Transcription
Today we are looking at a case from the early 20th century. So sit back as we go to the USA.
[Music]
Eleanor Maud Parr line, better known as Nora, was born in 1886 in China. She was a daughter of English parents who lived in East Asia. As Nora's father worked as an engineer on a steamship, one evening in 1890, while the ship was at sea, he disappeared. And despite the crew searching both on board and in the ocean, they failed to find him. He was never seen or heard from again.
Nora's mother, named Alice, then decided to leave China and went to live in San Francisco. Where, in 1891, she met and married a gentleman named Wilfred W. Fuller. At first, the marriage was good, and Wilfred provided for Alice's two children, Louie and Nora. They also had two children of their own, a girl named Sybil and a boy named Wilfred, after his father. The couple did their best to bring up the four children, but they started to experience financial hardship. In 1898, they divorced. Alice and her children went to live at 1747 Fulton Street, but her financial situation didn't improve.
Nora was a sensible and sensitive girl, and in 1902, when she was 15 years old, she asked her mother if she could leave school and find employment. She thought that this would help to ease the family's financial worries. Alice was a bit concerned about this proposition, but she could see that Nora wanted to help and seemed determined to find employment, so she agreed.
Nora eagerly searched the situations vacant pages of the local newspapers, and on January the 8th, an advertisement appeared in the newspaper *The Chronicle*. It read: "Wanted young girl to take care of a baby, good home and good wages. Anyone interested in this should apply care of *The Chronicle*." Nora was excited by this. She was good with children, as she often took care of her younger siblings. She asked her mother if she could apply. Her mother was slightly hesitant, but seeing how excited her daughter was about the opportunity, she agreed, and together they wrote a response to the advertisement.
Three days later, on Saturday the 11th of January, Nora received a response from a man named John Bennett. The response read: "Miss Fuller, in answer to your response to my advertisement, kindly call at The Popular Restaurant, 55 Geary Street, and inquire for Mr. John Bennett. Please come at one o'clock. If you can't come at one, come at six."
Saturday came, and shortly after 5 p.m., Nora said goodbye to her mother, brothers, and sister. And clutching Mr. Bennett's message nervously, made her way to the restaurant at 55 Geary Street. Nora's mother stayed at home with her other three children. About an hour later, she heard the telephone ring, but before she could get to it, it had been answered by her eldest son. The voice at the other end of the telephone, that sounded a bit like Nora, told him that she was at 1500 Geary Street, the home of Mr. Bennett. She said that she had been offered the position and he wanted her to start straightaway. Louie relayed this to his mother, who told him to tell Nora to come home and start work on Monday the 13th of January. Louie repeated the message, and the voice at the other end of the line said, "Alright," and hung up. But Nora did not come home.
After he received the telephone call from Nora, or someone who sounded like Nora, Louie went out and came back at around 11 p.m. As he entered the house, his mother greeted him. She was crying and frantic with worry, as Nora had not returned. Louie told his mother not to worry and went to The Popular Restaurant to see if anyone was still there, but he was so late, the restaurant was already closed. He then went to 1,500 Geary Street, which is the address he had been given as to where his sister was going to work. But when he arrived, there was no house. The address was just a vacant lot. He returned and told his mother, who was beside herself with worry.
The following day, Nora's mother, Alice Fuller, contacted the police. Detective Coleman was assigned to the case, and after interviewing Alice and her children, he went to the restaurant. He spoke to the owner, a well-known gentleman named Mr. F.W. Crone. He told the detective that on the 11th of January, at about 5:30 in the evening, a man who over the years had visited the restaurant on a number of occasions, came to the counter and stated that he was expecting a girl to meet him there. So, if anyone asked for Mr. John Bennett, they should be directed to the table where he was seated. No such girl, however, ever arrived, and the man left. Mr. Crone did add that he saw this man walking up and down the street for a while afterwards, but a few minutes later, he disappeared.
The detective asked him to describe the man who called himself John Bennett, and Mr. Crone said that he looked about 40 years old, five feet nine inches tall, and probably weighed about 170 pounds. He had a brown mustache and was very well dressed. Interestingly, he added that whenever the man had previously visited the restaurant, he would always order porterhouse steaks, would only ever eat the tenderloin parts. The staff found this a little odd, and between themselves would always refer to him as "Tenderloin."
Three days later, with only the lead from the restaurant, the police briefed local journalists on the disappearance. Detective Coleman interviewed 17-year-old Matt Graham, who had been a good friend of Nora's since June 1901, when she had boarded in the Fuller's house for a short time. She told the detective that Nora often spoke to her about a friend she had. His name was Bennett. She said Nora regularly telephoned him, and once told her mother that she and her mother were going to the theater, when in fact Nora was meeting Mr. Bennett. The man suggested that the advertisement may have been some sort of trick, conceived by Mr. Bennett and Nora, so they could run away together.
