MA MA - Joan Risch, 30, Lincoln, 24 Oct 1961

[jgfitzge]

Here is the obituary of Frank E. Nattrass (Joan's uncle / adoptive father who allegedly abused her). He died in 1970, just a few months after moving out to Hollywood, CA -- I believe to join his wife out there?

View attachment 557069
The name of his company is written incorrectly -- it was actually Nattrass-Schenck. He wrote songs and published sheet music. His company also apparently published this "humor print," which is pretty creepy, especially coming from someone who was accused of child molestation.

View attachment 557072

Frank's son, Frank Peter Nattrass, was Joan's cousin / adoptive brother. He died a few months ago, in August 2024. Here's an interview he did in 2015 about his family history.

I'm not finding much else about him, other than the fact that he and his wife Sherrie were the defendants in several lawsuits brought by debt collectors around 2010 - 2011.

Yes, you are correct.Frank moved out to California to be with us separated wife and daughter.
Oh yes, I agree with you a hundred percent on the “humor print.“ very creepy.

 

[jgfitzge]

Boston Globe article from 1996 below.

It's interesting that Martin refused to discuss the case. It seems like usually loved ones of missing people want to talk about them, to get publicity and bring out leads that might solve the case. But it's also possible that talking about Joan was too upsetting / traumatic for him.

I agree with you on this point. I know family members deal with tragedy in different ways but I always found the public behavior of Martin Rush a bit odd.

In my research there appears to be little on record of the days, months, and years following the event and how the family coped. I also do not see at least publicly any he mentioned of a private investigator involved. It strikes me as odd that the family never seemed to mount a high profile effort in later years to solve this mystery.
In comparison I see the exhaustive efforts of Other families asking for help year after year for clues or information on a missing or murdered loved one, going back 20, 30 even 40/50 years.

Again, like you said it could be that talking and dealing with a missing loved one was probably too painful for Martin and the kids to discuss, at least publicly.

 

[jgfitzge]

One mystery in Stephen Ahern’s book that wasn’t addressed were the strange, unexplained calls from the “excited woman”
mentioned in this article from 2014.

Joan Risch: Runaway Wife or Murder Victim?

The disappearance of Joan Nattras Risch is a disturbing story, no matter which view of the case you believe. Either a troubled woman ...

strangeco.blogspot.com

 

[Vedder]

One mystery in Stephen Ahern’s book that wasn’t addressed were the strange, unexplained calls from the “excited woman”
mentioned in this article from 2014.

Joan Risch: Runaway Wife or Murder Victim?

The disappearance of Joan Nattras Risch is a disturbing story, no matter which view of the case you believe. Either a troubled woman ...

strangeco.blogspot.com

This is the first I'm reading about those calls - very interesting!

 

[HarmonyE.]

I agree with you on this point. I know family members deal with tragedy in different ways but I always found the public behavior of Martin Rush a bit odd.

In my research there appears to be little on record of the days, months, and years following the event and how the family coped. I also do not see at least publicly any he mentioned of a private investigator involved. It strikes me as odd that the family never seemed to mount a high profile effort in later years to solve this mystery.
In comparison I see the exhaustive efforts of Other families asking for help year after year for clues or information on a missing or murdered loved one, going back 20, 30 even 40/50 years.

Again, like you said it could be that talking and dealing with a missing loved one was probably too painful for Martin and the kids to discuss, at least publicly.

Martin always said he believed she was alive.

He stayed in the same house until it was moved years later due to the historical park, and then bought a very similar house in the same town and stayed there until the end of his life. He never remarried and raised the kids on his own.

He doesn't really fit the profile of a spouse committing murder for hire, if only because no one has ever said there was an "other" woman in his life at the time and he did not benefit financially from Joan's disappearance. The kids weren't even in school yet when Joan disappeared so no particular reason to stay in the same town, where I'm sure tongues wagged. The fact that he derived no benefit from whatever happened to his wife and didn't even pack up and move the kids to another town later on makes me less inclined to believe he had any involvement.

 

[DD Byrd]

Martin always said he believed she was alive.

I might even take this a step further after reading more about this and posit "Martin knew she was alive." Or at least strongly believed (as in, had some circumstantial eveidence) that she was. At least initially. Whether that was contact with her after her disappearance (those phone calls?) or some other evidence he never shared, like a letter left for him.

I'd imagine if she wanted to start a new life, in those days he might not want to face the reaction from his community. If she were struggling mentally on top of that, he might very well keep it quiet and felt it better for the children in the long run to not have answers rather than admit she took off and was mentally ill. We really don't know if he even kept tabs on her or somehow helped her from afar. That would be another reason for so few interviews with him. Unfortunanately, it wasn't all that common for men to leave their wives and that was embarrassing and stigmatizing enough...for a woman to leave her husband (and children!) would have been downright scandalous.

 

[jgfitzge]

Martin always said he believed she was alive.

He stayed in the same house until it was moved years later due to the historical park, and then bought a very similar house in the same town and stayed there until the end of his life. He never remarried and raised the kids on his own.

He doesn't really fit the profile of a spouse committing murder for hire, if only because no one has ever said there was an "other" woman in his life at the time and he did not benefit financially from Joan's disappearance. The kids weren't even in school yet when Joan disappeared so no particular reason to stay in the same town, where I'm sure tongues wagged. The fact that he derived no benefit from whatever happened to his wife and didn't even pack up and move the kids to another town later on makes me less inclined to believe he had any involvement.

I totally agree that Martin had nothing to do with his wife’s disappearance. I don’t believe he hired anyone to make his wife disappear. I believe a few years back I posted the same reasons as you did; no reports of large life insurance, no lover waiting in the wings, he stayed in the same location for many years, etc. That being said, maybe it’s the nature of Police interviews but it seemed to me that Martin did not volunteer a lot of background information on Joan. It seemed like the police were the ones that did the digging and then pose the questions to Martin. Again, maybe it’s the nature of the interview, but he seemed to give very short answers without a lot of elaboration. It seemed like one of the primary, driving motivations for Martin was to protect Joan’s good name.

 

[HarmonyE.]

I totally agree that Martin had nothing to do with his wife’s disappearance. I don’t believe he hired anyone to make his wife disappear. I believe a few years back I posted the same reasons as you did; no reports of large life insurance, no lover waiting in the wings, he stayed in the same location for many years, etc. That being said, maybe it’s the nature of Police interviews but it seemed to me that Martin did not volunteer a lot of background information on Joan. It seemed like the police were the ones that did the digging and then pose the questions to Martin. Again, maybe it’s the nature of the interview, but he seemed to give very short answers without a lot of elaboration. It seemed like one of the primary, driving motivations for Martin was to protect Joan’s good name.

Agree. We also don't know how much Martin knew about Joan's childhood or other issues with her adoptive family. She may not have shared everything with him. Some things may have been news to him.

 

[Betty P]

Agree. We also don't know how much Martin knew about Joan's childhood or other issues with her adoptive family. She may not have shared everything with him. Some things may have been news to him.

