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Authors: Harold Schechter
Tags: United States, General, History, Psychology, True Crime, State & Local, Murder, Psychopathology, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA)
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making salads, desserts, and cold dishes for thirteen dollars a week, most of which went to the support of her family.
In the spring of 1937, Henrietta had been at the hotel for a year and a half, long enough to know most of her fellow employees, at least by sight. Sometime in early May, she noticed a new face among the workers: a young man of medium height with dark, wavy hair and a nice-looking face. He had been hired as a dishwasher, then worked for a few weeks as busboy before being promoted to bar boy in the grillroom, responsible, among his other duties, for keeping the bar stocked with clean glasses and ice and for fetching the bartenders their meals. His name—so he said—was Bob Murray.
A conscientious fellow—described by his supervisor, Mike McNeeley, as “the best worker I ever had”—Bob was much admired by his peers for his artistic ability. During lunch breaks, he would sit at a table in the employees’ cafeteria and sketch deft little portraits of the hotel help that he sold for twenty-five cents each. He was known to be “polite and easy-going,” though he could also “flare into sudden and unexpected fits of anger.” On one occasion, he came close to beating up a busboy named Andy Petro over some trivial disagreement. Only McNeeley’s intervention saved Petro from a thrashing. 2
Sometime in mid-June, Henrietta caught Bob’s eye. He began hanging around the kitchen during the after-dinner lulls, chatting away about art and religion and so many other subjects that Henrietta often had trouble following his conversation. At one point, much to her surprise, he asked her on a date. She turned him down gently, explaining that she “didn’t know him well enough.”
On Wednesday, June 23, Bob offered to sketch Henrietta’s portrait for free. Having heard so much about his artistic talents from the other workers, she readily agreed. She seated herself at the counter while he perched on a nearby stool and began to draw. While he worked, he told her that he “used to earn his living going fromhouse to house, making sketches of people,” though he didn’t say where or when. He took only ten minutes to finish his picture, a flattering profile view of Henrietta that captured her pert nose, pretty mouth, large dark eyes, and fashionably marcelled hair.
Not long afterward, her night shift over, Henrietta took the service elevator up to the thirteenth-floor employees’ dormitory, where she shared a room with a maid named Dorothy Kresse. Though it was nearing midnight by the time she got ready for bed, Henrietta was still wide-awake. She asked if Dorothy had anything to read. As it happened, Dorothy had just purchased the current issue of one of her favorite magazines, Inside Detective . She tossed it over to Henrietta, who quickly became absorbed in the true detective magazine.
Its cover was characteristically lurid. Against a blood-red backdrop, a beautiful young woman, her silk nightgown slipping from one shoulder to expose most of her left breast, cowered on a bed while a pair of clutching male hands reached down for her throat. “ VERONICA GEDEON—MODEL FOR INSIDE DETECTIVE IS MURDERED !” screamed the headline.
The accompanying story, written by the magazine’s editor, West F. Peterson, paid tribute to Ronnie Gedeon as an altogether decent, considerate young woman who, despite her great beauty, never put on airs. “All who encountered Ronnie through business liked her,” Peterson wrote. “She always had a smile for the receptionist, she never ‘ritzed’ the office boy. At Christmas, when one of the staff was ill, she chipped in to buy the convalescent a present.…Members of the art department, who knew her best, said she was fun-loving, conscientious, generous, and altogether likable.
“For this reason,” the article continued, “the news of her sudden and altogether horrible death came as a shock almost too staggering to be credible. And it is only natural that Inside Detective is
In the spring of 1937, Henrietta had been at the hotel for a year and a half, long enough to know most of her fellow employees, at least by sight. Sometime in early May, she noticed a new face among the workers: a young man of medium height with dark, wavy hair and a nice-looking face. He had been hired as a dishwasher, then worked for a few weeks as busboy before being promoted to bar boy in the grillroom, responsible, among his other duties, for keeping the bar stocked with clean glasses and ice and for fetching the bartenders their meals. His name—so he said—was Bob Murray.
A conscientious fellow—described by his supervisor, Mike McNeeley, as “the best worker I ever had”—Bob was much admired by his peers for his artistic ability. During lunch breaks, he would sit at a table in the employees’ cafeteria and sketch deft little portraits of the hotel help that he sold for twenty-five cents each. He was known to be “polite and easy-going,” though he could also “flare into sudden and unexpected fits of anger.” On one occasion, he came close to beating up a busboy named Andy Petro over some trivial disagreement. Only McNeeley’s intervention saved Petro from a thrashing. 2
Sometime in mid-June, Henrietta caught Bob’s eye. He began hanging around the kitchen during the after-dinner lulls, chatting away about art and religion and so many other subjects that Henrietta often had trouble following his conversation. At one point, much to her surprise, he asked her on a date. She turned him down gently, explaining that she “didn’t know him well enough.”
On Wednesday, June 23, Bob offered to sketch Henrietta’s portrait for free. Having heard so much about his artistic talents from the other workers, she readily agreed. She seated herself at the counter while he perched on a nearby stool and began to draw. While he worked, he told her that he “used to earn his living going fromhouse to house, making sketches of people,” though he didn’t say where or when. He took only ten minutes to finish his picture, a flattering profile view of Henrietta that captured her pert nose, pretty mouth, large dark eyes, and fashionably marcelled hair.
Not long afterward, her night shift over, Henrietta took the service elevator up to the thirteenth-floor employees’ dormitory, where she shared a room with a maid named Dorothy Kresse. Though it was nearing midnight by the time she got ready for bed, Henrietta was still wide-awake. She asked if Dorothy had anything to read. As it happened, Dorothy had just purchased the current issue of one of her favorite magazines, Inside Detective . She tossed it over to Henrietta, who quickly became absorbed in the true detective magazine.
Its cover was characteristically lurid. Against a blood-red backdrop, a beautiful young woman, her silk nightgown slipping from one shoulder to expose most of her left breast, cowered on a bed while a pair of clutching male hands reached down for her throat. “ VERONICA GEDEON—MODEL FOR INSIDE DETECTIVE IS MURDERED !” screamed the headline.
The accompanying story, written by the magazine’s editor, West F. Peterson, paid tribute to Ronnie Gedeon as an altogether decent, considerate young woman who, despite her great beauty, never put on airs. “All who encountered Ronnie through business liked her,” Peterson wrote. “She always had a smile for the receptionist, she never ‘ritzed’ the office boy. At Christmas, when one of the staff was ill, she chipped in to buy the convalescent a present.…Members of the art department, who knew her best, said she was fun-loving, conscientious, generous, and altogether likable.
“For this reason,” the article continued, “the news of her sudden and altogether horrible death came as a shock almost too staggering to be credible. And it is only natural that Inside Detective is
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