Rockport: Whatever You Say, Say Nothing

A family mystery and musings on several unsolved murders.

Charming Rockport

You can’t deny that Rockport is charming. Surrounded on three sides by the ocean, home to summer colonists and oil painters for almost two centuries, it’s a prim and pretty town of lucky number sevens — seven square miles of land, population seven- thousand and an average home price of seven-hundred-fifty thousand dollars. I just visited there with my partner during the town’s Illumination Weekend this past August. On a velvety summer evening, a whiff of wild roses and the sea in the air, we strolled down Broadway to Mt Pleasant Street and the up Gott Street. We passed the Rockport House of Pizza (great calzones), the formidable Rockport Library with its massive speckled gray granite stones, the white clapboard Spiran Lodge, home of the Order of Vasa and the Little Art Cinema and continued down to George C Will Square at the beginning of where Atlantic Ave. hugs the southern edge of the harbor. All around us, in both the shops and the most modest houses, paper Japanese lanterns were hung, warm pastel orbs glowing with light. The effect was quirky and mysterious, as if we had dropped into a painting by Finnish children’s book illustrator Tove Jansson. Though I mentioned I visited, the fact is that I don’t live far away. And I have deep roots here.

An Origin Story

My great-great grandfather Patrick came from Limerick. This paternal ancestor arrived like some Hibernian Aphrodite, riding a shell on a long Atlantic swell, mason’s hammer in hand, to drift ashore on Cape Ann. He lodged at a boarding house in Rockport in 1850, one of the first Irish immigrants to arrive here from the Famine. “Don’t look back,” his grandson told my father, “We were a bunch of sheep stealers.” Patrick was brown haired and blue-eyed, a sharp-dressed brawler who “could lick any man on Cape Ann” but I have not one heirloom photo nor scrap- paper memento as primary-source evidence. He spent decades working as a stonecutter for the Rockport Granite Company. He married an Irish girl, a fellow immigrant with a past as mist-shrouded as his. In short order they spawned almost a dozen children, some of whom managed to survive into adulthood. By 1869, he became a naturalized US citizen and a year later purchased an oceanfront home on Washington Street in Folly Cove for $117.75. That was the as good as it got.

The decline was calamitous and like most disasters, happened slowly and then all at once. When the “Long Depression” hit the United States in 1873, Patrick was working for the Bay State Granite Co. and living off the company store. On the first day of September, 1877, he was the foreman at the Lanesville Granite Company’s Butman Pit. Sometime that month he was laid off or fired from his job. On

September 24th, he entered the outhouse on his property, took a straight razor, and slit his own throat.

I have never seen a violent death site in person, and I hope that I never do. In college I once had a temp agency placement working for an insurance company in Boston. “Come here,” my colleague Mark said. He had a handsome face and a full head of jet- black hair and East Coast collegiate confidence; if you put him in a letterman’s sweater he would have looked like an Brylcreem model from a 1930’s issue of the Saturday Evening Post. “You gotta check this out.” What he asked me to check out was a series of photos taken as part of an insurance claim. They documented the aftermath of a suicide.

I can watch the bloodiest of TV and remain unmoved. But that collection of five photos still disturbs me in a way that no episode of Dexter or You ever could. I felt disgust, pathos and fear, perhaps because the collection had a definite narrative arc. The insurance agent had a certain clinical efficiency in documenting one despair- driven young man’s steps to self-murder: here was a photo of the apartment lease agreement with the man’s shaky signature at the bottom; another of a fake wood table piled high with beer cans and stubbed cigarettes, a third of a blood-spattered bathroom sink with the double-edged razor blade embedded into the congealed body fluid that covered the metal stopper. The fourth image, the toilet bowl; over which, perhaps mindful of the excessive biohazard mess he was making or concerned that is life wasn’t going down such a small drain hole fast enough, our subject decided to position his slashed wrists. The fifth and final was a beaten brown fabric sofa, to which a trail of bloody bare footprints led. A small brownish smear covered the shag rug at one end of the sofa — it was as if the subject of our photo essay was at the end of his exertions too tired of the whole scenario and just wanted to crash on the couch to sleep. The big sleep.

I wonder which one my relatives discovered Patrick. It being a Monday, presumably my direct descendant Thomas was away at his own work at the quarries down the road and up the hill. Was it his sixteen-year-old brother Philip? His fifteen-year-old “Irish twin” sister Johanna? Or perhaps seven-year-old Katie, who was perhaps already afraid of entering that small smelly, confined outhouse? I will never know, because whatever they said, to their descendants they said nothing.

My family — multiple generations — never talked about the suicide — heck, they never knew about the suicide. It took an intrepid cousin from Tulsa to dig into the microfiche rolls in the depths of Gloucester’s Sawyer Free Library to find the Cape Ann Advertiser issue that told of the cause of Patrick’s demise. That was in 2017.

It was shocking and not exactly the Horatio Alger narrative we’ve come to expect from our forebears. What drove Patrick to do it? Despite his gruesome and sinful end, how did he end up buried in a Catholic cemetery? How did the family pick up the pieces? There’s no Irish ballad or Seamus Heaney poem to commemorate the

tragedy. It’s all silence and shame and rock, a something that my family left unsaid for one hundred and forty years. Whatever you say, say nothing.

But perhaps Rockport is just like that — a town of both picturesque and uncanny. It’s a town with a past, a welcoming yet tight smile on a granite face and a maddening silence that hides both great pain and great shame. There is made both pretty paintings and mysteries that leave a bitter aftertaste.

Which brings me the Full of the Moon murders.

Depressed Rockport

Imagine Rockport four score and ten years ago. It’s still quaint and still beautiful — Mayberry with a Mass accent. Here’s a quote from the 1932 Gloucester City Directory :

“… A cleaner and more wholesome town in which to spend the summer cannot be found in New England. There are a number of good beaches, a beautiful shore drive, and the ocean scenery is unsurpassed. Many artists make their homes here during the summer months and find interesting subjects to transfer to their canvasses along the quaint old wharves and rugged shore.”

The town’s three Selectmen are Ralph T. Parker (the chair), John H. Dennis and Roy H. Lane. Frederick H. Tarr, Jr. is the town’s attorney. Chief of Police is John E. Sullivan, who has held the position for decades and earns an annual salary of $1,842.50. Chief Sullivan is ably assisted by two full-time officers, James T. “Jimmie” Quinn and John V. Spates, plus twenty-two part-time “special police”, who are especially needed during the crowded summer tourist months. The police force has one squad car, one motorcycle (which Jimmie, as official Motorcycle Officer, gets to ride) and one janitor to keep the headquarters tidy as efficiently as his colleagues keep the peace. The Rockport Police Station in fact, is unique — its walls decorated with valuable paintings contributed by local artists.

Digging past the surface and down into the bedrock if you will, there are a few more geographic and social aspects of this town important to our story that require mentioning: Rockport’s Swedish immigrants, Pigeon Hill and the Depression.

Swedish immigrants started coming to Cape Ann in the 1870’s to work at the granite quarries (the men) or as domestic servants (the women), settling heavily in the Pigeon Hill section of Rockport. They worked hard, formed fraternal societies like the Order of Vasa, organized brass bands and probably behaved in what would be described today as a “model minority” fashion. Doubtless, however, the Swedish immigrants, along with their Nordic cousins, the Finns, experienced challenges in their new land — learning a new language, social isolation and economic difficulties.

As with many immigrant communities in the United States, religion became an important focus for the Swedish immigrant identity, providing both a refuge from and a means to assimilation into the dominant English-speaking culture. However, the religious dissention issues prevalent in 19th Century Sweden carried over into the new land. At first, Cape Ann Swedes worshiped at Moody Hall. Later, the First Church of Christ (now known as the Pigeon Cove Chapel) held separate services in Swedish on Sunday afternoon. By the late 1800’s, the Swedes split into three separate denominations:

• Lutheran, on Pigeon Hill Street and later Stockholm Ave — the most conservative
• Methodist, on 145 Granite Street, built in 1891
• Congregational (aka Missions Vanner), at 111 Granite Street, founded circa 1892. Affiliated with the “free church” movement in Sweden with a tradition of lay preachers, it was the most evangelical of the three. This congregation, with fifty members in 1932, will figure prominently in our story.

These multiple churches (two on the same street) make contemporary and modern references to “the Swedish church in Rockport” imprecise. In addition, these congregants appeared to have had their differences. The Congregational Church’s 50th Anniversary Historical Sketch took a swipe at their fellow immigrants with the comment “The Lutherans were strong in their loyalty to the church of their fathers and had difficulty in sympathizing with the free movement.” Rockport historian Reinhold L. Swan pointed out, “…This fragmenting result was ultimately accomplished, but not we suspect without some disturbing social effects.”

Pigeon Hill is geographically in the center of Rockport, west and upland of Pigeon Cove and Route 127. It’s not a well-defined area, but includes Curtis, Pigeon Hill and Story Streets plus Oakland and Stockholm Avenues. It’s small, mostly rock-strewn grassland (now woodland) dotted with tidy houses and it’s where many of Rockport’s Swedes live.

Despite all this detail about immigrants, Rockport’s full-time population has been plummeting in recent decades — from 4,500 residents in 1910 to 3,630 in 1930, losing over three hundred residents in the past five years. The reason? The Depression.

It is hard for us moderns to comprehend the misery and desperation the Depression wrote upon the United States or appreciate how deeply that misery and desperation was felt in small coastal Massachusetts towns like Rockport. We must turn to the town’s Annual Reports, which in their curt dry way accurately describe the extent of the malaise: overflowing cesspools and a serious sewage problem, with trash strewn on the roadsides and beaches. There are cases of diphtheria among children. People survive on government handouts of grapefruit, lard and coal.

Prohibition is still in effect, but a cash can be made by those willing to join the smugglers for a bit of night work. A bit of pluck can earn a quick buck, if you are willing to evade the customs officials and Coast Guard by sneaking cases of alcohol from Canadian vessels anchored well offshore onto secluded North Shore salt marshes and coves. Rockport may be a dry town that has prided itself on its fiery axe-wielding Temperance leader Hannah Jumper, but half of the arrests made in 1934 were for drunkenness.

