Kidnapped but body never found. Her personal effects were sent to her husband 2 months after her disappearance and the husband is convinced she was murdered. Husband and housekeeper were investigated. They eventually were married.
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Every once in a while a crime happens that just doesn't make sense. On occasion a crime will make sense to persons most intimately involved, and even to the authorities as well, but will puzzle and confuse the public because certain important details have been withheld for one reason or another. On other occasions the mystery will baffle not only the family and friends but even then the investigators. Yea, even J. Edgar Hoover.
Today we take up the mystery of Alice McDonell Parsons, who disappeared - if she did disappear - on June 9, 1937. Or maybe it was the 8th. It was a kidnaping, or maybe a murder, or perhaps she ran away of her own accord. We can't state anything very definitely because the thing just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to the public, and we wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it didn't make sense to anybody else. Including, we suspect, Mr. Hoover and his sometimes miraculous G-Men.
Until that June morning when she vanished, Mrs. Parsons had been living quite simply and quietly on a stock farm at Stony Brook, L.I., sixty-five miles from New York City. Both she and her husband, William H. Parsons, were socially prominent but took no part in society. They had wealthy connections, but were not themselves wealthy.
Mrs. Parsons' most important relative had been an uncle, the late Col. Timothy S. Williams, former president of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. Her husband was related by marriage to Richardson Pratt of the enormously wealthy Standard Oil family. Parsons, a Yale man, class of 1910, had enlisted as a seaman during the war, emerged as a lieutenant, tried his hand at various businesses, married Alice McDonell in 1925, and presently had launched a career as a gentleman farmer at Stony Brook.
For a time he tried raising chickens and pigeons for market, with his bride assisting him. When this failed to prosper he took to raising squabs with more success. They made a squab paste which was much in demand in the swanky environs of Long Island and Manhattan. The Parsonses did all their own work, assisted only by Anna Kupryanova, a Russian-born woman whose 11-year-old son also lived with them. Mme. Kupryanova had worked for Mary Parsons, sister of Will Parsons, but had been sent to attend Alice in an illness in 1931. And after the illness, she and her son, Roy, had remained.
The boy was a distinct addition to the household. Alice Parsons, whom an accident had rendered incapable of motherhood, had often remarked that she would be supremely happy if she could have a child.
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Every once in a while a crime happens that just doesn't make sense. On occasion a crime will make sense to persons most intimately involved, and even to the authorities as well, but will puzzle and confuse the public because certain important details have been withheld for one reason or another. On other occasions the mystery will baffle not only the family and friends but even then the investigators. Yea, even J. Edgar Hoover.
Today we take up the mystery of Alice McDonell Parsons, who disappeared - if she did disappear - on June 9, 1937. Or maybe it was the 8th. It was a kidnaping, or maybe a murder, or perhaps she ran away of her own accord. We can't state anything very definitely because the thing just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to the public, and we wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it didn't make sense to anybody else. Including, we suspect, Mr. Hoover and his sometimes miraculous G-Men.
Until that June morning when she vanished, Mrs. Parsons had been living quite simply and quietly on a stock farm at Stony Brook, L.I., sixty-five miles from New York City. Both she and her husband, William H. Parsons, were socially prominent but took no part in society. They had wealthy connections, but were not themselves wealthy.
Mrs. Parsons' most important relative had been an uncle, the late Col. Timothy S. Williams, former president of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. Her husband was related by marriage to Richardson Pratt of the enormously wealthy Standard Oil family. Parsons, a Yale man, class of 1910, had enlisted as a seaman during the war, emerged as a lieutenant, tried his hand at various businesses, married Alice McDonell in 1925, and presently had launched a career as a gentleman farmer at Stony Brook.
For a time he tried raising chickens and pigeons for market, with his bride assisting him. When this failed to prosper he took to raising squabs with more success. They made a squab paste which was much in demand in the swanky environs of Long Island and Manhattan. The Parsonses did all their own work, assisted only by Anna Kupryanova, a Russian-born woman whose 11-year-old son also lived with them. Mme. Kupryanova had worked for Mary Parsons, sister of Will Parsons, but had been sent to attend Alice in an illness in 1931. And after the illness, she and her son, Roy, had remained.
The boy was a distinct addition to the household. Alice Parsons, whom an accident had rendered incapable of motherhood, had often remarked that she would be supremely happy if she could have a child.
