Guest Post: Jospeh Halpern Part 3 by Silvia Pettem
JOSEPH HALPERN DISAPPEARED INTO THIN AIR, Part 3 © by Silvia Pettem 2012
Joseph’s nephew had started his search for his uncle, Joseph Halpern, missing since 1933, by contacting the sheriffs’ offices in the four Colorado counties that border Rocky Mountain National Park. The nephew asked about unidentified remains that might be identifiable with DNA comparisons. In 2009, when the NamUs System was inaugurated, the nephew, as a member of the public, entered Joseph as Missing Person number 2797. The National Park Service is listed as the contacting agency, and Joseph’s identifying information, as well as a profile of familial DNA, is now on file to be matched to unidentified remains. (See https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/show/2797 for additional information.)
Joseph’s nephew then pursued two federal sources of information––the Rocky Mountain Region of the National Archives and the FBI. The National Archives has an Accidents in National Parks file which contained, “A Report on the Disappearance of Joseph Laurence Halpern.” It was written on August 23, 1933 by John S. McLaughlin, former Chief Ranger of the Rocky Mountain National Park, and contained information on the initial search, a photo of Joseph submitted by his parents, and a detailed colored map of six days of search routes.
The FBI mailed Joseph’s missing person file to the nephew after he filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The file included some, but not all, of his family’s correspondence. It did include the 1960 letter from Joseph’s brother, Bernard, stating his family’s suspicions about Samuel Garrick, Joseph’s friend and hiking partner. FBI Director John Edgar Hoover personally replied, reiterating that in the absence of any violation of a Federal statute within his jurisdiction, the FBI did not have the authority to conduct an active investigation.
The FBI file also provided some new, and startling, information that implied that Joseph may actually have walked away from the park. If so, did Joseph confide his plans to Garrick? Unfortunately, there’s no way to ask him, as he died in August 1976, in Deerfield, Illinois.
The new information included a letter from “Ted Wilson,” a Modale, Iowa, resident, in 1933, stating that Joseph had been part of a “rough crowd.” In addition, a letter mailed in 1936, from Samuel Greenfield, a family friend and resident of Los Angeles indicated that Joseph had been seen in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1934. Additional references tied Joseph to CCC and hobo camps, eerily echoing Joseph’s own words of wanting to be a hobo. In 1935, he, reportedly, worked for the Lewis Brothers Circus in Michigan.
Was there any truth to these sightings? Despite an extensive search of the mountain terrain where Joseph Halpern hiked, why have no skeletal remains, or even scraps of clothing, ever been found? Did Samuel Garrick, the hiking partner, know more than he admitted to, at the time? Three and four generations later, Joseph’s family is still waiting for answers. Any and all comments on this missing person case will be forwarded to them.
[This guest blog post contains excerpts from the book, Cold Case Research: Resources for Unidentified, Missing, and Cold Homicide Cases, to be released by CRC Press in July 2012. For more on the book, see www.silviapettem.com]
Categories: Guest Bloggers, Missing Persons
Tags: Illinois, Joseph Halpern, Missing Person, Silvia Pettem
Has Joseph Halpern ever been compared to Victim #6 of the Cleveland Torso Slayer?
http://doenetwork.org/hot/hotcase250.html
Halpern was said to have mentioned becoming a hobo, and the last reported “sighting” of him was in 1935 in Detroit. Was he in Cleveland in 1936?
The descriptions seem similar.
Karen Hoy
Excellent point, Karen! I need to read up on the Cleveland Torso Slayer though. There is a possibility if indeed Joseph disappeared as some papers seem to indicate. What are your thoughts, Silvia?
Thanks for your comment. I had never heard of this killer (or victim) before. We don’t know if Joseph ever was in Cleveland, but he grew up in Chicago, and his parents later moved to Indiana, so it’s quite possible. My gut feeling is that he died on the mountaintop, but I’m open to all options.
@Silvia: Here is a book about the Cleveland Torso Killer http://www.amazon.com/Wake-Butcher-Clevelands-Torso-Murders/dp/0873386892
Joseph is one of several people who have disappeared in many national parks whose story has never been properly verified. We spent 3+ years and 7000 hours researching people who disappeared in rural areas and the result was a section on Joseph and others in Rocky Mountain National park in “Missing 411″.
The case of Alfred Beilhartz from the same park is absolutely mind boggling and will offer a quite different viewpoint of the region after you read Alfred’s story. Through the files of dozens of FOIA’s we found 28 different clusters of missing people in North America from rural areas, national parks, forests, farms and ranches, the finding was mind boggling.
Thank you, David for commenting. I will explore your site and will encourage others to do so as well.
David, thank you so much for responding and for the work that you do. I can’t wait to explore your site, and I will immediately pass it on to Joseph Halpern’s nephew. Will contact you directly, as well. Silvia
See photo of Joseph Halpern on Facebook’s “Cold Case Research:” http://www.facebook.com/coldcaseresearch