If you read the book, A Kitchen Painted in Blood, you'll see that her husband was aware of her childhood, the death of her parents and being raised by a relative. He also shared that information with police at some point. There were no conspiracies or anything.

Amazon.com

 

[HarmonyE.]

If you read the book, A Kitchen Painted in Blood, you'll see that her husband was aware of her childhood, the death of her parents and being raised by a relative. He also shared that information with police at some point. There were no conspiracies or anything.

Amazon.com

I was (albeit vaguely) referring to the sexual abuse by her aunt's husband and some of the financial issues and other drama that was ongoing with that family at the time of Joan's disappearance.

 

[SteveH]

Article by Ed Corsetti and Harold Banks (unknown publication?) from 24 December 1962 detailing the "strange calls", added to Pinterest by author Michael C Bouchard:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/580119995752414957/

"The probability that Mrs Joan Risch was alive within a week after her bizarre disappearance from her suburban Lincoln home 14 months ago, and the possibility that she still is were raised Wednesday by an incident that investigators have hitherto kept secret."

"A woman telephoned the Risch family home in Old Bedford rd and the call was taken by a temporary housekeeper who was caring" for the children whilst Martin "spent all his time and concentrated all his efforts on helping the search for his wife."

"Flossie? Is that you Flossie? the woman asked with some hesitation and in certainly what appeared to be in some confusion".

The housekeeper said she wasn't Flossie but tried to keep the woman on the line. But there was silence and the caller hung up.

""Flossie", investigators said could only be Mrs Risch's blood-aunt, Miss Florence Bard of Dobbs Ferry. NY,,,she came to the Risch house a few days later to stay a couple of weeks" with Risch and his children.

""Only Joan and Martin ever called me Flossie" she said."

Interestingly this revelation seems to have come out because "36 year old [Martin] Risch revealed that he was so dissatisfied with the investigation that he asked the FBI to take it over and requested Gov-elect Endicott Peabody to stir the State Police to greater effort.

"Nobody was initiating any new avenues of investigation and everybody was merely waiting for "something to happen" Mr Risch complained."

On "Flossie" I note from Lawrence F Ford's infamous report (the pdf) that in the Record American article of 3 January 1962 the paper obtained a photo of Joan, son David and dog Geordie (which they reproduced - can't see the dog though!) from Florence E Bard who wads "a guest at the Risch home for two days just before Mrs Risch disappeared." They also included a photo of a letter she sent to a staff reporter asking them to return the photo.

joan risch.pdf

THE SEARCE FOR JOAN RISCH. UiI1 Pond productions ( research team ). -\--. ...

www.docdroid.net

 

[SteveH]

1) Interesting article (Boston Herald (MA) October 24, 1993) by the late Joe Heaney about the case including info about Lawrence F Ford who wrote the infamous pdf "report".

What happened to Joan Risch? 32 years after she disappeared one man wants to know... Case of missing mom remains a mystery.

"Of all the places Lincoln housewife Joan Risch could be after vanishing from her blood-splattered kitchen in Lincoln 32 years ago today, her son, David, 34, says, "I like to think she's in heaven." Risch, who was 2 when his 31-year-old mother disappeared, shows little interest in a solution of the grim puzzle that has baffled investigators and intrigued mystery buffs for more than three decades.
"I was so young. I don't remember her. I was upstairs sleeping in a crib," said Risch, a bachelor who describes himself as a poet and writer.
"I don't know what happened or who did it."
But retired businessman Lawrence F. Ford, 57, - who says he has spent 12 years and $90,000 digging for solutions to the mystery and may write a book or film a documentary on it - thinks he may have some new facts.
Among them:
Some neighbors, relatives and friends of Joan Risch were never interviewed or fingerprinted for comparison to the prints "supposedly" found in the Risch home that remain unidentified to this date.
On Feb. 1, 1963, some 15 months after Joan Risch vanished, State Police detectives went to New Rochelle, N.Y., to question for a second time Joan Risch's late foster father, Frank E. Nattrass. The detectives told Nattrass that Risch told her husband, Martin, soon after their 1955 wedding she had been molested by her foster father.
However, the day after his wife disappeared, Martin Risch told investigators he knew of no troubles between Joan and members of her family.
The investigation could have been botched by infighting between then-District Attorney John Droney and State Police Detective Lt. George Harnois, who had asked to be reassigned.
Ford, a Medford native who recently founded a Concord, N.H.-based research and film-production company called Untold Stories Inc., has complained that investigators have ignored his offers to share information.
Jill Reilly, a spokeswoman for Middlesex District Attorney Thomas F. Reilly, called Ford's findings "very unsubstantiated and nothing trained homicide detectives don't already know."
"He (Ford) hasn't come up with much but theory. And how would he know who has been fingerprinted and who hasn't?
"Certainly it would be nice to solve this mystery, but we can do that with trained investigators. We don't need an amateur sticking his nose into it."
Even so, Reilly said investigators will examine any information Ford sends, but cannot provide him with data because the case is still open.
The son of a Medford police captain and a former electrical supply and real estate dealer, Ford said he has also been unsuccessful in securing FBI records on the Risch case under the
Freedom of Information Act.
Attempts to follow up Ford's inquiries with the FBI were unsuccessful.
The late State Police Lt. Frank Joyce, who headed the Risch probe, said investigators processed nearly 5,000 sets of fingerprints trying to match a bloody thumbprint found in the Risch kitchen.
Vivid signs of a struggle were apparent in the kitchen, first discovered by the Rischs' other child, 4-year-old daughter Lillian.
Lillian, now 35 and living on the West Coast, had been playing with a neighbor's child when she returned home about 4:15 p.m.
The child dashed out of her Old Bedford Road home to the home of Barbara Barker, another neighbor, and blurted out:
"Mommy is gone and the kitchen is covered with red paint."
Barker hurried over to the white Cape the Rischs had bought six months earlier for $27,500 and burst in on what looked like the aftermath of a slaughter.
White kitchen walls were splattered with blood. There were blood puddles on the floor and the telephone had been ripped from the wall and tossed into a wastebasket already brimming with tin cans and an empty whiskey bottle.
A bloody left thumbprint, possibly that of Risch's killer, was on the wall, next to the telephone mount.
Blood for most of the stains had belonged to Risch, but the thumbprint, the strongest clue in the case, remains unidentified.
Husband Martin Risch, now 64, continues to decline comment. He was the $15,000-a-year director of market development for Fitchburg Paper Co. and in New York City on a business trip the day his wife was apparently attacked.
"I really have no reason for her disappearance," Martin Risch told police investgators a day after the disappearance.
"My only comment would be that she would willingly sacrifice herself to save her children if the alternative were presented."
Risch said he knew of no one who would want to harm his wife, and said their relationship was good and that she had never threatened to leave home. And there were no financial problems, Risch said.
He told police he did not think his wife, a graduate of Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa., was pregnant, and said she would not have been unhappy if she were.
One of Joan Risch's last acts was to place her 2-year-old son, David, in his upstairs bedroom crib about noon.
A 1978 graduate of Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and 1982 graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, David Risch now lives with his father in another house in Lincoln.
"I don't know what I'd say to my mom if I had a chance," he said last week.
"I've missed her, I guess. But I don't know if not having her had a bad effect on me. I just like to think she's in heaven."

