Records of an unsolved murder?

What is the name of your state? New York.
My great aunt was murdered in 1909. The case has never been solved. I have been trying to find police records, coroner's inquest records etc. concerning this case. It was a pretty sensational case, involving city police, sheriff's dept.,neighboring town police. I have copies of the newspapers about the crime. It was the front page story for many days. I believe that part of my inability to find any record is due to people not caring to take the time to do a thourough search. Since there is no statute of limitations on murder cases is there any way to encourage a thoutough search for these records?

To what purpose... to put the 120 year old perp in prison?

I have the name of someone who could have been the perp. I have reason to suspect him from reading the stories and from information that my grandmother and great aunts told me. I would like to see more of the records in order to decide if this person is a possibility. I know that he is long dead, but he is a high profile person. There may have been a cover-up involved. If this can be proved, I would like to set the record straight.

Records that far back are likely archived in some dusty hole somewhere - provided they exist at all. You can likely seek the related documents as part of a FOIA request for public records, but I would expect that the cost might be very high ... you would likely be asked to pay for the time it took to locate and retrieve the items. It might be best to hire a P.I. - preferably one that knows the cops and the system, and have him lok in to it for you.

And if this is New York City, God only knows where documents from 95 years ago might be housed! I would suspect very little exists from that far back, so do not get your hopes up.

There are also television shows that look in to unsolved murders. You might consider writing to each of those programs. I believe A&E has a very active series of programs on these types of things.

- Carl

cdotula said:

What is the name of your state? New York.


My great aunt was murdered in 1909. The case has never been solved. I have been trying to find police records, coroner's inquest records etc. concerning this case. It was a pretty sensational case, involving city police, sheriff's dept.,neighboring town police.

Click to expand...

My response:

Okay, let's have all the names of the involved parties, the police agencies, the places involved, and the circumstances. I would like to see what the "sensation" was all about, and whether there's some historic merit.

Since all the "principle" parties are dead, and it was published with names anyway, it wouldn't matter to tell me this information. Who knows, I must be able to locate something important for you.

IAAL

1909 murder

My aunt's name was Anna Schumacher. She was 17 years old, She was visiting her father's grave on a Saturday afternoon when she was raped and murdered. Her body was not found until Monday. The date was August 7, 1909 in Rochester,New York.
The cemetary was actually outside of the city limits at that time in a town named Greece, The Monroe county sheriff dept., the city of Rochester police and the Greece police were all involved.
My grandmother and great aunts, who were very religious( went to mass daily) believed that the person who murdered her was associated with the catholic semenary which bordered the cemetary.
Piecing together newspaper articles and stories told to me I have come up with a suspect. There are reasons for my suspicion that I can get into later. The person was an important priest at the semanary.
I have asked for the coroner's inquest records , but was told that they weren't found. The person who was going to look for them called me to say that she would go to where they were stored and search. They were a 30 minute drive from where she was at that time. She returned my call to say she didn't find them.but after only an hour or so had passed. It did not give her time to search thouroughly. The bishop of the diocese was called into the inquest. That is one reason that I would like to see the record.
Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

I think contacting a TV show might be the best source of this informaiton if you have enough to go on. She was too young to have much in the way of formal records or Socal security records given the date of the death. Here is a link to people researching in Monroe county, they may be able to help you.

GenWeb of Monroe County, NY
This page is for those interested in tracing their family tree in Monroe County, New York. ... Welcome to the genealogy page for Monroe County, New York. ...
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nymonroe/