IN IN - Catherine Winters, 9, Newcastle, 20 March 1913

[marycarney]

A previous poster thought that New Castle was not too far from Chicagoland. In 1913, there was no interstate highway - in fact, there were very few miles of paved road period. New Castle IS on the National Road (now US 40 - which parallels I70), but the only major north-south road that might pass through Chicago was either the Dixie Highway (does not cross in to Indiana) or US41. I highly doubt that this angle is really viable, given the times.

as the King of Siam remarked, " 'Tis a puzzlement".

 

[Pink Panther]

The father re-married within a year of the first wife's death. Hoinky! No records to be found of the first wife's death...the only plausible record being in December of 1910 when he was already "married" to the step-mother. Has anyone else been delving into this?

New Castle - 1900, 3,406 people lived in the town. Not so many people...

At the end of his silent film, the father asks anyone with information to contact a local police man who (just happens to be) a direct relative of his second wife, Catherine's step-mother. Hoinky. Twice.

 

[Pink Panther]

In May of 1910, Byrd was listed as single and living with her Mother. In September, she married William. When did first wife Emily Etta (DeEtta) die?

 

[Pink Panther]

I've managed to find some interesting information. Emily DeEtta Whisler Winters (born April 27, 1881) married William Asa Winters on January 11, 1903. Emily was originally from Wisconsin and she moved to New Castle when she got married. Catherine was born on February 10, 1904. Her brother Frank was born on June 22, 1906. In November/December of 1908, Emily went to Salida Colorado due to poor health. She stayed there for several months and was transferred to a Sanitarium in Colorado Springs a few days before she died on April 17, 1909. Her death was unexpected as she seemed to have been recovering. The cause of death was believed to have been pneumonia.

William and Birdie O Ritter were actually married on May 7, 1910. (I made a mistake in my previous post about this as the certificate was registered under May-September.) The 1910 census for Birdie (taken May 2nd of that year) shows her listed as single and living with her parents. A few short days later she was married and living with William.

You can see a picture of William (and Byrd) here:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=101967365

 

[pianokiller]

The father re-married within a year of the first wife's death. Hoinky! No records to be found of the first wife's death...the only plausible record being in December of 1910 when he was already "married" to the step-mother. Has anyone else been delving into this?

New Castle - 1900, 3,406 people lived in the town. Not so many people...

At the end of his silent film, the father asks anyone with information to contact a local police man who (just happens to be) a direct relative of his second wife, Catherine's step-mother. Hoinky. Twice.

Remarrying quickly in that time was common; my grandmother's mother passed away and her father remarried a year later.

Husbands needed someone to watch the children, cook, do housework, etc.

 

[Robin Hood]

This is the best motive for murder- INSURANCE !

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10C14FD355F13718DDDAB0894DE405B848DF1D3

Edited to add many more articles in archive news.

 

[katydid23]

This is the best motive for murder- INSURANCE !

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10C14FD355F13718DDDAB0894DE405B848DF1D3

Edited to add many more articles in archive news.

But those charges were eventually dropped because there was no evidence that any of that was true, according to articles already posted.


http://kidnappingmurderandmayhem.blogspot.com/2008/04/strange-case-of-catherine-winters.html

A few months after his arrest, charges against Winters, his wife, and his boarder were dropped for lack of evidence. PI Abel, seeing his fee evaporating, used the newspaper pulpit to slam the local district attorney, then fled to Chicago when Dr. Winters threatened to sue him for defamation and false arrest.

 

[Robin Hood]

Yes Katy but not many people insure their children, that and the clothes in the cellar and conflicting reports is a little 'hinky'.

 

[pianokiller]

I thought the family was fairly well off already, so why kidnap/murder for insurance? Then spend years campaigning to find her?

It doesn't add up IMHO.

 

[STANDREID]

The first person who comes to my mind is Albert Fish who was known to travel, including to the Midwest, but I think he can pretty much be eliminated because he seemed proud confess his crimes. Of course, some killers don't always confess all their crimes because something may have happened that even he was ashamed of as with J.R.H. Christie who would confess to all his murders except that of little Geraldine Evans.

 

[Claudette]

This article claims she was kidnapped from her home.

Also there was a little girl in Arkansas that was thought to be her, so much so that the dad went all the way out there.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3LIyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8lMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3170,3658002&dq=catherine+winters+newcastle&hl=en

Picture of a mysterious unknown girl in Arkansas that was thought to be Catherine Winters.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-LYaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LkkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6371,5733209&dq=catherine+winters+newcastle&hl=en

Detective wanted to file first degree murder charges against step-mom and W. R. Cooper (who is that?) and it sounds like there was evidence.

Sounds like it was a frustrating case in the town with poitics being blamed.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PtRZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Y0oNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5279,3934907&dq=catherine+winters+newcastle&hl=en


Article May 30 1913, Dr. Winter and wife Byrd as well as boarder W. R. Cooper (answeres the question above) arrested in connection with disappearance of Catherine.

Arrests made after clothing worn when she went missing found sealed in a wall in the cellar. The sweater had holes in it like it was burned and looked like undershirt had blood.

Cooper left day after her disappearance and was gone for 10 days.

Catherine inherited property from her mom.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=93pfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yy8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2188,5132885&dq=catherine+winters+newcastle&hl=en

Dr's father and stepmom were also arrested

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00C1FFD345D13738DDDA80B94DD405B848DF1D3

Whaaaaaaaaat?

Two years later Detective claims she's alive and in a convent???
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VR5QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VAoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7253,1380297&dq=catherine+winters+newcastle&hl=en

I'm assuming this was not true because decades later are articles about her still missing.