Aimless vagrants arrive in town, fruitlessly looking for work, and are just as quickly shooed away or arrested. The town organizes its unemployed male citizens into labor gangs to dig ditches and plant trees in order that they may qualify for relief. The selectmen commented in the 1934 Annual Report:

“…The year 1933 has presented many serious problems. Destitution and want in a large number of families have provoked administrative problems that require almost supernatural capabilities to handle satisfactorily.”

The same year, the Board of Public Works wrote succinctly: “…As the years of depression roll on, the relief situation in our cities and towns grow worse.”

It is evident that the social bonds holding the community together are fraying.

Arthur Oker, the Tailor

On May 21, 1932 — the day after the Flower Moon — a man enters Oker’s Tailor & Haberdashery Shop at 77 Main Street a little after 8AM to start his workday. The Depression is hard and the news invariably grim but there are still good upstanding citizens in town. Arthur F Oker (1874–1932) is one of them.

Mr. Oker is 57 years old. He is an immigrant, an ethnic Swede from Finland who first came to the United States in 1904, settling in Titusville, PA and relocating to Rockport in 1907. He has a wife and four children and lives in a cute three-story house with Victorian trimmings at 109 Main Street — daughter Alle and her husband Capt. Roger Martin live on the first floor, Mr. Oker and his wife Ida on the second.

He has a moustache, a prominent bald head and wears wire-framed glasses. He looks portly, unassuming, honest, grave, harmless and respectable. He is respectable; Oker is a well-regarded downtown business owner and President, church treasurer and lay preacher of the Swedish Congregational Church.

The shop is located at a little north of downtown at 77 Main Street, the northern side of Main at the corner of Beach St. The rear of the property faces Front Beach and the ocean. Out front, flanking the main door are two display windows that jut out into the sidewalk; they are filled with new suits and items of clothing, tastefully arranged. Above the door and windows is a scalloped canvas awning. The center

main wooden door itself is mostly window, with a fabric shade on a roller. Oker rolls the shade up.

When Mr. Oker opened his shop for business that morning, doubtless he never would have imagined that the sequence of events would become so critical. He never could have imagined that strangers, decades later, would be attempting to reconstruct the moments of that morning into a coherent timeline. It was just another day for Mr. Oker. It is a Saturday, Rockport’s business shopping day, and people were already out and about on their normal routines.

Sometime before or around 10AM, Mr. Oker received a phone call. This is 1930’s technology, so the number actually rang at both his shop and his home. Mrs. Oker picked it up but hung up when she heard a voice on the line and presumably her husband responding. It wasn’t for her, and Mrs. Oker didn’t speak English anyway, so she hung up.

At 10AM, Mr. Melvin Linder entered the shop. Mr. Linder is a local from Pigeon Cove who works at the General Electric plant, and he’s come in to get alterations made on a new suit he has recently purchased. Shortly after entering, Linder notices a man in a straw hat and a brown topcoat come downstairs from an upstairs bathroom. The straw-hatted man enters the main area and sits opposite of Linder and Oker as the two discuss the alterations and Mr. Oker starts taking his measurements.

At 10:30AM, Miss Margaret E Allen of 29 School Street enters the store to pick up a dress that she had had cleaned. Oker working on Linder’s suit fitting, and will later recall the “black-haired man,” (presumably Linder) trying on the suit coat and saying, “It doesn’t fit.” She will also remember the man in the straw hat standing in an opposite corner. Miss Allen picks up her dress and leaves the store.

At 11AM, a manager of a nearby store sees Oker step outside the front door of his shop, look around, and then re-enter.

At 11:15AM, Postman Ralph Wilson enters the shop to drop off a small package. The package is eighteen inches square, about three inches deep, and insured — it’s probably a bolt of cloth. Wilson, a married local man and WWI veteran, knows pretty much everyone in town. He takes note of the two strangers with Oker. One man, trying on a suit, turns his face away when Wilson enters. The other man is sitting down; Wilson can only see his profile. Wilson thinks the two men might be seafarers, for both seem to be wearing sailor suits.

At 11:30AM, Rockport lobsterman Hoyt P. Smith goes to the store to purchase a pair of woolen socks. He is out of luck, for he finds the front door locked and the window shade drawn.

Right around this time, Mrs. Oker telephones her husband — she needs him to pick up some fixings at the grocery store before he comes home for lunch. He does not pick up the phone. That is strange. For the next half hour, Mrs. Oker telephones her husband multiple times. He never picked up the phone.

11:55PM: Building landlord Samuel Henderson notices the shade drawn and the door locked to Oker’s shop. He doesn’t think much of it; Oker typically goes home at noontime for his break. He probably pulled the shade down to let people know he wasn’t in.

The streets are busy with shoppers. Around noontime, a man named Maurice rides to the store on his bicycle to pick up a pair of trousers he had altered. He finds the door locked and the shade drawn. Hearing no sound inside, he pedals away.

12:25PM: Mrs. Oker telephones her husband for the final time. It’s not like him to be late for lunch — he’s usually home by noon. Mrs. Oker tells her 21-year-old son Rudolf, who lives with his parents and works as a chauffeur, to go down to the shop and check in on his dad. The store is not far away; a tenth of a mile at most, less than six-hundred feet. It is perhaps a three-minute walk at most for a young man. Rudolph sets off downtown.

Rockport Police officer Andrew Stevens leaves his home and heads downtown to board the 12:35PM bus to Gloucester. He stops at Oker’s shop to look at a shirt and tie in the display window of Oker’s store. He had previously told Oker that he would swing by today to purchase them. But he sees the shade drawn down on the main door. He tries the door, but it is locked. That’s strange. Moving to the display window, Stevens peers inside but can’t see much because there are so many items blocking his vision and the interior of the store is dark. He can faintly see toward the rear of the shop. It looks like Oker is in deep conversation with another man at the counter. Nothing looks amiss. Stevens walks to the bus stop two doors east. He notices a nearby display clock reads 12:30. The Gloucester bus arrives. Officer Stevens hops aboard. The bus drives away.

12:30PM: Just paces away from Officer Stevens patiently waiting at the bus stop, Rudolph Oker arrives at his father’s shop. The door is locked. The shade is drawn. Rudolph turns and looks about and down Main and Beach Streets — maybe his father is about — but he doesn’t see him. Rudolph will check the grocery store, buy the fixings and check the store again.

12:35–45 PM (estimated): Rudolph checks the store door again after making his purchases. Mr. Oker was not out. The shade is still drawn. The door is still locked. Rudolph is worried — what if his father is ill? He heads home with his purchases. He will pick up the spare key at home, come back and gain access. Rudolph rushes home, drops off the groceries, gets the key, heads back down to the store and unlocks the door.

At 12:50PM, Chief Sullivan at the Rockport Police Station gets a phone call.

Patrolman John V. Spates is the first to arrive to the emergency at 77 Main Street. Rudolph Oker is busy attending to his father. Arthur Oker is lying face down in a still-widening flood of blood behind the small counter. Arthur’s glasses and false teeth are beside him. The back of his skull is, to use a nautical term common in this seaside village, “stove in,” with a bone fracture line extending down the man’s bulging forehead. Both his pinky fingers are practically severed from each of his hands– futile defensive wounds. He is still breathing — barely.

Officer Spates grabs the phone in the shop and dials an emergency call to Rockport doctor Dr Ezra E Cleaves, who in turn dials an emergency call for the Gloucester ambulance. Patrolman Ralph A Levie drives the ambulance to downtown Rockport. Levie, Spates and perhaps Rudolph hustle Arthur Oker’s body into the vehicle and Levie speeds away.

Oker succumbs to his wounds in the ambulance at 12:55 PM. Newspaper accounts will later claim he expired just as the vehicle was passing Our Lady of Good Voyage Church downtown on its way towards Addison Gilbert Hospital. Rockport Chief Sullivan arrives at Oker’s tailor shop, then drives to the hospital to hear that Oker has passed. He asks that Medical Examiner Ira B. Hull be called in to examine the corpse. He also places a call to the Massachusetts State Police and to the Essex County District Attorney’s Office in Salem.

The First Investigation

Chief Sullivan returns to Oker’s store in Rockport. Sullivan, Officers Spates and James Quinn do a quick sweep of the building’s interior. They find no one hidden on the premises.

At 3PM, State Police Detective William Murray and Dr Cleaves arrive and join the others. The official investigation can begin.

The begin by asking Rudolph Oker what happened. Rudolph mentions that his father was always very punctual in coming home for lunch. When he didn’t show up at home, Rudolph went to check on him. Oker has suffered unspecified bouts of illness in the past, so Rudolph and his mom wanted to make sure that Mr. Oker was OK. Police speculated that had Rudolph had the spare key with him at 12:30PM, he might have interrupted the assault. The police presumably dismiss Rudolph, promising to be in touch.

The officers put on their white cotton gloves and start their systematic study.

The back of the shop is where Oker did his tailoring work. There is a back entrance to the store which leads to a yard. The door is locked from the inside; there is no way someone could leave by the back door and then lock it. That implies the killer left the store by the front door, setting the spring lock to secure it behind them.

The main area of the store is a shambles. A six-foot burlap screen lay toppled in a corner. A small ironing board, used to iron men’s sleeves, is also on the floor. Clothing on the work bench, the sewing machine and the counter, covered in crumpled wax packing paper, are in disarray. There are blood splatters everywhere spoiling the merchandise and leaving graceful, drying arcs on the furniture and walls above the clothing racks.

Given the man’s wounds, the Rockport Police and Detective Murray speculate that Oker was attacked from behind. In a terrific struggle, he made his way through the room, knocking stuff over and ran behind the counter, where he was hit multiple times with a heavy, blunt yet sharp object. Bending over the counter, he raised his hands to protect his head and suffered wounds to his fingers. Bloody smears mar the crinkled wrapping paper on the counter, perhaps implying his hands were flailing as he was bent over. Oker then collapsed.

