The killer, back then, was nicknamed “The One-Armed Bandit” by newspapers across the country. The records reflect the outrage and uproar of the local citizens that the “Butcher Killer,” as he was known in Hagerstown, was never apprehended, though he was sought for decades.
There have been other notable criminal acts that have gone unsolved over the years. In 1947, a pretty young woman named Elizabeth Short, nicknamed “the Black Dahlia,” was found cut in half and mutilated in Los Angeles. The case remains unsolved and widely publicized. And to date, sixty people have tried to confess to the murder, though no one has been tried for it.
And then there was the Zodiac Killer, who murdered at least five known victims and maybe more in 1968. No one has been tried, even though over 2,500 potential suspects were investigated.
Consider Jack the Ripper, who evidently went to his own grave as an unknown killer. He might have been a well-respected person of the community in his day. No one ever figured out that very famous case. Some speculate that the Ripper was a member of the physician community.
I had made quite a few notes in my notebook, as I had become quite intrigued about the 1923 Hagerstown murders that this special woman, Lolita, had lived through. I likened Lolita to a big old oak tree that had stood for one hundred and ten years. I found it remarkable in a strange comparison that like the oak tree, Lolita had clearly weathered many a storm, and possibly hurricanes and tornadoes.
One hundred and ten years is a ton of time. So many people who were born in the early 1900s days died very young. Some died as infants or young children. Many died before reaching adulthood of various diseases and viruses, sicknesses that today are just minor inconveniences to us. So this woman was indeed unique. My main problem, as I saw it, was how to get any useful information out of someone so old that she may have lost most of her senses.
I pictured myself screaming at the top of my lungs, because she was probably wouldn’t be able to hear very well, or waving my hands about, as if she were an immigrant new to America who couldn’t speak the language. My mind raced with so many scenarios that I gave myself a headache. All I could visualize was Harold, the boss from hell, with a big smile on his face as he gave me my walking papers while cursing me out as the biggest loser in newspaper reporting history.
A half hour later, I started out again for Hagerstown. Maryland was known for crabs, something I had never acquired the taste for, although their other seafood was reported to be quite fresh and inexpensive. Something good, hopefully, as I may be eating more than working if my hunches are correct.
I had joked with Graham that the most exciting thing that ever happens in Hagerstown, Maryland, is probably when the Dunkin’ Donuts shop in town puts out the new donuts at 6:00 a.m.
The radio was playing loudly as I drove at a good clip for some twenty minutes, when it happened again. It was a Frank Sinatra song. I recognized it from the bars. Some of Sinatra’s songs are sad in one way or another, but this one hit me pretty hard. I remember listening to it in the bars many times, but this time it hit me harder, perhaps because I had no liquor in me to deaden the effects of the stabbing words that penetrated deep inside my brain, awakening once again the pain of losing Alicia and living without her. Lately, most songs felt hurtful because they brought back memories, but not as badly as this one did.
The song was “Cycles.” Sinatra sings about a fella who’s down and out because he’s just lost his girl and been fired around the same time. The words resonated deeply as I heard him sing, “So I’m down and so I’m out, but so are many others. So I feel like trying to hide my head ’neath these covers . . . . So, I’ll keep my head up high, although I’m kind of tired. My gal just up and left last week; Friday I got fired. You know, it’s almost funny, but things can’t get worse than now. So I guess I’ll try to sing; but please, just don’t ask me now.”
I glared at the radio and punched the button to change the station. I hit it so hard that my knuckle stung for about twenty seconds. And in return for my efforts, the station that popped on turned out to be a gospel station playing some crazy song about Jonah and the whale. I slapped at the on-off button to silence the radio as I shouted, “Holy shit!”
I floored the car, trying to make it feel my pain. In return, the car whined as it gunned forward to ninety-five miles per hour. At that moment, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about a possible ticket, or the cars I was passing and weaving in and out of. After about five minutes, I calmed down and returned my speed to around sixty-five. “Self-control, buddy!” I yelled at myself.
Out of habit, I thought of Alicia. I wondered where she was, what she was doing, and if she ever thought about me. I pictured her at night with the light off, just before she drifted off to sleep. I visualized her smiling with a twinkle in her eyes as she thought about me, wondering if I was all right, even though she had someone new in her life. I saw her as if she was thinking about me with a new woman in my life and wondering if I was happy. Then I snapped back to reality, knowing full well that I was the last person on her mind. And there was no way, with the light out at night, that Alicia would be thinking or caring about my well-being or happiness.
No, it was I who stared blankly into the darkness of the night, every night, after shutting off my light. It was I who thought of nothing but Alicia before falling off to sleep each night. It was I who tortured myself, unable to sleep every night as I lay there in my lonely, dark bedroom, visualizing her and wondering if she was holding on to her new boyfriend in bed at that moment and smiling into his eyes. Each time I visualized her, I plunged that dagger deeper into my heart. And I did this every night without fail. And the memory played forth so vividly, just like a movie.
