Downingtown's Secret Gangster Graveyard

The decade of the 1930s was the heyday of organized crime in America, and when it came to states with notorious mobsters, Pennsylvania was near the top of the list. While organized crime rings operated in most Pennsylvania cities during the 1930s, it is not surprising that the epicenter of mob life lay in Philadelphia and its outskirts.

It's impossible to say with any degree of certainty how many individuals were killed by mobsters during this era, but the number had to have been staggering. From Scranton to Allentown, New Castle to Pittsburgh, and all points in between, daily newspaper headlines eagerly reported on gruesome discoveries of victims of foul play, ranging from rival gangsters and innocent bystanders to victims of human trafficking.

In the early 1930s, a string of ghastly discoveries near the Chester County borough of Downingtown shed light on dumping grounds used by gangsters to hide the bodies of their victims, all of whom were young, attractive females.

On Sunday, July 12, 1931, Leet Miller was picnicking along Brandywine Creek and noticed a ring of buzzards circling above the sandy banks of the stream and went to investigate. From a mound of stones and pebbles they discovered a pair of women's feet protruding and immediately notified the authorities. The nude body of a young woman was found beneath the stones. District Attorney John Guss and Coroner Herbert Ford stated that the woman had been slain about three weeks earlier, although it was impossible to be certain-- her face had been dissolved by acid. A local resident, George Fox, found a can of lye not far from the burial mound, near the present day site of Marsh Creek State Park.

Because of the disfigurement, it seemed that identification of the body would be impossible and so her remains were immediately interred in the county potter's field in Embreville.

However, on Thursday, July 16, the coroner had the body exhumed after a man from New Jersey came forward claiming that his teenage daughter, Viola Wentzell, had been missing for a week. The father, W.T. Streeper of Paulsboro, New Jersey, told authorities that Viola had once lived in Downingtown and had disappeared shortly after returning to Paulsboro.

A forensic chemist and fingerprint expert came from Harrisburg to aid the investigation, which was spearheaded by the Chester County coroner's physician, Dr. Michael Margoldes. After examining the body, Dr. Margoldes concluded that the victim had been buried alive after sustaining a serious skull fracture. The killer had then used acid in an attempt to hasten decomposition. A dentist aiding the identification, Dr. Vernon Bailey, concluded that five of the girl's teeth had been knocked out.

A thorough search of the vicinity of the crime scene, which extended from Creek Road (Rt. 282) on the west bank of the creek to Struble Trail on the east bank, uncovered a shoelace, scraps of clothing and a bloody handkerchief embroidered with the letter M. It was believed that the killer had placed rocks in the handkerchief and used it as a "blackjack" to smash his victim in the mouth.

Meanwhile, county detective Francis Grubb was busy running down leads; there were at least twenty-five missing women from Chester and surrounding counties who matched the physical description. These potential candidates ranged from Mary Riggs, a local waitress who had disappeared six weeks earlier, to Mrs. Clarence Rudolph, who disappeared from her home at Edge's Mill, just a stone's throw away from the scene of the crime. The police, however, leaned toward the theory that the victim-- and her killer-- were not from the area.

On July 16, authorities announced that they had made an identification through a ring that was found on the victim's finger. A man from Jersey City had come forward to report the disappearance of his daughter, and he claimed that the ring was hers. He believed that his daughter's husband had committed the foul deed. This lead, however, turned out to be false and by the end of summer the identity of the slain woman still remained a mystery.

Two years later, in November of 1933, memories of the forgotten and unsolved Brandywine Creek murder came back to mind when the bullet-riddled bodies of two more young women were found in a cornfield near Downingtown.

Edgar McLaughlin, a farm worker from Brandywine Manor, was husking corn on the farm owned by Robery Curry on November 3 when he noticed a strange iron bar jutting out of the ground at the edge of the field, marking the location of a hastily dug grave. Inside the shallow grave were the bullet-riddled bodies of two young women. An abandoned automobile was also discovered on the Curry farm, inside of which authorities found clods of loose earth, strands of red hair, and eleven empty shotgun shells. The discovery of a gold ladies necklace inside the car indicated that robbery was not the motive.

It was soon learned that the car belonged to Ethel Marshall, a hat check girl and nightclub singer from Philadelphia, who was known to be the girlfriend of a minor underworld figure named John Zukorsky. Only a week earlier Zukorsky and a fellow gangster by the name of Edward "Cowboy" Wallace had been shot in Camden, New Jersey. Zukorsky survived the assassination attempt, but "Cowboy" Wallace died instantly. Both men were known members of the notorious Lanzetti gang.

Detectives believed that Zukorsky and Wallace had been "taken for a ride" from a hotel in Camden by the Lanzetti gang because they were trying to muscle in on the local numbers racket.

It was obvious to police that the two women found in Curry's cornfield were Ethel Marshall and Florence Miller, who had been Wallace's girlfriend. Like Ethel, Florence was also a nighclub singer from Philadelphia. According to police, the women had been abducted and slain so that they could not reveal the identity of gangsters who took Zukorsky and Wallace for a ride. An autopsy revealed that both women had been shot in the head and chest at point blank range.

In 1935, mobster Anthony "Tony the Stinger" Cugino was charged with the murders of the two women, along with eight other gangland murders, but took his own life in New York City before police could take him into custody.



Sources:
Altoona Tribune, July 13, 1931.
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, July 16, 1931.
Wilkes-Barre Record, July 17, 1931.
Reading Times, July 14, 1931.
Danville Morning News, July 14, 1931.
Mount Carmel Item, July 16, 1931.
Tyrone Daily Herald, Nov. 3, 1933.
Shamokin News-Dispatch, Nov. 3, 1933.
Altoona Tribune, Nov. 30, 1933.
Delware County Daily Times, Sept. 12, 1935.



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