OH OH - "The Red Shoe Mystery" - Lola Celli, 24, Grandview Heights, Feb 1946

Sixty Eight years ago on February 23, 1946, twenty four year old Lola Celli was never seen again as she left her parents home in Grandview Heights, Ohio to go shopping.

Thinking about Lola and wondering what happened to her sixty eight years ago today.
 
The Ohio State Journal was the only Columbus newspaper to publish an article about Lola Celli one year after her disappearance.

Ohio State Journal Saturday February 22, 1947

‘A Perfect Girl’
Celli Case Restudied In New Clue Quest
Teacher Disappeared Year Ago Sunday;
Chief Livingston Reveals Fresh Effort

• On the eve of the first anniversary of Lola Celli’s disappearance, Chief Livingston and his staff at Grandview Heights Police was looking over the case file again for any overlooked clue that may lead to a break in the curtain of mystery.

• No trace has ever been found of Lola Celli.

• The anniversary will mark a year of running down false tips, investigating worthless leads, and following possible trails throughout the state, but always ending against a blank wall.

• Chief Livingston fears that the investigation won’t turn anything up.

• On Friday February 22, 1946, Lola spent the day quietly at home.

• Lola told her mother that she planned to go Downtown on Saturday morning Feb. 23 to open a charge account in order to purchase some hose.

• Lola never opened the charge account at the store.

• When Lola failed to return home by 7:00 pm on Saturday February 23, 1946, her brother Felice Celli walked to the bus stop to wait for his sister. The Celli Family began calling friends and neighbors, and finally police.

• The last person known to have seen Lola was a neighbor, who saw her walking down West Third Avenue towards the bus stop.

• When the neighbor boarded the bus at another corner, Lola was not aboard that bus.

• Charactering Lola as a ‘perfect girl’, her family said that Lola would not have accepted a ride from a stranger unless she was forced to. Lola did not smoke, drink, and had no boy friends.

• Lola's close friend and fellow teacher at whose home Lola roomed, said Lola was extremely intelligent and well liked.

• Lola’s record at the school where she teached was very good and the students were all fond of her.

• Although the reward for information regarding Lola grew to more than five hundred dollars, every lead ended in failure.

• “Murder, suicide, abduction, amnesia, and voluntarily disappearance have all been advanced as theories and with much logical reasoning to support them, but police still do not know the answer”.

• Chief Livingston said that “All we can do is hope that someday we will know”.
 
I'm in UK so I wouldn't know how to file one either :(

The East area rapist sent a poem to LE and IIRC wrote something on a bathroom wall.

Was it also the 'Lipstick' killer that wrote on the bathroom mirror ?

There was another young child killed and the perp wrote something on a barn and sent notes to children by putting them in the cycle baskets of their bikes.

Zodiac liked to taunt too.

I seem to recall the Black Dahlia had some correspondence going on as well.

I think it's part of the game, the control, the 'catch me if you can' psychopathy.
Yeah the Zodiac didnt use the 'Cut and Paste' method in his screeds to Newspapers and the Police but the Black Dahlia Killer sure did in 1947.
Of course film buffs could probably confirm or refute this but I think this was a fairly common prop in Noir 30's and 40's crime movies:the Cut and Paste Ransom Note.
So it may not indicate much in either case.
 
I think that either Marilynpa or MaryLiz (posters on this forum,) have sat down with a detective and gone through the file. I can't remember which one it was, but you could look at their old posts.I would check with them to see they have knowledge of what you are looking for. I believe the police were cooperative, but Grandview has a very small police department and being inundated with requests by many people may temper their cooperation. A FOI request would probably not be the appropriate route, unless the FBI was involved at all, which is possible, I am just not aware.

It was Marilynilpa who spoke with a detective over the phone, I believe. IIRC Marilynilpa never went to Grandview, but she wanted to. We spoke about me driving to Columbus to meet up and both of us going to talk to the detective. But as AnaTeresa and nerosleuth both said, the Grandview police are working other cases. I would still like to go someday with Marilyn to see the file. It's a fascinating case.
 
