The Easter Murders New York City March 1937

Crime began to escalate during the Great Depression. The third decade of the 20th century witnessed an increase in crimes more than the decades that preceded it. On Easter Weekend 1937 three persons were found murdered in an East Side New York City apartment. One of them happened to be a lovely young model. Soon after her macabre death it was discovered that she had posed nude for a photographer two months earlier. Multiple black and white photos of her gave rise to sensational headlines which continued for weeks and months after the bizarre slayings. Ironically she also was a frequent model for detective periodicals such as Inside Detective. Photos for which she had posed for these publications bore an eerie likeness to crime scene pictures like the ones police took of her in death. I have chronicled the events of Easter weekend in the lives of the three victims and also researched their ancestry, as well as persons with whom they were associated. Looking back it was a much different time, when radio and newspapers were the most important means of communicating news. Ed Sullivan was a young reporter for a New York City newspaper and Walter Winchell broadcast news of the killings throughout the United States. The serial murderer was captured in a most unlikely way, one that also involved detective magazines.