Post by Nalkarj on Dec 4, 2018 17:11:30 GMT
One of the greatest and most unusual unsolved mysteries of them all. The Wikipedia article is here, but here’s a summary from Reddit:
On October 24, 1961, thirty-one-year-old wife and mother of two, Joan Risch disappeared from her residence in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Unknowingly at the time, this case would end up becoming one of the most well-known and perplexing unsolved cases to ever strike the state.
…
In the early hours on the day of Joan’s disappearance, nothing was out of the ordinary or amiss in the slightest. Martin Risch [her husband] left home earlier than usual to catch an 8:00 a.m. flight to New York City for business. Joan served breakfast to the children and then asked a nearby neighbor – Barbara Barker – if she wouldn’t mind babysitting her two-year-old son, David, so Joan could run errands in town with Lillian, her daughter.
Around 11:00 a.m. she was seen arriving back home with her daughter after attending the dentist and shopping for groceries. According to a few locals, both Joan and her four-year-old daughter seemed to be quite cheerful, albeit tired from the busy morning.
Sometime between 11:15 - 11:45 a.m. a delivery driver for a dry cleaning service arrived at the residence to pick up several of Martin’s suits that he regularly had maintenance. At 12:00 p.m. Joan put her two-year-old son, David down for his regular nap in the upstairs room of their home.
While David was napping, the neighbor, Barbara and her four-year-old son, Douglas, paid a visit to converse while Joan’s daughter, Lillian played with the neighbor’s child. This happened on a regular occurrence in their driveway(s). Shortly after, Barbara went back to her home, but both parents allowed the children to play together.
Throughout their playtime, Joan was tending to yard work and using the shears to help keep her garden plants healthy. Afterward, it was near 2:00 p.m. when she finished. From this point forward, things started becoming peculiar in more ways than one.
After finishing taking care of the plants, Joan took her daughter, Lillian and the neighbor’s son, Douglas across the road back to Barbara’s home without her knowledge. Joan then told the two children that she’d be back momentarily. Regrettably, that wasn’t the case.
At 2:15 p.m. Barbara was in her kitchen and happened to glance out of her window. She saw Joan wearing what appeared to be a trenchcoat and running in a haste while carrying an unidentified red item in her outstretched arms. As Barbara wasn’t aware that the children were back at her home, she merely assumed Joan was playing (and chasing) with the kids.
The children remained to play for a substantial amount of time, and eventually, Barbara went outside on her own accord to check up on the kids. Other than Joan’s not being anywhere outside, things were relatively normal. At approximately 4:00 p.m. Barbara guided Lillian back to her home because she intended to go shopping with her son, Douglas. She presumably thought Joan was inside, so after dropping Lillian off, she made her way back home.
Moments later, Lillian ran back to Barbara’s home and said, “Mommy is gone and the kitchen is covered with red paint.” Barbara went to investigate and saw the same thing. Furthermore, Joan’s two-year-old son, David, was crying upstairs in his crib because of needing his diaper changed. Terrified by the scene, she immediately called the police at 4:33 p.m.
When authorities arrived at the scene to conduct their investigation, many oddities stood out. In the kitchen, a table was overturned, and the phone generally mounted on the wall was dismantled and thrown into the wastebasket–which was also strange because the trashcan was typically under the sink now in the middle of the floor. On the counter an address director was open to an “emergency contacts” page, but no numbers were recorded.
Other items in the trashcan: an empty bottle of hard liquor that was finished the previous night between Martin and Joan and empty bottles of beer lying on top. This was considered a red flag because there wasn’t any beer in the household at the time, and it wasn’t bought by Joan in the morning hours in town with her daughter.
Paper towels and a pair of David’s overalls had seemingly been used in an attempt to mop up the flooring covered in blood.
The police found a bloody palm print, various fingerprints on various walls, and trails of blood leading from the upstairs to the kitchen, and then traced to Joan’s driveway – the location observed by Barbara when glancing out of her window.
The blood throughout the residence was taken for sampling and analysis and was a positive match for Joan’s (Type O).
During the conduction of the investigation, authorities called the hospital(s) in the area to see if a woman matching Joan’s physical description had arrived and to call them back if such a woman should arrive.
Authorities canvassed the neighborhood and questioned many residents. There were a handful of people who claimed seeing a blue and gray sedan parked in Joan’s driveway close to 3:00 p.m. Others reported that the same vehicle – and an unidentified male driving the car – was acting suspicious at a later time, with the possible person of interest getting out of his car, cutting tree branches from a nearby wooded area, and then placing them inside the vehicle before leaving.
