PA PA - Harrisburg, Teen female remains buried in cellar, Feb' 1915

[cdonalds]

In February of 1915, plumbers who were working on a leaky pipe unearthed the bones of a teenage girl who had been buried in the cellar of 133 S 14th Street in Harrisburg PA. Despite an exhaustive search (seriously, it was only a week or two), the coroner and the police failed to identify the girl, and were only able to determine that she was a victim of homicide. This unnamed girl was simply buried in Potter's field and forgotten.

This story gets to me because this was someone's daughter, sibling, etc. Her family probably spent the rest of their lives wondering what happened to her. The city of Harrisburg did a real disservice by disposing of her so quickly; they also allowed a killer to walk freely on the streets.

I am currently working on solving this case.If anyone out there has any suggestions on how I can find information (other than going to the PA archives or researching the Census records, area directories, or newspapers), please let me know! If anyone knows anything they think is relevant and not common knowledge (anything from the newspapers etc), or have access to records or evidence in Harrisburg, let me know! This girl needs her name back, and the killer needs to be identified.

C.D

 

[MaryG12]

Uh...just out of curiosity I tried to look up "missing girl PA" through my Newspapers.com account and came up with something very alarming:

The Pittsburgh Press, August 21, 1913

Why exactly did that state have so many missing persons in the early 1910's??

 

[MelmothTheLost]

In February of 1915, plumbers who were working on a leaky pipe unearthed the bones of a teenage girl who had been buried in the cellar of 133 S 14th Street in Harrisburg PA.

An interesting case, though the chances of identifying her seem remote.

Two questions come to mind immediately:

1. When was the house built?

It seems likely that she was buried after then, rather than being there when the house was built, so it gives an earliest likely date.

2. Who was living in the house in the censuses before 1910 and in 1920?

You may be able to establish if a teenaged girl who was living there at one census then disappears from the record. I would guess that if she was skeletal in 1915, she was almost certainly buried before 1910.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

Uh...just out of curiosity I tried to look up "missing girl PA" through my Newspapers.com account and came up with something very alarming:

The Pittsburgh Press, August 21, 1913

Why exactly did that state have so many missing persons in the early 1910's??

Also interesting! The article is difficult to read but I think I got the gist. It might be worth breaking the reported missing into groups by age and sex and then mapping them. There's a good chance there's at least one serial killer lurking there.

ETA that the list of missing in the article is not for the state but just for the city of Pittsburg. I agree with you - that's a lot of missing people. The number of missing pubescent and teenage boys is especially interesting.

 

[MaryG12]

My apologies for the unreadabilty for that copy. Here try a PDF version instead:

http://maryhaberstroh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ThePittsburghPress_Aug_21_1913.pdf

I also found the initial story from The Courier, Harrisburg, PA, February 14, 1915 which is quite fascinating and contains a lot of information about the house and its residents - one which happened to be a dentist! Again, this copy is a PDF.

http://maryhaberstroh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/TheCourier-Harrisburg-PA-Feb-14-1915-a.pdf

Hope it is OK to have the links to the newspaper files on my webserver space.

 

[msphilosopher]

What was the evidence that "she was a victim of homicide"?

 

[MaryG12]

Here is the follow-up story from Harrisburg Telegraph, PA, February 15, 1915 - also long but contains significant information including a razor, feathers, a photo of the house, diagram of where her remains were found.

http://maryhaberstroh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/HarrisburgTelegraph_PA_Feb_15_1915-a.pdf


http://maryhaberstroh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/HarrisburgTelegraph_PA_Feb_15_1915_b.pdf

 

[MaryG12]

The victim was initially thought to be Bessie Guyer who worked for the dentist Charles T Ayres, but it was soon discovered she was in fact alive and well:


http://maryhaberstroh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/HarrisburgTelegraph_PA_Feb_18_1915-a.pdf


http://maryhaberstroh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/HarrisburgTelegraph_PA_Feb_18_1925_b.pdf

 

[MaryG12]

The house is still standing as of 2014? I'm impressed. Guess I imagined it would have been torn down due to the victim being found there. It does match the one in the picture in the Harrisburg Telegraph, February 15, 1915

 

[MaryG12]

Is the victim found at 133 S 14th Street in Harrisburg Sarah Murphy, who mysteriously disappeared from Boone Station (Darby borough, Delaware County, PA)?


Sarah's parents have searched for their daughter in all of the surrounding towns and villages, to no avail. Many believe that young Sarah was abducted, perhaps taken away for "immoral purposes."