Some other articles here as well as the above:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/porchlightusa/1961-risch-joan-october-24-1961-t11419.html

Relating to Lawrence F Ford who was the "son of a Medford police captain" I noticed the following comments on the Morbidology article on Joan (which were vehemently attacked and rubbished by other commenters but which tally with the above info):

"Lisa
7 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Swed
If you really know.. I know the entire story..my grandfather had jusy [sic] retiref [sic] as the chief of police in Medford when this happened and my father has spent a fortune researching this case for over 40 years and he and I know the truth as to what happened and where she is and who did what!! And just to let you know she murdered and burried [sic]…and we even know where and who"

"Lisa
7 years ago

Reply to Shari Kizziar
My father investigated this case my entire life, my grandfather was chief of police in Medford, he knows what happen and where she was burried [sic] ..and who did what..u people are way off."

2) What I don't get is how anyone knew the exact time that Joan brought her daughter and Barbara Barker's son over to Mrs Barker's house - 1.55 pm - to the play swings near the garage away from the house. She didn't tell Barbara about it or speak to her and the kids were both four and so not likely to know the time they were dropped off. Joan couldn't have mentioned it as she was missing. It seems like a very specific time as well - not around 2pm for example but 1.55! Some of the other times seem a bit too specific as well. Is this just newspaper reporters from the Record American seeking to put some order on the timeline?

joan risch.pdf

THE SEARCE FOR JOAN RISCH. UiI1 Pond productions ( research team ). -\--. ...

www.docdroid.net

3) Finally it would be good to know if anyone has read the book that Joan borrowed from the library Into Thin Air aka Put Out That Star by Harry Carmichael aka Leopold Ognall. "A woman disappears, towel and blood smears are clues." A review by Eden Thompson on Goodreads states that:

"Gorgeous blonde film star Madeline Grey flies up to London for an overnight stay, avoiding publicity by staying at a quiet hotel. She has been shooting a film in Scotland. After checking into her suite, she makes a phone call and takes a telegram - while insurance assessor John Piper and Quinn wait in the lobby; Piper has a meeting to discuss her property, Quinn for an interview. In those brief minutes however, Madeline has disappeared. She was not seeing leaving her suite or the hotel, had not taken a cab or left by a back exit - a search determines she is not physically in the building. A popular and recognizable actress, it seemed no one could make her vanish, yet, how could she leave - and - where is she?

Since Madeline was insured by Piper's company against bodily harm, the hotel asks him to quietly investigate before calling the police. With most of the people she knew still in Scotland, there are just a few key players to interview - the nervous hotel manager; the silent housekeeper; the bell boys; and Madeline's agent who (it's just discovered) was also her ex-husband, and who thinks this is all a publicity stunt. Her current husband flies up from Scotland and is also baffled. Someone had been selling her stolen jewelry, could she have been blackmailed? Her luggage remains in the suite - one piece with an odd blood stain on it - but she took her mink coat. The case is presented to Detective-Inspector Thorpe, who wonders why the unusual team of an insurance agent, a reporter and a hotel manager, are investigating instead of the police."

Put Out That Star

Discover and share books you love on Goodreads.

www.goodreads.com

The books Joan borrowed are detailed here:

List of Library Books Taken Out Before Mrs. Risch Disappeared

Clipping found in The Boston Globe published in Boston, Massachusetts on 2/20/1963. List of Library Books Taken Out Before Mrs. Risch Disappeared

www.newspapers.com

Reading habits of missing joan risch shed new light on year old mystery

Clipping found in Portland Press Herald published in Portland, Maine on 2/21/1963. Reading habits of missing joan risch shed new light on year old mystery

www.newspapers.com

 

[jgfitzge]

Article by Ed Corsetti and Harold Banks (unknown publication?) from 24 December 1962 detailing the "strange calls", added to Pinterest by author Michael C Bouchard:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/580119995752414957/

"The probability that Mrs Joan Risch was alive within a week after her bizarre disappearance from her suburban Lincoln home 14 months ago, and the possibility that she still is were raised Wednesday by an incident that investigators have hitherto kept secret."

"A woman telephoned the Risch family home in Old Bedford rd and the call was taken by a temporary housekeeper who was caring" for the children whilst Martin "spent all his time and concentrated all his efforts on helping the search for his wife."

"Flossie? Is that you Flossie? the woman asked with some hesitation and in certainly what appeared to be in some confusion".

The housekeeper said she wasn't Flossie but tried to keep the woman on the line. But there was silence and the caller hung up.

""Flossie", investigators said could only be Mrs Risch's blood-aunt, Miss Florence Bard of Dobbs Ferry. NY,,,she came to the Risch house a few days later to stay a couple of weeks" with Risch and his children.

""Only Joan and Martin ever called me Flossie" she said."

Interestingly this revelation seems to have come out because "36 year old [Martin] Risch revealed that he was so dissatisfied with the investigation that he asked the FBI to take it over and requested Gov-elect Endicott Peabody to stir the State Police to greater effort.

"Nobody was initiating any new avenues of investigation and everybody was merely waiting for "something to happen" Mr Risch complained."

On "Flossie" I note from Lawrence F Ford's infamous report (the pdf) that in the Record American article of 3 January 1962 the paper obtained a photo of Joan, son David and dog Geordie (which they reproduced - can't see the dog though!) from Florence E Bard who wads "a guest at the Risch home for two days just before Mrs Risch disappeared." They also included a photo of a letter she sent to a staff reporter asking them to return the photo.

joan risch.pdf

THE SEARCE FOR JOAN RISCH. UiI1 Pond productions ( research team ). -\--. ...

www.docdroid.net

Interesting, I’m not sure if this was a one time call or whether there were several calls by this woman asking for “Flossie.”

They were previous reports of an “excited”woman calling the Risch household in early November asking for Joan. For these phone calls Martin Risch’s father was the one who answered the phone.

 

[jgfitzge]

Interesting, I’m not sure if this was a one time call or whether there were several calls by this woman asking for “Flossie.”

They were previous reports of an “excited”woman calling the Risch household in early November asking for Joan. For these phone calls Martin Risch’s father was the one who answered the phone.

Upon further reflection, I recall back in the 60s and 70s your phone bill itemized long distance calls, but could not itemize local calls. I believe it was possible for the phone company to trace calls back then, but it was very difficult, rare and it was laborious.

 

[SteveH]

I have done some more digging about the "mysterious" phone calls and found an article ('Blood and Thin Air' by Ruth Reynolds) from the Daily News, New York of 14 October 1962. I'm not sure of the accuracy of this report but anyway.

"On that day [the day following Joan's disappearance], Mr. and Mrs. Rene Risch, both in their 60s, came from Long Island to care for their grandchildren and comfort their son. On that day, "an excited woman" telephoned Mrs. George Robichaud, one of the Rischs' neighbors.

