| Welcome to Porchlight International for the Missing & Unidentified. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Risch,Joan October 24,1961; Lincoln Massachusetts 31 Years old | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 28 2007, 08:08 PM (2,416 Views) | |
| monkalup | Mar 28 2007, 08:08 PM Post #1 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/r/risch_joan.html Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance Missing Since: October 24, 1961 from Lincoln, Massachusetts Classification: Endangered Missing Date Of Birth: August 4, 1931 Age: 31 years old Height and Weight: 5'7, 120 pounds Distinguishing Characteristics: Brown hair, blue eyes. Risch's blood type is O. Clothing/Jewelry Description: A gray coat, a sweater and a skirt. Details of Disappearance Risch was a homemaker in Lincoln, Massachusetts in 1961. She was married and had two young children. She was last seen by a neighbor during the afternoon of October 24, 1961. The neighbor told authorities that Risch was walking outside of the family's residence and seemed dazed; the neighbor initially believed Risch was chasing after one of her children. Risch's daughter ran to another neighbor's home later during the day and said that her mother was missing and "red paint" covered the kitchen walls. The "paint" turned out to be blood. The Risches' telephone had been ripped from the kitchen wall and thrown in a wastebasket, and a nearby telephone book was found opened at the emergency numbers section. There was a single bloody thumbprint on the phone mount; it was never identified. The blood trail led outside to the Risches' driveway, where it stopped near Risch's parked car. Blood drops were found on the outside of the car itself, but there were no bloody footprints on the home's kitchen floor. There was no sign of Risch herself inside the residence. Investigators later determined that the blood had probably come from a superficial wound, as there was not very much of it. Someone had made efforts to clean the blood up with rags and paper towels. Witnesses reported seeing an unidentified blue/gray sedan in the Risches' driveway the day of the disappearance, but authorities believe they were looking at an unmarked police vehicle. Drivers also reported observing a woman walking along the road where Route 128 was under construction later in the day. No one stopped to assist the unidentified female, who was reportedly bloody and appeared confused or dazed. After these initial reports, sightings of Risch ceased. She has never been heard from again. Risch's husband was in New York on October 24 for a business trip. He was questioned by investigators but was cleared of any involvement in her disappearance. Authorities did learn that Risch checked out over 25 library books during the previous summer, all of them related to murder or unexplained disappearances. Some people theorized that Risch chose to stage her own disappearance because she was unhappy with her life. Risch had worked in the publishing field in New York prior to her marriage. She chose to end her career to raise her family. Some friends claimed that Risch was very ambitious and was not fulfilled with her home life. Others speculated that Risch was attacked and was suffering from amnesia as a result. Another hypothesis in the same vein states that Risch was not assaulted at all, but simply suffered an episode of some type and left her residence. Both of these theories could suggest the possibility that Risch wandered into a pit on the Route 128 construction site the night she disappeared and was unknowingly buried. Newspaper reports from 1961 state that Risch may have been sexually abused as a child. Another account stated that her parents died in a strange fire in New Jersey when Risch was nine years old in 1940. Both of these reports suggest that Risch may have had personal reasons for wanting to stage her disappearance. She has previously lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut and Brooklyn, New York. Her case remains open and unsolved. Investigating Agency If you have any information concerning this case, please contact: Lincoln Police Department 781-259-8111 Source Information The Boston Globe The Doe Network Updated 1 time since October 12, 2004. Last updated June 24, 2006; height, weight and Clothing/Jewelry Description added, distinguishing characteristics and details of disappearance updated. Charley Project Home |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| monkalup | Mar 28 2007, 08:09 PM Post #2 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...?showtopic=3026 |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| monkalup | Aug 18 2009, 02:01 AM Post #3 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Saturday, February 23, 2008 New York Times Article This is the only archived NY Times article referencing Joan Risch. "Search Is Pressed For Missing Woman Lincoln, Mass., October 26 -- (AP) The