However, the investigators dismissed their statements, saying the car that was seen was more than likely an unmarked police vehicle after their arrival from Barbara’s phone call (which happened at 4:30 p.m.). The witnesses insisted that the unfamiliar vehicle was there prior to authorities showing up to the home, but the police didn’t follow up on that.
Other witnesses came forward, saying they had seen a woman resembling Joan who’d been walking aimlessly near a construction site. They said she was clutching her stomach and there also appeared to be some form of substance on the woman’s legs. Some people describe it was mud, while others stated that it was blood.
As for suspects, the police questioned Joan’s husband, who was quickly cleared of having any involvement in his wife’s disappearance. They also ruled out the neighbors, mailman, milkman, and delivery driver picking up Martin’s business suits for dry-cleaning.
All the avenues pursued by investigators eventually lead to an unfortunate dead-end until a reporter for Lincoln, Massachusetts, found a new clue.
A few months before Joan Risch vanished, she’d checked out 25 books. Although she was an avid reader with an immense passion for literature, the books Joan were reading consisted of true crime and mystery, particularly dealing with murders and disappearances.
Even more staggering was the fact that a certain book Joan had recently read, titled Into Thin Air, had a plot revolving a woman disappearing from her home, and the only evidence left behind was blood stains in the house that were smeared with towels.
Some of her friends described her as an incredibly devoted housewife that loved her family, while others reported her being ambitious and quite unfulfilled in her life as a homemaker.
There has not been any shortage of theories and wild assumptions regarding Joan Risch’s disappearance, but none has been able to provide adequate answers on what happened that afternoon on October 24, 1961.
Martin Risch and the two children continued to move forward in their lives albeit suffering from the gaping hole of not having answers to the whereabouts of Joan. Lillian and David managed to lead successful lives. Martin, however, adamantly believed his wife was still alive, but suffering from a case of amnesia. He refused to change phone numbers holding onto hope that Joan might possibly make a phone-call. He never remarried, and in 2009, Martin Risch passed away without having any form of closure.
…
In the early hours on the day of Joan’s disappearance, nothing was out of the ordinary or amiss in the slightest. Martin Risch [her husband] left home earlier than usual to catch an 8:00 a.m. flight to New York City for business. Joan served breakfast to the children and then asked a nearby neighbor – Barbara Barker – if she wouldn’t mind babysitting her two-year-old son, David, so Joan could run errands in town with Lillian, her daughter.
Around 11:00 a.m. she was seen arriving back home with her daughter after attending the dentist and shopping for groceries. According to a few locals, both Joan and her four-year-old daughter seemed to be quite cheerful, albeit tired from the busy morning.
Sometime between 11:15 - 11:45 a.m. a delivery driver for a dry cleaning service arrived at the residence to pick up several of Martin’s suits that he regularly had maintenance. At 12:00 p.m. Joan put her two-year-old son, David down for his regular nap in the upstairs room of their home.
While David was napping, the neighbor, Barbara and her four-year-old son, Douglas, paid a visit to converse while Joan’s daughter, Lillian played with the neighbor’s child. This happened on a regular occurrence in their driveway(s). Shortly after, Barbara went back to her home, but both parents allowed the children to play together.
Throughout their playtime, Joan was tending to yard work and using the shears to help keep her garden plants healthy. Afterward, it was near 2:00 p.m. when she finished. From this point forward, things started becoming peculiar in more ways than one.
After finishing taking care of the plants, Joan took her daughter, Lillian and the neighbor’s son, Douglas across the road back to Barbara’s home without her knowledge. Joan then told the two children that she’d be back momentarily. Regrettably, that wasn’t the case.
At 2:15 p.m. Barbara was in her kitchen and happened to glance out of her window. She saw Joan wearing what appeared to be a trenchcoat and running in a haste while carrying an unidentified red item in her outstretched arms. As Barbara wasn’t aware that the children were back at her home, she merely assumed Joan was playing (and chasing) with the kids.
The children remained to play for a substantial amount of time, and eventually, Barbara went outside on her own accord to check up on the kids. Other than Joan’s not being anywhere outside, things were relatively normal. At approximately 4:00 p.m. Barbara guided Lillian back to her home because she intended to go shopping with her son, Douglas. She presumably thought Joan was inside, so after dropping Lillian off, she made her way back home.
Moments later, Lillian ran back to Barbara’s home and said, “Mommy is gone and the kitchen is covered with red paint.” Barbara went to investigate and saw the same thing. Furthermore, Joan’s two-year-old son, David, was crying upstairs in his crib because of needing his diaper changed. Terrified by the scene, she immediately called the police at 4:33 p.m.
