Joseph Force Crater, born on January 5, 1889, was an American lawyer and a New York State Supreme Court Justice. His mysterious disappearance came shortly after the state began investigating corruption in New York City. Despite extensive publicity, the case was never solved and was officially closed forty years after Crater was declared legally dead on June 6, 1939.
Joseph Crater was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, as the eldest of four children to Leila Virginia Montague and Frank Ellsworth Crater, who operated a produce market and orchard. Both of his parents were Irish immigrants. Crater was educated at Lafayette College and Columbia University, where he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. During his time at Columbia, he met Stella Mance Wheeler, who was then married. He helped her get a divorce, and they married shortly after her divorce was finalized in the spring of 1917.
Crater opened an office at the Equitable Building in Manhattan and joined Tammany Hall's Cayuga Democratic Club. He spent time organizing election workers and representing the club in election law cases. In April 1930, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Crater as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court for New York County, despite some controversy surrounding the appointment.
Crater and his wife were vacationing at their summer cabin in Belgrade, Maine, when he received a mysterious telephone call on August 1, 1930. He told his wife he needed to return to New York City to "straighten those fellows out." Instead of dealing with business, he went to Atlantic City with showgirl Sally Lou Ritz. He returned to Maine briefly on August 3 before traveling back to New York City, promising his wife he would return by her birthday on August 9.
On the morning of August 6, Crater spent two hours going through his files in his chambers, reportedly destroying several documents. He then had his law clerk cash checks amounting to $5,150 and took two locked briefcases to his apartment. That evening, he dined at Billy Haas's Chophouse with Ritz and lawyer friend William Klein. Crater's dinner companions gave conflicting accounts of his departure from the restaurant. He was last seen getting into a taxi outside the restaurant around 9:30 p.m.
When Crater failed to return to Maine, his wife began making calls to their friends in New York. His fellow justices became alarmed when he did not appear for the opening of the courts on August 25. The police were notified on September 3, and Crater's disappearance became front-page news.
Detectives discovered that Crater's safe deposit box had been emptied and the two briefcases were missing. Thousands of false reports and rumors flooded in, but none led to Crater's whereabouts. A grand jury convened in October 1930, calling 95 witnesses and amassing 975 pages of testimony. The jury concluded there was insufficient evidence to determine whether Crater was alive or dead, or if he had absented himself voluntarily or was the victim of a crime.
Crater's wife found envelopes containing checks, stocks, bonds, and a note from the judge on January 20, 1931, six months after his disappearance. The discovery led to new but ultimately inconclusive leads. Despite the extensive investigation and speculation, no further trace of Crater was ever found. The case was officially closed in 1979.
The phrase "to pull a Judge Crater" means to disappear, although it is no longer widely used. For many years following Crater's disappearance, "Judge Crater, call your office" was a standard gag among nightclub comedians. The mysterious disappearance of Justice Joseph Force Crater remains one of the most famous missing persons cases in American history.
That's all for today's episode. Join us tomorrow as we explore another significant event in American history. Thank you for listening to "This Day in American History." I'm Chuck Tanraty, signing off.
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