She said she could not reach anyone she knew at the Risch house, and hung up without identifying herself."

"Someone began telephoning the Risch home regularly. But when Risch, Lillian's grandfather, answered, the caller hung up."

Also mysterious: "Five weeks after Joan vanished, a potted plant was left on the Rischs' doorstep by an unidentified donor. The police considered this significant because, according to the neighbors, someone left geranium plants for Mrs. Risch shortly before her disappearance."

Also: "Those who beat the woodlands found a number of interesting things--as they always do in a shoulder-to-shoulder search including a woman's panty girdle and copies of girlie magazines within 100 yards of the Risch house."

Interestingly the article mentions hair mixed with the blood on the floor - I'll come back to that.

""The amount of blood in the house is not extensive enough for her to have been stabbed or shot [said John Droney] . But it could have been caused by a wound on her head or face." State Police Detective George F. Hamois, appointed to take charge of the case. announced that about a pint of blood was in the house and on the drive and on the car. It was type 0-Joan's type--and there were short hairs mixed with it on the kitchen floor."

The following is worthy of note:

"[State Police Detective George] Harnois explained that the blood was consistent with menstruation. He intimated that a sudden hemorrhage might have resulted in amnesia for Mrs. Risch.

Now gossips whispered "miscarriage" -even "abortion." Maybe she died during an abortion. Maybe she didn't die and went away with a lover. A Lincoln woman told of getting call a week before from a man who wanted to speak to Mrs. Risch. Another told of a man who accosted her on the street and asked where Mrs. Risch was. A third said that Mrs. Risch was away from her house for two hours on the day preceding her death. (Police couldn't find out where she went.) Was It A Crime? Although investigators had no part in this character assassination, they now wondered -because of the lack of clues- if a crime had been committed. No fingerprints, no footprints, no screams, no physical sign of an intruder, the attempt to wipe up blood "We've never investigated a crime," said District Attorney Droney, "where a man went into a house, attacked his victim, and then carried her away with him." But Harnois still held to the sex maniac theory.

Perhaps the man was not a chance prowler. Perhaps he plotted his crime, knowing that Risch's job kept him away from home four or five days at time. After a woman neighbor said she heard the Risch garage door opened and closed at odd hours before Joan vanished, investigators discovered that window in the garage furnished a full view of the house. Did an intruder watch the young woman for at least two days? Did he leave the garage and steal across the lawn into the house while she was gardening?"

Another point: "Mrs. Clinton R. Keene, who lived next door, spent the afternoon upstairs in her own house. She saw nothing, heard nothing, as she glanced frequently out her window on the woodsy setting."

Also interesting is that "A Cambridge cab driver reported that he picked up a fare answering Mrs. Risch's description that afternoon. She seemed confused and repeatedly changed her destination. She paid her $5 tab out of money she pulled from a paper bag."

I quoted Joe Heaney's 1993 article about the case in a recent comment; "The investigation could have been botched by infighting between then-District Attorney John Droney and State Police Detective Lt. George Harnois, who had asked to be reassigned."

From the Daily News article: "He [Droney] wanted Harnois and State Police Detective Chief Michael J. Cullinane to question Risch again and to get Mrs. Risch's medical records from Ridgefield, "because certain key persons are not telling all they know." Well, one "key" person who was talking was 4-year-old Lillian Risch. She said "mommy" sent her to the Barkers.

Was it possible that Mrs. Risch was getting the child out of the way- or trying to alert the neighbors to trouble at her place? Then the child said that when she was sent across the road mommy also said she was "going out." Later, Lillian remembered that there "was a strange man" in the house when she left. Much of this may have been a child's prattle-or it may have been accurate, if delayed, observations of a 4-year-old. Mysterious Phone Calls It was suggested that a psychiatrist talk with the child because she might have a memory block against an ugly or violent scene she witnessed involving her mother."

At this stage Martin Risch did not believe that Joan was still alive:

"Mrs. Risch is still listed as a missing person," said the District Attorney. "There is no conclusion that she was the victim of a sex attack or that she is dead. She could be wandering Mr. Risch rejected this theory on the ground that his wife was such a devoted mother she would never leave her children unattended. In his opinion, the only reason she was missing was that she WAS taken away by force.

In fact, Risch made indignant objections to most of the police theories. He refused to believe that his wife was stricken with amnesia or that she left voluntarily for some unknown reason, probably because she was distraught over some problem. He did not think she injured herself accidentally and wandered into the woods in a daze. The only theory the husband would accept was that Joan was abducted and, very likely, slain. He told the investigators everything he could about his wife, but they still wanted to know more."

Different to his position later of course, as mentioned in this 1975 report:

Lewiston Evening Journal - Google News Archive Search

The New York Daily News report: scroll down and click on keep reading in the links below:

Daily News from New York, New York

Get this Daily News page for free from Sunday, October 14, 1962 VAUNT SUNDAY NEWS.. Edition of Daily News

www.newspapers.com

Daily News from New York, New York

Get this Daily News page for free from Sunday, October 14, 1962 SUNDAR NEWS, OCTOBER 14,,1962 131 Justice Story State policeman holds damaged telephone ripped from .... Edition of Daily News

www.newspapers.com

With regards to the hair mentioned in the article the caption to this photo also refers to it as "being pulled from a man's head":

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/580119995752450614/

You can also see the table by the telephone. Compare that photo with the one where the phone table has been overturned:

Michael C Bouchard, author of a book about the case, stated in a podcast that Barbara Barker admitted that she moved the table so that she could get down to the basement. His interview with Micah Hanks will be the subject of my next comment here,

 

[SteveH]

Michael C Bouchard, author of Masquerade: Joan Carolyn Risch Case:#6162 (2020), which I haven't read, made some forthright comments on the Micah Hanks show back in 2020. He does make some basic errors concerning the known facts in the podcast and apparently his book is full of typos, but that doesn't mean his analysis is flawed. He had access to the 5,127 (or 5,157) page police files.

Google Micah Hanks Joan Risch to find the podcast.

Bouchard, an ex-cop, is convinced that this was a staged disappearance. He says that after close examination of the crime scene photos he is sure that the blood smears etc are "manufactured", not natural. He believes Joan may have used bloody overalls to place blood smears on the car. He also says there was one bloody footprint, not matching Joan or Lillian's shoe size found near the back (ie garage) door.

He says the unidentified fingerprints may have been Joan's but they got "distorted". He states that the fact that there were no bloody footprints in the kitchen or blood on the trashcan indicates that there was no struggle.

A few other points I noted:

Apparently Lillian didn't mention "red paint" - that was Barbara's son Douglas.

There were more than three people who saw a woman walking along the roads. Some of these reports mentioned a female driver sitting in a nearby stationary car.

Frank Nattress wasn't directly responsible as he was at work (so was his son Ben). Joan had been in contact with Frank up to the time she went missing.

Barbara Barker mentioned in one interview that she had seen a white or beige convertible on Joan's drive before she went missing. Bouchard thinks she knows more than she is letting on.

Joan's friend Sabra Morton told him that Joan planned on having another baby in the following year.