It was Marilynilpa who spoke with a detective over the phone, I believe. IIRC Marilynilpa never went to Grandview, but she wanted to. We spoke about me driving to Columbus to meet up and both of us going to talk to the detective. But as AnaTeresa and nerosleuth both said, the Grandview police are working other cases. I would still like to go someday with Marilyn to see the file. It's a fascinating case.

Yes, the murder from last summer is still unsolved. I think I heard on the news that they've had the FBI in for a consult. I don't know how many detectives they have, but they might be all hands on deck right now, since Grandview is such a small community.
 
I'm new here. This case is fascinating and the lengths you are going to in researching the cases is impressive! I love it!

As others, I keep coming back to the neighbor/childhood friend. Was his story of searching the dept store for 2-3 hours corroborated?

Also, IF she did run off to get married. I also believe she would have contacted her family. However, I'm not convinced the family would admit it if it was a scandalous situation. They may have preferred everyone think she was abducted than know the truth.

Just my thoughts. So glad I found this website.
 
Something that I was thinking... why do we think she disappeared on her way to the bus?

Is it because of the childhood friend's testimony?

There could be some sort of explanation why he didn't see her on the bus. Maybe it was crowded and they didn't notice each other. Maybe she made a detour or took a earlier or later bus.

Maybe he's mistaken about not seeing her on the bus being significant, I'm not saying her is or that he's lying. But let's say he got distracted after having spotted her on the street, doing something at home, maybe even ran late with getting dressed to go out. He takes the bus and looks around to check if she's on it. She isn't. Later on when he hears that she's missing he recalls that but is distraught enough and doesn't remember he'd run late and took a later bus or a different one. This is just an example.

I wonder if she could have disappeared later on when downtown and not on the way between her home and the bus stop. I wonder what shop she went to for the nylons? Did she go to a certain store (maybe a shop where her family members went regularly)? Or just any?

I think that if she disappeared while downtown there are many more possibilities or if she took a detour (to the church for example) instead of having been abducted on the short way between her home and the bus stop.

:twocents:

I'm new here. This case is fascinating and the lengths you are going to in researching the cases is impressive! I love it!

As others, I keep coming back to the neighbor/childhood friend. Was his story of searching the dept store for 2-3 hours corroborated?

Also, IF she did run off to get married. I also believe she would have contacted her family. However, I'm not convinced the family would admit it if it was a scandalous situation. They may have preferred everyone think she was abducted than know the truth.

Just my thoughts. So glad I found this website.

Welcome :seeya:

I don't remember the childhood friend's search of the dept store. Do you have a source or link for that information? Not doubting you here - just interested in knowing more details, was this when he got a phone call (presumably) from her family and decided to help search or after he noticed she wasn't on the bus?

I wonder if it was corroborated too. I assume that there would have been people who saw him at the store, maybe even employees who spoke to him that day.

I don't believe Lola ran off to get married and much less that her family knows. I think that if they knew they would at least let the case die down a bit whereas it seems that for years after they were still talking to press and trying to look for her. I think if they knew they would just seem to come to terms with her disappearance. :twocents:
 
Very interesting case and legwork from all my fellow sleuths!! These type of cases make me sad as they may never be solved with age and all the witnesses and family passing away by now .. still I am intrigued!! Poor Lola ..

Reading the posts, my initial thought too was about the neighbor boy/friend .. something doesn't sit well with me, but then again, I tend to always have doubts with witnesses who are the "last" to see the missing person ...
 
The neighbor living across the street from Lola's parents--lived with his mother, according to the newspapers. His dad could have been alive during the 1940 Census (below), but died by the time Lola vanished.

Does anyone know how house numbers ran on West 3rd Avenue in the 1940s? Were odd-numbered houses (example: 1, 3, 5, 7) on one side of the street, and even-numbers (example: 2, 4, 6, 8) on the other side? Or did they run consecutively: 1, 2, 3, 4 on one side of the street, and 5, 6, 7, 8 on the other side?

