Read Online Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer by Harold Schechter - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Harold Schechter
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and Ninth Avenue, he retrieved his canvas-wrapped bundle and thanked the man inside the newsstand for watching it. Then he and the girl continued on their way, the old man cradling his bundle in his arms.
Wrapped inside were a butcher’s knife, a meat cleaver, and a small handsaw—the three items that had come from Sobel’s hock shop and that the little gray man with the kindly eyes and friendly smile liked to think of as his “implements of hell.”
PART 2
King of the Missing
8
He looked like a meek and innocuous little old man, gentle and benevolent, friendly and polite. If you wanted someone to entrust your children to, he would be the one you would choose
.
FREDERIC WERTHAM,
The Show of Violence
T here is a type of optical illusion known, in its more pretentious manifestations, as “camouflage art.” These are paintings, generally of wilderness landscapes, that, viewed up close, look like simple, picturesque scenes—a mountain lake with a snow-covered slope reflected on its surface, a field of wildflowers, a forest of birch trees.
Take a few steps back, however, and the picture changes. The mirrored rock assumes the shape of an eagle in flight, the flowers form themselves into a rearing stallion, the boles of the birch trees become the profile of an Apache warrior. The myriad details resolve themselves into a single, unmistakable image, previously hidden from sight—but only when they are seen from a distance.
So it was with that terrible sequence of crimes that commenced with the killing of Francis McDonnell and climaxed, several years later, with the kidnapping of Grace Budd. Overwhelmed with a welter of tips, leads, rumors, and clues—countless bits and pieces of information and hearsay—the police failed to perceive a connection among the three cases. It was only from the distance of years that those scattered facts came togetherand formed themselves into a single, distinct identity, and the shadowy figures of the “gray man,” the “boogey man,” and the “gentleman farmer,” Frank Howard, merged into the same monstrous individual.
For the present, in early June, 1928, all the police—and the city—knew was that another child was missing.
Early Monday morning, after a torturous night of sleeplessness and mounting alarm, Grace’s parents had sent Edward off to the West 20th Street stationhouse to report their daughter’s disappearance. A short time later, Lieutenant Samuel Dribben and three of his men—Detectives Jerry Mahar, James McGee, and James Murphy—arrived at the Budd’s apartment, where they questioned the distraught couple closely about Frank Howard of Farmingdale, Long Island, who had promised to bring their daughter home from his niece’s birthday party by nine o’clock Sunday night and never returned.
Lieutenant Dribben, after inquiring where the party was supposed to have taken place, informed Grace’s parents that 137th Street and Columbus Avenue was a fictitious address. Dribben’s news hit the Budds like a physical blow.
Dribben did what he could to comfort Mr. and Mrs. Budd—who seemed to have passed beyond panic into a state of glazed stupefaction—then ordered Maher and McGee to make a thorough search of neighborhood rooming houses.
Meanwhile, Detective Murphy escorted young Edward and his chum Willie Korman back to the stationhouse, where the boys spent an hour or so searching through the rogue’s gallery in the hope of identifying Gracie’s abductor.
Two more detectives were put on the case that day. One was dispatched to the main office of the Motor Vehicles Bureau to check its records for Howard’s name and address.
Another was assigned the task of tracing the Western Union message that the old man had sent to Edward Budd on Saturday and whose contents Grace’s parentshad detailed for Lieutenant Dribben. Mr. Budd remembered something else about the message, too. He described the way Howard had asked about and then pocketed the telegram virtually
Wrapped inside were a butcher’s knife, a meat cleaver, and a small handsaw—the three items that had come from Sobel’s hock shop and that the little gray man with the kindly eyes and friendly smile liked to think of as his “implements of hell.”
PART 2
King of the Missing
8
He looked like a meek and innocuous little old man, gentle and benevolent, friendly and polite. If you wanted someone to entrust your children to, he would be the one you would choose
.
FREDERIC WERTHAM,
The Show of Violence
T here is a type of optical illusion known, in its more pretentious manifestations, as “camouflage art.” These are paintings, generally of wilderness landscapes, that, viewed up close, look like simple, picturesque scenes—a mountain lake with a snow-covered slope reflected on its surface, a field of wildflowers, a forest of birch trees.
Take a few steps back, however, and the picture changes. The mirrored rock assumes the shape of an eagle in flight, the flowers form themselves into a rearing stallion, the boles of the birch trees become the profile of an Apache warrior. The myriad details resolve themselves into a single, unmistakable image, previously hidden from sight—but only when they are seen from a distance.
So it was with that terrible sequence of crimes that commenced with the killing of Francis McDonnell and climaxed, several years later, with the kidnapping of Grace Budd. Overwhelmed with a welter of tips, leads, rumors, and clues—countless bits and pieces of information and hearsay—the police failed to perceive a connection among the three cases. It was only from the distance of years that those scattered facts came togetherand formed themselves into a single, distinct identity, and the shadowy figures of the “gray man,” the “boogey man,” and the “gentleman farmer,” Frank Howard, merged into the same monstrous individual.
For the present, in early June, 1928, all the police—and the city—knew was that another child was missing.
Early Monday morning, after a torturous night of sleeplessness and mounting alarm, Grace’s parents had sent Edward off to the West 20th Street stationhouse to report their daughter’s disappearance. A short time later, Lieutenant Samuel Dribben and three of his men—Detectives Jerry Mahar, James McGee, and James Murphy—arrived at the Budd’s apartment, where they questioned the distraught couple closely about Frank Howard of Farmingdale, Long Island, who had promised to bring their daughter home from his niece’s birthday party by nine o’clock Sunday night and never returned.
Lieutenant Dribben, after inquiring where the party was supposed to have taken place, informed Grace’s parents that 137th Street and Columbus Avenue was a fictitious address. Dribben’s news hit the Budds like a physical blow.
Dribben did what he could to comfort Mr. and Mrs. Budd—who seemed to have passed beyond panic into a state of glazed stupefaction—then ordered Maher and McGee to make a thorough search of neighborhood rooming houses.
Meanwhile, Detective Murphy escorted young Edward and his chum Willie Korman back to the stationhouse, where the boys spent an hour or so searching through the rogue’s gallery in the hope of identifying Gracie’s abductor.
Two more detectives were put on the case that day. One was dispatched to the main office of the Motor Vehicles Bureau to check its records for Howard’s name and address.
Another was assigned the task of tracing the Western Union message that the old man had sent to Edward Budd on Saturday and whose contents Grace’s parentshad detailed for Lieutenant Dribben. Mr. Budd remembered something else about the message, too. He described the way Howard had asked about and then pocketed the telegram virtually
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