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

[Betty P]

One of the books Joan borrowed from the library, titled “Into Thin Air”, is often mentioned alongside her disappearance. One such reference details the relevant plot points as “a woman who disappears without a trace, only leaving behind blood smears and a towel.”

I don’t see how this book would be of much assistance in fleeing one’s life, however, seeing as the disappeared woman in question is murdered and shoved inside a settee; the book is more so about how the intrepid investigator uncovering the shenanigans. JMO for anyone as interested as I was in finding out the plot of this hard-to-find book.

It sounds similar to some of the old Alfred Hitchcock stories which were very popular at the time. People enjoyed those horror and mystery stories back then. In the early 1900's, those kind of stories were serialized in weekly newspapers and magazines. I see them all the time when researching genealogy in old newspaper archives.

Hitchcock had at least 2 books out in 1961, with stories from authors like Roald Dahl and Ray Bradbury.

Google Search

When I was a kid, we had a collection of these Hitchock books at our family country cabin. Made for good reading at night because we had no tv reception. Fun times.

Her choice of reading materials was typical of popular fiction at that time. JMO

 

[jgfitzge]

Recently, I was biking up in that area and I decided to pull into one of the Minuteman parking lots on route 2A, about a quarter mile from the Old Bedford Road entrance/exit. I decided to take a look at where possibly the old Risch house once stood. No cars can go into the road. You can only walk. So I did my best and walked up the hill and looked around. The first thing that hits you is how narrow the road is. In its present state I cannot see this being a two-way road. Now, maybe someone is more expert at this, but perhaps the Forest over the years has crept onto the sides of the asphalt to narrow it? The second thing you notice is the surrounding area is very hilly and gnarly. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and had to get back but, I do plan on checking it out more. Again, looking at it today is so hard to see that this was a supposedly a busy two-way road at one time.

 

[Betty P]

Recently, I was biking up in that area and I decided to pull into one of the Minuteman parking lots on route 2A, about a quarter mile from the Old Bedford Road entrance/exit. I decided to take a look at where possibly the old Risch house once stood. No cars can go into the road. You can only walk. So I did my best and walked up the hill and looked around. The first thing that hits you is how narrow the road is. In its present state I cannot see this being a two-way road. Now, maybe someone is more expert at this, but perhaps the Forest over the years has crept onto the sides of the asphalt to narrow it? The second thing you notice is the surrounding area is very hilly and gnarly. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and had to get back but, I do plan on checking it out more. Again, looking at it today is so hard to see that this was a supposedly a busy two-way road at one time.

Thanks for the photo. Yes, that road is steeper than I realized. Definitely a hilly area. It would be easy for someone to hide out there.

Here’s a link to a 1963 aerial photo of the neighborhood. Just enter Old Bedford Rd, Lincoln, MA in the search. Click on the aerial button and 1963.

Historic Aerials: Viewer

www.historicaerials.com

 

[branmuffin]

I think they were in some sort of denial. A neighbor being attacked and kidnapped wasn’t something they could ever imagine. They were trying to find some rational answer for her disappearance and the blood in the kitchen. Messing with a crime scene wasn’t unusual back then. The public wasn’t aware of the need to leave everything untouched, in place.

Neither were LE. Cops regularly showed up at crime scenes they heard about on the radio to check it out.

 

[cenazoic]

I think there was never any damning evidence found, but enough information and whatnot surfaced in the initial investigation to point towards someone or people to make PD privately suspicious.

It’s an interesting thought. Possibly whatever they turned up pointing them towards locals wasn’t ultimately about the murder of Joan Risch, but instead a whole different and ugly can of worms? In other words, the investigation into Joan’s murder indirectly led them to some seedy goings-on, better left unexplored for social or political reasons. (Maybe I’ve spent too much time in the current Letcher County KY Mullins/Stines thread.)

People enjoyed those horror and mystery stories back then.

Said the 17 year veteran of a message board dedicated to real-life mysteries and horrors! Sorry, Betty, not being mean to you, it’s just meant as a lighthearted tease. I know what you meant, the phrasing just amused me in the context of WebSleuths.

 

[Betty P]

It’s an interesting thought. Possibly whatever they turned up pointing them towards locals wasn’t ultimately about the murder of Joan Risch, but instead a whole different and ugly can of worms? In other words, the investigation into Joan’s murder indirectly led them to some seedy goings-on, better left unexplored for social or political reasons. (Maybe I’ve spent too much time in the current Letcher County KY Mullins/Stines thread.)



Said the 17 year veteran of a message board dedicated to real-life mysteries and horrors! Sorry, Betty, not being mean to you, it’s just meant as a lighthearted tease. I know what you meant, the phrasing just amused me in the context of WebSleuths.