Series: T627 Roll: 3068 Page: 18-B
On the April 25, 1940 Census:
Lola Celli (age 18), lived with: her parents, Michael (age 43) & Ida (age 39); her brother Felix (age 17); and her sister Elda (age 8); at 1783 West 3rd Avenue, Franklin Township, Grandview Heights City, Franklin County, Ohio. In 1935, the family resided in the same place (which means the same area but not the same house).

Michael's Occupation: Painter & Odd Jobs. Ida's Occupation is illegible. Michael and Ida both have 8 years of education. Lola and Felix both have 2 years of high school.

The Celli household was the first home listed for West 3rd Ave. It was about one-third of the way down sheet 18-B. The names above them were on West 1st Ave.

The 1940 Census had two people on each sheet answer extra questions. Lola was one of the two. Info given: Lola was a student. Both her parents were born in Italy. We already knew the latter from the regular section, which listed Elda's birthplace as Ohio and everyone else's as Italy.

Other Houses Listed below them on West 3rd Avenue – Sheet 18-B:

1796: La TEDESCHI, Antonio (49) head, Mary (46) wife, Rose (21) daughter, and Vincent (age 20) son.

1802: Had 3 sections of the same family listed, without a line break between them, living in the same house:
LANE, Samuel (65) head, Consiglia (59) wife.
FRAZZINI, Margaret (36) Daughter, Mary or May (17) granddaughter, Elsio(sp?) (14) granddaughter, Nancy (12) granddaughter, Margaret (8) granddaughter, Edward (6) grandson.
LANE, Anna (34) daughter, Jannie (28) daughter, Joseph (26) son, Harry (21) son.

1809: CLIFTON, John F. (57) head, Blanche L. (46) wife, Lucille B. (16) daughter.

1819: McCARTHY, Felix P. (48) head, Ann M. (42) wife.

(1823: the last two digits--23--had a line drawn through them, and 16 written above them = 1816)
1816: FINNALL, William C.? or G.? (38) head, Thelma (37) wife. (I don't know if they had any kids because Thelma was the last line on the sheet.)

The census taker's vowels were written so tiny (and his capital letters written with swirls) I found them hard to decipher sometimes. There's a William H. FINNELL on Find-a-Grave. Born 1896, died 1972, buried in Franklin County. He would have been 44, not 38, in 1940.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GSfn=William&GSmn=&GSln=Finnell&GSbyrel=in&GSby=&GSdyrel=in&GSdy=&GScntry=4&GSst=37&GScnty=2064&GSgrid=&df=all&GSob=n

So, Page 18-B gives us only 2 names of males reasonably close enough to Lola's age to be her childhood friend. And I don't know which side of the street they lived on. I can't access Page 19 without going to the library. I'm unable to do that anytime soon.

Hope this helps a bit.

Just looking over Google Maps and both 1802 and 1796 West 3rd Ave were across the street, neighboring houses, from Lola's parents house ... 1802 was on the corner of 3rd Ave and Glenn Ave and 1796 was right next door (closer to Lola's house) ... the bar to the right of their home (on the corner of 3rd and Westwood) is now called the Rude Dog Bar and Grill (according to google maps today) ...
 
Seventy years ago today on Saturday February 23, 1946, twenty four year old Lola Celli left her parents home in Grandview Heights, Ohio to go on a shopping trip to Downtown Columbus. Lola Celli was never seen or heard from again after she left her parents home.

Thinking about Lola Celli today and wondering what happened to her seventy years ago.
 
Seventy years! Amazing that she's never been located.
 
Can someone point me to the info that says the neighbor's mother was home when he was? I have read every thread and do not recall that.
 
I wonder what 'cleared' you back then ? You have a witness saying he followed her on the day she disappeared and.... nothing ???
 

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