude body had been dumped
into a raVine near here some time
before Wednesday afternoon.
Police expressed the belief today
that the woman was hitch -hiker
who received a lift Tuesday from
P. c. Yost of Berkeley Springs. a
former Morgan County commits
sioner. MIR. Yost has returned to
the funeral home here several
times and has reaffirmed his
Identification.
Fitzpatrick Views Body.
Attorney John Fitzpatrick of
Washington viewed the body late
yesterday and declared it was not
that of Bernice Franklin. SO, a
red-haired Washington waitress
who left the city several months
ago after serving as key witness
in the prosecution of Washington
gamblers.
Neither was the body that of
Mrs. Halle Cobb, wife of Wash
ington butcher shop owner and
mother of six children. who dis
appeared May while on her way
home to Waldorf. Md, from work
in a Washington drugstore. Rela-
tives of Mrs. Cobb came here to
view the body late yesterday.
Negative also was a visit by rela-
tives of Mrs. Gertrude Nolte of
Carmody Hills, Md, wife of a
Washington taxicab driver, who
disappeared March 2 and has not
been heard from since. A brother,
Fred Jones of Chambersburg, Pa,
said the body was not that of his
sister.
Prosecuting Attorney S. D.
Helsley of Morgan County said
there is a strong probability that
Mr.. Yost picked up the woman
Tuesday when she "thumbed" a
lift near Altoona. Pa. The elderly
motorist gave the red-haired,
middle-aged hitch mixer a ride to
Breezewood, Pa, about 26 miles
from Berkeley Springs.
Said Sne Was From Akron.
The woman, Mr.. Yost said, told
him her name was Betty LOU"
that she was from Akron, Ohio,
and she wished to get out at
Breezewood to meet her f1ance, a
truck driver she expected to pass
that way.
- Police today were awaiting
photographs of Betty Lou Com
ber, said to be missing from her
farm home near Akron.
The hitch-hiker, Mr.. Yost said,
complained of a blistered heel
and placed crumbled cigarettes in
her shoe to ease the pain. Police
later found that the dead woman
had a large blister on the right
heel.
Sheriff Paul Munson of Berke-
ley Springs and State Trooper
Charles S. Burke went to Wash
ington late yesterday with a
length of rope, several strands of
long hair. bobby pins, a dungaree
shirt and gloves found in a
stolen automobile abandoned near
Sharpsburg, Md, 38 miles from
here. They asked the FBI to
make analyses.
They took along samples of the
dead woman's hair for compari-
son. The police also are seeking
to learn if the rope bears traces
of having been used to garrote
the woman.
The automobile had been stolen
in Brownsville, Pa. last week end.
Escaped Convict Sought.
Police today weer looking for an
escaped convict, John Shriver,
who broke out of the West vir-
ginia penitentiary last Saturday
and who lives in the area where
the body was found. Authorities
described the man as dangerous. ~
and said he would be questioned il,
connection with the murder if and
when he is arrested.
The convict. it was said, has
tolen a number of automobiles,
and possibly could be involved in
the theft Of the car found aban-
doned in nearby Maryland.
A mushroom hunter found the
body Wednesday afternoon at the
bottom of a steep, wooded incline
alongside a little-used road. II
contained no clothing or any other
evidence to aid investigators.
Police late yesterday took wom-
en- employees of a beauty shop tc
view the body in an effort to de-
termine if the dead woman's haii
had been dyed.
e