The Perplexing Disappearance of Judge Joseph F. Crater

**"The Perplexing Disappearance of Judge Joseph F. Crater"** is a video made by Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, uploaded onto YouTube on July 9, 2021. It was the fourth episode of the eighth season of *BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime*, and the one hundredth and fourteenth episode overall. You can find it here.

## Description

What really happened to the New York Supreme Court judge dubbed the most missingest man in America?

## Background

Joseph Force Crater was born on January 5th, 1889 in Pennsylvania, less than 100 miles from New York City. Crater was a dapper dresser and a hard worker, attending Lafayette College for his undergraduate education and eventually Columbia Law, where he met his future wife, Stella Wheeler. Stella was married when she met Crater, but the young lawyer helped her with her divorce and the two married in 1917.

Crater worked as a law clerk and taught at various colleges around New York, eventually landing a job as a secretary for New York Supreme Court Justice Robert Wagner. Crater began practicing law at his firm when Wagner was elected to the US Senate, becoming somewhat of a protege under the politician.

Crater went on to become rather wealthy as a lawyer. In 1927, he bought an apartment on Fifth Avenue as a gift for Stella, and the couple also enjoyed a summer home in Belgrade Lakes, Maine. Crater's ambitions, however, weren't strictly financial, and the young attorney made quite a name for himself in politics. In April, 1930, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then the governor of New York, appointed Crater to the New York Supreme Court. While the Great Depression was strangling much of the nation, Crater was earning $25,000 a year, more than $375,000 in 2021 dollars.

On August 2, 1930, only a few months after his appointment to the state Supreme Court, Crater and his wife arrived at their Maine vacation home. There, Crater took several phone calls that Stella said angered him. Crater had to return to New York City for business the next day, but he told his wife he'd be back in Maine by August 9, her birthday. Crater spent the night of August 4 at the Fifth Avenue apartment and informed the maid he'd be heading back to Maine on the seventh. Crater went to his office on August 5 and again on August 6. At one point on the sixth, he sent his secretary to the bank to withdraw $5,150, the equivalent of more than $80,000 today.

The judge later returned to his apartment and dismissed the maid, telling her he was going swimming. Stella would later find this detail odd, as Crater reportedly did not enjoy swimming.

That evening, Crater visited his friend and ticket broker Joseph Gansky, who arranged for Crater to attend the Broadway show "Dancing Partner." Despite the fact that the show had only opened the previous night, some reports claim the judge had actually already seen it. In either event, Crater then made his way on foot to Billy Haas's Chophouse in the theater district on West 45th Street. There, Crater dined with attorney William Klein and showgirl Sally Lou Ritz. Around 9:15 PM, the trio left the restaurant. Crater reportedly got in a taxi, presumably to get to "Dancing Partner," and was never seen again.

Though Judge Crater was last seen on August 6, it wasn't until weeks later that people began to worry about the missing man. When her husband didn't show up in Maine on August 7, Stella sent the chauffeur to New York to look for him. In the city, the maid told the chauffer that the judge was bound to show up sooner or later, and that he'd make his way to Maine when he did. Meanwhile, the days ticked away. Stella assumed Crater was working while his colleagues assumed he was in Maine with Stella.

Eventually, someone realized Crater was missing missing on September 3, almost a month after he was last seen. Crater's disappearance was announced to the public. The next day, a missing persons report was filed with the NYPD and his vanishing became a nationwide story. When someone didn't show up for something, people would say they quote, "pulled a Crater."

Dead bodies found in hotel rooms were checked by police for resemblance to Crater. Nearly 100 witnesses were called in a grand jury inquiry regarding his disappearance. In January, 1931, the grand jury reached the only conclusion they could, they had no idea what happened to the judge.

