MA Scituate, Frances McGraph (10), June 10th 1944,

[FogHornFiles]

Frances McGraph, 10, of Dorchester, daughter of former Boston City councilor John H McGraph, was last seen on Saturday June 10th 1944 as she left a Scituate, Massachusetts bowling alley through a side exit.

Frances left her home on Peggotty Beach at around 7 p.m. to meet her two older sisters Eleanor 16, and Nancy 14 at St Mary's church for confession. After the trio finished confession, they left the church setting off along the marshland at around 7:45 p.m. hoping to grab a scoop of ice cream from one of the town's three convenience stores. A few minutes after they girls began walking their father drove past them in the family Automobile. Frances entered the store alone as her sisters waited outside to talk to friends. She got an Ice cream and left telling her sisters that she intended to meet her father, whose car was parked on the main street, while he shopped only 50 yards away. Her sisters saw her leave the store at around 8 p.m. heading to find her father. However by 8:15 she has been unable to find her father and has not made her way back to her sisters. She is spotted in the Bowling Alley next door sometime before 8:30. Frances was wearing a wool suit and skull cap, both of chartreuse yellow, brown stockings, and brown loafers. She had blue eyes with light brown hair that she wore down to her shoulders in pigtails.

Sometime between 9-9:15 she is seen leaving the bowling alley by a side exit. The side door of the alley gave access to a rather dark alley, one end of which leads to a parking lot and the other leading towards the main street. Frances would never be seen alive again.

Frances' body was discovered 6 days later on June 16th by James “Jack” Lopes as he drove his truck down Winter St in the town of Norwell (about 6 miles away from the family's Scituate home). He stopped his truck at the entrance to the road and took a shortcut through the woods toward his home on stockbridge road. He had gone about 100 feet along the road until he spotted the body. Slowly coming upon the body, he came to the realization that there had been a search for a missing child. He returned to his truck and quickly informed Scituate police chief Michael Stewart. The child was found lying on her back with her coat and dress pulled over her head. Her hat and shoes were nearby. The girl had clearly been attacked and strangled.

Though it is noted that police verified that he had been working the night Frances was murdered, suspicions began to fall upon Lopes. Upon further interrogations he cracked, however the information he provided was not the breakthrough authorities were looking for. Lopes had been in the company of Mrs. Bertha Pina, 39, of Scituate. They had witnessed the body three days before in the lane but failed to report it because they did not want Mrs. Pinas' husband knew she was with Lopes”. Medical authorities believe the girl was alive but unconscious at the time she was first spotted by Lopes and Pina. Had they reported their discovery the girl may still be alive.

Police swarmed over the surrounding area and hundreds of suspects were questioned. The autopsy revealed that her last meal consisted of frankfurts, figs, nuts, and maple-nut ice cream. The butcher told of selling frankfurts, figs, and nuts to a tall muscular man on about June 7th or 8th, and a laundry clerk gave a similar description of a man who left a bag of clothing to be washed two or three days before the girl's disappearance was learned. The matching laundry check had been found next to the girls body however the ticket could provide no further information about the suspect.

Police then decided to look back and see if any recent cases in the area matched the McGraph case. Previously that year on April 21st, Ida Henderson (16) of Norwell had been walking between the towns of Greenbush and Norwell when two men between the ages of 50 and 55 dragged her into a car and drove her a number of miles before she pushed open the car door and made her escape. Police looked into the similarities of the crimes.


Lopes and Pina were acquitted and not held responsible for the death of Frances.The McGraphs had only just moved into their summer cottage that day, but had lived there the last three summers. Leads were followed over the years however not a single one proved to be concrete. After 1952 I could find no mention of this case.

 

[FogHornFiles]

A few articles.

 

[Richard]

About the Book
In her book, A Search for Frances McGrath, AnnieMae Robertson explores the personal immediate and aftereffects of the nearby murder of a young child just before the end of the 'big war'. She searches through a world filled with synchronicities and metaphysical experiences for connections between that event and her own escalating jeopardy and family conflict. 'Her journey is as exciting as it is sad in it's discovery, and as breathtakingly tense as a ride down the first drop on a rollercoaster.'

LINK:

A Search For Frances McGrath

 

[tommybombs]

Though I would never flat out accuse anyone of a crime like this being without solid facts or having actually witnessed a crime.. But after reading up on this story as well as being from the area, and knowing the lay of the land, how the buildings are positioned on that street where she vanished from, and growing up around some questionable people… I don’t like how one person who chimed in with their interaction with Frances that evening.

Michael Vassalotti gave a statement which included him seeing Frances at the ice cream shop, her offering him some of her ice cream, him playfully saying no, and then making sure to give a very detailed account of what he did after leaving her, which included him stopping to talk to friends while his wife and young son stood by, then driving straight home to listen to some radio show in that was on between a certain window of time.

I just don’t like how well packaged all of that information was. Almost as if he knew to give plenty of details and times to ensure that his alibi was concrete. And for all intents and purposes, it was perfect. It got him far enough away from the vicinity so that no one would question his whereabouts, while at the same time allowing him the satisfaction of getting his name included on the article alongside hers… kind of like a trophy.

