WV WV - Juliet 'Julia' Staunton Clark, 59, Charleston, 21 August 1953

[OkieGranny]

Copied over from a thread about an unrelated cold case:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...apital-Crimes-quot-article-features-2-murders

Hello, Websleuths of WV!

I am writing an article for Goldenseal Magazine, the WV State Folklore quarterly. It is called "Capital Crimes." The two VERY cold cases I'm featuring are the October 1949 murder of West Side restaurant owner Rosina Fazio, and the August 1953 murder of Juliet Staunton Clark, the owner and Publisher of the Charleston Daily Mail newspaper. Both are unsolved...

The second case, Juliet Staunton Clark's murder, is even more bizarre, but also features money (lots of it), status, famous Charleston figures, mystery, innuendo, gossip and no arrest. Mrs. Clark, widow of the Governor of Alaska, was last seen alive around 9 p.m., August 21, 1953, by her son in law, Archibald Alexander II. The next morning, her body was discovered by her maid. She's been beaten about the head so hard it looked as though she'd been shot. Only a wallet was missing. Her sons (by her first husband) were the Clay brothers who started the Clay Center in Charleston. At the time of her murder, Lyle B. Clay was actually City Solicitor of Charleston. The chief suspect, never arrested, was the son in law.

I'm a historian, not a crime writer. I need your input on these two cases!

Julia's Find a Grave page includes a newspaper clipping about the murder:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=120729609

More 1953 MSM coverage here:

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1953/08/23/page/1/article/find-woman-newspaper-owner-slain

 

[STANDREID]

This case reminds me a little of another female newspaper publisher named Molly Zelko who was taken and presumed murdered in 1957 IL. That case is also unsolved but there is some suspicion that she was "taken out" because she was investigating some mob activity. The mob virtually never singled out women for murder so I wonder a little about that theory.

 

[daikon.radish]

I appreciate that this is an old thread, but I found this very informative:

 

[dotr]

Lengthy article with photos.
Oct 24 2020

• By Rick Steelhammer Staff writer

'Murder on Staunton Road' sheds new light on Charleston's chilliest cold case

''Sixty-seven years after the body of Charleston Daily Mail owner Juliet Staunton Clark was found sprawled in a pool of blood on the living room floor of her South Hills home, questions about her still-unsolved murder continue to outnumber answers.

The enduring mystery of Charleston’s highest profile homicide is explored in depth in “Murder on Staunton Road,” a book by Charlestonians Charlie Ryan and Mitch Evans. The book will be available at Charleston area bookstores and through Amazon starting Oct. 30.''

''According to the book, Clark was well-liked by the Daily Mail staff, who appreciated her relatively hands-off management style, along with her periodic newsroom drop-offs of food. She avoided controversy, choosing instead to become immersed in community and civic matters and maintaining connections with Charleston’s movers and shakers.

But some family members interviewed for the book described her as moody, subject to extreme highs and lows, to the point of being bipolar in the words of one descendant.''

'At one point during the investigation, the mayor spoke to a church group about the case, unaware that a Charleston Gazette reporter was in the audience. Copenhaver let it be known that the identity of the killer was known to him and police investigators, but there was not enough evidence available to mount a successful prosecution.

Several years later, Tom Tolliver, Clark’s gardener, who was questioned as a suspect in the early days of the probe, encountered Detective Fisher by chance in the Sterling Restaurant, and struck up a conversation about the case. Tolliver said Fisher told him “we had the person in hand, but the mayor wouldn’t sign a warrant for an arrest.”

 

[dotr]

o.co.uk

Charleston Gazette
https://metro.co.uk/2016/11/27/whit...nother-piece-of-trash-off-the-street-6286702/


Charleston Gazette

 

[CastlesBurning]

Missing file from 1953 homicide probe surfaces, sheds new light on city's darkest cold case

Lost for decades, a report recently has been found detailing the results of polygraph exams given to 18 Charlestonians in the weeks following the still-unsolved 1953 slaying of Charleston Daily Mail owner Juliet Staunton Clark.

The report surfaced following the October publication of “Murder on Staunton Road” by Charleston authors Charlie Ryan and Mitch Evans, a deep-dive revisitation of the city’s highest-profile homicide.

According to the authors, the polygraph report makes it apparent who investigators believed was responsible for the crime while clearing others whose words and actions had once raised suspicions.

Ryan and Evans were given the report on condition of anonymity by a Charleston resident who came into its possession sometime after 1960.