Little Lord Fauntleroy (murder victim)

"Little Lord Fauntleroy"

Sketch created from study of morgue photographs to depict an estimation of the victim

Sketch of the victim
Born 1914 - 1916 (approximate)
Status Unidentified for 95 years and 24 days
Died Autumn 1920 to February 1921 (aged 5 – 7)
Cause of death Homicide by blunt-force trauma
Body discovered March 8, 1921
Waukesha, Wisconsin
Resting place Prairie Home Cemetery, Waukesha, Wisconsin
Height 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m)

Little Lord Fauntleroy is the name that was given to an unidentified American boy who was discovered murdered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on March 8, 1921.[1] The boy was interred on March 17 that year.[2]

Discovery

On March 8, 1921, the body of a boy aged five to seven was found floating in a pond near the O'Laughlin Stone Company in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The boy may have been in the water for several months before being found.[3][4]

The boy had been struck with a blunt instrument and then put into the pond. Despite being dressed in clothes which indicated an affluent background, the body was never claimed by anyone. In an effort to identify him, authorities displayed his body at a local funeral home.[5] A reward of one thousand dollars was posted, but it did not generate any information.

The boy's clothes consisted of a gray sweater, Munsingwear underwear, black stockings, a shirt, and patent leather shoes. He had blond hair, brown eyes, and a tooth missing from his lower jaw.

Investigation

A man, an employee for the O'Laughlin company, claimed that he had been approached by a couple five weeks before the body was found. The woman, who wore a red sweater, asked whether the man had seen a young boy. She was reportedly upset, and the man accompanying her was seen watching the area where the boy was later found. The couple left in a Ford car and have never been located.[3][4]

A possible scenario for the case is that Little Lord Fauntleroy was abducted from a wealthy family in another location and disposed of to prevent his identification.

After the investigation halted, money was raised by a local woman, Minnie Conrad, for the child to be buried in the Prairie Home Cemetery, in Waukesha.[3][6] Conrad was later buried in the same cemetery in 1940 after she died at the age of 73.[7]

It was reported that there were sightings of a woman wearing a heavy veil who would occasionally place flowers on the boy's grave, and who may possibly have known his identity.[5]

Homer Lemay

Homer Lemay may have been Little Lord Fauntleroy.

In 1949, a medical examiner from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said that investigators thought the boy might be Homer Lemay, a six-year-old who disappeared at about the same time when Little Lord Fauntleroy died.

The boy was said by his father, Edmond, to have died in a vehicle accident during a trip to South America while he was being cared for by family friends (described as the "Nortons"). Detectives were unable to find any information about such a vehicle accident or even about the existence of Mr. and Mrs. Norton.[8]

There was no record of Homer Lemay's death. Edmond Lemay stated that he learned of his son's death when he received information about it from a South American newspaper, which had printed a report of the accident.

Edmond Lemay was charged with forging his wife's signature while she was missing, but a trial found him not guilty.

References

  1. ↑ "In Memoriam". Waukesha Freeman. 17 March 1921. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
  2. ↑ "Little Lord Fauntleroy – Section 1 Lot 39 Grave 6" (PDF). Prairie Home Cemetery. 2012. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 "WIM210308". invisionfree.com. 30 October 2010.
  4. 1 2 "Case File 1377UMWI". doenetwork.org. The Doe Network. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
  5. 1 2 Godfrey, Linda S. (7 April 2005). Weird Wisconsin: Your Travel Guide to Wisconsin's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets (First ed.). Sterling Publishing. p. 248. ISBN 0760759448. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
  6. ↑ "Unidentified Boy". findagrave.com. 25 May 2001. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
  7. ↑ "Faithful Woman Friend Follows Boy to Grave". Oshkosh Daily Northwestern. 2 August 1940. p. 10. Retrieved 18 November 2014 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ "Investigators may exhume body of 'Fauntleroy' Boy". Waukesha Daily Freeman. 19 May 1949. p. 1. Retrieved 18 November 2014.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Unidentified murder victims.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, February 29, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.