WHERE’S ROSE

She stares at me from my desk every time I sit down to work. As an active investigator, I have had my share of unsolved cases in my career, but none that I have thought more about than Rose. Back when I was actively working the file, I wold come home and tell my family over dinner about my progress or lack thereof. My wife said I was obsessive, I said that I was just being thorough. I went so far as to enlist my teenage daughter to walk the tombstones with me. Rose’s yearbook picture from Career High School in New Haven, CT is still taped to my credenza.  The year she graduated was 1926. I lost track of her around 1937. At the time of her father’s death in 1954, the family listed her address as the General Post Office of New York City. Yeah, good luck with that lead. 

In February 2005, her extended family had hired me to find her or her kids, if she had any. She would have been 98 years old at the time, and she or her kids would stand to inherit a ton of money. (Taking a healthy slice of the pie from the people that hired me, if that gives you any kind of hint of the case I was hired into) 

It was my first Forensic Genealogy case and I was very much a rookie. I was good at finding people, but this was a different ballgame. I had no mentors. I had to learn Genealogy on the go, I had only a limited budget and three weeks to produce a report. I reported on time and under budget, working many more hours and spending some of my own money in the process. I told the client that they needed to give me more time, better access to living family members and a new budget. This version of the Family Feud wasn’t the gameshow, but I received the big red X on my request. I wouldn’t let the case go. On my own time and my own dime, I learned how to dive deeper into her life. I travelled to Bellemore, NY in Long Island, her last known address, as well as the NYC Municipal Archives scrolling through decades of Marriage and Death microfilm records.  I found that documents kept in the New Haven Probate court records vault had been cut out with a razor blade and removed. I banged leads through the rest of 2005 and the field work finally came to a close with negative results.

  As new advances in Genealogy occurred, I would hustle to run down those leads. When the 1940 census became available in 2015, I tried every combination possible and came up with lemons. Advances in Genetics are the next frontier and maybe someday, I will get a call from her children or grandchildren as I left a marker on Ancestry.com

My unsolved case is a walk in the park, compared to the anguish that haunts detectives and families of unsolved missing children or murders cases. What drives them to keep working the case? What physical and mental toll does the strain take on the investigators and the families of the missing or the dead?

From the CBS 48 Hours segment linked below, we see the story of Andy Gall, who said, “In 1979, at age 25, I was a very young patrolman with the Monaca Police Department in Beaver County, Pa. I had a little education, a fair amount of self-confidence and a lot of ambition, and I hoped to someday become a detective and investigate serious crimes. On Labor Day of that year, I responded to my first “whodunit” homicide as the first officer at the scene. When I got that fateful radio call, I felt I was fully prepared and thought I had a plan to handle anything. I walked in the door and met the victim’s father and then saw the victim, 23-year-old Catherine Janet (Caltury) Walsh, lying face down in bed. Her hands were bound behind her back and she had been strangled with a bandana.

When I looked back to her father and saw the look on his face, my plan fell apart immediately. I had not prepared myself to deal with the grief of a man who had just found his only daughter murdered. Little did I know that I had just started on a case that would last longer than the careers of most police officers.” 

This case stayed with him his entire working career.

 I will not spoil the ending for you on this. Both he and the Pennsylvania State Police investigator were working their first homicide and this case had many twists and turns. Did either investigator make excuses? No. Did they forget the importance of talking for the dead? No. Did they turn over every stone? Every stone they could think of. Did they go back over their investigation steps? Yes.  Did they have fresh eyes look at? Yes. Did they enlist other experts when the science could do more with the crime scene evidence? Yes.  I will tell you that Andy Gall didn’t quit. It’s a good story.

From Wikipedia, I bring you the trajectory of the life of John Walsh whose world was turned upside down by the kidnapping and murder of his son Adam in 1981,“He became an American television personality, criminal investigator, human rights, victim rights advocate, and the host/creator of America’s Most Wanted.

 In 2003, John Walsh assisted in solving the Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. The publicity later led to the rescue of Elizabeth Smart and the arrests of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ilene Barzee. After Elizabeth Smart was reunited with her family, Walsh later met Elizabeth when her family invited him to meet her and mention his hand in finding her.

 In 2008, the late serial killer Ottis Toole was named as the killer of Walsh’s son. Walsh was part owner of the now-defunct Museum of Crime & Punishment in Washington, D.C. He also anchors an investigative documentary series, The Hunt with John Walsh, which debuted on CNN in 2014.”

Here is a guy that went work one morning in 1981 and his life changed forever.

Lastly, I am going to quote My Favorite Detective Stories podcast guest, Kenneth L Mains from his book Unsolved No More: A Cold Case Detective’s Fight for Justice to sums up best what it means to work an unsolved case.

“Call it passion, resolution, determination or perseverance. It’s my job to solve the case. I can do that. I have the innate ability to do that. What happens after that—well, that’s up to the system. At the end of the day, you must be able to look at yourself in the mirror knowing you have pride, integrity and you gave it your all every single day. That, my friend, is called ‘success’ in your unsolved cases.”

I see you looking at me Rose. 

*Rose Schnitmann DOB 12-05-1907 in New Haven, CT. to Sarah and Hyman Schnitmann. She moved to Bellmore, NY circa 1937. I  believed she married outside of her family’s religion and applied for Social Security under her married last name. 

Just putting it out there.

https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/48-hours-presents-janets-secret/