 

[FlyOfDragons]

i'm from this area! here's a "fun" little history lesson that's semi-relevant to this case (it also gives me a chance to yap a bit, so sorry about that!)

scituate was -- and still is -- predominantly irish-american, almost famously so; it's known as the "most irish town in america" because 60-70% of its population claims irish ancestry. this is primarily because of its fishing and irish mossing (seaweed) trades that were the primary industries up to partway through the 20th century. while there are a substantial amount of Protestants, especially in recent times, it is still a very significantly Catholic town. presently it gets a huge tourist boom in the summer, with most tourists being from MA, just as the McGraths were

presently, scituate is a little more than 96% white; i assume it was even more so back in 1944. scituate is one of the receiving towns in the oldest still-existing voluntary desegration program in the US. the few Black students in scituate public schools are, the majority of the time, bussed in from boston; i'd say for every about 240 kids, maybe 15 of them are Black, and at least 10 of those Black students are from boston.

aside from irish-americans, however, there has historically been one other notable demographic(?) in the south shore's smaller towns post-colonization: portuguese people + people from former portuguese territories. nantucket and new bedford, both further south than scituate, have both been known as "the whaling capital of the world"; portugal has its own rich history of whaling, so once it became a major industry in the US, MA saw a massive influx of portuguese whalers. idk too much about scituate's history of whaling; the town and its harbor seem to have been too small for it, though southern MA as a whole saw portuguese immigration. the pre-established portuguese-speaking communities then led to further immigration from former portuguese territories, especially brazil and cabo verde. the few Black students in scituate public schools from the town itself are often -- though of course not always -- of cape verdean descent. scituate even apparently has a sister city in cabo verde!

so, that all aside, James Lopes and Bertha Pina's surnames stuck out to me and, sure enough, they were both Black, and James was Cape Verdean [note: I found a few men with the name James/Jack Lopes in the south shore with the appropriate birth year and time frame, and all of them were Black or mixed race men from Cape Verde]. Bertha herself was not Cape Verdean; as far as i could find, her lineage traces back to Nova Scotia, South Carolina, and northern US. Bertha's husband, however -- Justino/Justiniano -- was a Black man from Cape Verde. Bertha's mother, Louisa Kelley, was a servant for a white family in the neighboring town of cohasset.

all this is to say... it seems very convenient for two of the (likely few) Black people in scituate -- one of whom was an immigrant -- to be placed at the scene of the murder of an Irish Catholic girl. i'm glad that they were eventually acquitted, though them being on trial at all likely caused many people to assume they were culpable in some way

ALSO side note the map in the first linked article (thanks OP!) is very much in line with how that section of scituate's harbor still looks today

 

[Margaret@itsacrimemedia]

Thank you for the above information on the Frances McGrath cold case. I live in Scituate and also lived in Norwell near the location where Frances’ body was found. I’m researching this case for my podcast. Does anyone have anymore info? Is this case still open and do you know if they saved her clothing?

 

[Richard]

LINK:

Francis' Body Found in Norwell.

Clipping found in The Boston Globe published in Boston, Massachusetts on 6/16/1944. Francis' Body Found in Norwell.

www.newspapers.com

 

[Richard]

Frances McGrath (1934-1944)

LINK:

Frances McGrath (1934-1944) - Find a Grave...

www.findagrave.com

 

[Margaret@itsacrimemedia]

Thank you. Do you think the case is still open?

 

[nhmemorymaker]

LINK:

Francis' Body Found in Norwell.

Clipping found in The Boston Globe published in Boston, Massachusetts on 6/16/1944. Francis' Body Found in Norwell.

www.newspapers.com

Oh god, an unsolved case just lives on and on in a town. Affluent father in Boston, and such a horrendous case of horror committed to this young girl. so sickenning.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Thank you. Do you think the case is still open?

I would be certain that a few calls in the area would give you the answers. Has there been any steady coverage over the years already??

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Cases like this just always remind me of the Dr. Sam Sheppard case....

I lived in pennsylvania when a young child, but we always drove to my grandparents small village in Ohio every month or so....
I was quite young....but I can always remember non-stop conversations about this case for years.
I remember, learning about "affairs" for the first time...

AND then the acquittal when I was, by then, living in Ohio.
AND then his early death in Columbus .....

It was just non-stop drama, horror and sadness...

On January 7, 1955, shortly after his conviction, the incarcerated Sheppard was told that his mother, Ethel Sheppard, had died from a self-inflicted gunshot. Eleven days later, Sheppard's father, Richard Sheppard, died of a bleeding ulcer and stomach cancer. Sheppard was permitted to attend both funerals but was required to wear handcuffs.
On February 13, 1963, while F. Lee Bailey was pursuing the appeals process, Sheppard's former father-in-law, Thomas S. Reese, died by suicide in a Cleveland motel.Reese's wife had died in 1929 when their daughter Marilyn was in grade school.

the case's notoriety has never ever ever died out...........

NOVA Online | Killer's Trail | Chronology of a Murder

Sam Sheppard - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org