Behind the counter was a small safe on the floor. A clump of Oker’s hair is stuck to a corner. On the floor next to the safe is an oblong box, which was part of the safe equipment and perhaps where he kept his cash. The door of the safe is slightly ajar, with an inch of space between the door and the safe jamb. The officers open the safe. There is blood on the interior of the door and the floor of the safe — accounts differ as whether it was droplets or a puddle — but there is no money. There is the stub of a lottery ticket inside. They note that Officer Spates found Oker with his pockets turned out and his keys and wallet missing. Investigators will eventually speculate that tallying the morning’s customers, Oker couldn’t have had more than $17 dollars in cash in the store. Not including, of course, whatever was in the safe.

Carefully reviewing the merchandise, the investigators find a light gray vest hanging on a rack about nine feet from where Oker’s body lay. It was tucked away, sandwiched between a couple of coats. It was also stained with a couple drops of blood. That’s odd. Perhaps it was due to an errant blood splatter — the universe can be so random.

Or perhaps the killer swapped out some of their own bloody clothing for the merchant’s wares.

On the counter is the day’s receipts and appointments book. A line under the letter “D” appears to be erased. The package delivered today is also missing. The officers inspect the front door shade. They notice that the shade must have been pulled down with some force. The shade fabric is ripped from some of the staples that attached it to the roller.

Whatever the weapon was, it’s not in the store. Oker’s heavy tailor shears are missing. Officer Zenas Conley will spend three hours walking up and down Front Beach looking for them. He will find nothing.

The police secure the premises. The investigation will continue at the Police Station. State Detective Richard Griffin and Assistant DA Charles Green arrive in Rockport to interview witnesses and potential suspects. Chief Sullivan — probing the sailor angle — interviews two employees of the Charlestown Navy Yard.

Back in Addison Gilbert Hospital and under the orders of the DA, Dr. Ira Hull performs the autopsy on Oker. Officer Frank Allen of the Rockport Police stands in the antiseptic tile room, impassively watching as the official witness. Dr Hull pokes and prods, slices and weights and gives official descriptions of Mr. Oker’s corporal violations. The face is unmarked, but the left eye is discolored, the right eye shut. There are at least five and up to thirteen cuts on the front part of the head (the number reported seems to increase with each newspaper edition) with the back of the skull crushed in and open holes in the cranium. Although his tailor shears are missing from the premises, these wounds are more consistent with those made by a hammer or hatchet. Given their severity, Oker would have survived thirty minutes at most, which places his attack around 12:30PM — sometime between policeman Stevens and son Rudolph’s visits.

Back in Rockport, waves lap the shore of Front Beach. Crowds line the sidewalk outside Oker’s shop, whispering and peering into the darkened windows. They will stay late as afternoon turns to dusk and then into night. Down the street, Oker’s wife and daughter clutch each other and weep.

It is the first murder to take place in Rockport in 55 years.

Sunday is no day of rest for a murder investigation. Chief Sullivan, Officer Quinn, Detectives Murray and Griffin, along with fingerprint experts from the State House return to 77 Main Street. They reexamine the premises thoroughly and dust for prints. A State Police photographer takes photos. Newspapermen arrive in Rockport. The gentlemen of the press conduct their own search around the train station and the Mill Pond, going on the theory that the killer maybe tossed their weapon before boarding the train to Boston.

Sullivan and Quinn travel to Gloucester to interview two local men apprehended for failure to stop for police. The men were jumpy, suspected liquor smugglers. They are questioned and released. Investigators interrogate another suspect at the Gloucester Police Station, a Rockport teenager arrested for drunkenness. The boy had a solid $20 bill in his pocket but a flimsy alibi about his windfall. Police determine that he stole it from his father.

This case is too big for Rockport’s diminutive police force to handle alone. Essex County District Attorney Hugh A. Cregg of Lawrence arrives in Rockport and takes

charge of the investigation. He calls Harvard University pathologist Dr. J Stewart Rooney to come to Rockport tonight and examine Oker’s body, now in the Burgess Funeral Home. Cregg hopes Dr. Rooney can provide more information on the type of weapon used.

Mystery’s foggy tendrils envelop the case from the start. Investigators follow up on Oker’s morning phone call, but phone technology at the time is rudimentary. There is no way to trace the call. They conduct a total of fifteen interviews. An unidentified woman living across the street says that she noticed a tall man in a brown coat and straw hat leave the shop. Other citizens claim that they saw the man speeding through downtown in a tan coupe with a rumble seat, heading in the direction in Gloucester. No one catches the license plate number. Or so some newspapers report. The Newburyport Daily Herald in contrast, writes “Nobody has been found who saw these men leave the store.” The police are looking either for a straw-hatted man or two sailors, or maybe somebody else. But the Rockport police don’t have a concrete description of the slayer, and no trace of a weapon. So no who, and no what.

They do have a hunch, however for they why. Two days after the murder, the Fitchburg Sentinel reports (Rockport’s sensationalist murder mystery has already reached the attention of mid-state Massachusetts papers; case updates will soon be carried by the Boston dailies and The Associated Press) that Rockport police suspect robbery as the motive. Police have heard that Oker recently won $1,100 (the equivalent of $24k in 2022) in some sort of “deal” or “lottery” although his surviving family denies of knowing about any such winning or of their paterfamilias ever engaging in gambling.

Investigators have conducted financial forensics on Oker. In some respects, he’s an unlikely robbery suspect. He was frugal, not flashy, a “quiet and courteous citizen” as his obituary reported. He was well-respected and generous in extending credit to customers — a fact very well-appreciated in those dark economic times. But Oker was the local collection agent for the Gloucester Coal and Lumber Company, so occasionally did have sums of cash on hand. He had apparently recently asked some of his customers who owed over $100 to make a payment. Journalists dig up a rumor that Oker had recently sold some old merchandise to a man in Boston but didn’t give the man who arranged the deal a commission. The man was reputedly angry. But the investigators don’t think it was murderously angry, or an argument over the unpaid bill for a suit coat. Even the lottery ticket evidence looks irrelevant — the local man who won the $1,100 had stepped forward. Maybe robbery wasn’t the motive. Maybe the killing was spontaneous and not premeditated. Newspaper accounts cryptically mention that “something deeper was involved and [authorities] are checking up on certain information which cannot be made public.”

In the early afternoon of May 24th, three days after the murder, Reverend Albert M Johansen presides over Arthur Oker’s funeral at the white, wooden Swedish Congregational Church. The closed-casket service is in English and Swedish. Assisting Johansen is J.W. Harrald, the church’s previous pastor along with Rev Frederick Pamp of Boston and Rev Samuel Ronka of Lanesville. Surrounded by fresh spring flowers, Johansen’s wife sings “I am a Pilgrim” and “Someday We’ll Understand” to the somber and perhaps overflowing assembly — one hundred cars are parked on Granite Street for what is allegedly the largest funeral in Rockport ‘s history.

Oker is buried at Beech Grove Cemetery. August and Olaf Olson, Herman Larson, Axel Andersen, Charles Johnson and Emil Rakka (sic) serve as pallbearers. Detective Murray, Chief Sullivan, Officers Quinn and Allen attend the funeral and the internment. They carefully watch the mourners.

The press is busy four days after the murder. Newspapers report that authorities believe that two sailor-suited men, not a straw-hatted one, attacked Oker, based on the interview with Postman Ralph Wilson. They also report that Mansfield Moulton of the Gloucester Auto Bus Company tells officers that he saw the straw-hatted man at the bus station in Gloucester at 9:05AM. Mr. Straw Hat asked the fare price for a ride to Rockport. Mrs Lydia Salo, who lived at the corner of Granite and Forest Streets, claims she saw Mr. Straw Hat get into the tan-seated coup on Main Street and drive away. Edward Johnson said the man was driving so fast (about 50 MPH) that the coup was on only two wheels.

US Postal officials continue to track the whereabouts of the missing package — no luck. The authorities also report that the shears reporting missing and suspected as possibly being the murder weapon were found in a neighboring tailor’s shop. The tailor had borrowed the shears from Oker months ago. Then man returns the shears but there is a hitch. The black handled shears don’t match the Mrs. Oker’s description. These had black handles. Her husbands had red or bronze handles; she thinks. (One wonders if the police interviewed her in Swedish). They are nonetheless eliminated as the murder weapon.

Oker’s will, drawn up years ago by attorney Sumner Y Wheeler, is filed in probate court. Oker left everything to his wife. The Rockport Police ask all local laundries and remaining tailors if any blood-stained clothing has been dropped off for cleaning. They also run a “Appeal to Public in Seeking Slayer” notice in the Boston Herald.

At night, a crowd gathers at Dock Square. There is a rumor that an arrest is immanent. The crowd remains till midnight, then disperses. There has been no arrest. There is no news. There is no progress.

Five days after the murder it seems like everyone is up to something and the newspapers are getting only a third of the story. Case in point: a Rockport man tells police that around 1PM on the day of the Oker murder, two men approached him at the Depot Lunch, said their car had broken down and asked to borrow his dark brown coupe. The two men claimed to be “salesmen of a silver concern” and said they need to the car to interview some local prominent local men. The 1930’s were supposedly a simpler time, but it strains credulity — the man lends the Silver Concerned men his car! Later that evening, police in Wrentham (76 miles southeast, on the border of Rhode Island) arrest the men on a moving violation. The Silver Concerned men give the police the name of the Rockport man. Driven back to Rockport, Chief Sullivan and Detective Murray grill the Silver Concerned suspects at length but eventually let them go. The Rockport man presumably gets his coupe back.

Investigators arrange for witness Melvin Linder to attend a lineup of sailors at the Thatcher’s Island Naval Radio Station. Chief Radioman John M. Schmutz organizes the event. Linder, who was anyway a Mr. Straw Man fan, doesn’t recognize any of the sailors. The lineup is a bust. Newspapers report that DA Cregg is thinking about asking MA Governor Joseph B Ely to post a reward. That idea goes nowhere. Newspapers also report the splendid cooperation between the Rockport Police, the District Attorney’s Office, the State Police and the news.