Barbara Barker says that she moved the telephone table and the directory had fallen off.

Not sure what to make of Bouchard's reasoning. He seems to think that such disappearances were everyday occurrences, nothing out of the ordinary. But this case is ANYTHING but ordinary. You have to believe that Joan didn't give a damn about her kids to accept his argument. Maybe she didn't, but I feel that it stretches credulity somewhat. I think she might have had a male (or female?) lover who wanted her to run away with them and maybe coerced her to leave, and who knows what happened after that?

Bouchard is also convinced about the sightings of the woman seen wandering the local roads. But the first sighting on Route 2A was at an earlier time (2.45 pm) than the time that Virginia Keene saw the unknown car in the drive (3.25 - 3.30 pm). Hilda Ziegler saw a car pull out of the drive at 3.30 to 3.40 pm. The second sighting of the "dazed" woman, on Route 128, was between 3.15 and 3.30 pm. Go figure. Bouchard seems to think that Joan was walking around pretending to be in a daze as part of the "staging" which I find a little far-fetched, but not impossible I suppose.

He also believes that the books Joan borrowed from the library were an inspiration for her disappearance. Maybe, but I'd need more convincing.

 

[HarmonyE.]

Michael C Bouchard, author of Masquerade: Joan Carolyn Risch Case:#6162 (2020), which I haven't read, made some forthright comments on the Micah Hanks show back in 2020. He does make some basic errors concerning the known facts in the podcast and apparently his book is full of typos, but that doesn't mean his analysis is flawed. He had access to the 5,127 (or 5,157) page police files.

Google Micah Hanks Joan Risch to find the podcast.

Bouchard, an ex-cop, is convinced that this was a staged disappearance. He says that after close examination of the crime scene photos he is sure that the blood smears etc are "manufactured", not natural. He believes Joan may have used bloody overalls to place blood smears on the car. He also says there was one bloody footprint, not matching Joan or Lillian's shoe size found near the back (ie garage) door.

He says the unidentified fingerprints may have been Joan's but they got "distorted". He states that the fact that there were no bloody footprints in the kitchen or blood on the trashcan indicates that there was no struggle.

(snipped)

The scene definitely looks staged. Doesn't look like an attack happened and it certainly doesn't look like an abortion gone wrong.

I go back and forth on whether Joan was involved in her own disappearance. I don't read that much into her reading choices, but the scene is so weird. The little boy is safely in his crib. The little girls is sent to the neighbor's. Joan did that. Is it just because she was expecting someone she didn't want her daughter to meet or because she was carrying out a plan?

 

[Betty P]

Michael C Bouchard, author of Masquerade: Joan Carolyn Risch Case:#6162 (2020), which I haven't read, made some forthright comments on the Micah Hanks show back in 2020. He does make some basic errors concerning the known facts in the podcast and apparently his book is full of typos, but that doesn't mean his analysis is flawed. He had access to the 5,127 (or 5,157) page police files.

Google Micah Hanks Joan Risch to find the podcast.

Bouchard, an ex-cop, is convinced that this was a staged disappearance. He says that after close examination of the crime scene photos he is sure that the blood smears etc are "manufactured", not natural. He believes Joan may have used bloody overalls to place blood smears on the car. He also says there was one bloody footprint, not matching Joan or Lillian's shoe size found near the back (ie garage) door.

He says the unidentified fingerprints may have been Joan's but they got "distorted". He states that the fact that there were no bloody footprints in the kitchen or blood on the trashcan indicates that there was no struggle.

A few other points I noted:

Apparently Lillian didn't mention "red paint" - that was Barbara's son Douglas.

There were more than three people who saw a woman walking along the roads. Some of these reports mentioned a female driver sitting in a nearby stationary car.

Frank Nattress wasn't directly responsible as he was at work (so was his son Ben). Joan had been in contact with Frank up to the time she went missing.

Barbara Barker mentioned in one interview that she had seen a white or beige convertible on Joan's drive before she went missing. Bouchard thinks she knows more than she is letting on.

Joan's friend Sabra Morton told him that Joan planned on having another baby in the following year.

Barbara Barker says that she moved the telephone table and the directory had fallen off.

Not sure what to make of Bouchard's reasoning. He seems to think that such disappearances were everyday occurrences, nothing out of the ordinary. But this case is ANYTHING but ordinary. You have to believe that Joan didn't give a damn about her kids to accept his argument. Maybe she didn't, but I feel that it stretches credulity somewhat. I think she might have had a male (or female?) lover who wanted her to run away with them and maybe coerced her to leave, and who knows what happened after that?

Bouchard is also convinced about the sightings of the woman seen wandering the local roads. But the first sighting on Route 2A was at an earlier time (2.45 pm) than the time that Virginia Keene saw the unknown car in the drive (3.25 - 3.30 pm). Hilda Ziegler saw a car pull out of the drive at 3.30 to 3.40 pm. The second sighting of the "dazed" woman, on Route 128, was between 3.15 and 3.30 pm. Go figure. Bouchard seems to think that Joan was walking around pretending to be in a daze as part of the "staging" which I find a little far-fetched, but not impossible I suppose.

He also believes that the books Joan borrowed from the library were an inspiration for her disappearance. Maybe, but I'd need more convincing.

Does this podcast guy have any documentation, evidence or links to back up his claims about what witnesses and neighbors did and said?

People who have reviewed police files extensively, including a man who recently researched and wrote a book about the case, found none of the claims about neighbors interfering with the crime scene, etc.

According to police files, per the book "A Kitchen Painted in Blood", police extensively used scent dogs to track Mrs. Risch. They tracked her scent near to the end of her driveway, where it ended, indicating she probably was put into a car and driven away. Extensive searching with the same scent dogs at the locations where witnesses claimed to have seen Mrs. Risch walking along roads and highways turned up no scent from her. They also used the scent dogs to check behind her house, around the yard and up and down the roads near the Risch's home with no results.

It would also be helpful to see some documentation of lab tests showing that the blood found in the Risch home was menstrual blood.

TIA

Also, hairs pulled from a man's head is another indicator of a struggle by the victim, along with the rest of the evidence at the crime scene.

JMO, but the old rumors and falsehoods about abortions and planned escapes, etc. remind me of the old, sexist attitudes about women back then.

 

[Cedars]

The books Joan borrowed are detailed here:

List of Library Books Taken Out Before Mrs. Risch Disappeared

Clipping found in The Boston Globe published in Boston, Massachusetts on 2/20/1963. List of Library Books Taken Out Before Mrs. Risch Disappeared

www.newspapers.com

Reading habits of missing joan risch shed new light on year old mystery

Clipping found in Portland Press Herald published in Portland, Maine on 2/21/1963. Reading habits of missing joan risch shed new light on year old mystery

www.newspapers.com

I came across this case and the 'clue of the library books' quite some time ago. Having worked in libraries, I investigated the theory for myself. I kept my notes, so may as well share them here:

Firstly, the family borrowed books from the Lincoln Library on one family card (as stated in the Boston Globe). So, for all we know, these could have included her husbands books. We know she had a strong interest in 'serious' literature, however she likely had little time to read while caring for small children.