When authorities arrived at the scene to conduct their investigation, many oddities stood out. In the kitchen, a table was overturned, and the phone generally mounted on the wall was dismantled and thrown into the wastebasket–which was also strange because the trashcan was typically under the sink now in the middle of the floor. On the counter an address director was open to an “emergency contacts” page, but no numbers were recorded.
Other items in the trashcan: an empty bottle of hard liquor that was finished the previous night between Martin and Joan and empty bottles of beer lying on top. This was considered a red flag because there wasn’t any beer in the household at the time, and it wasn’t bought by Joan in the morning hours in town with her daughter.
Paper towels and a pair of David’s overalls had seemingly been used in an attempt to mop up the flooring covered in blood.
The police found a bloody palm print, various fingerprints on various walls, and trails of blood leading from the upstairs to the kitchen, and then traced to Joan’s driveway – the location observed by Barbara when glancing out of her window.
The blood throughout the residence was taken for sampling and analysis and was a positive match for Joan’s (Type O).
During the conduction of the investigation, authorities called the hospital(s) in the area to see if a woman matching Joan’s physical description had arrived and to call them back if such a woman should arrive.
Authorities canvassed the neighborhood and questioned many residents. There were a handful of people who claimed seeing a blue and gray sedan parked in Joan’s driveway close to 3:00 p.m. Others reported that the same vehicle – and an unidentified male driving the car – was acting suspicious at a later time, with the possible person of interest getting out of his car, cutting tree branches from a nearby wooded area, and then placing them inside the vehicle before leaving.
However, the investigators dismissed their statements, saying the car that was seen was more than likely an unmarked police vehicle after their arrival from Barbara’s phone call (which happened at 4:30 p.m.). The witnesses insisted that the unfamiliar vehicle was there prior to authorities showing up to the home, but the police didn’t follow up on that.
Other witnesses came forward, saying they had seen a woman resembling Joan who’d been walking aimlessly near a construction site. They said she was clutching her stomach and there also appeared to be some form of substance on the woman’s legs. Some people describe it was mud, while others stated that it was blood.
As for suspects, the police questioned Joan’s husband, who was quickly cleared of having any involvement in his wife’s disappearance. They also ruled out the neighbors, mailman, milkman, and delivery driver picking up Martin’s business suits for dry-cleaning.
All the avenues pursued by investigators eventually lead to an unfortunate dead-end until a reporter for Lincoln, Massachusetts, found a new clue.
A few months before Joan Risch vanished, she’d checked out 25 books. Although she was an avid reader with an immense passion for literature, the books Joan were reading consisted of true crime and mystery, particularly dealing with murders and disappearances.
Even more staggering was the fact that a certain book Joan had recently read, titled Into Thin Air, had a plot revolving a woman disappearing from her home, and the only evidence left behind was blood stains in the house that were smeared with towels.
Some of her friends described her as an incredibly devoted housewife that loved her family, while others reported her being ambitious and quite unfulfilled in her life as a homemaker.
There has not been any shortage of theories and wild assumptions regarding Joan Risch’s disappearance, but none has been able to provide adequate answers on what happened that afternoon on October 24, 1961.
Martin Risch and the two children continued to move forward in their lives albeit suffering from the gaping hole of not having answers to the whereabouts of Joan. Lillian and David managed to lead successful lives. Martin, however, adamantly believed his wife was still alive, but suffering from a case of amnesia. He refused to change phone numbers holding onto hope that Joan might possibly make a phone-call. He never remarried, and in 2009, Martin Risch passed away without having any form of closure.
I subscribed for the longest time to the theory that she’d gotten a then-illegal and botched abortion–thus the blood, the beer, the red thing in her hands, etc.–but someone on Reddit pointed out
…so much of it doesn’t make sense. Where did she go? It’s unlikely she could have hid her own body well enough to not be discovered 56 years later. Maybe the abortionist drove her somewhere and dumped her so they wouldn’t loose their medical license. But then why was she seen walking down the road by several people? Maybe those were false sightings. But now we’ve lost the detail about the blood on her legs that made us think botched abortion in the first place. Maybe she escaped from the car? But she wasn’t really walking fast enough for it to have been difficult for a person to catch up to her in a car. Maybe they let her out on purpose. But then, again, where did her body go? Maybe she fakes her disappearance after reading all those books. But this is a ridiculously complicated way to do it, and why involve another person (the handprint on the wall and car in driveway) or make yourself bleed that much to do it. Also none of her everyday stuff was missing, it would be tough to start completely over and still not be discovered for 56 years.
More Reddit theorizing here.