## Theories

* **Crater ran away from his life to start a new one.** Crater was well-connected in the world of New York democratic politics during a time when such ties could have been a liability.
	+ In particular, investigations into political corruption in the city were heating up, especially surrounding Tammany Hall, the notorious political organization that first became synonymous with corruption in the 19th century due to its use of boss rule. Some think Crater may have fled to avoid testifying against those who helped him throughout his career. Some also suggest Crater may have been buying and selling judgeships, perhaps even his own on the New York Supreme Court. This claim was even made publicly by a Republican candidate for governor. If such accusations were true and the judge feared investigations surrounding Tammany Hall would expose him, then perhaps Crater decided to run instead of defend himself.
	+ Crater may have also fled his old life to start a new one with a mistress. The investigation into his disappearance turned up a rotation of beautiful girls he'd regularly socialize with, and he was known to have a fondness for showgirls. Crater's appetite for dancing and reputation as an enthusiastic womanizer led to the nickname of Good Time Joe.
	+ Furthering this theory, in the years after his disappearance, there was no shortage of alleged sightings of the judge. In 1936, a gold prospector named Lucky Blackiet went to the LAPD to report having met Crater near the gold rush town of Julian, California. According to Lucky, the man admitted to being the missing Supreme Court judge and said, "in one more year, I will be legally dead. I hope I can stick it out that long."
		- Lucky's tip was actually supported by another report received by the LAPD's missing persons bureau five years prior of a sighting just 60 miles from Julian. Local authorities along with New York detectives began a search. In their investigation, police spoke with multiple people who recognized Crater's photo. One storekeeper remembered the man buying $5 worth of food, while another person said the man in the picture seemed to be well-educated but sucked at mining. Needless to say, Crater was not found.
	+ Perhaps the biggest piece of evidence supporting the idea that Crater intentionally abandoned his old life was the large amount of money withdrawn from the bank on the date of his disappearance. It was later reported, however, that Stella found the money he'd withdrawn. Meaning if he'd actually started a new life, he did so without the $5,150.
* The next theory is one posited by author and journalist Richard J Tofel, that **Crater's body was disposed of after he died of natural causes.** To begin, Tofel believes one part of the story everyone was told, that Crater got into a cab after dinner is incorrect.
	+ Tofel examined the testimony of Crater's two companions that night and found that they both reported getting into a cab while Crater set off down the street on foot. Bolstering this allegation is the fact that "Dancing Partner," the show he had a ticket for, was only a 10 minute walk away from the restaurant. Tofel believes that after catching the second half of the show, Crater may have made his way to a nightclub and then eventually wound up at a brothel operated by famous madam Polly Adler. Tofel suggests that while soliciting service from the venue, Crater died of natural causes. Tofel claims an early draft of Adler's memoir is said to specifically mention Crater's death and the subsequent removal of his body by one of Adler's mobster friends. Unfortunately, no copies of this early draft have been found.
* **Judge Crater was murdered.** According to NYPD historian John Podracky, this is the semi-official consensus. Some posit that far from being afraid to testify about Tammany Hall, Crater was prepared to expose the corruption and that the mob silenced him before he had the opportunity.
	+ At the time of her husband's disappearance, and reasserted in an interview 25 years later, Stella Crater believed the judge had been kidnapped and murdered. Stella is quoted as saying, "Joe Crater would not run away from anything or anybody."
	+ Some claimed that one of his mistresses could have had a boyfriend with ties to the mob, or that Crater was being blackmailed by a showgirl who had her boyfriend kill the judge. The grand jury into his disappearance brought up some possible connections to nefarious dealings. But as noted before, none of these links were strong enough to conclude anything.
	+ In 2005, 75 years after Crater went missing, Stella Ferruci-Good of Belrose Queens, no relation to Stella Crater, died at the age of 91. In her safety deposit box, her family found an envelope that read "do not open until my death."
		- Inside were notes that claimed Ferruci-Good's husband, Robert Good, who had died in 1975, knew what had happened to Judge Crater. The note said that over drinks with her husband one night, taxi driver Frank Burns claimed to have been driving the cab Crater got into after dinner. Burns reportedly drove a few blocks before two accomplices jumped into the car with him. The taxi driver took the judge to Coney Island, where Crater was murdered and buried under the boardwalk. While no motivation was given in the notes, a specific location was. By the time the letter was discovered, however, the New York aquarium had been constructed over that section of the boardwalk.