I knew that I was subjecting myself to suicidal thinking every time I did this, yet I couldn’t seem to stop. Her beautiful face was clear as could be in my mind’s eye. Her eyes showed more love than ever before, and her smile was finer than anything, just the way I remembered it. Then, after an hour or so, I would fall off to sleep, exhausted and in pain. The next morning, I was still unrested from an endless internal battle of brain-battling dreams that made me wish I had taken some kind of zombie-producing drug. No wonder I’d been a screw-up for months.
I drove on in silence, the kind of silence that can be deafening at times, the kind where you realize that there are sounds actually inside your head that you never thought existed before. My sounds were like the humming that fluorescent lights sometimes give off. So I focused on the sounds of the road against the tires of my car and thought some more about the core of my assignment—the long life of Lolita Croome. I wondered about that phenomenal age of 110. Was it a blessing or a curse?
I thought on. Well, if one made it to the ripe old age of 110 and had his or her senses intact, it was truly a real blessing. But, then again, whoever makes it to 110 with all their senses: hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste? And what about other issues, such as walking, thinking properly, and being able to communicate? And then there are issues such as being able to feed oneself properly, washing, and taking care of other hygiene issues, such as going to the bathroom by oneself.
Of course, many people over the age of ninety have some, if not many, issues that require full- or part-time caregiver support. But still, I realized that as long as the communication skills remained—talking to, hearing, and comprehending of others—then life might still be pleasurable for the post-ninety population, even if confined to a wheelchair.
My research into senior citizens had showed that today more than 37 million people in the United States are sixty-five or older. In order to live to the ripe old age of 110, a person would have lived on earth for an astounding 40,150 days plus another approximately 270 days in the womb.
I already admired Lolita for nothing more than her amazing longevity. The odds were astounding. I would estimate that hitting a multi-million-dollar jackpot would be easier to achieve than reaching the age of 110.
Hours later, I was touring the old town of
Hagerstown, which had been located on the border between the North and the South during the Civil War, making it a prime staging area and supply hub for major campaigns during in the 1860s.
New estimates of deaths attributed to the Civil War are in the area of 750,000. It was a very troubled, painful time for the country. In only four years, three-quarters of a million lives were lost. There were at least five battles in Maryland. I felt sad as I drove down Hagerstown’s Main Street and thought about all those who died.
I got the feeling I was in the 1950s based on the architecture. It felt nice to drive around looking at the old concrete structures in the quaint town. I was slowly getting acclimated to the feel of it all. It reminded me a little of Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show of the 1960s—old buildings that last a lifetime.
I drove on, looking for the police station, the local library, the bars, restaurants, and places of worship. I studied the people, who seemed laid back compared to those in Washington, DC or New York, who seem to run a hundred miles per hour in many directions at once.
I parked for a while, keeping the radio’s stinging music off, not looking for any additional emotional letdowns for the day. I made some more notes about locations of various important landmarks I would find useful in my investigation and story about Lolita.
I had researched the year 1923 because, according to some vague notes supplied to me by the newspaper, that was when Lolita made certain documentations of her life and times. It is, of course, the job of the reporter to uncover and investigate through watching, talking, and digging up facts pertinent to the story.
The year 1923 was important because of the three young women killed. One of my goals was to learn more about those killings and determine who could have possibly committed them, although I realized that the investigation was colder than an iceberg. Such brutality in a small town in 1923 was unthinkable in those days. There could be a fabulous story for the newspaper in those unsolved 1923 murders.
I drove past the nursing home where Lolita lived. It was a one-floor, L-shaped, brick complex. My research showed that around 300 residents lived there, and although simple in design, the ratings of care and cleanliness were excellent, according to various independent firms in the health industry. It was one of the better facilities for hundreds of miles, according to a healthcare newspaper published online to mostly seniors. I had never been inside a nursing home and didn’t know what to expect.
The next day, I had an appointment to meet with representatives of Lolita, and with Lolita herself after her afternoon nap. I had to abide by certain rules, according to my specific instructions from the home and from my newspaper. They stressed that I not keep Lolita too long, and if she appeared tired, I should come back another time. Lolita’s daughter would be available for my meeting with her mother.
The daughter—Jennifer—was over eighty and would be there to assist me, although I understood that she was nervous about any interviews or publicity. She felt it was too much of a strain on her mother. I, of course, had no knowledge of Lolita’s physical condition, except that she was frail and in need of round-the-clock care.
I tried to think of whom I had ever known who was close to being that old, or even in their nineties. No one came to mind. Everyone I had ever known had died in their early eighties. My grandmothers had died at eighty and eighty-one, and both were in poor health. My mother’s mother suffered for years from Alzheimer’s disease; that mind-robbing disease ate away at my grandmother’s memory over a long period of time. Alzheimer’s can change a person’s personality, and it makes some people aggressive. And there comes a time, like in my grandmother’s case, when the patient doesn’t even recognize her own family members any longer. I imagine that the worst theft to happen to an older person is the theft of their mind; many other physical ailments can be managed with medical care, but the mind is what makes a person unique. To be robbed of their mind is a really cruel death in disguise.