Six days after the murder, State Police Lieutenant-Investigator Joseph Stokes arrives in Rockport to oversee the progress of the investigation.

Saturday May 28th — seven days after the murder — Rockport Police publish an appeal for information in the Gloucester Daily Times, asking for the person who had last Saturday’s 11:25AM appointment with Oker to contact them. Two more Massachusetts State Police investigators arrive in Rockport to work the case. Authorities continue to assert that the believe Oker “…had been slain while putting through some sort of deal.”

The last day of May — ten days after the murder — State Police Detective Richard J. Griffin travels to Amesbury to interrogate “William Williamson”, age 21, of Cincinnati, Ohio. Amesbury police had arrested Williamson and another man for peddling without a license. Noticing Williamson was dressed in a sailor’s uniform, acting Amesbury Police Chief J Fred Ives contacted the Essex County DA that the nautical outfit may tie Williamson to the Oker murder. Detective Griffin interviews Williamson and his co-defendant, a “John Williamson” of Lima, Ohio. Both men — presumably Depression hobos — swear no knowledge of the Oker murder, and Detective Griffin believes them. The two Williamsons, found guilty of peddling, are fingerprinted and sent to the Lawrence House of Correction. Griffin comments that the Rockport murder remains a mystery.

That’s it. Less than two weeks after Oker’s brutal slaying in a quaint seaside town, there’s a disputed motive but no murder weapon, no postal package, no witnesses,

no suspect, and no foreseeable progress. The case is as cold as the granite rock in the local quarries — or the grave.

Until the following Halloween.

A Surprise Party

I had never seen a photo of Augusta “Ada” Johnson (1878–1933), when I first developed a sense of her character. I imagined her as plucky, gruff, hard-working, honest, perhaps her auburn but graying hair tied in a bun. It was late into my research when I finally saw two newspaper pictures of her — one from the Gloucester Daily Times, the other from the Boston Daily Record. The pictures made me question my initial assumptions. They also left me with more questions.

The GDT article showed a grainy photo repo of a white woman with close set eyes in a steady, penetrating gaze. I am not sure when the photo was taken; probably not recently, closer to 1910. Her prominent mouth is curled down into a slight frown. Her thick hair appears dark in the black and white picture, not the grayish blond that it was. Around her neck is a huge bow; her striped shirt has a tight collar. Ada looks like a tough, no-nonsense immigrant woman, ready to pluck a chicken for dinner or do the hand laundry with a washboard. She seems more physically formidable and younger than I expected.

The Boston Daily Record photo is different, and likely a doctored version of the Gloucester paper’s print. Ada looks younger here than I expected as well, but much younger. F Scott Fitzgerald may have bobbed Bernice’s hair in The Saturday Evening Post a decade earlier, but for this edition the Boston paper has bobbed Ada’s hair, shown short and with a slight wave. Her hairline is no longer a straight across her forehead but has a left part, accented with painted highlights from a retoucher’s brush. Her skin is smooth and there is a lot more of it. She is wearing, or has been painted to wear, a dark dress or top with a lower neckline — the bow is long gone. She looks very youthful, like a 1930’s Molly Ringwald, ready for a cocktail on the down-low and a Guy Lombardo record at 78rpm.

It makes me wonder how murder victims, especially female murder victims, are portrayed and how those depictions reflect the desires and projections of their intended audience.

Augusta (Ada) Palson was born in Sweden. She arrived in the US in 1900. She worked hard as a domestic in Boston and she married late in Rockport, wedding widower Adolph Johnson, a Rockport stonecutter, in 1921. They had no children, but several extended family members close by. Adolph had died of TB the year previous on Memorial Day, but they had done well. Ada owned two (some accounts say three) houses in town, including her tidy home with the wraparound porch on 1 Oakland Avenue. Ada Johnson kept her house immaculate, grew vegetables and

beautiful flowers in her yard. A thrifty woman, she raised chickens and sold eggs to the neighbors. She had a canary as a pet. She was solid in multiple senses of the word — stocky at 160lbs and held in high esteem by her neighbors in Pigeon Hill’s Swedish community. Every Wednesday morning Ada would leave flowers at her husband’s grave. She had just paid her $120 property taxes — probably in cash — early on October 17th. It was now October 31, 1933. It would be OK for Ada to have a little celebration. She would go to the party.

The Swedish Congregational Church was hosting a surprise party on Halloween for Pastor Albert M Johansen at his home in Pigeon Cove to celebration his second-year anniversary with the congregation. It was the day before the full moon. It promised to be fun.

And perhaps it was! Over a dozen people attended — perhaps twenty, including eight men; given the events to come, recollections and alibis got bit little fuzzy — but not bad for a Tuesday night. Ada was there. She was chatty and happy, even showed some admiring guests the brilliant diamond ring she wore on her left hand. Now posthumously she has been described as both an ardent church worker and not a member of the church, which seems contradictory, but possibly both are true — she may have been a dedicated church volunteer but not pledged to Christ to whatever degree the church required. Maybe there was cake, and perhaps drinks — possibly alcoholic. Ada may or may not have been slightly tipsy. But Ada was definitely there.

For when she was there, rather than saying nothing, she said something.

Accounts written decades after the murder claim that she told the assembled guests that she knew something about the former Church president’s murder. That she knew about who might have been involved. She warned that if that person didn’t turn themselves in for questioning, she’d go to the police — tomorrow.

We don’t know exactly Ada said. We don’t how the congregants and the pastor reacted. But based on police interrogations, we do know that on or about 10:30PM on Halloween night, congregation members Mr. August Olson along with his brother and sister-in-law drove Ada the short distance home.

At six AM the next morning — Wednesday, All Souls Day — August Olson left his house. Mr. Olson was Ada Johnson’s neighbor from across the street. A devout family man and Sunday School teacher, Mr. Olson worked as a stonecutter for a monument company in Lynn. He was off to pick up several other car-poolers and drive to work. As he got into the driver’s seat, he glanced over at Ada’s house just thirty feet away. In the fall dawn, he noticed nothing amiss.

At 8:20AM, William Carne of Pigeon Hill Street is walking down Oakland Avenue when he notices smoke pouring out of an upstairs window on the northern side of Ada Johnson’ house. He runs to her front door and shouts and pounds, but the door

is locked and there is no answer inside. Carne then runs across the street to the Olson house and shouts and pounds on the door. Twenty-two-year-old Warren Olson, son of August and employee of a chain store downtown, answers the door in his slippers. Carne alerts Warren about the fire. Carne runs down the street and pulls the fire alarm at Fire Box #63.

Warren Olsen runs to Ada’s house. The front door is locked. He runs to the back of the house. The door is locked but the back pantry window is ajar. He crawls through the window. He sees no smoke or fire downstairs. He runs up the stairs. The smoke is worse up here. He strides down the hallway towards the bedroom. He enters the bedroom. Ada Johnson is on the bed. The bed is engulfed in flames.

The fire’s heat is searing and the toxic smoke so thick it is difficult to breathe. Warren turns to the adjacent upstairs bathroom and quickly runs water under a towel. He wraps a towel around his head to protect himself from the heat and the smoke. He may have used to the towel to beat back the flames. He may have put the towel on Ada’s face to help her. Warren Olson fruitlessly attempts to put out the fire, but it’s the timely arrival of the Rockport Fire Department that saves the house.

The Fire Department run a ladder up to the bedroom window. The firemen smash the glass and run a hose into the bedroom. The also use chemical fire retardant. Within minutes the firemen get the situation under control and put out the fire.

Chief Sullivan arrives and the first responders crowd around Ada Johnson, lying in her bed. Widow Ada Johnson cannot be saved, for Ada Johnson is dead. Chief Sullivan looks and the body and makes the call.

It is the second Rockport homicide in seventeen months.

The Second Investigation

At 9:20AM, Ada’s physician Dr. Cleeves arrives and enters the bedroom, but refuses to say anything definitive until someone from the District Attorney’s office arrives. Chief Sullivan dispatches Officer Zenas R Conley to guard the residence and not let anyone in not on official business. Other officers hold back the neighbors and curious onlookers outside. The crowd has gotten so large that they trample the moribund flower beds and vegetable garden. Assistant DA Charles Green and State Police Detective Murray arrive at 1 Oakland Ave and head upstairs to the bedroom. A State Police photographer arrives. The men break out the fingerprint kit. They begin the preliminary investigation of a messy crime scene, toxic with the smell of rancid chemicals and charred flesh.

Outside on the southerly side of the property near the side of the house is a blue Milk of Magnesia bottle. Nearby on the lawn outside lay a lady’s black pocketbook containing 6 cents. A glass pane of the pantry window had been neatly cut away, permitting someone to unlatch the inside sash lock. The open window permitted

Warren Olson access inside the house. Breaking the windowpane allowed the murderer to enter and exit the house as well. Prior to the entrance of the firemen and police, both front and back doors had been locked and secured.

Some items on the inside windowsill of the pantry may have been knocked down. There is blood smeared on the bread container on the counter. On the dining room table is another pocketbook which still contains five dollars. The walls by the narrow stairs leading the second floor are splattered parabolas of blood and pieces of flesh. There is a large pool of blood in the hallway. There is also a big bloody lump. It is a large scrap of flesh with several pieces of shattered cranium still attached.

In the fire damaged bedroom, Ada had nearly laid out her clothes for the day on a chair. The bedding and mattress are badly burned. Ada laid on the bed with her arms over her head. Her body is black from fire and smoke from the shoulders down. She was either naked or her clothes had burned off. The position of her arms above her head will lead to erroneous reports that she had been tied down. Ada’s right arm, face and right leg are undamaged, probably due to being covered with bedding or pillows.

Ada’s left hand is burned off. Her left leg is badly charred. Her breasts are burnt. The heat has damaged her wire-rimmed bifocals. But it is her head on which those bifocals used to rest that is most gruesome.