state police tonight had "good clear" fingerprints and sought a blue sedan in their investigation of the apparent bludgeon-abduction of Mrs. Joan Risch, 30 years old, mother of two. "Mrs. Risch wife of a Fitchburg Paper Company salesman, disappeared from her home on the edge of a Lincoln woodland yesterday. Bloodstains were found on the floor and under a wall telephone. "Middlesex District Attorney John Droney, directing the investigation, said the fingerprints, found on the wall, were being examined by state police chemists. "At least two persons -- a neighbor and a school girl -- reported they had seen a blue sedan parked beside mrs. Risch's car during the afternoon. The state police believe that the person who attacked Mrs. Risch took her off in that car. "An alert was forwarded to th [sic] police along the eastern seaboard to be on the lookout for the car believed to be a 1954 or 1955 Oldsmobile" http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseact...logId=360667115 |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| monkalup | Aug 18 2009, 02:03 AM Post #4 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Boston Globe, October 25, 1961 "Lincoln Woman Gone; Find Blood Oct. 24 A pretty Lincoln Housewife vanished from her home in North Lincoln this afternoon and a blood spattered kitchen suggested that she was the victim of foul play. Mrs. Joan Risch, 30, mother of two, was taken from the house on Old Bedford Road in a car, investigators said. Mrs. Risch, a petite brunette, was last seen alive by a neighbor at 2:15 in her driveway. At 3:30, police were told, an old blue sedan was seen parked in the driveway. At 4:30, the nearest neighbor, Mrs. Barbara Barker, came to the Risch home and found the kitchen covered with blood and Mrs. Risch missing. The telephone in the kitchen was ripped from the wall. Drops of blood led from the room down the back steps to the driveway. Mrs Risch's car was parked there. The blue sedan had been driven past hers, right up to the back door of the kitchen. In pulling past, the intruder had scraped the back side of her car, police said. They found fresh scrape marks on the machine. Mrs Risch was alone with her children today. Her husband, Martin, a sales man for a paper company, was in New York on business. He was located tonight while attending a sales meeting, and flew back at once. State police met him at Logan Airport and escorted him home. Missing, page five. "State Police Captain William Grady said that weather permitting, an air force helicopter from Bedford will fly over the area this morning hunting for clues. Police have been unable to find anyone who actually saw mrs. Risch carried from the home or saw the old blue sedan drive away. Old bedford rd. is heavily travelled because it serves as a shortcut to Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford. The area is wooded with houses set far apart and screened by trees. The Barker home is nearly one hundred yards away from the Risch home. Route 2A is not far away. Police say that whoever attacked Mrs. Risch and carried her off did not have robbery in mind when he entered the house. "Child finds blood. Except for an overturned chair in the kitchen, the house was undisturbed. Bureaus and desks had not been ransacked. Everything appeared to be in place. Mrs. barker told authorities that at 2:15 she looked out her window and saw mrs. Risch wearing a trench coat standing near her car in the driveway. mrs. Barker's view was partially obscured by pine trees that line her property, but she was sure there was no other car in the driveway then. The older Risch child, four year old Lillian, was playing in the Barker yard. At 4:00 she went home. At 4:30, she returned. 'Will you come over to my house?" she asked Mrs. Barker. 'The baby is crying and there is red paint all over the kitchen floor.' Mrs. Barker, full of forboding, hurried to the Risch home. The red paint, as she feared, was blood. It was indeed all over the floor. She ran upstairs, took two-year-old Douglas [sic] Risch from the crib and brought the children back to her own home. Then she called police chief Leo Algeo. Algeo took one look and notified State Police. District Atty. John J Droney and Lt. George Harnois hurried to the scene. Droney's first comment was 'someone has harmed this woman. We are fairly certain it is foul play.' At this point, police did not know about the old blue sedan. It appeared that Mrs Risch had been carried into the woods by someone on foot. A search was quickly organized. A dozen troopers and a bloodhound working in the glare of fire department flood lights hunted through thick woods behind the home. The woods go through to Virginia Rd. The men found nothing there and then hunted without success along route 2A and through the woods on the other side of the highway to the Concord line. Police indicated that they know what sort of weapon was used in the attack but they would not