Death of Starr Faithfull

A newsstand vendor located near the 9th Street subway station in Greenwich Village, of whom Faithfull was a regular customer, said that he sold her a newspaper at 11:30 am. At 1 pm, taxi driver Murray Edelman said that Faithfull, whom he recognized from the Franconia incident several days earlier, had gotten into his cab near the Chelsea Piers (from which the Cunard ships and other passenger liners departed) with a man in a Cunard uniform, whom she called "Brucie". She told the man she would see him on the wharf at 4:00 pm, but the man told her not to come back. Edelman said he drove her to her home at 12 St. Luke's Place, although he did not see her enter the house (and her family said she had not returned home). He delivered the man back to the piers. Around 2:00 pm, Faithfull, having apparently returned to the piers and now appearing intoxicated, again was put into Edelman's waiting cab by the same man, who told Edelman to take her back to St. Luke's Place and not let her return to the piers again. However, Faithfull got out after a few blocks because she had only ten cents, which was not sufficient for the fare. The taxi driver saw her walking back in the direction of the piers.

Linda Ann Loschiavo's 2004 play Courting Mae West, about actress Mae West's 1927 trial on morals charges in New York City, includes a character named "Sara Starr" who is based on Starr Faithfull.

Starr Faithfull's unsolved death was the subject of a 1993 episode of the Granada Television true-crime series In Suspicious Circumstances, entitled "Falling Starr" (Season 3, Episode 5).

The second, The Passing of Starr Faithfull by Jonathan Goodman (Piatkus, 1990), also included material from the original police files and the remaining fragments of Faithfull's diary. Reviewer Paul Nigol of the University of Calgary called The Passing of Starr Faithfull "the most complete account" of the case because Goodman was the only author to have been granted full access to the police dossier. Goodman won the 1990 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for Non-Fiction for his book.

Later crime analysts have disputed the suicide conclusion. American true crime author Jay Robert Nash said in his book Open Files: A Narrative Encyclopedia of the World's Greatest Unsolved Crimes (1983) that there was no evidence of Faithfull ever having been aboard Île de France, and little evidence that she had committed suicide, compared to more evidence that her death had been homicide. Goodman, in his The Passing of Starr Faithfull (1990), stated that she could not have gone aboard Île de France because it sailed at 10 pm while she was still visiting Dr. Roberts. Also, it was docked close enough to Carmania that she would not have taken a cab to it. Goodman also concluded that she did not go overboard from any of the other ships leaving on June 5 or June 6 because, among other things, she would not have had the time or inclination to consume her last large meal of meat, vegetables, and fruit so soon after eating a light meal of different food with Roberts; her conversation with Roberts indicated that she did not have any barbiturates or any money to obtain them on June 5; and she had been seen intoxicated on both June 4 and June 5, contrary to the autopsy, which found she had consumed no alcohol for 36 hours before death. This suggests that she did not die until June 7 or early on June 8. Neither her silk dress nor silk stockings showed the damage expected from her having been 48 hours in the water, during a time when a storm was affecting the area.

BUtterfield 8 sold well when first published, and was later adapted into a 1960 film starring Elizabeth Taylor, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. O'Hara was not involved in writing the film adaptation, which bore little resemblance to his novel and ended with Gloria's death in an automobile accident, rather than a suicide or homicide by drowning.

Two non-fiction true crime books have been written about the Starr Faithfull case. The first, The Girl on the Lonely Beach by Fred J. Cook (Red Seal Books, 1956) discusses her family background, based on newspaper reports, court transcripts and Cook's own interviews.

Faithfull's 19-year-old sister Tucker (a.k.a. Sylvia) was quoted after Starr's death as saying, "I'm not sorry Starr's dead. She's happier. Everyone is happier." According to Tucker, her sister had dominated the family, even to the point of deciding where they would live, and physically slapped and pinched other family members if she did not get her own way. Tucker later changed her name back to Wyman before marrying. Newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reported Stanley's death in 1949.

A 1946 Associated Press story on the death of former-DA Edwards discussed the Faithfull case as one of two high-profile unsolved cases handled by him. Edwards' records on the case were later said to have vanished. The police file survived and was reviewed by Jonathan Goodman in writing his 1990 book about the case.

After Faithfull's death, a taxi driver and other witnesses reported that on the afternoon of Thursday, June 4, an intoxicated woman whom they later recognized as Faithfull was helped into a cab in front of the Chanin Building on 42nd Street in Manhattan. The taxi driver testified that she stopped to buy additional liquor during her ride and that he drove her to Flushing, Queens, in search of a certain house, but she could not locate it. Faithfull left his cab at a drugstore located at 33rd Avenue and 163rd Street.

