I'm currently going through the thread again and some thoughts pop up so I'm writing them down after reacquainting myself with some details.
I've now read that the fingerprints and palm print on the wall near phone
were Joan's. They were matched to prints that were taken when she was a schoolgirl in New Jersey. Many parents wanted their children fingerprinted as a response to the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby.
A unknown woman called her home after she went missing while her favourite aunt was there to provide emotional support to Joan's husband and children. The woman seemed confused and kept asking for Flossie. Joan's pet name for her aunt was Flossie. Few people would have known that name. Was it just a hoax?
I'm still not sure about the alcohol containers in the wastebasket. I've read conflicting reports regarding what her husband said about the empty liquor bottle and the beer bottles. He has stated he and Joan shared the last of the whiskey the night before (Monday night) and the beer was consumed by them on the weekend when they had company (lets presume Saturday night)
BUT he also said they finished the whiskey the night before but had no idea where the beer bottles came from. Was her husband truly forgetting about the beer and company or was he trying to cover for his wife because he didn't think it was respectable if women drank during the day? Surely, there was verification by LE regarding weekend company and that beer had been offered? Would Joan have left empty, stinky beer bottles in the kitchen wastebasket for nearly 3 days? Nothing worse than the smell of stale beer. I read one narrative that after her morning appointment she had done the dishes, made the beds and did a general tidying up, so why were those bottles still in the kitchen wastebasket?
It's a mystery to me why the wastebasket was right in the middle of the kitchen floor. It makes no sense at all. I've read the kitchen table was overturned. Are there any images available of the kitchen table to see where it was in relation to the wastebasket and wall phone? I It's also odd having an overflowing wastebasket in the kitchen when they had a breezeway leading to the garage. The breezeway or the garage are more likely locations to store trash until it was picked up. And according to the link below, the garbage men came by to collect trash that morning so why wasn't the whiskey and beer bottles put in the garbage? Could you return beer and alcohol bottles back then like you could with pop (soda) bottles? Is that why they were still there?
Here's a link to a blog that provides a lot of the names associated with the delivery guys and the time lines before, during, and after the dentist appointment. Some of the facts seem to contradict other sources of info, however, such as the finger and hand prints and whether they were later identified as Joan's or not. A few other details as well.
Massachusetts' most bizarre cold case still remains unsolved 61 years later. This is the strange case of Joan Risch.
wickedhorror.com
Lets suppose that Joan
was pregnant at the time of her disappearance and lets further suppose that she was unaware she was pregnant and drank and smoked. After watching the series Mad Men it's obvious that pregnant woman drank and smoked during their pregnancies since being pregnant wasn't a reason to stop back then.
I have also read that an anesthetic like lidocaine can have a detrimental effect on some individuals when it comes to excessive bleeding. It can exacerbate anemia and slow the blood clotting effect. Alcohol can do the same thing. Alcohol is a blood thinner, it increases estrogen levels which stimulates the endometrium resulting in heavier periods. Link:
How Does Alcohol Affect Your Period? - New Directions for Women. Would it further exacerbate a miscarriage, too?
If Joan
was pregnant and she wasn't aware of it yet, it's still possible that drinking alcohol combined with the lidocaine administered during the dental appointment could have instigated a miscarriage. Miscarriages and stillbirths can be one of the triggering factors in stroke in pregnant women. Strokes, including TIAs, can create confusion, memory, fainting and visual difficulties.
This is an interesting link:
Stillbirth and miscarriage are ‘specific risk factors for stroke’
What about this scenario? Joan comes home, picks up her son from her neighbour and goes into the house to make lunch for the kids. After lunch she sends Lillian outside to play with the neighbour's boy and does some light housework. She takes her son upstairs for his afternoon nap holding a clean pair of overalls and a diaper for him in case he needs changing. While she's getting him ready for his nap she feels a gushing of blood. Alarmed, instead of changing David, she uses his overalls to stanch the blood flow. She makes her way downstairs where the bathroom is, bleeding as she goes. The bleeding accelerates. Feeling faint from anxiety and losing blood she stumbles over to the little table holding the telephone directory to call an emergency number instead of heading to the bathroom. She leans on the table reaching for the phone book losing her balance in the process, tipping over the table and ends up sitting on the floor under the wall phone. She tries to get up using the cord to steady herself pulling the handset off the cradle in the process, disconnecting the cord. Not realizing what she's done, she leans against the wall leaving her bloody prints there and the phone before realizing the phone is dead. Sinking to the floor she crawls along smearing blood as she goes without leaving any footprints trying to make her way outside. And...... this is where I lose my theory because I can't find a logical link that has Joan walking upright again, donning her gray cloth coat, walking like a zombie and disappearing into the ether.
I'm still concerned that the
only narrative we have of Joan and the timelines of her day is from her neighbour who she dropped her son off to while she went to the dentist with her daughter. We have confirmation of Joan's attendance from the two individuals who delivered the mail and picked up Joan's dry cleaning. That person entered the home while Joan was there and picked up the items and said nothing appeared wrong or suspicious.
Barbara's timeline are always so specific. Instead of saying "around two", she says "at 1:55". She always seemed to be looking out the window or checking on the kids at the exact time Joan is walking around with her hands out in front of her, or at the exact time she trimming the hedge. Why is that? Was she a little resentful that Joan just sent her kids over there to play so she could tackle her own stuff.? Were they really friends or just acquaintances who availed themselves of each other when the kids were involved?
As for the coat hanger on the car roof, it could be the dry cleaning guy who dropped a coat hanger going back to his vehicle and the next tradesperson may have picked it up and put it on the car roof. We have their time confirmations but Barbara doesn't mention seeing either tradesmen.
I don't think the hanger has anything to do with a home abortion since a coat hanger is manipulated into a long piece of wire with a hook on the end. If Joan did have an abortion that day it may be more likely the dentist performed the procedure. I just can't see one being performed in the home. It would have been so risky what with children in the mix coming and going, neighbours popping over and various service people like the milkman and mailman.
The thing that still confuses me is that when she came home from the dentist and shopping Joan apparently changed her clothing. She hung up her trench coat and changed into a housedress and different shoes to start her household routines: feeding the kids, cleaning up, trimming some hedges, etc. so if there was some issue with her, whether it was some kind of spontaneous miscarriage, a life threatening ectopic pregnancy that caused a ruptured Fallopian tube or an unknown assailant who entered her home and attacked her, when did she have time to put on her older gray cloth coat, which is what her neighbour Barbara said she was wearing when she was in the garden walking around with her hands stretched in front of her?
It's also true that today forensics can differentiate between venous blood and menstrual blood; there is less hemoglobin in menstrual blood, but the only tool used back then was identifying blood type. It was type O which was Joan's blood type, the universal blood type and 40% of the world's population has it.
I don't feel any more enlightened than I did the first time I read the thread. I'm still not through it all yet. I still feel a certain disconnect from Joan's husband and the way he always seemed to depersonalize his children calling them 'the boy' or 'the girl'.
Lastly, every post that includes the PDF of the police report seems not to be accessible to me. The link is broken. Is there any other link that still works? Thanks.
Sorry for writing such a long missive. My apologies.
