An interesting case I ran across a year or so back. I think a friend from the area mentioned it to me. It’s a 5-part article. The Merchant Murders.
I remember that case well. I was an Oakland Country resident and 12 at the time, so I was the same age as the victims. I remember that someone reported seeing a blue Gremlin in the vicinity of one of the child disappearances, so I kept a sharp eye out for blue Gremlins as I walked to school.
I also remember that my parents, who before that let me run around the neighborhood all day long like a stray cat (as was the parenting style of the time), suddenly cracked down and wouldn’t let me go anywhere by myself. In the colossally selfish way of youth, I remember thinking how unfair to me it was. I think it was only a few weeks before they eased up again, though, and I was free to roam the suburban streets again.
Just wanted to make a correction: the book by Hart is called The Bellamy Trial not The Bellamy Case, which is the name of a different book. In case all these years later someone is looking for it.
Fifteen years ago in West Atlantic City…essentially, a strip of motels along the Black Horse Pike…four women were found dead behind a motel along a salt marsh channel.
Unsolved.
Fifteen years later, West Atlantic City murders remain unsolved (pressofatlanticcity.com)
Very reminiscent of the Gilgo murders.
Can south Jersey residents chime in to comment?
Toronto: the Barry and Honey Sherman murders. Billionaire couple is found dead by their swimming pool… by a real-estate agent giving a tour of the house.
Update:
Apparently, authorities are looking into it.
Cops eye possible link between Rex Heuermann and Atlantic City sex workers (pix11.com)
Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann may have ties to unsolved murder cases in Atlantic City: authorities (fox29.com)
Just finished reading this book (thanks for the reco, @Roderick_Femm !). It’s definitely a page turner, but the 1920s language was unnecessarily flowerly and convoluted, so I was turning the pages slower than I expected. Were the “facts” in the novel the same as the real case? Because I’d forgotten this was based on a real case when I started to read it, and it read just like a murder mystery fiction. And I was fooled by the final resolution! I like to be fooled!
I don’t remember, in fact I’m not sure I ever knew. Since I wrote “very loosely based” 2.5 years ago, I’ll guess the facts are not identical. Especially the resolution, since in real life there doesn’t appear to have been one.
I just googled…could have done that before replying, duh…but no, the circumstances were different. Similar enough for the novel, but in the details quite different. No one was ever found guilty. Interestingly, it’s considered to first courtroom murder mystery novel. I liked how it was framed with the growing relationship between the novice “girl” report and the cynical NYC reporter.