Tom McCarthy, who maintains the website for the NY Correction History Society (NYCHS) asked for help with a presentation he is preparing. From his email:

“It would mark the 50th anniversary of the Feb. 1, 1957 airplane crash on Rikers Island. Thanks to the bravery and team work of staffers and inmates, more than 60 of the 90 or so persons aboard Northeast Airlines Flight 823 were rescued from the burning wreckage that snowy, freezing night.

By any chance, do you happen know of any former NYC DOC staffer who was on the job back in 1957, or know someone who might know of a former NYC DOC staffer from that Commissioner Anna M. Kross era? Depending on their age at the time, any such former staffers would be in their 70s, 80s or 90s.

The first-hand recollections of those who were around then would be helpful in preparing the presentation. Any clippings, photos and other artifacts related to it that they may have saved might also enhance the 50th anniversary presentation that I am preparing for the web site.”

You can email Tom at: nychs@nyc.rr.com.

(Pictures of the 1957 crash were found at: http://www.planecrashinfo.com/.)

There are now 9,082 unsolved murders in New York City going back to 1985. That figure is a moving target of course. They are adding to that number all the time. Roughly 150 – 200 or more murders go cold every year, and try as they might, they are not going back and solving that many each year (of the older, cold cases).

That picture was take at one of the Property Clerk warehouses. Those barrels contain homicide evidence.

Attention!  If you have a friend or loved one whose murder is still unsolved and you want to know what to do, please read this:

People ask repeatedly in the comments section about what to do or who to call about an unsolved murder. The answer to those questions are on the left under the heading, Getting Help – Contacting a Cold Case Squad. First read the document titled Before You Contact a Cold Case Squad. Then look up the number in the document Cold Case Squad and Other Organizations.

If you can’t find a number for your city or town, call your local police department and ask them if they have a cold case squad or a person in their homicide squad who specializes in cold cases. If they don’t then ask to speak to someone in their homicide squad. If you don’t get what you believe is a decent response, then go to the document on the left titled, Escalating Your Case.

If you have specific questions after reading through these instructions please ask here, but come back to see the answer!

It’s not a cold case, but there was an extremely well done article about a 1927 murder in the Times yesterday. (Photograph by Uli Seit courtesy of the New York Times.)

Also, there is news of a faster DNA test (the article I once linked to is gone now).

On April 9, 1959, NASA announced which seven pilots would become the first US astronauts, Frank Lloyd Wright died, and Vyron Martin found his wife Ruth dead on the sofa in their cabin on Marsh-Miller Lake. She was naked and shot in the head with a .22 caliber bullet.

Here’s an article with more details. [The original article I linked to is gone, I am linking now to a different one.] According to the article, the police came across the 47 year old case while in the process of bar coding all crime scene evidence they’d been storing. That caught my eye because I was recently out at the Nassau and Suffolk Police Departments, looking into their process of storing evidence. This whole system of bar coding evidence is very impressive.

I tried to find someone alive who knew Ruth. Sadly, her husband Vyron died in 1980. He was still living in the town where she was murdered. I see Ruth was nine years older than Vyron, very unusual at time. I’m sure someone must exist somewhere, but I couldn’t find any living relatives.

The article hints at possible DNA evidence, but it doesn’t say what they found exactly. I wonder what they have.