Faithfull's story has inspired several fictional works, the best known of which is John O'Hara's 1935 novel BUtterfield 8. The case has been explored in numerous non-fiction books, including British crime historian Jonathan Goodman's 1990 true crime book The Passing of Starr Faithfull, which won a Gold Dagger award.

According to John O'Hara biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, O'Hara had Faithfull's diary in his possession for some time and used it as research material in writing his 1935 novel BUtterfield 8. Some sources have written that police lost or destroyed the diary after the case was closed. A 2002 article in The Baltimore Sun said that the diary may have eventually been given to Peters, who locked it in a box hidden in the library paneling of his Boston home, where it was later found by the new owners of the house, but its whereabouts as of 2002 were unknown.

Several novels have been based on Faithfull's story. The first and best known is John O'Hara's second novel, BUtterfield 8 (Harcourt, Brace, 1935). O'Hara's fictional protagonist Gloria Wandrous was based on Faithfull, whose diary O'Hara had read and whom he had seen in New York speakeasies when she was alive, although he did not know her well. Contemporary readers recognized that the book was based on the Faithfull case.

Peters was never prosecuted for any crime in connection with Faithfull's death. Although his personal reputation was harmed by the scandal, he still maintained some political status. He served as treasurer of a Massachusetts state campaign against money-hoarding organized at the request of President Herbert Hoover in 1932, and was named to the Massachusetts Advisory Committee of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation in 1933. He died in 1938.

Faithfull was found dead on the beach at Long Beach, New York, on the south shore of Long Island, on the morning of June 8, 1931. An autopsy found that Faithfull died by drowning, but she also had many bruises, apparently caused by beating or rough handling, and a large dose of a sedative in her system. Investigators initially thought her death was a homicide and that she had either been pushed into deep water or forcibly held under shallow water. Faithfull's stepfather accused Peters of having her killed to prevent her from revealing the sexual abuse. However, the homicide theory was called into question by letters that Faithfull had written shortly before her death that said she planned to commit suicide. A grand jury convened to hear evidence returned an open verdict, and the case was closed with no definitive conclusion as to whether Faithfull's death was a homicide, suicide, or an accident.

According to author Jonathan Goodman, the police evidence file indicated that by 1931, gangsters unrelated to the family had also learned about the alleged abuse. They had used the knowledge to extort money from Peters in Boston shortly before Faithfull's death. Russel Crouse, who wrote an early true crime account of the case, said that the investigators "did come upon some evidence that someone other than the Faithfull family had heard the story and had attempted to make use of it in Boston."

Investigators learned after Faithfull's death that her mother and stepfather, acting on doctors' advice, had paid artist Edwin Megargee to be her "sex tutor" and teach her how to have normal sexual relations after her traumatic experiences with Peters. Money received from Peters was also used to send Faithfull away on cruises to the Mediterranean, the West Indies and five or six times to the United Kingdom, where she stayed for extended periods in London. When not going on cruises, Faithfull regularly attended the "bon voyage" parties held on ocean liners in port before their departures from New York and socialized with the ships' officers. At one point she claimed to be engaged to an officer, who denied it and left her stranded in London without funds. Faithfull regularly visited nightclubs and speakeasies, drank and used drugs, once nearly overdosing on sleeping pills in London. In March 1931, she was briefly committed to Bellevue Hospital after being found drunk, naked and beaten in a New York hotel room; she had checked into the hotel as "Joseph Collins and wife," with a man she had apparently just met.

On May 29, 1931, a few days before her death, Faithfull attended a party on the Cunard liner RMS Franconia to see the ship's doctor, Dr. George Jameson-Carr. She had been infatuated with Carr for some time and considered him the love of her life, although he did not return her affections. After Carr made Faithfull leave his sitting room because the ship was departing, she remained on deck when the ship left the dock, despite having no ticket (which at that point she could not afford). Upon being discovered, she was forcibly removed from the ship and sent back to the pier on a tugboat, screaming, "Kill me! Throw me overboard!" Newspapers and Faithfull's friends later reported that she had attempted to stow away in order to be with Carr and return to London. However, in a letter to Carr, she said that she did not intend to stow away and had simply become too drunk to disembark. This explanation may have been intended to protect Carr from getting into trouble with his employer, Cunard, over the incident.