Yeah, I get it.

Back then IMO, police didn’t have much training in victimology, etc. For some reason, investigators began to examine things like the books a victim was reading prior to a disappearance . It wasn’t a particularly useful tool. Yikes, I’ve been here a long time.

 

[branmuffin]

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.

I really don't see anything creepy about that print. I think it represents the mindset of the age viewed through the lens of a popular poem where the verses are that little girls were made of pleasant things like sugar and spice and all things nice while little boys were made of unpleasant things like frogs and snails and puppy dog tails (don't get the puppy dog tail but hey, it rhymes). The artist of the drawing was a very prolific artist who studied in France and spent most of his career drawing for a publishing house that churned out novels, etc. It wasn't until he married a woman associated with the music business that his artwork covered sheet music for Tin Pan Alley. His name is Arthur William Barbelle. He was born in Fall River where Lizzie Borden lived.

 

[branmuffin]

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.

He always seemed odd to me because of the way he referred to his children, ie, 'the boy' or 'the girl' or 'the other child'. He rarely was recorded in interviews of using their given names. He seems detached from the circumstances relating to his wife's missing status.

 

[branmuffin]

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 always found it a little odd that her husband said she was an excitable woman whereas all her friends said she was level headed, as did her newer neighbours in Lincoln. I think it may have to do with the fact that Martin Risch was very unexcitable and that his demeanor of remaining aloof and calm during arguments or disagreements had a tendency to make Joan exasperated. I feel this because of his responses in the interviews with LE. I wonder if he was really just a buttoned-down individual or he was perhaps part of the spectrum.

 

[jgfitzge]

I always found it a little odd that her husband said she was an excitable woman whereas all her friends said she was level headed, as did her newer neighbours in Lincoln. I think it may have to do with the fact that Martin Risch was very unexcitable and that his demeanor of remaining aloof and calm during arguments or disagreements had a tendency to make Joan exasperated. I feel this because of his responses in the interviews with LE. I wonder if he was really just a buttoned-down individual or he was perhaps part of the spectrum.

“he was perhaps part of the spectrum” funny you would mention this observation. Recently I have thought the same thing concerning Martin.



First

 

[branmuffin]

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

Did they have the dog at this house? Was the breed ever identified? Big? Small? Friendly? Yappy?

 

[branmuffin]

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.

I think a lot of people compromise crime scenes but not purposely. They can range from EMT's coming to a crime scene and the various detritus that they leave behind when they attempt to keep a victim alive. Then there's the well meaning neighbour like BB who went through the house, including the basement, and moved stuff around in the kitchen possibly destroying fingerprints to the influx of LE who come to crime scenes and plod through looking for stuff even when they aren't assigned the case. A lot has changed in the last 65 years. I still don't know if it was a crime scene, though.

I also question the information that they could identify menstrual blood flow from arterial or veinous blood. The last two have been known for years but it's only been in the late 20th that identifying the markers regarding menstrual flow. There's also methods to identify period flow and a miscarriage. I thought I'd read that JR was the one who had the dentist appt not her daughter and that the dentist used sedation for it. If that was accurate then it has been known that certain types of sedation could increase menstrual flow or trigger a miscarriage. Alcohol can also creates heavier menstrual flow since it affects estrogen levels.

I'm sure many of us watched Mad Men and the issue of smoking and drinking while pregnant was a thing back then. JR's friend said she was planning on having another child the following year so if she was pregnant she hadn't told anyone yet and may have been in the early stages of pregnancy. If she was planning on having more kids that suggests that her marriage must have been stable and secure since birth control was available then.

 

[cenazoic]

it's only been in the late 20th that identifying the markers regarding menstrual flow.

I’m not sure how accurate this is; the so-called Teichmann Test (‘crystal test’) has been known and used for detecting blood (generally) since 1853. It has also been used to differentiate peripheral (venous/arterial) blood from menstrual. This works because menstrual blood is lower in hemoglobin than peripheral blood, so the TT shows a negative result.

Counterpoint to above: it’s certainly not as accurate as more modern methods, and I haven’t been able to discover when the TT was first used for this sort of differentiation.

This paper (1938) does discuss loss of the endometrium during menstruation, but I’m still looking for a definitive answer on when we knew that menstrual ‘blood’ is more accurately described as a ‘menstrual fluid’ which is about 50% blood by composition.

End result: I can keep an open mind about these results, barring more info.

(Main source: Discriminating Peripheral Blood and Menstrual Blood with Different Methods and Instrumentations)

Alcohol can also creates heavier menstrual flow

So does aspirin.