disclose what it was. The family has lived here only since last April, having moved from Richfield, CT." http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseact...logId=360368365 |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| monkalup | Aug 22 2009, 08:51 AM Post #5 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Fitchburg Sentinel Wednesday, October 25, 1961 CITY SALESMAN'S WIFE VANISHES FROM LINCOLN Middlesex Count Dist. Atty. John J. Droney told the Sentinel early this afternoon that Mrs. Joan Risch, 30, of Old Bedford Road, Lincoln, who disappeared from her home yesterday, had not been located up to noon today. Fingerprints and possible telepone calls made to the home are still being checked out. Lincoln, Mass./ The possibility arose today that a pretty housewife, who disappeared from her blood-splattered home yesterday, might have put up a furious battle to defend her children. Mrs. Joan Risch, 30, mother of 2, vanished while her husband, a Fitchburg paper company salesman, was attending a business conference in New York. Risch, who flew home after hearing of his wife's disappearance was quoted by Dist. Att. John Droney as saying "she would fight like a tiger to defend our children." Investigators reported it is possible that Mrs. Risch, suddenly confronted, fought an intruder to defend one of her children who was in the house. The family came here from Ridgefield Conn. about seven months ago. Mr. Risch, 32, is a graduate of Colgate University and Harvard Business School. He started work with the Fitchburg Paper Co., of Fitchburg, in June 1960, working out of the firm's New York office as a salesman. Last Spring Mr. Risch was transferred to Fitchburg where he took over the office of director to market developement for the paper company. Today, the company's helicopter was dispatched to Lincoln and placed at the disposal of State Police as a widespread search of wooded areas was made. A trail of blood spots led from the kitchen to the driveway of the Risch home located on the edge of woodland. The telephone in the kitchen had been ripped from the wall. A streak of blood ran down the wall from the dismantled phone. "We are fairly certain it was foul play," said Droney. Droney said good fingerprints were found on the wall. They are being checked by State Police chemists. Droney said experts are also checking the phone in an effort to determine what time it was pulled from the wall. They are also trying to determine if any calls had been made to the house during the day. Two helicopters, one from Hanscom Air Force Base and another owned by the firm employing Risch, joined State Troopers and airmen from Hanscom Field, Bedford, in the search for evidence. No weapon has been found. Droney said the FBI entered the case on the possibility there might have been an attempted kidnapping. The Risch children are 2 and 4 years old. The Risch home, on Old Bedford Road, an approach to Hanscom Field, is screened by trees. It is a white, one and one-half story Cape Cod style dwelling with garage attached. Route 2A is not far away. Mrs. Barbara Barker, whose home is about 100 yards from the Risch place, told police she looked out her window at 2:15 p.m. yesterday and saw Mrs. Risch, wearing a trench coat, standing near her car in the driveway. Four year old Lillian Risch was playing in the Barker yard. The child went home at four o'clock, Mrs. Barker said, and returned half an hour later. "Will you come over to my house?" she asked Mrs. Barker "The baby is crying and there's red paint all over the kitchen floor." Mrs. Barker said she took two-year-old Douglas from his upstairs crib, brought both children to her home and called police. Police said a check with neighbors showed an old blue Sedan had been parked in the Risch driveway about 3:30. Police could find no one who saw it drive away, but drops of blood marked a trail from the kitchen, down the back steps to the driveway. Except for an overturned chair in the kitchen the home was not disturbed, police said. |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| monkalup | Aug 22 2009, 08:52 AM Post #6 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
The Lowell Sun Friday, November 17, 1961 SEEK CARS SEEN NEAR HOME OF MISSING WOMAN Lincoln (AP) Detectives investigating the mysterious disappearance of the wife of a Fitchburg paper company executive are seeking to trace cars seen near the woman's home on the day she vanished. Mrs. Joan Risch, 31, disappeared from her blood-spotted home October 24, under circumstances which caused authorities to believe she had either been abducted or possibly suffered an injury that brought on amnesia. Lt. Detective George Harnois, directing the investigation, said today that among tips being investigated is one that a woman matching Mrs. Risch' description had been seen in a car that stopped for gasoline at a Hackensack N.J. station about a week after she vanished. Harnois said the