She has been nicknamed “the Medea of Queens”. Medea was a character in Greek mythology who sacrificed children. Queens to designate a vast suburb of New York. In the mid-1960s, Alice Crimmins will be presented as an unworthy and scandalous motherwho allegedly killed her two children.
From the start, the investigation focused on her. The police were sure to have the culprit. The mother was the ideal suspect. The barmaid with dissolute morals who would prefer the nightlife to the good keeping of her home, will be spied on, followed, we will want to know everything about her life and her slightest gestures – in particular her lovers and her hidden perversions. She will be denounced by dozens of crows.
During all this time, many other avenues will not be explored or left fallow. So, is it this woman who committed the worst crime ? But then why, despite the certainties of judges and investigators, this case continues to distill a heady scent of mystery?
A disturbing disappearance
Wednesday, July 14, 1965, 8:30 am, Alice Crimmins gets up in the apartment she occupies on the ground floor of a small red brick building in the Kew Gardens district, very close to the campus of the University of Queens , one of the five boroughs of New York City. The place is quiet and that morning, a perfect silence reigns in the house. No doubt the two children, Eddie Junior, 5 ans, et Missy, 4 ans, are still sleeping. The mother opens the door to their room.
The beds are unmade and, the sash window overlooking the lawn and the deserted avenue, is slightly ajar.. It often happens that children escape to go for a walk outside. Immediately, Alice Crimmins goes to Theresa Costello, one of the nannies, who lives opposite. The nanny didn’t see Eddie Junior or Missy. After walking around the block, the two women quickly realize the obvious: the children have disappeared.
The panicked mother decides to call her ex-conjoint, father of children. Alice and Eddie Senior, 26 and 29 respectively, lived together for seven years. For some time they have been living separately, and they are not on good terms. A month ago, they were in court, with their respective lawyers before the family court judge to settle the custody of the children. Eddie Senior claimed that the life of Alice, a waitress in bars and clubs, was incompatible with the good education of their two sons.
Surprised by the phone call from his ex-wife, he assures us that the children are not with him. At 9:44 a.m., the New York police were alerted.
resigned parents
AT 10:15 a.m. Detective Jerry Piering of the Queens Police Department is the first detective to show up at the apartment. He has already been briefed on the conflict that agitates the couple. The detective immediately has an unfavorable opinion of this mother, with her hair done and make-up on, who – according to him – doesn’t seem either panicked or worried… She first asks him for a fire to light her cigarette.
During the visit, the policeman arrives in the children’s room, which can curiously be closed from the outside by a latch. The mother explains that the latch is pulled every night, because little Eddie Junior has a mania for going at night to rob the refrigerator. Other details, the policeman notices that the trash can is filled with twelve empty bottles of alcohol. Alice Crimmins indicates that she collected them to throw them away.
She is questioned about her schedule. She says that the day before, she picnicked with her children in Kissena Park. They then joined the apartment before phoning his lawyer for his marital disputes. She allegedly put the kids to bed at 9 p.m. A neighbor confirms having heard the little boy and the little girl recite their evening prayer. During the evening, she then watched TV, made phone calls and went to bed around 3:30 a.m..
Husband Eddy Senior wasn’t working the day before, he’s a night shift worker at the airport, he played golf at 7am, then had a few drinks with friends and went out to a bar until at 2:45 a.m. He watched TV and fell asleep around 4am.
Two bodies of children found five days apart
July 14 around 2:00 p.m., four hours after the report of the disappearance: Alice Crimmins is asked to get into a police car. She does not know that in the morning a nine-year-old boy came across a body in a grove, nine blocks from her house. He thought it was a doll but it’s a little blonde girl, lying on her side in panties and an undershirt. Her pajama top was used to gag her. The coroner does not note any trace of beatings and cannot say whether or not the child has been sexually assaulted. Alice Crimmins recognizes her. “It’s Missy”she said before collapsing to the ground.
Five days later, on July 19, the body of a little boy was found by a father and his son during a walk in the woods, on the site of the International Fair, a kilometer and a half from Alice Crimmins’ apartment. The body is unrecognizable, devoured by rodents and insects. Alice Crimmins will never see the body, but she recognizes the pajamas, it’s that of his son Eddie Junior.
The double disappearance suddenly turns into a double crime: dtwo children, a brother and sister brutally murdered in Queens. Very quickly all the New York newspapers seized on the affair and the British journalists flocked. Everything, from the start, seems to focus on the apartment at Kew Gardens. Wouldn’t a drama be played out in this complicated family context?
The guest of the Hour of the crime
– Anais Renevierfreelance reporter and author of the book The Alice Crimmins case to editions 10/18, True Crime collection