Gently moving Ada, the investigators see the massive skull fracture from the top of her head to the left ear and the gaping v-shaped hole in the back, with the brain exposed, bruised and torn. Around the wound are another half dozen scalp wounds as if done by a heavy blunt instrument, perhaps a stone mason’s hand brush or peen hammer. On the bedside table, is a fire-damaged Fashion alarm clock with the time stopped at 5:48.

Standing around the corpse and surveying the scene, the policemen reconstruct the scenario. The assailant broke or cut the pantry window, then reached in to undo the latch and push the window open. The person crawled through over the sill, knocking bottles and other items down. Ada must have heard something, for she got up and turned on the hall lights and started walking down the narrow stairs to the first floor to investigate the noise. She met her assailant there and judging by the blood spatters, that is where the attack began. Judging by the amount of blood and gore, she was probably killed in the hallway. The killer then carried or dragged her body to the bedroom and placed her on the bed. The murderer then took some sort of accelerant, poured it over poor Ada, applied a flame to the bed, then fled. Given the time the fire stopped the alarm clock, the attack must have happened just a little earlier in the predawn darkness.

The Rockport and State Police, already stumped by the Oker case, now have a new murder on their hands. At 4:30PM Undertaker Burgess transports the body to Addison Gilbert Hospital for Dr. Hull to do the autopsy. Dr Hull will find that there is no smoke in Ada’s lungs, confirming that she was dead before she was set on fire. District Attorney Cregg will doubtless be apoplectic. There is no murder weapon, no suspects and no motive — yet. But together they will solve this one.

That evening, the Rockport Selectmen offer their Town Hall office for the investigators to conduct their interviews. The investigators waste no time. District Attorney Cregg arrives and orders State Police Troopers William Farron and Francis Byrne of the Topsfield Barracks assigned to the case. He then interviews neighbor August Olson about the Halloween Party. The investigators then interview Warren Olson, who discovered the body. Sigfrid A Johnson, of 11 Story Street, friend of the deceased, offers a statement, as does neighbor Jalmer Kouveas of Stockholm Ave. The detectives call in Attorney Summer Y Wheeler to talk about Adolph Johnson’s will and if there was any family infighting over the estate. They talk to William McKay of 41 Pigeon Hill Street, who reports seeing a suspicious person in the neighborhood that morning. The investigators chase down a Lewis Patriquin in Gloucester, counterman of the Herperus Lunch Cart, who reported seeing another “suspicious person” there at 2AM Halloween night. That lead turns out to be a bust. Meanwhile, DA Cregg and Detective Griffin head over to Revered Johansen’s house to have a conversation with the pastor of the Swedish Congregational Church.

The day after the murder is all furious activity. Selectmen Parker, Dennis and Lane have met in emergency session and offer a $1,000 reward for the apprehension and conviction of the culprit. In an effort to help the Rockport Police, twenty-five young men and teenagers canvas the Pigeon Hill neighborhood looking for evidence. One band of lads includes Chief Sullivan’s twenty-year-old son Eugene and his buddies Albert Hobbs, Emery Droulette, William Sears and Harold Holgerson. One-hundred feet into the woodland bordered by Pigeon Hill Street, Curtis Street and Oakland Ave, the boys find in a dump crumpled Boston newspapers stained with what appears to be blood. Harold Pushee of Granite Street finds another stained sheet of newspaper in a nearby meadow. The investigators take the papers and arrange for them to be taken to the state chemist laboratory. Perhaps the murderer wiped his weapon or his hands with the papers. The lab will be able to determine if the stains are human blood.

State Police detectives confidently tell the press that they expect to make a swift arrest, given the fingerprint and footprint evidence. They have men on the scene and elsewhere, gathering evidence and conducting interviews. Newspaper reporters in turn confidently report how splendid the investigation is going and how diligently collaborative the DA’s office, the Rockport Police, the State Police and the press are. More ominously, press reports note the similarity of the Oker and Johnson murders and their shared connection to the Swedish Congregational Church. This may not be the work of hobos in sailor suits or straw-hatted strangers. Ada Johnson’s murder

implies that the perpetrator is someone who knew both victims, someone local, someone familiar.

Warren Olsen reports that he heard a prowler outside his house around midnight. He was up late working on some church signage. But he admits it might have been a bad case of nerves, or the wind. Like most Rockport residents that night, Warren is terrified.

Two days after the murder, the investigation intensifies.

Twenty-five people, some of them members of the Swedish Congregational Church, come to the Police Station and offer to canvass the Pigeon Hill neighborhood for clues. An additional two dozen Rockport High School students offer to come after class to assist. District Attorney Cregg gives the assembled citizens a brief introduction to criminology and sends them off to search the woods and fields near the murder scene for a weapon or clothing. Curious gawkers crowd the corner of Oakland Ave. A group of children, some as young as five years old, surround the police sketch artist drawing a picture of Ada Johnson’s house.

Rockport Selectmen have arranged for a temporary camp bed to be set up in one of the anterooms for detectives to catch a nap in between their duties.

The Selectmen’s Office now has a temporary sign that reads “Public Welfare;” as the GDT reported, “there is nothing more important for the public welfare than the apprehension of the slayer.” Investigators interview fifteen people, including Oscar Johnson, Ada’s brother-in-law. Based with what they learned combined with evidence gathered at the scene, the investigators can compile financial forensics on the victim. But perhaps to their frustration, the investigators find her books as “inoffensive” as her personality was described in her obit.

She was comfortable for her age and station but not well-off, with $3784.80 in bank deposits. She withdrew $50 from her account at Rockport Granite Savings Bank on October 4th. She withdrew an additional $50 from her account at Cape Ann Savings Bank on October 13th. She had $4600 in real estate — owning her house at 1 Oakland Ave and one of the “corporation” houses at 3 Broadway. She paid the Town her $120 in taxes on the 17th. Police found a safety deposit box on her dresser untouched, the key still in the lock. There were no large sums of money found in the house, nor frankly anything of much value — Ada lived simply and frugally. She had no will, no life-insurance policy and no quarrels with any family members over money. Police rule out her extended family as suspects.

But investigators make note of something. Ada may have had a wedding ring (newspaper accounts are vague and contradictory on the subject) but definitely had a diamond ring — the one she showed off to guests at the Halloween party, worn on her left hand. Ada supposedly didn’t wear her ring or rings to bed, keeping them in a small China jewelry casket or container on her side table. The jewelry container and the ring were missing from the crime scene. Investigators go back to the house and

look in the burnt feather-bed mattress, which had been dragged into the back yard. Selectmen Roy Lane himself sifts through the ashes, finding charred bits of finger bones, but no ring.

The Elmer F Burgess Funeral Home at 12 Prospect Street hosts Ada Johnson’s funeral at 3PM. Over one-hundred mourners attend. Reverend Albert M. Johansen from the Swedish Congregational Church of Pigeon Cove presides over the services read in Swedish and English. In the Swedish language section, Johansen neglects to mention the connection between the two recent violent deaths in the congregation. Mrs. Johansen, perhaps due to a limited repertoire, again sings “Someday we’ll Understand.”

The mourners then gather Plot №66 in the Beech Grove Cemetery. Pallbearers include August Olson, the last person to see her alive, Albert & Carl Stolpe, sons of Ada’s sister-in-law and Carl Strandhal, appointed by Ada’s estate to take care of her canary. The pallbearers lower Ada’s coffin to her final hem beneath the thousand- dollar memorial monument she had purchased for her husband the year before. There was is just one basket of flowers, from neighbors and friends, next to the hole. Reverend Johansen tosses the first handful of dirt into the grave. Mrs. Johansen then sang in Swedish, “Shall We Meet By the River.”DA Cregg and his assistants attend the burial, accompanied by State Police troopers, whose narrowed eyes scan the crowd of attendees and curious onlookers. When the service ends, the crowd disperses and the gravediggers, respectfully standing a distance away, approach to complete their work.

Reverend Johansen then speaks to the press. He describes his parishioners as livid over articles published in the “cosmopolitan dailies” insinuating a connection between their church and the murders. They have asked him to write a strongly worded letter protesting the reporting, especially the accounts of the surprise Halloween party. Johansen also complains about accounts of DA Cregg’s meeting with the congregation — it’s not clear in the accounts but the DA may have met with SCC congregants on the night of November 1 or 2nd. The pastor clarifies that the meeting with the DA wasn’t dramatic as the papers reported — Cregg simply asked for the congregation’s cooperation and asking them to be good citizens and offer whatever information that they could. It’s not clear if the accounts of “eight men” referred to people present at the Halloween surprise party or the meeting with the DA. Johansen is clear about two things however — there were only twenty male members of his congregation and that he would vouch the good character of every single one of them. The second clarification is that Ada Johnson may have occasionally attended a church social, but she did not take part in church activities and was not a member.

Sometime either before or after the service, police interview — and fingerprint — Reverend Johansen. Johansen tells his interrogators that two weeks prior to the Johnson murder he was walking home from the Rockport train station at night coming back from the theater when on Main Street a “shadowy form” stuck out an

arm as if to grab him — but Johansen got away and sprinted home. He claims not to have gotten a good look at his assailant. He also claims maybe it was nothing, or nothing related to the Johnson case.

Perhaps not surprising considering the volunteer crowd-sourced investigation technique, the crime scene evidence is proving much less hopeful than originally anticipated. The blue Milk of Magnesia that looked promising. It had been on the pantry windowsill, but it had fallen to the ground presumably when the assailant gained entry to the house. The authorities dusted it for prints, but the prints were smeared, difficult to lift and impossible to match to the prints found at the Oker murder scene. The bottle had lain on the damp ground for hours on the first of November and had apparently been handled multiple times — perhaps by police officers, perhaps by onlookers — before it was obtained. There are muddy footprints in the house yes, but many people had stomped through the house that morning — Warren Olsen, the firemen, the policemen, the DA men. It is a tainted crime scene.

Investigators continue to ponder how the murder went down. They consider how the fire may have smoldered for hours before its heat stopped the alarm clock. They speculate that Ada may have attacked her assailant in the hallway and that the murderer may have taken her weapon from her — there seems to be a difference in some of the blood splatters. Police send samples collected at the scene to Dr Burgess (or George B — account differ) McGrath, the Suffolk County medical examiner to see if he can find differences in blood type.