Another gentleman named Mr. Mink, who ran a local grocery store, told the detective that Nora would regularly make telephone calls from his phone to someone in a hotel. He found this strange, as he knew that she had a telephone in her house. But despite the additional information and the interest from the press, the police were no nearer to finding Nora Fuller.
On February the 8th, a rent collector named Fred Crawford, who worked for the property agency named Anson & Co., reported that a recently rented property at 2211 Sutter Street had still not been occupied. He considered this unusual, as he knew that a tenant had taken on the lease a month earlier, and when he called to collect the rent, it looked like it was empty. The manager asked Fred Crawford and another employee named Mr. Deane to return to the property to see why the tenant had not moved in. He gave them a spare key and told them that if the property looked empty, they could use the key to enter it and see what was going on.
The two men arrived at 2211 Sutter Street. They knocked, but there was no answer. They noticed there was no furniture on the ground floor, and after a brief discussion, decided to enter the property. They looked around, and it looked like no one had been there for a while. There was no cooker, no plates, and no food. The property was damp, and there was a strange, rather unpleasant smell. They made their way upstairs, where they saw that there were a couple of items of furniture, but no evidence that the property was occupied. When they went to a back room, they saw that the door was closed. It seemed very strange, as all the other doors had been left open. Fred slowly opened it and peered inside. The room was dark, the curtains were closed, but he could see some bright objects on the floor.
Fred and Mr. Deane felt there was something not quite right about the whole setup, so hurried out of the building. But their experience and intuition made them think that they needed to see what was inside the back room. They sat down and considered what to do. When at the corner of the street, they saw a policeman, Officer Gill. They rushed over and asked him to accompany them back to the house. He agreed, and the three men entered the property, led by the officer. They made their way upstairs and entered the back room. Officer Gill walked to the window to open the curtain, and as he turned on the light, his attention turned to the beds. Were laying covered in pristine white sheets was the body of a young girl. Officer Gill immediately realized that the deceased could be the missing girl, Nora Fuller, so sealed the property and reported back to the station.
Detectives soon arrived and conducted a thorough search of 2211 Sutter Street. There was not much there, only a folded blanket, a quilt on the beds, and a chair in the corner of the room. In the lounge, they found a discarded cigar and an almost empty bottle of whiskey. Many letters were also found, addressed to Mrs. C.B. Hawkins, many of which were from furniture stores. One thing that particularly interested the police was a letter addressed to Mr. Hawkins and bearing a postmark of the 21st of January, which was ten days after Nora Fuller had last been seen. The letter had been opened and carefully placed in the deceased girl's jacket. There was, however, no trace of the postcards Nora had received from John Bennett. Mrs. Alice Fuller identified the clothing as belonging to her daughter, and when she had the traumatic task of identifying the body, she confirmed that it was Nora.
A post-mortem was ordered, and it was concluded that the cause of death was strangulation. A toxicologist examined the deceased's stomach and found no evidence of drugs or poisons. The papers had been reporting about the missing girl since January the 16th, and it had become a topic of conversation in San Francisco. Now, however, it was considered a high-profile case, and a leading detective named John Seymour took control of the investigation. The police had found Nora's purse, which contained a business card from a gentleman named Mr. M. Sever Brennick. He was traced but quickly eliminated from their inquiries, as he had sailed to China three hours before Nora left home on January the 11th.
Detective Seymour turned his attention to John Bennett and C.B. Hawkins. But who were these two elusive characters? He spoke to the staff of Anson & Co.'s real estate office, who were the agency responsible for finding a tenant for the property where Nora was found. Their records showed that on the 8th of January, a man named Mr. C.B. Hawkins visited their office and inquired about the possibility of renting the property at 2211 Sutter Street. The staff remembered him as a very well-dressed gentleman, and he agreed to take the house but said he was unable to provide references, as he was new to San Francisco. He did, however, pay one month's rent in advance, so the contract was drawn up, and the gentleman signed it in the name of C.B. Hawkins. The staff recalled that during their conversations with him, he had told them that he was currently staying with his wife at the Golden West Hotel. The description that the staff gave of this gentleman was almost identical to the description of Mr. John Bennett given by the owner and staff of The Popular Restaurant.