FBI covering the Hackensack area has been checking the report but he had not heard from them yet. Harnois indicated investigators were concentrating on cars seen in the vicinity after all other clues led to a dead end. Searchers have fine-combed woodlands in a wide area surrounding the Risch home without turning up a clue, Harnois reported, and skin divers had the same luck in covering a reservoir and streams. Officials have been unable to determine definitely whether blood spots found in the Risch home and in the driveway were those of Mrs. Risch, although the blood type was the same. Blood spots also were found on a telephone that had been ripped from the wall and thrown in a waste basket. One of the most puzzling elements confronting investigators is that a telephone book was found open at a page listing police and fire department emergency numbers. That opened the possibility that Mrs. Risch might have injured herself and sought to summon aid before she left the house. Her disappearance was discovered by one of her two children, a four-year-old daughter, who reported to a neighbor that her mother was gone and there were "paint spots" in the kitchen. The spots proved to be blood. |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| monkalup | Aug 22 2009, 08:54 AM Post #7 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
October 24, 1993 What happened to Joan Risch? 32 years after she disappeared one man wants to know... Case of missin missing mom remains a mystery Author: JOE HEANEY Of all the places Lincoln housewife Joan Risch could be after vanishing from her blood-splattered kitchen in Lincoln 32 years ago today, her son, David, 34, says, "I like to think she's in heaven." Risch, who was 2 when his 31-year-old mother disappeared, shows little interest in a solution of the grim puzzle that has baffled investigators and intrigued mystery buffs for more than three decades. "I was so young. I don't remember her. I was upstairs sleeping in a crib," said Risch, a bachelor who describes himself as a poet and writer. "I don't know what happened or who did it." But retired businessman Lawrence F. Ford, 57, - who says he has spent 12 years and $90,000 digging for solutions to the mystery and may write a book or film a documentary on it - thinks he may have some new facts. Among them: Some neighbors, relatives and friends of Joan Risch were never interviewed or fingerprinted for comparison to the prints "supposedly" found in the Risch home that remain unidentified to this date. On Feb. 1, 1963, some 15 months after Joan Risch vanished, State Police detectives went to New Rochelle, N.Y., to question for a second time Joan Risch's late foster father, Frank E. Nattrass. The detectives told Nattrass that Risch told her husband, Martin, soon after their 1955 wedding she had been molested by her foster father. However, the day after his wife disappeared, Martin Risch told investigators he knew of no troubles between Joan and members of her family. The investigation could have been botched by infighting between then-District Attorney John Droney and State Police Detective Lt. George Harnois, who had asked to be reassigned. Ford, a Medford native who recently founded a Concord, N.H.-based research and film-production company called Untold Stories Inc., has complained that investigators have ignored his offers to share information. Jill Reilly, a spokeswoman for Middlesex District Attorney Thomas F. Reilly, called Ford's findings "very unsubstantiated and nothing trained homicide detectives don't already know." "He (Ford) hasn't come up with much but theory. And how would he know who has been fingerprinted and who hasn't? "Certainly it would be nice to solve this mystery, but we can do that with trained investigators. We don't need an amateur sticking his nose into it." Even so, Reilly said investigators will examine any information Ford sends, but cannot provide him with data because the case is still open. The son of a Medford police captain and a former electrical supply and real estate dealer, Ford said he has also been unsuccessful in securing FBI records on the Risch case under the Freedom of Information Act. Attempts to follow up Ford's inquiries with the FBI were unsuccessful. The late State Police Lt. Frank Joyce, who headed the Risch probe, said investigators processed nearly 5,000 sets of fingerprints trying to match a bloody thumbprint found in the Risch kitchen. Vivid signs of a struggle were apparent in the kitchen, first discovered by the Rischs' other child, 4-year-old daughter Lillian. Lillian, now 35 and living on the West Coast, had been playing with a neighbor's child when she returned home about 4:15 p.m. The child dashed out of her Old Bedford Road home to the home of Barbara Barker, another neighbor, and blurted out: "Mommy is gone and the kitchen is covered with red paint." Barker hurried over to the white Cape the Rischs had bought six months earlier for $27,500 and burst in on what looked like the aftermath of a slaughter. White kitchen walls were splattered with blood. There were blood puddles on the floor and the telephone had been ripped from the wall and tossed into a wastebasket already brimming with tin cans and an empty whiskey bottle. A bloody left thumbprint, possibly that of Risch's killer, was on the wall, next to the telephone mount. Blood for most of the stains had belonged to Risch, but the thumbprint, the strongest clue in the case, remains unidentified. Husband Martin Risch, now 64, continues to decline comment. He was the $15,000-a-year director of market development for Fitchburg Paper Co. and in New York City on a business trip the day his wife was apparently attacked. "I really have no reason for her disappearance," Martin Risch told police investgators a day after the disappearance. "My only comment would be that she would willingly sacrifice herself to save her children if the alternative were presented." Risch said he knew of no one who would want to harm his wife, and said their relationship was good and that she had never threatened to leave home. And there were no financial problems, Risch said. He told police he did not think his wife, a graduate of Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa., was pregnant, and said she would not have been unhappy if she were. One of Joan Risch's last acts was to place her 2-year-old son, David, in his upstairs bedroom crib about noon. A 1978 graduate of Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and 1982 graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, David Risch now lives with his father in another house in Lincoln. "I don't know what I'd say to my mom if I had a chance," he said last week. "I've missed her, I guess. But I don't know if not having her had a bad effect on me. I just like to think she's in heaven." |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| monkalup | Aug 22 2009, 08:55 AM Post #8 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Boston Globe August 28, 1996 SPATTERED BLOOD AND SPECULATION Author: Matt Bai, Globe Staff LINCOLN -- There are ghosts rustling in the hallowed woods off the old Battle Road here. The footsteps of British soldiers echo through time, winding their way toward the ambush at Bloody Curve, just around the bend on what is now Route 2A. Mixed in, perhaps, are the frantic steps of Joan Risch, running through the weeds -- running from an attacker, or maybe from a life she no longer wanted. It has been 35 years since Risch -- a wealthy, 31-year-old homemaker and mother of two -- vanished from her white, Cape-style home here. She left behind a spattering of blood and a trail of speculation. Today the stagnant case file is yellow with the years. All but one of the investigators who obsessed over it have died. Even the house where Joan Risch lived is gone, moved to a lot in nearby Lexington. Her husband, who lives quietly in town, declines to discuss the case. But Risch's specter haunts this community. Coming less than a year before the Boston Strangler first struck, her disappearance foreshadowed the end of a brief, idyllic time in suburban America, before laser sensors and dead-bolted doors. Most people believe that Joan Risch is dead and has been since that October afternoon in 1961. Some say her body lies under the asphalt of Route 128. Others speculate that she is living out her days somewhere, confident that no one will ever recognize her. "This is one of the things that I would most like to see happen before I pass on, to have some resolution to that," said Leo J. Algeo, the one-time police chief in Lincoln and the last of the gumshoes who worked the case. "It's sort of a stone around my neck." Risch, a college-educated socialite with pale eyes and dark hair cut in the style made popular by Jacqueline Kennedy, was last seen by neighbors on Oct. 24, 1961 -- six months after she and her husband Martin moved to Lincoln. That afternoon, Risch's 4-year-old daughter ran to a neighbor and said, in a quote that would become notorious, "Mommy is gone and the kitchen is covered with red paint." Her 2-year-old brother was napping. The paint turned out to be Joan Risch's blood. The telephone was ripped from the wall. Police lifted a bloody fingerprint but were never able to match it. No weapon was ever found. A trail of blood ended in the driveway. Droplets were on the side of Risch's parked car. Two neighbors said they saw a strange sedan in the driveway, but police determined that what they saw was probably an unmarked cruiser. From the start, police believed Risch was abducted. Then, they theorized, she was either put into another car or she ended up in the woods, chased or carried by her assailant. That would explain the abrupt end to the blood trail. A neighbor said she had seen Risch outside the house that afternoon, running and looking dazed. She had assumed Risch was chasing one of the children. A