But through their extensive interviews the authorities have learned something interesting from Ada’s surviving relatives: she was worried.

She was being stalked by a dirty old man.

The Dirty Old Man

Investigators find that Ada’s niece, a Miss Hazel Johnson of New Bedford, Mass, has some interesting stories to tell. Hazel, daughter of Ada’s brother-in-law Oscar Johnson, an attractive seventeen-year-old who frequently visited her aunt in Rockport. During her last visit, Hazel recounted that one evening she and her aunt had been followed by a “stocky man” on the street. This might have been the same elderly man who, once when Ada and Hazel were stilling on the porch at Oakland Ave, trespassed onto Ada’s lawn and attempted to engage them in conversation when Ada demanded that he leave. The man apparently said to Ada, “You can be had. You’ll be nice to me, one way or another.”

Hazel’s father and aunt, Oscar Johnson and Mrs. Annie Stolpe, corroborated the story but added more grownup details. The man had apparently been “at odds” with Ada Johnson for three years. Mrs. Stolpe told investigators that Ada told her that several mornings — Ada was an early riser, often in her kitchen at 6AM making

breakfast — the man would suddenly appear at her pantry window, asking to be let in. The man may have even snuck into Ada’s house, attempting to join her in bed. Police conduct a battery of interviews. Warren Olsen, who coincidentally may have worked two doors down from Oker’s shop, is formally questioned again. Tall 22- year-old Peter Hill is questioned. Two additional “spurned suitor” candidates are brought in for questioning, one twenty years her senior and zero in on the elder of the two as the likely suspect. The Dirty Old Man at first denies ever hassling Ada. The interrogators then respond, we know it was you, and if you keep denying it, we’ll bring up Hazel Johnson from New Bedford to ID you. And if you continue to deny it after she identifies you as Ada’s stalker, we’ll book you on suspicion of murder.

It’s not exactly clear what happens next — there may or may not have been a search for a weapon or bloodstained clothing in the man’s cellar. The man seems to have folded and recanted his prior denials. Dr. McGrath reports that in reviewing Dr. Hull’s autopsy report combined with his own research into Ada’s organs, he can find no evidence of sexual assault. In the end, the Dirty Old Man is cleared as a suspect.

Beginning to get frustrated, the Essex County DA considers floating the idea, first proposed during the Oker investigation, to get the Governor to post a reward for the capture and conviction of the murderer. The Gloucester Daily Times reports that police also speculate that the perpetrator may be a possible “Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” personality — a mild-mannered disposition hiding a murderous rage, familiar with the abodes and daily habits of both victims. The press will create eventually give this serial killer a name — the “Rockport Maniac.” But then a new suspect arrives on the scene.

The Shifty Finn

On the night of November 2nd, an unshaved and disheveled man, John Lumola, aka Luomalo, aka Lumoia, walked in the Plymouth Mass Police Station, asking for a place to sleep. Night desk Officer Gault questions Lumola and was not impressed by his evasive, vague answers. Officer Gault summons Plymouth Police Chief Russel Dearborn, who in turn questions the man. Lumola gives the Chief two fake Fitchburg addresses as his residence before admitting that he is from Rockport. Chief Dearborn is also not impressed. Chief Dearborn phones Detective Griffin working the Ada Johnson case, then escorts Lumola to the State Police Barracks in Norwell. Two troopers from the Topsfield Barracks arrive and escort Lumola to Rockport.

Lumola arrives at the Rockport Town Hall at 1:30AM on the morning of November 3rd. Police interview him three times, once by Detective Griffin for over an hour, and once by Detective Murray. Born in Rockport, Lumola, age 43, came from a Finnish immigrant family. He spoke only broken English, compelling the detectives to roust a local Finnish-speaking resident to act as translator. Lumola’s last job was working as a polisher in the Bay View section of Rockport a few years back. He hadn’t been back in town for awhile. He didn’t know Ada Johnson. He hadn’t even heard of her

murder. The detectives try to force a connection between Lumola and the Hesperus Lunch Cart angle, but no luck.

The Rockport Police charge Lumola with vagrancy. He can’t make the $200 bail, so Lumola spends the night of the 3rd in the Rockport Police Station cell. Lumola is soon found guilty in district court of being a vagabond and given four months in the house of correction, yet another casualty of the Depression. Detectives Griffin and Murray determine he had nothing to do with the case.

Three days after the murder, it’s a different pastor that makes the headlines. The Portsmouth Herald reports that Reverend Waldemar Harald, superintendent of the Scandinavian Sailors Home in Boston and former pastor of Rockport’s Swedish Congregational Church, says that he has information which might help the police. “Something happened several years ago which I have pondered over since this horrible murder,” said Harald. “I cannot reveal it because I feel a grave injustice may be done to the entire family. However, if the police ask me anything I will tell them what I know.”

Five days after the murder is a Sunday.

The Gloucester Daily Times reports that an arrest is immanent, quoting the police spokesman as saying that the murderer was “…conceited enough to believe himself secure, and it is this over-confidence which may be the means of his undoing.” The press report DA Cregg stating that there are five suspects under consideration. One is a prominent member of the Swedish Pigeon Cove community. Two others are members of the Swedish Congregational Church. One suspect has “…talked so much as to indicate that he was almost an eyewitness to the crime.”

Rockport residents are eager for an arrest. They are nervous — no, not nervous; as the Boston Globe reports, they are “in a state bordering on terror.” Menfolk are applying for pistol permits and purchasing guard dogs. The women are staying home. All are starting to lock their doors at night — for haven’t you heard about the break-ins on Pigeon Hill? Someone is sneaking into houses at night and stealing food. Might the midnight prowler commit a third murder?

Detectives interview ten people at Town Hall. State Police ask residents if any items are missing from their houses, or if they have noticed anyone destroying any clothing. Back at the Swedish Congregational Church, Reverend Johansen conducts two services. The regular morning service only had fifteen twenty members present, in addition to the press. The generic sermon covered All Soul’s Day. The evening service was better attended, and the sermon had a more direct message — “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. Johansen’s sermon mentioned that the murderer would be punished in a future life, that justice belong to Lord, and that the congregation should aid the investigators in any way that they could.

Six days after the murder, investigators relocate their headquarters from the Selectmen’s Office to the second floor of the Police Station so the Selectmen can continue their official duties unimpeded. It will also help them avoid the newspaper men, constantly underfoot in the public building, looking for a scoop. Press are everywhere in town now, wandering woods and fields, checking out cellar holes and even the Finnish Baths for clues. One newspaper attempts to make a salacious angle out of the mixed-gender naked bathing on Saturdays at the Nordic community bathhouses on Stockholm Street and Squam Hill. The attempt flops as the mixing sauna soakers are strictly limited to family members only plus the fact there’s no evidence Ada ever partook.

Detectives Murray and Griffin, plus Assistant DA Green, grill Warren Olson for three hours. They press him hard over conflicting statements that he has made plus the fact that his mother apparently destroyed the bloody slippers he wore when he first entered the Johnson house. The interrogation produces no breaks in the case. That evening, investigators take a break from their labors to attend the Rockport Firemen’s Association steamed clam supper.

The seventh day produces little more than speculation. The Board of Selectmen meet with DA Cregg to discuss the reward. Mrs. Francis Griffiths of 36 Pigeon Hill Street reports the theft of a pound of butter from her ice chest, but police are initially skeptical of the idea of a murderer hiding in the woods, given the cold weather and the amount of food needed to survive. They find no blood stains on the stone wall between the Johnson property and the adjacent woodlot. Police find a round-headed rusty hammer but pronounce it “just another hammer.” They speculate that the murderer probably tossed the weapon into a water-filled quarry. They speculate that Oker’s murderer may have left 77 Main Street by some method other than the front door.

The next week is extraordinary not only in the annuals of state law enforcement, but in Massachusetts history.

The Manhunt

Four detectives and thirty-five state troopers arrive in Rockport. They come from all the State Police barracks in Eastern MA, primarily from Bridgewater, Cape Cod and Framingham. They billet in Rockport residents’ homes. They work around the clock. They plan to search every house and interview every Rockport adult, who is expected to give up an alibi for their whereabouts on Halloween night. They will conduct house-sweeps by day and patrol the dark streets at night. They start by combing the Sandy Bay and Pigeon Hill sections of town, concentrating on the Sheep Pasture neighborhood. Two days in, the troopers have searched over two hundred homes, one fifth of the houses in town. At each house they ask the residents:

• Do you know anything that would help us find the murderer of Mrs. Johnson?
• Where were you during the early morning of the day she was killed?
• Have you any well-founded suspicions that would help us?
• Has any food been stolen from your house recently?
• Did you see any suspicious looking persons around Rockport immediately preceding the murder?

They concentrate next on the homes of summer residents, now closed for the winter, and ask caretakers for the house keys. Police are confident that the two murders were committed by the same person, and that person is a Rockporter.

The Oker-Johnson investigation is now national news. The editorial page of The Boston Transcript rails against the door-to-door search. The DA is still publicly confident for an immanent arrest. Psychics and charlatans phone the Rockport Police station, all claiming to have preternatural knowledge of the murders from their dreams and visions.

Ten days into the murder, police get a call of two prowlers near the home of Reverend Johansen. The men get into a truck, but police have set up a roadblock between Rockport and Gloucester. The men initially attempt to evade capture, but the officers apprehend them. The officers interrogate the suspects, who are found to be sufficiently benign and release them.

On the twelfth day, a Sunday, Massachusetts State Trooper and Baptist preacher Ernest A. Thorsell addressed the assembled congregants of the Swedish Congregational Church.

Thorsell, nicknamed “Bishop,” was a handsome man in 1933, with a straight back and thick head of wavy blond hair that had yet to turn silver. There was a contemporary photo of him for sale recently on eBay, preaching to attentive State Police troopers at a tent revival put on by the South Foxboro Union Church. Thorsell was undoubtedly an upright man of God and the law and would eventually become department chaplain for the Massachusetts State Police. Judging by his surname, he was likely of Swedish ancestry.

