MA MA - The Missing, The Mystery - Smith College, 1925-1947

[doublestop]

According to the Kingston Daily Freeman (Kingston, NY) of Nov 18, 1925, Alice Corbett may have gone missing because of romantic problems.

"Jealousy, wild and passionate and the fear that she might lose the man she adored--this is the latest theory in the mysterious disappearance of Miss Alice M. Corbett, 19, of Utica, NY, Smith College junior. .... Thomas Sterling, Amherst student, a resident of Frankfort, NY, was the girl's sweetheart and several love letters found today written to him by Alice coupled with the fact that the young couple quarrelled over another pretty girl and that the Smith junior asked Sterling to buy her poison strengthened the jealousy theory, investigators said."

It then quotes several slightly obsessive sounding love letters from Alice to Tommy.

 

[shadowangel]

A lot of that went on with girls in this school over the years...Seems excessive to me for one school.

 

[milopedes]

I took this to mean that she most likely had died the night she was last seen...Her remains didn't surface until a year later. However, I found that odd--Would a body that had been decomposing under water float to the surface after a year?
Could her remains have been kept elsewhere and placed into the lake on a Friday the 13th? I couldn't find any other info on the cases, but then again I haven't looked into it in quite some time.

If held captive for a period of time, for whatever dread purpose, and then killed and dumped; well, that means to me that the victim would be in the same clothes she was abducted in at the time.

If found 13 months after reported missing, like the other girl, it could be a predator who has a means of keeping his victim's hostage for a period of time before killing them?

 

[carbuff]

Smith is a very high pressure school and one of its dirty little secrets (as with most high-pressure schools) is a high suicide rate.

 

[reportertype]

The death of Robeson got me to thinking...Would long-term exposure to carbon monoxide gas at low levels cause this type of behavior, indicative to me of brain damage?

Carbon Monoxide can poison slowly over a period of several hours, even in low concentrations.. Sensitive organs such as the brain, heart, and lungs suffer the most from a lack of oxygen. Unfortunately, the symptoms of CO poisoning are easily mistaken for other common illnesses and low level CO poisonings are often misdiagnosed. Symptoms such as headaches, dizziness and fatigue are common to a number of illnesses such as the flu or the common cold.

http://www.nutramed.com/environment/monoxide.htm

The long term effects of poisoning by carbon monoxide can be extremely serious. The long term effects of breathing in carbon monoxide can affect:

• memory
• brain function
• behaviour
• cognition.

It can also cause permanent damage to other major organs within the body, such as the heart.



http://www.silentshadow.org/long-term-effects-of-carbon-monoxide-poisoning.html

 

[Poobah90]

Smith is a very high pressure school and one of its dirty little secrets (as with most high-pressure schools) is a high suicide rate.

very common unfortunately

 

[scriptgirl]

I don't think these were all suicides

 

[Stella]

Alice Corbett has never been found. Wearing a bright yellow raincoat, how is that possible? If a serial killer got her, I could understand it would've been disposed of but she sounded more suicidal and mentally confused.

 

[Marilynilpa]

Sorry if this has already been posted.

The following link is to an article regarding Alice’s disappearance.

Alice Corbett - Search Fails to Find Smith College Girl 11/14/1925 - Newspapers.com

Here is the Wikipedia entry for Alice:

Disappearance of Alice Corbett - Wikipedia

 

[Laeona]

I'd like to add another girl to the list

Bertha Lane Mellish; age 20
Disappeared: Thurs. Nov 18, 1897 from Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, less than 10 miles away from Smith College
Born: Jan 01, 1877 in N. Scituate, R.I.
Parents: Rev. John Hyrcanus Mellish and Sara Adeline Lane
Height: 5'5"
Hair: dark auburn
Eyes: Brown
Description: medium build, fair complexion, round face, full lips, sometimes wore her hair parted and sometimes combed back, very small faint scar in the center of forehead
Clothing: a black cashmere dress, shaggy black jacket, black cloth Tom o' Shanter cap, underclothing marked "Mellish", gray flannel skirt
Last seen: Went out for a walk, was supposed to go with a fellow student, but they declined so she went alone; possibly visited "the Gorge" on the Connecticut River

$500 Reward was offered, and her family checked every claim of a "Bertha sighting". No sign of her was ever found. Henry S. Robinson tried to extort money from the parents, claiming he had discovered Bertha was living a debauched life and threatened to go public. He was jailed, and his claims were proven false.

Bertha Mellish - Gail Husch

 

[18thcenturylady]

I am curious about the boyfriend of Alice Corbett. I wanted to find out what happened to him. I found that his full name was Thomas Farrell Sterling and he was a student at Amherst in 1925, but left. He DID NOT graduate from Amherst. Googling him is an exercize in frustration as Farrells come up even though that is his MIDDLE name! I don't have Ancestry, etc... I guess the letters between he and Alice were not made public, but I sure wish I knew what they said. I got the impression she was cling-y and more into him than he was into her. The argument they had was evidently about his attentions to another girl. Maybe all this had something to do with her disappearance but maybe not. Still wish I could find a bio on him, see where he ended up, when he died, etc. It also occurred to me that they said she seemed kind of desperate in her letters to him. Just wondering if she had slept with him and when he was paying attention to another girl she felt used and thrown away (lots of stigma back then). Also, the possibility that she was pregnant and horrified at telling her parents. If he didn't know and she felt he was rejecting her, could she have felt she had no option but to disappear and harm herself? LOL, rabbit hole!