 

[Bluejay_Young]

Not Fish's M.O., not his style, nothing about this suggests Fish at all.

Boy, would I love to see a DNA reading on that clothing.

 

[Mysteries1974]

New details surface in 104-year-old mystery of a missing 9-year-old | wthr.com
Based off this article, it sounds pretty probable that Cooper probably killed Catherine with the help of her stepmother. It’s possible she walked in on them having an affair and they killed her to keep her quiet.

 

[Tryagainnnnn]

The clothing in the basement....points to the crime having occured in the house...the attempted distrcution of the clothing could point to the fact that the clothing could have provided clues to the killer......the story that she was last seen outside...who told that? Was it one person or more? Also the stepmothers behavioer about the father being obbessed with find ing his daugther..could hint at tnsions between the child and the stepmother....

 

[MaryG12]

Catherine Winters Movie - YouTube

A (silent) movie from 1913 about the disappearance of Catherine Winters of New Castle Indiana. Movie was commissioned by her Dad.

RSBM

I will never be able to watch another silent film the same way ever again.

This was long before milk cartons as we know them which had photos of missing children on them.

Am thinking the step mother had something to do with Catherine's disappearance.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Little girl lost
On March 20, 1913, a 9-year-old girl named Catherine Winters left home wearing a red sweater and a straw hat with blue forget-me-nots, intending to sell sewing needles door to door for a church fundraiser. She walked the length of her Indiana town that morning, through the bustling business district, under the window of her father’s dentist office. She played with a friend who had a dollhouse. She greeted or was seen by a dozen or more acquaintances. Then—suddenly and forever—she disappeared.

The search continues
Writer Colleen Steffen has spent more than five years researching Catherine's story, unearthing a vast cache of newspaper articles and historical records devoted to her brief reign as the most famous missing child in America and the devastating consequences of her unsolved mystery on her family and town. Steffen—a newspaper feature writer and editor for 13 years and a journalism instructor at Ball State University—has written a historical nonfiction book about Catherine's life and times and is currently represented by the Sara Camilli Literary Agency.
Where is Catherine Winters?

*this is a very cool site

 

[LaneReading]

It all sounds CRAZY but a “medium” told me that Catherine came to the reading and she said, “I don’t believe her father and step-mother were involved. I do, however, believe William ‘Ross’ Cooper killed her and that her body could be found in/with Loraine”. The number 86 was significant to this case and that something happened to her left leg where it was damaged beyond repair while Catherine was still alive. Lastly, it’s not fully clear if Loraine is a town or a person but is certainly the location and is most likely a rural area that has McDonald’s but not a Starbucks.

We (the medium and I) didn’t know who Catherine was so had to do some research with the data given.

I hope this case is solved so that her soul can Rest In Peace.

 

[rainwaterstill]

I will simply point out that there is a Lorain, Ohio. It is roughly 30 miles west of Cleveland, at the mouth of the Black River. The city is situated along the shore of Lake Erie. Lorain, Ohio - Wikipedia

In previous long-past decades, a shipbuilding yard, a steel mill, and a Ford Motor Company assembly plant were all located in Lorain.

 

[Richard]

Catherine Winters, age 9, went missing on 20 March 1913

It has been 108 years since Catherine Winters disappeared, about noon on a sunny spring day in the middle of New Castle. People still are wondering how the bright 9-year-old daughter of prominent dentist W. A. Winters could have vanished, as one private detective said, "as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up."

Catherine, and her 7-year-old brother, Frankie, were out of school on March 20, 1913 because of a measles outbreak. The girl left home, 311 N. 16th St., about 9 a.m. that day to sell packages of noodles for a charity - and get some spending money for herself - and play with some friends.

Her father and stepmother, Byrd (Ritter) Winters, had told Catherine to be home for lunch promptly at 11 a.m. Dan Monroe, a family friend, said he saw Catherine walking in the 1100 block of Broad Street about 11:45 a.m. He was presumed to be the last person who saw her before she disappeared. But investigator Robert H. Abel said he later found a boy who said he had seen Catherine at 16th and Broad streets - 3 blocks from her home - about 12:15 p.m. Another witness claimed to have seen the girl at her home after noon.

Dr. Winters believed that gypsies had kidnapped his daughter until the day he died, in 1940. It was a popular theory, because a band of gypsies had passed through the city on a regular route of travel the day the girl disappeared. But Winters and local police officials tracked the band of gypsies to a location between Hagerstown and Economy, and Catherine was not with them. Private Detective A. G. Lunt, from the W. J. Burns Agency, tracked the band of gypsies all the way to Pittsburgh, PA. He was convinced that gypsies had not kidnapped the girl.

Another popular theory was that relatives had kidnapped the girl for a $6,000-$8,000 inheritance of Catherine's late mother, Etta (Whisler) Winters, who died in a Colorado Springs sanitarium in 1909, when Catherine was 5. Relatives in Wisconsin denied any knowledge of Catherine's whereabouts.

LINKS:

Where is Catherine Winters?

Mystery Still After 90 Years

 

[CeiliMom]

It all sounds CRAZY but a “medium” told me that Catherine came to the reading and she said, “I don’t believe her father and step-mother were involved. I do, however, believe William ‘Ross’ Cooper killed her and that her body could be found in/with Loraine”. The number 86 was significant to this case and that something happened to her left leg where it was damaged beyond repair while Catherine was still alive. Lastly, it’s not fully clear if Loraine is a town or a person but is certainly the location and is most likely a rural area that has McDonald’s but not a Starbucks.

I wonder if it was meant to be Luray instead of Loraine. Luray is 11-12 miles north of New Castle.