It is possible she disappeared in order to escape an abusive home life.


Description of Sarah: Tall for her age, rather stout, light red hair, dressed in a brown straw hat, light pink dress, cream-colored velvet, black stockings and buttoned shoes.


A man claimes to have seen Sarah talking to a woman dressed all in black (mourning dress) on the platform of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad station at Sharon Hill. Neither were seen after that.


http://maryhaberstroh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/TheTimes_PHIL_PA_Oct_25_1890.pdf


The victim found at 133 S 14th Street was about 15 years old, a bunch of chestnut brown hair (can light red hair darken to chestnut during middle teen years?) and a small bit of cloth, which authorities believed may have been used as a gag on the young girl. The age of Sarah, and when she disappeared in September, 1890, seems to match the time period of when the skeletal remains were found in Harrisburg.


What of the woman in mourning? Had she lost her daughter and was seeking a replacement?

I cannot find any further updates about Sarah in Newspapers.com.

And most of the missing girl cases I did come across were all found either alive or dead but were positively ID'd.

 

[cdonalds]

Not sure why either, I went through newspapers.com and Genealologybank.com for the years 1900 to 1905 and found that many. A lot had just run away to join the theatre's and others eloped. I have actually been keeping an excel sheet that encompasses not just Harrisburg but all of Pennsylvania. It also seems like the police were pretty lax on following up on missing girls.

 

[cdonalds]

The house was built around 1894. There were many owners/renters between then and 1910. The newspapers say that in the grave with the girl were feathers and a jar of toothpaste. With these two items I narrowed down the time frame to between when a dentist lived in the house, and a family who was said to have geese and chickens in the basement rented the house. Also, the families after 1905 said they smelled something bad in the basement and the concrete under the steps had been broken, where previous owners who the police contacted stated it had not been. So I've narrowed down the time frame to between 1900 and 1905. I have the names of all the owners/renters and have been trying my best to find information on them. The weird thing is there was never any teens reported to live there, well just one-but the police found her married with children in another town.

 

[cdonalds]

they found a razor in the whole with her and her skull had been smashed. The coroner also thought she might have been cut up, based on the way her arm bones were cut/broken. there was also a rag around her face like she was gagged.

 

[cdonalds]

I'm not sure where the girl was from, I can only speculate that she was from out of town, since no one reported a daughter missing, OR she was an immigrant who came here to find work and had no family here. The house wasn't built until 1894, so I'm primarily looking at articles/information from 1896-1905-07.

 

[cdonalds]

I found the update on the Sara Murphy case. She returned a couple days later and said she had been captured by gypsies.

 

[MaryG12]

I found the update on the Sara Murphy case. She returned a couple days later and said she had been captured by gypsies.

Glad you found the update on Sara!

As for the victim found in the house's cellar - very sad, I too wonder if she was from elsewhere, maybe invited to stay with whatever family was living there at the time, before she "disappeared" into the cellar.

Best of luck to you with your research, I too am curious about this case.

 

[EllieBee]

I am now totally drawn in! I am on my phone and not at home but if I have time this evening will help do some sleuthing as well!

Thank you for bringing this case to WS!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Pettibon Junction]

Shouldn't this be in the unidentified section?

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I'm not sure where the girl was from, I can only speculate that she was from out of town, since no one reported a daughter missing, OR she was an immigrant who came here to find work and had no family here.

It's also possible that she had been in an orphanage. Here in the UK it was normal practice for girls in orphanages to be trained for domestic service and then put into a position around the age of 14. Some orphanages did keep tabs on their girls for a few years after they left, others considered their work done and promptly forgot about them.

The house wasn't built until 1894, so I'm primarily looking at articles/information from 1896-1905-07.

That's a very narrow timespan - good sleuthing.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

The house was built around 1894. There were many owners/renters between then and 1910. The newspapers say that in the grave with the girl were feathers and a jar of toothpaste. With these two items I narrowed down the time frame to between when a dentist lived in the house, and a family who was said to have geese and chickens in the basement rented the house. Also, the families after 1905 said they smelled something bad in the basement and the concrete under the steps had been broken, where previous owners who the police contacted stated it had not been. So I've narrowed down the time frame to between 1900 and 1905. I have the names of all the owners/renters and have been trying my best to find information on them. The weird thing is there was never any teens reported to live there, well just one-but the police found her married with children in another town.

Good work. That really does seem to pinpoint her murder at 1903-1905.

When the house was rented out, was it let out by floor or room (much like 10 Rillington Place - so multiple occupants at the same time) or was it let out as a whole property?