few motorists said they had spotted a bloody woman looking dazed near the site where Route 128 was being built. But no one had stopped to help her. On the day his wife disappeared, Martin D. Risch, an executive at a paper company, was on a business trip in New York. He was questioned, but investigators ruled him out as a suspect. Then the search for Risch took a new turn in, of all places, the musty town library. It was there that Sareen Gerson, then a 40-year-old reporter for the local newspaper, The Fence Viewer, found a clue while browsing through a book about Brigham Young's 27th wife, who had mysteriously disappeared. On the check-out card for the book was Joan Risch's signature, dated Sept. 16. Gerson prowled the stacks and found another book Risch had recently taken out called "Into Thin Air." It was about another woman who vanished, leaving no trace but blood smears and a towel. A hastily assembled group of volunteers from the town's library committee soon compiled a list of some 25 books Risch had apparently read that summer. Most concerned murders or unexplained disappearances. "The whole thing added up to our feeling that she had planned the disappearance and was looking for a way to do it," said Gerson, now 74 and living near Washington. Risch had led a life at once tragic and rewarding. People close to the case said she had been sexually assaulted as a child. Newspapers reported that her parents had been killed in a suspicious fire in New Jersey when she was nine. Before marrying, she had worked in New York publishing houses. Gerson recalled that Risch seemed like a driven woman whose ambitions had been stunted. But Sabra Morton, a college friend of Joan Risch who still lives in Lexington, disagreed. She said she had never seen Risch happier than she was in Lincoln. "I think Joan is almost certainly dead," Morton said. "She would never have left her family on her own." As months and then years passed after Risch's disappearance, there were scores of reported sightings in the Lincoln area. Several skulls and bodies were unearthed and thought to be hers. None were. In 1975 the house where the Risches lived was moved to Lexington to make room for Minuteman National Park. Martin Risch moved to another house nearby, where he lives with his son, David, now 37. Martin Risch has kept quiet about the case for years and said last week that he was "not interested" in discussing it now. Like some law enforcement officials, Martin Risch once said that he thought his wife was alive somewhere, suffering from amnesia. Several years ago one investigator hypothesized that she had wandered into an excavation pit near the new highway and was buried accidentally when the pit was filled. Leo Algeo sat in a sun parlor at his home in Stow last week and recalled the frustrating years he spent trying to track down Joan Risch. "I thought they'd find a body or bones or something," he said. "Things do turn up. People don't disappear without a trace." Algeo said he has his own theories about what happened but is keeping them to himself. Asked if he would be willing to bet that she was dead, he said, "No." Algeo stared into the woods beyond his home. For a moment, it seemed he was again chasing Joan Risch's ghost. Then she was gone. To read other stories in the Unsolved Mysteries series, go to Globe Online at http://www.boston.com. The keyword is: mystery. Copyright 1996, 1998 Globe Newspaper Company Record Number: 9608290089 |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| monkalup | Aug 22 2009, 08:56 AM Post #9 |
|
The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Boston Globe April 2, 1989 Edition: THIRD Section: SUNDAY MAGAZINE Page: 55 Article Text: Q. Was Lincoln housewife Joan Risch, who disappeared in 1961, ever found? I was a high school student in Weston then, and I have always wondered what happened to her. W.H., Roswell, Georgia A. About a month after Risch vanished, Middlesex County district attorney John J. Droney called her disappearance the "most mysterious case in the history of Middlesex County." A spokesman for the district attorney's office says the file on the unsolved case "is not active but remains open, and any new information would be pursued." The 31-year-old Lincoln mother of two vanished from the blood-stained kitchen of her Old Bedford Road home on the afternoon of October 24, 1961. The telephone had been ripped from the wall, and a bloody left-thumbprint, which has never been identified, was found on the wall nearby. Witnesses said they had seen a woman matching Risch's description walking that day on nearby Route 128; others said a gray or green sedan had been seen in her driveway, but the clues led nowhere. |
|
Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
![]() |
|
| « Previous Topic · Missing Persons 1961 · Next Topic » |





![]](http://z6.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)



p2053069.jpg (15.6 KB)
3:45 AM Jul 11