The Lincoln library was, still is, a local library, serving a suburban/rural area. It would stock books that would appeal to general interests. The books would be shelved and catalogued according to genre, typically including romance, westerns, mysteries, best sellers, fiction, non-fiction.

The modern True Crime genre didn't yet exist - Truman Capote's shocker In Cold Blood was published in 1965. Murder in movies was abstract - the bloody realism of Bonnie and Clyde came in 1967.

Pre-computers, there would be no way for someone to research 'mystery woman disappeared' etc. You could only browse the shelves.

Most importantly, IMO, the descriptions of the plot of the books, written in the Globe newspaper article after her disappearance, are laughably distorted to fit the theory that she was researching how to disappear. Note: I have checked all the book titles against the Library of Congress, which has publisher data about every book ever published in the US.

For example, the first one in the Globe article: "The Legacy - a novel about a boy who leaves a military academy and hides in the woods." The only book by that name published before 1961 in the US is the 1950 novel by Neville Shute, now known as 'A Town Called Alice', but initially published by a different title in the US. It's about a woman who was a prisoner of war during WWII.

Then we have, in sequence of the borrowing:

- The Hollow (1946) an Agatha Christie novel
- A biography of Mary, Queen of Scots
- The Age of Innocence (1920), a literary novel by Edith Wharton
- The Hunt for Richard Thorpe, a 1960 mystery novel by Jerrard Ticknel, reviewed as a 'thoroughly agreeable diversion,' Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction | Kirkus Reviews
- Into Thin Air (1957) one of 80 mystery novels written by Harry Carmichael, and part of a series about a pair of unlikely detectives.
- The Third Rose, a biography of famous literary influencer Gertrude Stein.
- The Hollow - Agatha Christie again
- Gifts of Passage (1961), a literary memoir by Samantha Ramu Rau
- Run Rabbit Run (1960) by John Updike. An 'important' American literary novel about male angst.
- Breathe of Air (1951), a British literary novel by Rumer Godden, retelling Shakespeare's The Tempest
- Death of the Heart (1938), by Elizabeth Bowen. An 'important' British literary novel in which a 16 year old girl runs away to try to find love, but doesn't 'disappear'.
- Japanese Inn (1961), by Oliver Statler. A 400 year social history of Japan.
- Mostly Murder (1959), by Sydney Smith. The Globe article states "Autobiography of a leading authority concerning murders and disappearances" but note the author was a British pioneer in 'medical' forensic science ie autopsies.
- Field Guide to Trees
- A Week on the Concord (1849), literary memoir by Henry David Thoreau.
- Shadows on the Grass (1960) by Isaak Dineson. "Fiction with African setting" says the Boston Globe. Actually it is a continuation of Dineson's best-selling memoir 'Out of Africa'.
- Poetry and Experience (1961) by poet Archibald MacLeish. Contrasts 4 major poets: Yeats, Dickinson, Keats and Rimbaud.
- The Screaming Rabbit (1955). Another mystery novel by Harry Carmichael (see Into Thin Air). Where the Boston Globe article describes the plot as "mystery novel in which a man disappears", the plot description I found was "recurrent deaths...take place at the home of Edith Ellerby, an attractive novelist."
Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction | Kirkus Reviews
- World Enough and Time (1955). Literary novel by Robert Penn Warren, based on a true story of a murder of a politician by a lawyer in 1826.
- The Twenty-Seventh Wife (1961) by best-selling author Irving Wallace. The Boston Globe claims it is a "biography of a wife of Brigham Young who disappears". The original book jacket states: "The story of the last wife of the prophet, who divorced her husband to lead in the fight against the American harem"
- The Proud Possessors (1960) by Sylvia Ashton Warner. About collectors of fine art.

I do think the list gives some insight into who Joan was, but not in the way the sleuths maintain.

Firstly, if you notice the dates of publication, most of these were recently published. Most libraries prominently display recently published books.

Secondly, most of them concern women, either as authors or subjects.

Thirdly, they reflect her interest in 'higher' literature and art. She seems to have been a cultured woman, not into bodice-rippers or spy novels, etc.

She was interested, in a mild way, with mystery novels, probably as light reading. However, she was by no means obsessed. Her primary interest was what some might call 'high' culture.

JMO

 

[SteveH]

Does this podcast guy have any documentation, evidence or links to back up his claims about what witnesses and neighbors did and said?

People who have reviewed police files extensively, including a man who recently researched and wrote a book about the case, found none of the claims about neighbors interfering with the crime scene, etc.

According to police files, per the book "A Kitchen Painted in Blood", police extensively used scent dogs to track Mrs. Risch. They tracked her scent near to the end of her driveway, where it ended, indicating she probably was put into a car and driven away. Extensive searching with the same scent dogs at the locations where witnesses claimed to have seen Mrs. Risch walking along roads and highways turned up no scent from her. They also used the scent dogs to check behind her house, around the yard and up and down the roads near the Risch's home with no results.

It would also be helpful to see some documentation of lab tests showing that the blood found in the Risch home was menstrual blood.

TIA

Also, hairs pulled from a man's head is another indicator of a struggle by the victim, along with the rest of the evidence at the crime scene.

JMO, but the old rumors and falsehoods about abortions and planned escapes, etc. remind me of the old, sexist attitudes about women back then.

Michael C Bouchard is one of the authors who had access to the police files on the case and wrote a book about it. As commenter Watson3379 wrote on this thread on 12 May 2021:

"I've recently written a book about Joan's disappearance, but I don't think that Websleuths is the place for pushing book sales. So, I'll just say that there are three recent books written about Joan's case: Jessi Gomes, The Disappearance of Joan Risch; Masquerade: The Joan Risch Cold Case - A Cops Perspective by Michael C. Bouchard; and A Kitchen Painted in Blood: The Unsolved Disappearance of Joan Risch by Stephen H. Ahern. Two or more of these books were written after the Middlesex DA made the investigative file available."

Bouchard and Ahern drew very different conclusions. The former believes the "abduction" was staged, whereas the latter, in his comment as Watson 3379, says " I wasn't convinced that Joan engineered her own disappearance." Unfortunately I haven't read either book. Also, as I'm in the UK, not the US, I wouldn't know how to get access to the investigative file and at 5,000+ pages I'm not sure I want to! Life's too short.

With ref to the neighbours "tampering" with the crime scene, Ahern does confirm that Barbara Barker moved the table as I discovered on the Google Books preview (p 13):

"Finally, with a great deal of hesitation, jane [Butler] and Barbara moved the table that was, apparently, tossed into the hallway near the cellar door, and with great trepidation they went downstairs into the cellar, looking for Joan."