Kidnapped but body never found. Her personal effects were sent to her husband 2 months after her disappearance and the husband is convinced she was murdered. Husband and housekeeper were investigated. They eventually were married.
-----
Every once in a while a crime happens that just doesn't make sense. On occasion a crime will make sense to persons most intimately involved, and even to the authorities as well, but will puzzle and confuse the public because certain important details have been withheld for one reason or another. On other occasions the mystery will baffle not only the family and friends but even then the investigators. Yea, even J. Edgar Hoover.
Today we take up the mystery of Alice McDonell Parsons, who disappeared - if she did disappear - on June 9, 1937. Or maybe it was the 8th. It was a kidnaping, or maybe a murder, or perhaps she ran away of her own accord. We can't state anything very definitely because the thing just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to the public, and we wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it didn't make sense to anybody else. Including, we suspect, Mr. Hoover and his sometimes miraculous G-Men.
Until that June morning when she vanished, Mrs. Parsons had been living quite simply and quietly on a stock farm at Stony Brook, L.I., sixty-five miles from New York City. Both she and her husband, William H. Parsons, were socially prominent but took no part in society. They had wealthy connections, but were not themselves wealthy.
Mrs. Parsons' most important relative had been an uncle, the late Col. Timothy S. Williams, former president of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. Her husband was related by marriage to Richardson Pratt of the enormously wealthy Standard Oil family. Parsons, a Yale man, class of 1910, had enlisted as a seaman during the war, emerged as a lieutenant, tried his hand at various businesses, married Alice McDonell in 1925, and presently had launched a career as a gentleman farmer at Stony Brook.
For a time he tried raising chickens and pigeons for market, with his bride assisting him. When this failed to prosper he took to raising squabs with more success. They made a squab paste which was much in demand in the swanky environs of Long Island and Manhattan. The Parsonses did all their own work, assisted only by Anna Kupryanova, a Russian-born woman whose 11-year-old son also lived with them. Mme. Kupryanova had worked for Mary Parsons, sister of Will Parsons, but had been sent to attend Alice in an illness in 1931. And after the illness, she and her son, Roy, had remained.
The boy was a distinct addition to the household. Alice Parsons, whom an accident had rendered incapable of motherhood, had often remarked that she would be supremely happy if she could have a child.
-----
Every once in a while a crime happens that just doesn't make sense. On occasion a crime will make sense to persons most intimately involved, and even to the authorities as well, but will puzzle and confuse the public because certain important details have been withheld for one reason or another. On other occasions the mystery will baffle not only the family and friends but even then the investigators. Yea, even J. Edgar Hoover.
Today we take up the mystery of Alice McDonell Parsons, who disappeared - if she did disappear - on June 9, 1937. Or maybe it was the 8th. It was a kidnaping, or maybe a murder, or perhaps she ran away of her own accord. We can't state anything very definitely because the thing just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to the public, and we wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it didn't make sense to anybody else. Including, we suspect, Mr. Hoover and his sometimes miraculous G-Men.
Until that June morning when she vanished, Mrs. Parsons had been living quite simply and quietly on a stock farm at Stony Brook, L.I., sixty-five miles from New York City. Both she and her husband, William H. Parsons, were socially prominent but took no part in society. They had wealthy connections, but were not themselves wealthy.
Mrs. Parsons' most important relative had been an uncle, the late Col. Timothy S. Williams, former president of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. Her husband was related by marriage to Richardson Pratt of the enormously wealthy Standard Oil family. Parsons, a Yale man, class of 1910, had enlisted as a seaman during the war, emerged as a lieutenant, tried his hand at various businesses, married Alice McDonell in 1925, and presently had launched a career as a gentleman farmer at Stony Brook.
For a time he tried raising chickens and pigeons for market, with his bride assisting him. When this failed to prosper he took to raising squabs with more success. They made a squab paste which was much in demand in the swanky environs of Long Island and Manhattan. The Parsonses did all their own work, assisted only by Anna Kupryanova, a Russian-born woman whose 11-year-old son also lived with them. Mme. Kupryanova had worked for Mary Parsons, sister of Will Parsons, but had been sent to attend Alice in an illness in 1931. And after the illness, she and her son, Roy, had remained.
The boy was a distinct addition to the household. Alice Parsons, whom an accident had rendered incapable of motherhood, had often remarked that she would be supremely happy if she could have a child.
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