Officer Thorsell stood at the front in the Swedish Congregational Church, black vestments covering his sky-blue trooper uniform and service pistol in its leather holster. He is like a character out of Hawthorne, and this is his Election Day sermon. Like all the investigators, Thorsell knows that victims Arthur Oker and Ada Johnson were former congregants of this assembly. It is likely that someone here knows more about the connections between the two individuals and the two cases. The murder might be — may well be — here today. Thorsell ends his appear with his clear preacher voice reverberating in the wooden structure, “Come to Christ with your confession of sin!”

I like imagining Thorsell and the event this way, imbued with the flaming, self- assured spirit of New England Puritanism. It seems atmospherically appropriate. It resonates emotionally. But it’s not entirely accurate. The Boston Globe managed an intrepid scoop of the church service in question, which went something like this:

Under the direction of Detective Griffin, Trooper Thorsell had lunched with Johansen that day and together hatched the plan for Thorsell to conduct the sermon. That night at the church, Rev. Albert Johansen got up and introduced Thorsell as “Your pastor for tonight.” At that moment, Thorsell dramatically walked in with another State Trooper, Officer Harold Searles. Searles positioned himself by the front door, barring the entry of the bevy of journalists hoping to grab a pew.

Thorsell began by assuring the congregation that he didn’t believe the killer is among the assembled. However, he then cautions that the man had better confess or face no peace in this life and eternal damnation in the next. He then does a strange thing, either for dramatic effect or demonstrating some knowledge hidden from us. He points to specific members of the congregation — we don’t know who — imploring again and again, “Come to Christ with your confession of sin.”

Thorsell continues for thirty minutes, pleading with the congregants, “I will help you” and reminding the assembled that “there is an afterlife for you if you are free from sin.” At the conclusion of the sermon, he has fired up the crowd, shouting “DO YOU WISH TO WALK WITH CHRIST? DO YOU WISH TO WALK WITH CHRIST?” One can imagine the reverent choruses of Amens, the congregants, cheeks tear-stained, swaying and waving their hands in the air in testament.

Uncomfortable with seeing his flock so effectively commandeered in this fashion, Reverend Johansen is about to announce the concluding hymn when Thorsell cuts him off. He has a message specifically for the youth in the crowd. He assures them that they are making no mistake in accepting Christ and adds, “I’ll stay here tonight as long as you wish to have me. I’ll stay through the week if you want me to.”

Thorsell and Searles stay briefly after the service, then head back to their billet at the Rockport Town Hall.

And what did the congregants say? They said nothing.

On the thirteenth night, another peculiar event occurs in an investigation that has no shortage of them. Warren Olsen, the young man who found Ada Johnson murdered, is stopped by woman who claimed to be from Quincy and a man in a Boston Police uniform. It is unknown if the police officer is armed. The Quincy woman claimed that a saint told her the murderer was hiding in a cave in the woods. The pair take Olsen into the Rockport woods and “disappear” for almost two hours. Somehow Olsen gets free of the two. The investigators decline to officially interview Olsen about the odd pair. They assume it was just civilians eager for the Selectmens’ reward and ask the Boston Police Department to investigate the matter.

By November 15, the investigation is in arrears. The State Police troopers, having found no evidence, are reassigned to duties in other towns and by the end of the month they will be all gone. But something interesting happens in Groveland, a mill town on the Merrimack River thirty-seven miles northeast of Rockport. Motor Vehicle Inspectors Roy B Chase and Charles A Woods are around when the see a car whose license plate is attached with rope. The stop and interrogate Charles B Davis of Ipswich, the driver of the car. It turns out that the vehicle plates belong to Ida Oker, widow of the slain Rockport tailor. Davis was apparently “uncertain as to some angles as of the ownership of the car,” and the inspectors take him to the Haverhill police station. Davis claims that he bought the car in Salem, but a quick check proves that incorrect. The car hadn’t been registered since 1930. Riding with Davis is Hallett Doyle of Manning Street in Ipswich. Two full liquor pint bottle and ten empty pints are found in the car. Chase and Woods notify the State Police.

On November 20, only Detectives Murray and Griffin are left. Officer Griffin visits a patient at Danvers State Hospital. The recently admitted patient is a resident of Rockport who has been badly affected by the double murders and claims the murderer has been haunting their dreams. Officer Griffin must postpone the interview when hospital superintendent Dr. Bonner declares that the patient is not mentally fit to talk to authorities.

By December, the investigation has proved fruitless. District Attorney Cregg, a polished politico (and — fun fact — grandfather to rock singer Huey Lewis) is expecting a tough reelection fight next year and has other unsolved murder cases in Essex County to worry about — a farmhand found dead in Saugus and the arsenic poisoning of Miss Madeline Gautreau at an Ipswich Tourist Camp. President Roosevelt has just repealed Prohibition. Perhaps time will bring to light new evidence.

There is one brief flare up in the last month of 1933. Authorities find one of Ada Johnson’s dishes in the home of a Rockport man who is reputedly under surveillance. The dish may have been covered in blood. This dish may have rested on or near the windowsill of the pantry. Authorities gather fingerprints on the dish. The story disappears with no follow-up.

In March of 1934, there is a another brief flurry of activity on the Oker-Johnson cases. Authorities report unspecified new evidence. State Police detectives are placed back in charge under the DA. Police from Rockport and surrounding Cape Ann towns conduct additional interviews. But the anxieties of the Rockport residents will not be assuaged, as the brief reports stop and fade into silence.

In October 1934, almost a year after the murder, the Johnson case is again back in the headlines, with the police reporting crucial new pieces of evidence. Rockport teenager Waldemar I Irlunglen, hanging out with some friends in an empty hayfield in the Pigeon Hill area, discovers a quarryman’s hammer in the niche of the stone foundation of a shed. Irlunglen alerts the police, who visit the shed and discover a glass bottle containing what appears to be flammable liquid near where the hammer was found and possibly the remnants of smeared newspaper pages.

The hammer is a four-and-a-half-pound stonecutter’s tool. The shaft is crude, made of a Birch tree limb with pieces of bark still attached. The metal head is stained blackish-brown with matted clumps of organic material, straw — or hair? — attached. The property is owned by a “prominent Rockport churchman,” one known to both Johnson and Oker. This churchman has been a person of interest for State Police Detectives William Murray and Richard Griffin plus Chief Sullivan for some time. Detective Murray sends the hammer to MIT to determine if the stains and hairs are human.

State Police detectives visit and dismantle the wooden shed in the hayfield, hunting for more clues. Authorities conduct rounds of fresh interviews, hoping to trace ownership of the hammer and the partially filled bottle of flammable material. They question a Rockport hardware dealer, who sold a glass cutter several days before the Johnson murder but can’t recall who he sold it to. The investigators note that nobody comes forward to claim purchasing the tool. Detective Murray questions one new witness and five others who had previously submitted statements. DA Cregg, facing complaints from residents on the slow progress of the investigation, promises that he will do his best to speed up the proceedings.

But his promises are for naught. By the third week of October the interviews have uncovered no new leads. Cregg has passed the case down to Assistant DA Charles A Green, who hears less frequently from the detectives, since there is no progress. Rockport citizens express their frustration. There is no record of the results from MIT, but presumably Detectives Griffin and Murray are unable to tie the stonecutter’s hammer and the bottle to the Johnson murder.

The second homicide case in Rockport grows cold, albeit with a few remaining aftershocks in store.

The Aftershocks

It was Halloween night 1934, a year to the day of Ada Johnson’s killing. Sheep and several ducks owned by Ada’s sister Albertina Johnson, age 80, are found dead on Lawrence Swan’s property at 25 Curtis Street, just down the hill from Ada’s old home. Swan is a relative of Ada and Albertina, and he is so unnerved by the incident that he stands guard with a rifle at his home until the police arrive. The animals are not just dead, but mutilated-dead, “so cut up that it could be seen that they were not killed for food” as the Newburyport Daily Herald later reported. The Rockport police speculate that the mutilations could be some sort of warning for the extended

Johnson family. They contact the Essex County DA and the State Police. On November 4th, State Police Detective William Murray and DA Hugh A Cregg are again back in Rockport asking questions.

Four days later, Patrolmen Ralph A. Levie and Anthony S. Costa discover another mutilated sheep, its throat slit, in the middle of Washington Street near the corner of Centennial Ave. The owner was Mr. Joseph George, the proprietor of a store at 178 Market Street. This time the Rockport Police did an about face, quickly ascertaining that the animal was killed by dogs and closed the case.

Sometime in the 1930’s, Pastor Johansen resigns from the Swedish Congregational Church. He disappears from Cape Ann, perhaps heading out West. He also seems to disappear from the historical record, at least as far as Google internet searches are concerned.

Four years later is the last aftershock. On March 23, 1938, the front page of the Lowell Sun was the big, black type headline “Rockport Murder Maniac Bludgeons Boy in Alley.” A little boy, seven-year-old Robert Forsman, was found unconscious with bloody nose and head trauma in an alley half a block from Oker’s shop. Little Robbie Forsman was transported to Addison Gilbert hospital in critical condition. Doctors ruled out the possibility of the boy being hit by a motorist.

The boy lingers in a coma but dies in hospital on March 25th without regaining consciousness. By then the official explanation is less sensational, if no less tragic. Authorities report that a five-year old boy saw Forsman playing on the fire escape on a building parallel to the alley. The boy saw Forsman fall and hit the cement ground or a rock. The boy saw Foresman pick himself up, dazed but with only a bloody nose. Assuming Foresman was OK, he neglected to tell his parents of the incident. An investigator named Donald Babcock found Foresman’s hat under the fire escape and blood on a nearby rock. The case is closed. Forsman surviving parents and sister can grieve in peace, secure in the knowledge that at least their Robbie wasn’t the latest victim of the local serial killer.

It is the last time the Rockport Maniac is ever mentioned for a long time.