A Kitchen Painted in Blood

On October 24, 1961, Massachusetts wife and mother Joan Risch vanished seemingly into thin air. Even with her children home and neighbors nearby, Joan disappeared from her upscale suburban house, never to be heard from again. The search that followed was one of the most intensive investigations...

books.google.co.uk

Bouchard is a Dragnet sort of cop - "Just the facts ma'am" - and seems unconcerned with motives or psychological analyses. His conclusions seem to be heavily based on his examination of the photos of the blood splatter which he thinks are "artificial". But I have to agree with Ahern that it seems unlikely that Joan just disappeared to start a new life and swan off leaving her kids to discover the bloody scene. My own thoughts are similar to the police theory as detailed below.

From the Boston Globe October 29 1961:

"Authorities think the kidnapper knew of the house's emptiness during the day and might have secreted himself in the garage last week to watch Mrs. Risch. He returned Monday to continue his surveillance.

They theorized the man left the garage, stole across the lawn and over a scrub brush fence onto the Risch property. Then he hid behind the Risch car, parked on the drive, where Mrs. Risch, who was gardening in the back yard, came upon him. The man lashed out, police believe, striking her in the face, probably on the nose, stunning her and causing blood to flow. She reeled across the car trunk, leaving on it a bloodstain the size of a silver dollar, and onto the right rear fender guard, where more bloodstains were found.

If she made any outcry, it was probable that the heavy tree cover nearby muffled her scream. According to the new police theory, Mrs. Risch ran into the kitchen through backdoor, and reached the wall telephone. As she started to dial (accounting for more blood traces in the finger holes and on the phone handle) her assailant came into the room and pulled the cord from the wall He struck her again and knocked her to the floor. This time she lost consciousness.

Police said it would have been easy for the attacker to have wrapped her in a gray charcoal topcoat and carry her through the woods onto Virginia rd. Or, he could have driven his own car into the Risch driveway and carried her out. The latter would substantiate the story of 14-year-old neighbor, Ginnie Keane. Ginnie reported seeing an old blue car in back of Mrs. Risch's in the driveway when she returned home from school at 3:30 p.m."

The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts

Get this The Boston Globe page for free from Sunday, October 29, 1961 THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE-OCTOBER 29, 1961 Fifty-Nine Officials Have Their Work Cut Out in Lincoln RIS.... Edition of The Boston Globe

www.newspapers.com

The question is whether Joan was physically forced to go, "persuaded" via a threat to her kids or some such, or went voluntarily - with a (violent) lover perhaps - after which something bad may have happened to her. On the other hand perhaps the "kidnapper" did the "staging". Hard to believe that Joan never got in touch with her family again.

I am very sceptical about the Route 128 sightings, especially the first one (3.15-3.30 pm). If Joan left by the car that was seen in her drive the timings simply don't work. Why, if a dazed woman was walking on the median strip of a busy highway with bloody legs didn't anyone else report seeing her, or indeed contact the cops at the time? Of course they would have had to wait until they could make a phone call but not only would the woman have been in obvious need of help but she could have likely caused a serious accident if she wandered onto the road. As Watson3379 put it in another comment (20 May 2021):

"The other two sightings occurred later and both were on Route 128, one of the busiest highways in New England. One, in fact, was in the median strip of the highway, six miles away from Joan’s home. I’m much more suspicious of those two sightings. I, personally, wouldn’t want to try to cross 128 at any time."

The woman who made the sighting, Eleanor Leary (spelling? - I heard the name on a podcast) was the wife of an FBI agent. From the Boston Globe article quoted from above:

"State Police Det Joseph Ryan and Lincoln Sgt Daniel McInnes led a search of heavy woodlands off Rte. 128 near the Cambridge Reservoir yesterday without success. It stemmed from a report of a Quincy FBI agent's wife that she saw a bleeding woman wandering in a dazed condition Tuesday along the Rte. 128 median between the Lincoln and Trapelo rd. cut-offs. The woman said the person was wearing a charcoal gray coat, but she didn't connect her with the missing wife because early reports stated Mrs. Risch was wearing a tan trench coat. Search to Resume Investigators determined Friday that only a charcoal gray coat was missing."

The mystery car seen on Joan's drive was apparently located but provided no clues, according to Watson3379 on 22 May 2021:

"State Detective Lieutenant George Harnois, who led the Risch investigation in 1961, was quoted in a (@) December 10, 1961 Boston Globe article saying that the police had found the car that had been at the end of Joan's driveway on October 24th. Unfortunately, they didn't find any worthwhile forensic evidence from the car.

Interestingly, the car had been stolen from a Medford MA man, although the date of the theft was not provided. Five witnesses had previously told police that they had seen the car in the Risch driveway on October 24th. The Risch's regular milkman (1 of the 5) said that he had seen the same car in the Risch driveway on October 19, 1961, but that none of the Risch cars were in the driveway at the time (garage?).

Another witness actually gave the police a partial license plate for the mystery car. They used it to eventually find the car after weeks of searching. I think it's interesting that the witness who provided the partial number, gave it to a Boston Record American reporter, who, in turn, gave it to the police. As far as I can tell, the identity of that particular eyewitness never surfaced in the investigation (although I'd need to doublecheck that)."

I don't give any real credence to the abortion theory. If Joan wanted to have one, which seems unlikely from what we know about her, I can't believe it would have happened at her house when anyone could have turned up and her kid was upstairs. The dentist theory also seems ludicrous - why take her daughter with her for a start?

Who knows why Martin Risch changed his mind and said that he thought Joan was still alive? Did he hear from her or from someone who told him what had happened? Was it because he was tired of all the publicity and decided that if he said he thought she was alive the press would stop pestering him? Was he convinced by DA John Droney who came himself to believe the amnesia theory?

I still question the timeline provided in the 3 January 1962 Boston Record American article.

According to that Joan walked Lillian and Douglas across the street at 1.55 pm without telling Barbara. But according to Barbara's first statement to the police:

"My four year old son Douglas went over to the Rlsch home to play with Lillian. When Doug came back he said that they played outside. Joan was cutting the grass in the back. That afternoon her four old daughter came over after saying that she had permission from her mother to come to my
house."

There are always inconsistencies and contradiction within and between witness reports and so it is important not to take any one account or timetable as definitive or set in stone.

I came across this case and the 'clue of the library books' quite some time ago. Having worked in libraries, I investigated the theory for myself. I kept my notes, so may as well share them here:

Firstly, the family borrowed books from the Lincoln Library on one family card (as stated in the Boston Globe). So, for all we know, these could have included her husbands books. We know she had a strong interest in 'serious' literature, however she likely had little time to read while caring for small children.

The Lincoln library was, still is, a local library, serving a suburban/rural area. It would stock books that would appeal to general interests. The books would be shelved and catalogued according to genre, typically including romance, westerns, mysteries, best sellers, fiction, non-fiction.

The modern True Crime genre didn't yet exist - Truman Capote's shocker In Cold Blood was published in 1965. Murder in movies was abstract - the bloody realism of Bonnie and Clyde came in 1967.

Pre-computers, there would be no way for someone to research 'mystery woman disappeared' etc. You could only browse the shelves.

Most importantly, IMO, the descriptions of the plot of the books, written in the Globe newspaper article after her disappearance, are laughably distorted to fit the theory that she was researching how to disappear. Note: I have checked all the book titles against the Library of Congress, which has publisher data about every book ever published in the US.