In the days leading up to her disappearance and death, Faithfull kept a busy social schedule. She was seen by numerous witnesses, including her friends and family as well as taxi drivers and other strangers. Faithfull's family last saw her on the morning of Friday, June 5, 1931, leaving the house in the same dress she was wearing when found. Investigators discovered that after she left the house that day, she made multiple trips to ocean liners docked in Manhattan, where she visited ship's officers. After spending the evening with one of them, she got into a taxicab late on Friday night and seemingly vanished. She was found dead on a Long Island beach the following Monday morning, on June 8.

Faithfull's body was due to be cremated on June 11, but Edwards dramatically ordered the cremation stopped at the last minute so he could convene a grand jury to look into her death. A police search of the Faithfull family's apartment found the dead woman's diary, despite Stanley's claims that no diary existed and/or that it had been destroyed. Faithfull's diary, which she called her "Memory Book" or "Mem Book", contained explicit details of her affairs with nineteen men identified by initials. Although much of the diary was considered too risque to print, some of its material was featured in newspapers. The initials "AJP" in some diary entries were thought to refer to Peters. When newspapers began to connect Peters to the case, he issued a statement via his lawyer denying that he had ever had "improper relations" with Faithfull. He said he had no evidence relating to her death and had not seen any member of the Faithfull family for five years. Peters was later formally questioned by investigators in the fall of 1931, but continued to deny any involvement.

Although Edwards and Littleton continued to investigate the death as a possible homicide until December 1931, including questioning Peters, they were unable to gather sufficient evidence to obtain indictments or otherwise prove the homicide theory.

While investigators were pursuing the homicide theory, Carr, having arrived in London on Franconia, received three letters that Faithfull had written to him dated May 30, June 2, and June 4, 1931. Carr personally hand-carried the letters back to the U.S. and provided them to the investigators around June 23, also being interviewed by police at that time. The New York Times published the full text of the letters on June 22 and June 24.

The letter went on to talk about how she would carry out her suicide, with "[n]o ether, no allonal, or window jumping", and how she would spend her last hours, including having "one delicious meal", hearing some "good music", drinking "slowly, keeping aware every second", enjoying a "last cigarette", and "encourag[ing]" men who flirted with her on the street—"I don't care who they are." She wrote, "It's a great life when one has twenty-four hours to live." (An earlier Associated Press story that ran before Carr delivered the letters said that one letter contained the statement, "When you receive this I will be dead." According to a later New York Daily News account, the statement was, "When you receive this letter, I will have committed suicide by drowning." But this statement is not contained in any of the letters published in The New York Times in June 1931.)

Littleton eventually came to believe the suicide theory after interviewing Dr. Roberts in December 1931, near the end of the investigation. Based on Roberts' information about spending the evening with Faithfull on Carmania and then putting her into a cab to go to a party on Île de France, Littleton concluded that she probably stowed away on Île de France and then jumped overboard after it sailed. Littleton issued a denial in the Times of an International News Service story claiming that he had located a witness who saw Faithfull jump from a ship.

After the evidence of Faithfull's possible suicide came to light in late June 1931, the grand jury proceedings were closed, with no indictments issued, and the case began to fade from the headlines. Stanley, anxious to keep the press interested in the story, continued to state that his stepdaughter was murdered by hired killers acting on behalf of a high-profile person. In July 1931, he alleged "shameful official negligence" on the part of the Nassau County investigators and further alleged that DA Edwards had been intimidated by persons "too big and influential for him to tackle". Edwards strongly denied that he had been intimidated, and said that he believed Faithfull had been murdered but did not have the evidence to prove it. He further said, "Neither Peters nor anybody else is so highly placed that I won't proceed against them."

By October 1931, the Faithfull case was reported to be "virtually closed". But Roberts' statements about being with her aboard Carmania were not obtained until the planned last days of the investigation in early December. Later in December, a final inquest was held into her death. It lasted fifteen minutes, and the jury reached no conclusion. Nassau County Coroner Edward Neu was quoted as saying, "Whatever I decide, it will only be a matter of opinion."

Nash and reporter Morris Markey, who covered the case in 1931 for The New Yorker magazine, both theorized that based on the evidence and Faithfull's past behavior, including the hotel incident that resulted in her being taken to Bellevue Hospital, she had likely been killed on the beach by an unknown man after a sexual encounter had gone wrong. According to this theory, Faithfull went to the beach with a man she had picked up, ostensibly to have sexual relations. Once there, she removed most of her clothing, but then teased or refused sex until the man became enraged, beat her, and drowned her in the shallow water and sand near the shoreline, possibly after sexually assaulting her. Goodman also wrote that this theory was supported by some facts.

