On May 7, 1959, the North Country was abuzz about a story that was sure to cause fear and panic. An air force sergeant on his way to work at Plattsburgh Air Force Base had found a woman near the entrance to the city dump. She was lying on the ground, shoeless, her torso, legs, and arms bound with bailing wire. She was alive, but the blaring headlines left to the imagination the terrible ordeal she must have endured.
Her story will be explained, but what may have been most shocking was that ANYTHING was found alive near the Plattsburgh City Dump. For those of you who live in the area but don't recall, the dump had long been a problem, and it scored dozens of negative headlines in the late 1950s.
Public comments called it a terrible eyesore, a disgrace, a dangerous place, a rat-infested pit, and a public health menace. No doubt, it was all of those and more. In these days of "going green," the responses from the 1950s would be considered horrifying. Local government argued over whether to build a fence so it couldn't be seen; buy an incinerator and burn everything in it; plant a tall hedge; or cover it up and find a new location. Cleanup wasn't an option.
Visitors from the north had to travel down Route 9, the road that connected Canada to downstate (the Northway didn't exist yet), and it was said that to reach Plattsburgh, people "had to first battle the smoke and smell of the raging fires at city dump." It was also a haven for thousands of rats, and in pre-Facebook days, weekend entertainment involved grabbing your BB gun or .22 and heading to the local dump for a good ol' rodent shoot. Frowned upon? No way! It was looked upon as a public service!
Now, before we return to our story, one more thing. If you don't recall the Plattsburgh City Dump, then you won't believe where it was located. Coming in from the north, or from Cumberland Head, there it was … right alongside the city beach! That's right ... the lovely recreation area north of the city, near the Crete Center … who knew that decades of filth and trash would create the perfect base for a future playground!
Thankfully, the rats hadn't devoured the poor woman who was found near the dump, and she soon shared her amazing story with police. The previous evening, she had been hanging clothes on the line (that's how it was done back then) in her Beekmantown yard on the Durand Road, well north of the city limits. A man suddenly grabbed her from behind and said, "You'll never be able to tell who I am because you'll never see me."
The woman said she needed to call her doctor before leaving home, and that if she didn't cancel an appointment, he would be suspicious. The stranger let her do so, not questioning what type of doctor would have appointments at night. She told police that the doctor's wife answered the phone, and the captive (Maxine) whispered a message: "Call the police!" At that point, the man began marching her down the highway, always in front of him so she couldn't see who he was. When cars came along, they hid briefly, and then resumed walking.
They walked for many miles, and the trip was punctuated by his occasional bursts of laughter, what she described later as "a peculiar laugh." The saga continued through the night, until she was found the next morning. Upon hearing her story, police said there appeared to be evidence of struggles within the dump area, and reports said she managed to crawl a few yards out of the dump, but Maxine couldn't recall being in the dump at all, or even being tied up. Doctors found no marks on her except for those caused by the wire, and thankfully, it was soon revealed that she had not been raped or molested, to the best of her (and the doctor's) knowledge.
The phone call she had made earlier was confirmed, but the woman she had spoken to recalled no mention of being asked to call the police. Maxine's shoes and her wallet were missing, and the headlines claimed she was abducted at knifepoint and gagged, though the articles failed to mention either a knife or a gag.
The story made front-page headlines in Plattsburgh, and was carried in several other locations including Oneonta, Dunkirk, and Oswego. Maxine's husband, Warren, had been at a bible-study class during the ordeal, and lengthy media interviews were conducted with him. The tiniest details were discussed, like the fact that the man must have been tall, since his armpit touched the top of Maxine's head (she was only 4 feet 10 inches).
Warren reported that when his wife used the phone and said "Call the police," the man knocked the phone from her hand and said "Now you've made me mad. When I'm mad, I have to walk. You made me mad, so you have to walk." So, the assumption was, he was irrational, and also was a local man, because he knew his way around the roads.
Maxine said his voice was high-pitched and squeaky (hmmm…not common for a guy who was estimated at 6 feet 4). But, police doubted her story, and according to her husband, they dared her to take truth serum. (If you recall the days of truth serum, you must be pushing 60.) Maxine didn't recall being sexually abused, but her husband added, "She doesn't want to know any more about it than what she can remember without truth serum." THAT was an odd choice to make.
Even the possibility of religious persecution was discussed (they were Jehovah's Witnesses), but the husband didn't think it was likely. Warren listed multiple complaints about the lack of serious investigation by police, and he firmly backed his wife's story. He did mention that his wife had been under treatment for a nervous condition for the past three months, and tended to hold things in, but insisted the cops were not doing their job.
He stuck to his guns that his wife was telling the truth, and questioned if the police were trying to find her attacker at all. Finally, six days after the abduction, police solved the case … sort of. Newspaper readers were greeted with the headline, "There Was No Laughing Man: Plattsburg Woman Says Story a Hoax."
Maxine told police she had taken a walk that night, and at some point decided to tie herself with baling wire on the edge of the city dump. No reasons were given, at least not publicly, and no charges were pressed against the woman for the false report. That's how the story ended.
We can guess that she had issues, but let's credit her for one thing. Unlike just about every celebrity and politician today who gets in some sort of trouble, at least she didn't use the excuse, "It was my medication!"
© 2010 Lawrence P. Gooley