For example, the first one in the Globe article: "The Legacy - a novel about a boy who leaves a military academy and hides in the woods." The only book by that name published before 1961 in the US is the 1950 novel by Neville Shute, now known as 'A Town Called Alice', but initially published by a different title in the US. It's about a woman who was a prisoner of war during WWII.

Then we have, in sequence of the borrowing:

- The Hollow (1946) an Agatha Christie novel
- A biography of Mary, Queen of Scots
- The Age of Innocence (1920), a literary novel by Edith Wharton
- The Hunt for Richard Thorpe, a 1960 mystery novel by Jerrard Ticknel, reviewed as a 'thoroughly agreeable diversion,' Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction | Kirkus Reviews
- Into Thin Air (1957) one of 80 mystery novels written by Harry Carmichael, and part of a series about a pair of unlikely detectives.
- The Third Rose, a biography of famous literary influencer Gertrude Stein.
- The Hollow - Agatha Christie again
- Gifts of Passage (1961), a literary memoir by Samantha Ramu Rau
- Run Rabbit Run (1960) by John Updike. An 'important' American literary novel about male angst.
- Breathe of Air (1951), a British literary novel by Rumer Godden, retelling Shakespeare's The Tempest
- Death of the Heart (1938), by Elizabeth Bowen. An 'important' British literary novel in which a 16 year old girl runs away to try to find love, but doesn't 'disappear'.
- Japanese Inn (1961), by Oliver Statler. A 400 year social history of Japan.
- Mostly Murder (1959), by Sydney Smith. The Globe article states "Autobiography of a leading authority concerning murders and disappearances" but note the author was a British pioneer in 'medical' forensic science ie autopsies.
- Field Guide to Trees
- A Week on the Concord (1849), literary memoir by Henry David Thoreau.
- Shadows on the Grass (1960) by Isaak Dineson. "Fiction with African setting" says the Boston Globe. Actually it is a continuation of Dineson's best-selling memoir 'Out of Africa'.
- Poetry and Experience (1961) by poet Archibald MacLeish. Contrasts 4 major poets: Yeats, Dickinson, Keats and Rimbaud.
- The Screaming Rabbit (1955). Another mystery novel by Harry Carmichael (see Into Thin Air). Where the Boston Globe article describes the plot as "mystery novel in which a man disappears", the plot description I found was "recurrent deaths...take place at the home of Edith Ellerby, an attractive novelist."
Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction | Kirkus Reviews
- World Enough and Time (1955). Literary novel by Robert Penn Warren, based on a true story of a murder of a politician by a lawyer in 1826.
- The Twenty-Seventh Wife (1961) by best-selling author Irving Wallace. The Boston Globe claims it is a "biography of a wife of Brigham Young who disappears". The original book jacket states: "The story of the last wife of the prophet, who divorced her husband to lead in the fight against the American harem"
- The Proud Possessors (1960) by Sylvia Ashton Warner. About collectors of fine art.

I do think the list gives some insight into who Joan was, but not in the way the sleuths maintain.

Firstly, if you notice the dates of publication, most of these were recently published. Most libraries prominently display recently published books.

Secondly, most of them concern women, either as authors or subjects.

Thirdly, they reflect her interest in 'higher' literature and art. She seems to have been a cultured woman, not into bodice-rippers or spy novels, etc.

She was interested, in a mild way, with mystery novels, probably as light reading. However, she was by no means obsessed. Her primary interest was what some might call 'high' culture.

JMO

I agree with you about the probable irrelevance of the books that Joan borrowed from the library. They probably reflected the stock the library held at that time as much as Joan's own tastes, although the author of 'Into Thin Air' had his own theory.

"One of Britain's most successful mystery authors believes he has solved Joan Risch's mysterious disappearance. He is Leopold Ognall, who lives in Leeds, Yorkshire, and writes under the pseudonyms of Harry Carmichael and Hartley Howard....

"Mrs. Risch is known to have read my thrillers 'Into Thin Air' [aka 'Put Out That Star'] and 'The Screaming Rabbit' [aka 'Death Counts Three'*] the plots of which are uncannily similar to her own disappearance", Ognall said. "At first I was chilled by the link between the mystery and my books. "I spent night after night lying awake, trying to tie the myriad of loose ends together. Whose fingerprints were on the phone? Whose blood was it? Was the woman walking beside the highway Mrs. Risch? And, if so, how does this tie in with the strange car seen backing out of her driveway?...

"Mr. Risch has insisted that his wife is alive," Ognall told me. "I also believe that is true", I believe Mrs. Risch is living alone, incognito somewhere between Boston and New York, or in New York, itself. I believe she a desperately wants to see her children, but is afraid to come into the open.

Why? "She harbors a terrible secret," said Ognall."

* 'The Screaming Rabbit' is summarised on Goodreads as "John Piper visits novelist Edith Ellerby's home on an insurance matter, and while there, he hears gun shots and screaming. Edith tells him that her secretary, Walter Parr, enjoys hunting rabbits. After some time elapsed, it is noted that Parr has disappeared."

The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts

Get this The Boston Globe page for free from Sunday, March 1, 1964 i The Boston Sunday Globe-March 1, 1964 59 Author Has Bizarre Theory in Joan Risch Case HARRY CARMIC.... Edition of The Boston Globe

www.newspapers.com

Researching all this I found out that Ognall, as Harry Carmichael, wrote a novel Flashback based on the Risch case. It has blood spatters on the cover and a dedication "There is only one person to whom this book could be dedicated". From page 4:

"Flashback is the story of an ordinary family who become involved in a mystery which proves to be complete and inexplicable. Gossip provides many answers but none of them is the right one.

Then John Piper is commissioned to find out what really happened on that October day in the home of the Kilmuir family in a quiet suburban street. Assisted by Quinn of the Morning Post he goes back in time, step by step, to reveal that the life of Mrs Janet Kilmuir was neither simple nor placid".

See: flashback : harry carmichael : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

I can only access the first few pages so don't know what Carmichael's "solution" is!

It would also be interesting to know the provenance of the card that Michael C Bouchard has uploaded on Pinterest. Maybe he explains it in his book.

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/pinterest--580119995752450744/

It appears to read "Joan Risch Still loves her children Living Sweetie [boy says] I've got a big [?] [girl says] I can't She does not like him".

Compare to the Nattrass-Schenck "humor" card "Oh you nasty man!" linked by an earlier contributor, digitective, on 12 January this year:

Antique "Oh You Nasty Man!" Print 1935 Nattrass-Schenck, Inc. NYC 10" x 7" | #1879478615

Up for auction is an antique humor print Oh You Nasty Man! from Nattrass-Schenck, Inc. NYC. It measures approximately 10 wide and 7 1/4 high in frame. The imperfections are as follows:Some scuffin

www.worthpoint.com

Frank E Nattrass of Nattrass-Schenck was of course Joan's (supposedly abusive) uncle/adoptive father.

Was the card sent by "crackpot" Stanley Toy:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/580119995752415049/