The Silence

There are at least a dozen books on the Lizzie Borden murder trial in Fall River. There are articles and plays and even cartoon segments of The Simpsons about it. The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast charges $36 a person for a one-hour “ghost hunt” tour. In 2015, the CEO of the Fall River Chamber of Commerce estimated that 54,000 tourists visited the Borden house each year. Halloween is the most popular time to visit. Lizzie Borden may have given her mother forty whacks, but she gave her city something more substantial: a tourist-economy perpetual motion machine. Fall River, frankly, can’t stop talking about Lizzie Borden.

By contrast, concerning Arthur Oker and Ada Johnson, Rockport says nothing.

In the 21st Century, two articles and a book resurrected the Rockport Maniac murders. The first was a 2005 Boston Globe article by staff member Brenda Buote, published just in time for Halloween. Five years later in her work Dogtown, author Elyssa East mentions the Rockport Maniac murders in passing, although her book is more about a 1984 Rockport murder that occurred in the deep woods in the heart of Cape Ann. Five years after that, Gordon College student Courtney Scott published a well-reached piece on Medium for a journalism class. These three pieces sparked my interest in the case and led me down some interesting rabbit holes of online newspaper databases and library archives.

Both Buote and Scott stopped at the Rockport Police Station and saw the safe- deposit box in the evidence room where the last bits of Ada Johnson are kept. Literally her last bits — not just the damaged reading glasses, but a lock of hair and skull fragments thank look like yellowed Chinaware shards. It is reputedly the last bits of evidence remaining. The case files were allegedly destroyed — perhaps tossed into one of the water-filled granite quarries around town –on the orders of Chief Sullivan before his death in 1944 to protect the reputations — and the secrets — of the citizens from the fall of 1933.

Policeman James T. Quinn vowed to never close the case until the killer was caught. But Quinn’s life closed in 1974, while the Johnson case remained — and remains — stubbornly unsolved, if not exactly open. Former Rockport Police Chief J. Tom McCarthy, respectful and helpful, speculated that the killer was probably dead.

The locals interviewed were coy, speaking in elliptical hints about the murders. Historian and author Eleanor C. Parsons said she knew who did it; even considered writing a book, but decided against it lest she expose herself to retribution. Oker’s grandson, Rockport historian and town poet laurate Roger Martin, said he knew who did it; even saw the man at a town event in the 1990’s, but would say no more because Rockport is a small town. In his book, Rockport Recollected, however, Martin was more circumspect, making no mention of knowing the identity of the killer but claiming that the State Police must have known who did it, but didn’t have enough solid evidence to make an arrest. He provides an interesting aside — at the request of his daughter, he contacted the State Police to find the file on the Oker case. The State Police found the case file. They found it empty.

Bradley Smith, just a boy in the 1930’s, speculated the murder was man who immigrated with Oker back in 1904 and killed him after a theological argument. Both Smith and Parsons hinted at the “smuggler’s tunnels” underneath Rockport where the killer hid and the weapon would be found. Ninety-one year old barber Walter Julian was most succinct, commenting, “I could tell you who killed them, but I won’t.”

And that’s the last word. Maybe.

Now that you’ve read this you may feel the need to head up Route 128 to the end of the highway at Rockport. You may feel this burning desire to stop at an art gallery or clothing store or the music hall or stop a cop or a merchant on the street and drop a reference to details of the Oker-Johnson case. They’re not going to know what you’re talking about. Or they will pretend that they don’t. Or maybe they do know something, but you’re foolish to think they’ll tell you. My final bit of advice?

Whatever you say, say nothing. © Robert Fitzgibbon 2022

Sources

City and Town Publications

• 1932 Gloucester City Directory, p.13 — accessed via Ancestry.com Jan 4,2022
• 1935 Gloucester City Directory
• 1933 Annual Report, Town of Rockport
• 1934 Annual Report, Town of Rockport — John E Sullivan’s report is curt, extraordinary given
• the events happening in town

Pamphlets

• The Swedish Element on Cape Ann, 1880–1900, Reinhold L. Swan, 1966, collection of the Rockport Public Library

Books

• Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, Elyssa East, Simon & Schuster Books, New York, 2010 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dogtown/Elyssa-East/9781416587057
• Rockport Remembered: An Oral History, Roger Martin Curious Traveler Press, Gloucester, MA 1997
• Rockport Recollected:, Real Stories from Real People, Roger Martin Curious Traveler Press, Gloucester, MA 2001

Websites/Articles

• Who killed Arthur Oker and Augusta Johnson? 7 decades later, the mystery remains: By Brenda J. Buote, Globe Staff | October 30, 2005 http://archive.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/10/30/who_font_colorredkilledfont_arthur_o kerand_augusta_johnson/
• Rockport’s Murder Mystery: Going to the Grave: Courtney Scott, May 10, 2015 https://medium.com/@coscott15/rockport-s-murder-mystery-going-to-the-grave-90424612b9d8
• Vintage Rockport: https://vintagerockport.com/
• On the Move: 125 Years of the East Coast Conference by Rev. Paul Day, 2016 http://eastcoastconf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/125th-Anniversary-History-of-the-East- Coast-Conference.pdf

Photo of Reverend Thorsell, accessed Jan 23, 2022 https://www.ebay.com/itm/353160954761

1957 ID card of MA State Police Dept. Chaplain Thorsell, accessed Jan 23, 2022 https://www.flyingtigerantiques.com/rare-1957-massachusetts-state-police-credentials-for-dept- chaplain-ernest-a-thorsell.html

FBI: UCR: Crimein the United States 2011 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/offenses-known-to-law- enforcement/expanded/expanded-homicide-data

Newspaper Periodicals

Newburyport Daily News and Newburyport Herald

• “Rockport Tailor is Murdered in His Store,” May 23rd, 1932
• “Think Two Slew Rockport Tailor,” May 26th, 1932
• “P.O. Authorities in Murder Case,” May 28th, 1932
• “Man Held in Amesbury Queried on Murder,” May 31, 1932
• “Spurned Suitor of Slain Window Being Sought by Police,” Nov 3, 1933
• “State Troopers Start Hunt for Rockport Slayer,” Nov 8th 1933
• “Prowlers at House of Murdered Woman’s Minister Cause Stir,” Nov 11th 1933
• “Auto Plates of Slain Tailor’s Widow Found on Ipswich Man’s Car,” Nov 15 1933
• “Prosecutors to Confer on Murder Case,” Nov 16 1933
• “Still Investigating Suspected Murder,” Dec 13 1933
• “New Evidence is Discovered in Rockport Murder,” March 15 1934
• “Hammer Linked to Two Slayings in Rockport,” Oct 19, 1934
• “Another Clue in Rockport Murder Case,” Oct 20 1934
• “Glass Cutter is Sought as Clew in Murder Case,” Oct 22,1934
• “Nothing New in Rockport Case,” Oct 23, 1934
• “Cregg to Post Reward,” Nov 4th, 1933
• “See Warning of Murder in Animal Slaying,” Nov 5th, 1934
• Gloucester Daily Times
• “Rockport Man Expires from Skull Fracture,” May 22, 1932
• “Arthur F. Oker, Tailor, Victim of Brutal Beating During Saturday Noon Hour,” May 23, 1932
• “Officials Baffled in Search for Murderer of Rockport Tailor,” May 24, 1932
• Oker Funeral Notice, May 24 1932
• “Funeral This Afternoon,” May 24th 1932
• “Murder Case Baffles Efforts of Authorities,” May 25, 1932
• “Rockport Crime Remains as Much Mystery as Ever,” May 26, 1932
• “Murdered Man Left All to Wife,” May 26th 1932
• “Report No New Development in Rockport Case,” May 27, 1932
• “Mystery Becomes Deeper with Pigeon Cove Murder,” Nov 3rd 1933
• “Murder Victim is Laid to Rest with Simple Services,” Nov 4th, 1933
• “Prosecutors However Admit Slow Progress in Solving the Brutal Murder at Pigeon Cove,” Nov 6, 1933
• “Police in Conference for Hours Yesterday with Pigeon Cove Lad,” Nov 7, 1933
• “Two More Detectives and Four Troopers Join Force — Officials Issue Statement,” Nov 8, 1933
• “Combing Rockport for Possible Clues,” Nov 9, 1933
• “Hopeful in House to House Canvass,” Nov 10, 1933
• “Local Man’s Sheep Slain — Believed Killed by Dogs,” Nov 9th 1934
• “Two Detectives Left in Rockport,” Nov 20, 1033
• “Find Rockport Boy Unconscious,” March 23rd, 1938
• “Rockport Boy Fails to Survive Head Injuries,” March 25th 1938
• “Rockport Lad Still Unconscious After Fall,” March 24th 1938
• “Grisly Halloween Murder Still Unsolved After 50 Years,” Oct 31, 1983
• Other Newspapers
• “Tailor at Rockport Is Slain at His Shop,” The Boston Globe, May 22, 1932
• “Robber Believed to Have Slain Church President,” The Fitchburg Sentinel, May 23, 1932
• “Woman Beaten to Death and Home Burned,” Portsmouth Herald, Nov 1, 1933
• “Nab Suspect in Murder,” Boston Daily Record, Nov 2, 1933
• “Seek Solution of Rockport Crimes,” Portsmouth Herald, Nov 4, 1933
• “News Gathered Over Night,” North Adams Transcript, Nov13, 1933
• “Officer Becomes Preacher Again,” The Boston Globe, Nov 13, 1933
• “Hammer Clue in Rockport Murder Case,” The Fitchburg Sentinel, Oct 19, 1934
• “Rockport Murder Maniac Bludgeons Boy in Alley,” The Lowell Sun, March 23, 1938

Last but not least

Many thanks to Courtney Scott who generously shared her research with me. That research includes scans of a scrapbook of newspaper articles on the Oker/Johnson murders compiled by Sylvia Elso Boudrow (1917–86) and material from the John White Marshall collection of the Sandy Bay Historical Society

Thanks to Julie Travers of the Sawyer Free Library for her research assistance Thanks also to the staff of the Rockport Public Library for their research assistance Can’t say it enough: Support your local libraries and your local librarians.

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