A non-fiction essay, "The Mysterious Death of Starr Faithfull", was written by Morris Markey, who covered the story and interviewed the Faithfull family in 1931 as the original "reporter at large" for The New Yorker magazine. The essay was included in the collection The Aspirin Age (ed. Isabel Leighton, Simon and Schuster, 1949), a selection of pieces about the essential events of American life in the years between World War I and World War II.

Stanley engaged an attorney and, in 1927, negotiated a written settlement agreement with Peters, whereby Peters paid the Faithfulls $20,000—supposedly to cover Starr's medical care and rehabilitation—in return for keeping the abuse secret. Although the settlement document said this was a one-time payment, the Faithfulls received several additional large payments from Peters and may have been extorting money from him. The total amount paid by Peters has been estimated at around $80,000. These payments appeared to be the only source of income for Faithfull's family. It was later discovered that the Faithfulls had contacted Peters and others close to him just before Starr's disappearance and sent him a letter while she was missing, asking Peters for more money.

On July 25, Stanley for the first time publicly named Peters as the man alleged to have had an improper relationship with Faithfull when she was 11 years old. He also disclosed the original 1927 settlement agreement between the Faithfulls and Peters releasing him from liability for Starr's abuse and his settlement check for $20,000. As a result of being publicly connected with the case, Peters suffered several nervous breakdowns.

During Faithfull's teenage years, she began to show signs of emotional disturbance. She eventually received psychiatric treatment, including a short voluntary stay in the Channing Sanitarium, a mental hospital in Wellesley, Massachusetts. In June 1926, she told her mother that Peters had been sexually abusing her for years, beginning when she was 11. Faithfull alleged that Peters read her sex instructions written by Havelock Ellis and drugged her with ether before abusing her.

In the winter of 1923–24, Starr left the Rogers Hall School during the Christmas break and never returned, though her relatives had paid for the spring term. She was, at that time, merely five months from graduation. Frank and Helen Wyman divorced in 1924, and the following year Helen married Stanley Faithfull. Her daughters also took his name. Stanley, a widower who was previously married to the governess of Leverett Saltonstall, was a self-employed inventor and entrepreneur who failed at numerous business ventures and earned little or no money. He also had a history of bringing lawsuits for money. The Faithfulls initially settled in West Orange, New Jersey, but lost their heavily mortgaged house to foreclosure and moved to an apartment at 12 St. Luke's Place, Greenwich Village, New York City. This was their residence at the time of Starr's death in 1931. Jimmy Walker, then the mayor of New York City (from 1926 to 1932), lived a few houses away at 6 St. Luke's Place.

Helen Wyman and her daughters frequently visited her wealthy Massachusetts relatives, including Martha and Andrew Peters. The Peterses were among the relatives who helped support the Wymans by giving Helen gifts of money and paying for her daughters' private school educations. Starr attended Brookline, Massachusetts until 1921, when she enrolled at the Rogers Hall School in Lowell. Starr spent summers with the Peterses and their children at their family home. Andrew often took the young girl on trips alone with him, during which the two stayed in hotels.

Starr's mother came from a wealthy, socially established family, but her father lost his fortune before she was married, leaving her relatively poor. Her cousin Martha had married Andrew James Peters, a career politician who served as members of the Massachusetts House and Senate; a U.S. congressman; an assistant secretary of the Treasury under President Woodrow Wilson; and mayor of Boston from 1918 to 1922. As mayor, Peters was known for his actions during the 1919 Boston Police Strike, which helped raise Calvin Coolidge, then governor of Massachusetts, to national prominence. Coolidge later was elected as vice president and president of the United States. Peters was also a friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was governor of New York at the time of Starr's death and who also later became president.

Starr Faithfull (born Marian Starr Wyman, January 27, 1906–c. June 6, 1931) was an American socialite and a model for the Walter Thornton Modeling Agency whose mysterious drowning death in 1931 at the age of 25 became a much-covered tabloid story. Newspapers published allegations that she had been sexually abused as a child by Andrew James Peters, a wealthy, prominent politician and former mayor of Boston (1918–1922). Peters was reportedly suspected of murdering her. Investigators were unable to determine whether her death was a homicide or a suicide, and her death remains unsolved.

Starr Faithfull was born Marian Starr Wyman (nicknamed "Bamby") on January 27, 1906, in Evanston, Illinois, to Frank Wyman II, an investment banker, and his wife Helen MacGregor Pierce of Andover, Massachusetts. In 1907, the Wymans moved to Montclair, New Jersey. A second child, Elizabeth Tucker "Sylvia" Wyman, was born in 1911.