Was Lolita a mere shell of the true person she once was, or had she retained her mind for such an advanced age? One thinks of their own mortality at such times. What would my mind be like as I grew older? Life comes with no guarantees, and many people die well in advance of reaching the age of eighty. I think life expectancy is somewhere around seventy-eight or so. I guess if we could take out a contract when born to reach an age of eighty—with all of our senses intact and in relatively good health—we would gladly sign on. Lolita, it turned out, had glided past eighty by thirty additional years. The more I thought about it, the more I marveled at the achievement!
Many contend that they would never want to go to a nursing home, and would rather be dead than be a resident in “one of those places.” I kind of agree. But I don’t believe I will make it to such an extended age to have to be concerned about such a decision. My drinking alone will no doubt shorten my life, and men usually die at a younger age than women do anyway.
The sidewalks of the Hagerstown shopping district were not crowded. People strolled casually, smiling and conversing with one another. Total strangers seemed to be quite friendly toward one another. I studied everything closely, taking in as much as I could as I aimlessly drove the streets in a five-block radius a few times, seeing if anything unusual caught my eye. Nothing did. It was the Mayberry R.F.D. show all over again but in the present day.
Even the gas station I entered seemed old-fashioned in many ways, and not as modern as the huge stations of today that seem almost like mini-supermarkets. I stopped to top off my tank and get a soda from the vending machine in front of the auto garage that had one stall and one mechanic. The station reminded me of the ones in the old black-and-white movies of many years ago.
The pimply-faced, blond teenager whose nametag read “Brian” stood around six-two and weighed no more than 140. He was very talkative and had an accent typical of the area. He was very interested in what I was doing there and where I was from. He resembled an older version of Opie from The Andy Griffith Show, jutting ears and all.
Brian’s eyes lit up when he found out I was a newspaper reporter from DC and was doing a story on one of the most famous people in modern-day Hagerstown.
“Of course, I know of Lolita! She is a real celebrity here. Everyone talks about her because no one here ever lives that long.” He beamed as he spoke, and his ears turned red.
When I asked more about her, he said, “I’ve never met her, but I’ve seen her pictures in the newspapers since she turned one hundred. I think she is sickly, but she still understands things for an old lady. And there have been many stories and even a few newscasts about her.”
The station had a few gas customers, and Brian hustled off to attend to them, excusing himself politely each time as he ran off. I parked my car to the side of the station and watched the grease monkey in the garage working deep inside an old car’s engine. There was an old-fashioned vending machine from what appeared to be many years ago. It contained real ten-ounce retro bottles. I put in my dollar’s worth of coins and pressed down the handle for a Diet Coke, which dropped down to the opening lower chute. I opened it using the bottle opener built into the machine and found a place to sit.
The bench on the right side of the station was nicely shaded and a good spot to continue my background information session with Brian about this little town that I already liked. Brian kept running back and forth between fill-ups. I think he was impressed with the reporter aspect of my angle.
We spoke about the history of Hagerstown and about the crime rate, which was almost nonexistent, according to young Brian. That prompted me to ask the all-important question I had been dying for answers to: “Brian, what do you know about the historic murders of 1923, the murders that went unsolved all these years?”
“Oh, yeah!” he said with a puzzled look. “I’ve heard about that from the old-timers in town.”
Brian ran off again to pump gas as I sat resting comfortably, sipping and thinking of additional questions to ask this eager young man. He had a couple of regu
lars that he was chatting with. One gentleman was standing outside the car and talking to him. Brian pointed in my direction, and I saw the older man nod. When Brian was finished with the two cars, he ran to the garage mechanic and chatted with him for a few minutes.
Brian hurried back and sat on the bench next to me, all excited. “The old guy at the pump knew about the killings and said that no one was ever charged, although there was suspicion about a couple of people—one was a doctor at the local hospital, and one was a widowed farmer. But no one ever served any time. It was a huge story back then, but no one even talks about it anymore because it was so long ago. Wally, the owner and mechanic, says his grandfather was one of the investigating officers in the case, and he believes there were three girls killed, all school-aged. He said they were mutilated, and some people thought that maybe a butcher or a wanderer from another state had something to do with it.”
We discussed the case some more. I gave my thoughts on the killer; Brian gave me directions to the library and the town hall. I left him sitting on the bench as I went to use the bathroom on the other side of the station.
As I was exiting the restroom, all hell broke loose. I heard screaming but didn’t know at first where it was coming from. Then I saw quick movements at the gas pumps and heard more yelling. Then I saw the tall attendant, Brian, getting clocked on the head with what appeared to be the butt of a rifle. As he went down hard, there were the loudest explosions I had ever heard—four explosions in succession. I quickly hit the deck and instinctively covered my head with my hands against the ear-shattering blasts.
If I could have disappeared into the pavement I was covering, I would have. I don’t think I was ever so flat against the ground in my life. It felt like an eternity, those thirty seconds, as I heard two more rounds being fired somewhere in the vicinity of the mechanic’s garage. I could hear the pinging of the ricocheting bullets and the screeching of the spinning, burning tires of the escaping culprit in what appeared to be an old convertible sports car.
Defying Death in Hagerstown Page 4