When the police checked the Golden West Hotel, the clerk named Edward Petrie found no record of a guest by the name of C.B. Hawkins, but he confirmed that a man of that name had mail sent there. The detective then started to trace the furniture in the house. There were only a few items, but the real estate agent had confirmed that the house was empty when the tenant took possession of it. They visited the J.C. Cavanaugh Furniture Store at 848 Mission Street, where they discovered that on the 9th of January, a well-dressed gentleman fitting the description of the man known as Hawkins or Bennett entered the store and said that he temporarily wished to furnish a room. He purchased two secondhand pillows, a pair of blankets, and some sheets. The man told the assistants that the items must only be delivered at night. He gave the address of 2211 Sutter Street. He was remembered by the store staff, as he had a very elegant silk hat.
The delivery boy told Detective Seymour that when he took the items to the address, the man, who was still wearing the hat, answered the door and instructed him just to leave the items in the hallway, which he did and left. The bed and the chair were traced to the Standard Furniture Company at 745 Mission Street. The staff confirmed that the gentleman who had purchased the items on the 10th of January, and the description they gave of him, matched that of Hawkins or Bennett. They remembered that he was worried that the mattress would be substituted for a different one of less quality. The salesman told the man to write his initials on it. The man then took a heavy pencil and in large letters wrote "C.B.H." on the mattress.
When the items were delivered by the delivery men, the man asked them to take the bed and the chair upstairs and place them in the back room. The towel and pillowcases were traced to Mrs. Mahoney's Dry Goods Store, which was just around the corner from the Standard Furniture Company. As these were easy to carry, the elegantly dressed gentleman took them away with him. Handwriting experts examined the original slips filled out by Bennett for his advertisement in the newspaper and compared them to the signature of C.B. Hawkins on the contract for the rented property at 2211 Sutter Street. He concluded that both were written by the same hand. The police were now convinced that Mr. Bennett and Mr. Hawkins were indeed the same person.
A reward was offered to anyone who had information that led to the discovery and apprehension of the person responsible for the crime. The police thought it possible that the murderer had changed address, so may have sent a written notification to the postal authorities. Handwriting experts examined 32,000 address change notifications, and one proved to be very interesting, which was that of a man named Captain Seymour, who now lived in Kansas City. Two officers were sent to interview him, but they soon realized that he was not the person they were looking for.
Police also wondered if it was just coincidence that Nora's friend, Maj Graham, who once boarded in her house, now lived at 2088 Sutter Street, only a hundred and fifty yards from the house where Nora died. The case was now being reported in all the San Francisco papers. The photo of the mattress was published, which bore the initials "C.B.H." and was seen by a lady named Miss Blazer, whose boyfriend had disappeared.
On January the 16th, five days after Nora went missing, she had reported his disappearance to the police, but they had failed to locate him. They thought that he may have left the States, as after he disappeared, his employer discovered that money had been taken from their accounts. Her boyfriend's name was Charles B. Hadley, and she showed the police a photo of him, on which she had written his initials, "C.B.H." The resemblance to the writing on the mattress was striking. She also said that when the papers reported the disappearance of the young girl, he became agitated and thoroughly read all the articles about it. He found her that evening to say that he would not be home that night, and she had not seen him since. Miss Blazer also said that he had left some blood-stained clothes in the laundry, and as he had not returned or contacted her, she burned them. Interestingly, she was also able to confirm that he very much liked porterhouse steaks, but only ever ate the tenderloin parts.
Handwriting samples from C.B. Hadley were sought from his employer and compared to the signature of C.B. Hawkins on the contract with Anson & Co. and the "C.B.H." on the mattress. Experts concluded that all three men were indeed the same person. C.B. Hadley, however, did not have a mustache and was always clean-shaven, but Miss Blazer said that he often wore a false brown mustache, which he had purchased from a store on Larkin Street.
The police started to investigate C.B. Hadley. They discovered that his name was actually Charles Starlets, and it was believed that he was from Chicago, as that was where his mother lived. He was wanted for embezzlement committed in Minneapolis in 1889. They also found out that in 1900, he tried to seduce a girl of a similar age to Nora. The story of the death of Nora Fuller and the hunt for the man known as Hawkins, Bennett, Hadley, or Starlets had now reached the attention of newspapers across the country, and the police were confident that with all the coverage, they would soon be able to locate and arrest a suspect. Unfortunately, their confidence was short-lived, as there were no reported sightings of him.
As time passed, the newspapers moved on to other stories, and the police committed fewer officers to Nora's case, as they were needed on other investigations. The case of Nora Fuller remains unsolved, and what became of the man who went by the name of Hawkins, Bennett, Hadley, or Starlets still remains a mystery.
[Music]
Hello everyone, and thank you so much for listening. This is the first unsolved case I've ever done on this channel, so any comments or feedback you may have will be very much appreciated, and I will see you in the next brief case.