Jones - Cincinnatis Savage Seamstress: The Shocking Edythe Klumpp Murder Scandal (True Crime)

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2014 by Richard O Jones

All rights reserved

Cover images: Postcard from the Ed Creighton Collection; mug shot from the Cincinnati Police Department.

First published 2014

e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978.1.62585.217.5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jones, Richard O., 1946

Cincinnatis savage seamstress : the shocking Edythe Klumpp murder scandal / Richard O Jones.

pages cm. -- (True crime)

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-685-8 (paperback)

1. Klumpp, Edythe, 1918-1999. 2. Murder--Ohio--Cincinnati--Case studies. 3. Murder--Investigation--Ohio--Cincinnati--Case studies. I. Title.

HV6534.C5J66 2014

364.1523092--dc23

2014032813

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For Sean, Rachel and Barbthe lights of my life.

CONTENTS

Edythe Klumpp at her trial. Cincinnati Enquirer file.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the following:

The Klumpp family.

The University of Cincinnati Archives and staff.

The folks at the Butler County Historical Society, the Colligan History Project and Miami University Hamilton for their continued support.

The Lane Public Library and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Ed Creighton for the postcards.

Sandra M. Orlett for the portraiture.

And special thanks to Barbara Didrichsen for the loveand her mad editing skills.

A COLD PYRE ON COWAN LAKE

Cecil Mains and his buddies had no luck with the ducks that dreary day, and by the time they packed it in, they were figuring that theyd just wasted a Saturday. But things were about to get crazy for the three young men. They first launched the boat before sunrise on November 1, 1958, in Cowan Lake, a state park about an hour north of Cincinnati. A cold drizzle came and went all day, with ducks more scarce than hunters in the blinds scattered around the seven-hundred-acre reservoir.

By midmorning, they had decided to pull the boat out of Cowan and go to Stone Lick, a smaller reservoir a half hour away on the other side of Blanchester, to see if any ducks were flying there. There werent, so they didnt even put the boat in the water. They goofed around in Blanchester for a little while and had lunch. Then they pulled the boat back out to the Cowan Lake ramp early in the afternoon, parking their car in the lot nearby. The rain had stopped momentarily, so they let the boat drift in the middle, trying to stay away from the fellows in the duck blinds. The drizzle started again, and by 4:00 p.m., Mains had had enough. The three friendsMains, Elbert Walker and Dean Jacksondecided to call it a day.

It was getting pretty cold and late, so we thought we would start the motor up and come back in, Mains said. The motor wouldnt start, and they were at least a mile from the boat ramp, a long way to paddle, so they drifted to the beach. They saw a few guys in a duck blind a bit to the west, but the beach was deserted. A new concession stand was going up, but it was a Saturday so nobody working. One car sat alone in the lot. They figured it belonged to the guys in the blind.

The rain had stopped when they landed, but it was still misty and chilly when they dragged the boat up onto the sand. Jackson said hed walk to get the car while Mains and Walker stayed with the boat and the guns. They walked up toward the road, scouting a way to get the car and trailer down to the beach. Walker hiked a little ahead of Mains, who wandered off in a different direction toward the parking lot. Mains stumbled upon a burned-out fire in a clump of cattails. He saw a pair of legs in the ashes, and it being the day after Halloween, he figured it was some kind of prank with a show window dummy.

Walker had found an access road about fifty feet away on the other side of the clump of cattails and was a third of the way there.

Mains hollered, Hey! Look here! Heres a body!

Walker turned around and ambled back to where his friend was pointing. Thats just some Halloween prank, he said, but as he got closer, he saw that it wasnt any dummy. The legs were blistered. They had toes. The boys saw a necklace, but there wasnt much of a neck.

Edythe and Cincinnati police visit the Cowan Park scene where the body was found. University of Cincinnati Archives.

You knew where the head would be on the body, Walker would tell police. You could tell it was a head, but if you had to recognize it as a human head, you wouldnt know.

The body was lying on its right side. They didnt see any arms or clothing, but they could make out a necklace and a piece of red cloth around the face.

What do you think we ought to do? Walker asked.

We better get the sheriff or somebody down here, Mains said. Ill go find a phone and you stay here. Mains went to the access road and saw a farmers house about a mile and a half away up the hill. Just then, Jackson came around the bend with the car. Mainslooking pretty scared, his buddy saidflagged him down.

Whats the matter? Jackson asked.

We found a body down there, Mains said.

Are you sure its a body?

Oh, yeah, Im sure, he said. Lets go up to that farmhouse and see if we can use the phone.

Mains and Jackson waited at the farmers house until the park manager and the Ohio Highway Patrol arrived. When they returned to the scene with the officials at about 5:30 p.m., the pair of duck hunters they had seen in a nearby blind, owners of the 57 Chevy in the parking lot, were there with Walker. They said they had dragged their boat down to the water earlier that morning and probably were within ten feet of the body and didnt see it. Jackson was so scared that he didnt go anywhere near the body.

OHIO STATE HIGHWAY PATROLMAN Robert W. Dunbar, a plainclothes detective in the Wilmington unit, was at home about 4:45 p.m. when he got a call that a body had been torched on the beach at Cowan Lake.

Dunbar, a heavy and sturdily-built man as described by the Wilmington News-Journal, has an all-business look about him that exudes competence. Hes a likeable and modest personAcquaintances listen closely when he talks, because he has something to say. A ten-year veteran of the patrol, Dunbars background included military counterintelligence training. He still went to police science classes two nights a week, commuting to Chase College in Cincinnati. When Gibbs told him that two boys had found a burned body on the beach at Cowan Lake, he set off on an investigative marathon.

Dunbar arrived at the scene at about 5:20 p.m. in the misty rain, according to the 950-page report he would soon file. The temperature was dropping, and it was starting to get dark. A uniformed highway patrolman was there with Park Manager John Young and the young men who found the body. To get to the scene, Young had to unlock a cable that blocked access to a service road that led into a heavily wooded area. Young told Dunbar that there was another entrance to that roadthe Cemetery Service Roadfrom the upper parking lot.