Ep.37 - Parma School Teachers

This episode focuses on the 1921 unsolved murders of Parma, Ohio school principal Louise Wolf and teacher Mabel Foote.

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All music by Kai Engel licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For more info, please visit https://www.kai-engel.com/.

Written, hosted, edited, and produced by Steve Hollywood

SOURCES:
Turzillo, J. A. (2015). Unsolved murders & disappearances in Northeast Ohio. The History Press.

Story Didn't Save Him. Fed Goettling, Who Protested Innocence, is Sent to Mansfield Reformatory. (1905, May 6). Plain Dealer, p. 12. Available from NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current: https://infoweb-newsbank-com.eresources.cuyahogalibrary.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-125C32066247F7A0%402416972-125ADB6D05DAD30E%4011-1381C7AD1893A074%40Story%2BDidn%2527t%2BSave%2BHim.%2BFed%2BGoettling%252C%2BWho%2BProtested%2BInnocence%252C%2Bis%2BSent%2Bto%2BMansfield%2BReformatory.

(1923, February 7). Plain Dealer, p. 4. Available from NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current: https://infoweb-newsbank-com.eresources.cuyahogalibrary.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A122AFBBA107AC9E4%40EANX-NB-12602EA41B61B7C7%402423458-125F8F7FF9FF42F4%403-125F8F7FF9FF42F4%40.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
In February sixteenth, nineteen twenty one, thirty eight year old Louise Wolfe,
a high school principal in Parma,Ohio, and twenty four year old teacher
Mabel Foot left their school at theusual time of five pm to walk to
the trolley that would take them home. The two were seen by a local
farmer leaving the school, but wouldnever be seen alive again. From the

(00:24):
south shore of Lake Erie, thisis Great Lake's true crime. With a

(00:57):
population of over eighty one thousand people, Parma, Ohio, was the seventh
largest city in the state of Ohioand is the largest suburban city in the
state. It's a suburb just southwestof Cleveland in northeast Ohio. Today,
Parma is home to three high schools, two hospitals, a community college,

(01:18):
several large retail districts, and ageneral motors plant, among many other businesses.
In nineteen twenty one, however,Parma wasn't even a city yet.
It was an unincorporated township with abouttwo thousand people scattered throughout its predominantly agricultural
land. Parma had only one highschool, and that high school had only

(01:40):
two teachers. Principal Louise Wolfe andMabel Foot. The high school was actually
divided into two school houses, bothlocated at the intersection of Ridge and Bean
Roads. Bean Road was not thefive lane concrete thoroughfare that is today known

(02:00):
as Ridgewood Drive. Back then,it was a narrow dirt road surrounded by
farms. The road had an embankmentrunning alongside it, on top of which
a wooden fence marked the boundary ofan orchard. There were no houses nearby,
and the road was very lightly traveled. During rain or snowy times,

(02:23):
it was extremely muddy. A littlebefore eight thirty am on February seventeenth,
nineteen twenty one, sixteen year oldEdith Rittenhour and her fourteen year old brother
Edward, as well as six yearold Ralph Pickard, were walking their normal
route to school in Parma. Asthey trudged through the brutal winter ice and

(02:46):
snow along Bean Road, they stumbledupon a truly horrifying scene. It was
a site they would never forget.What the three youngsters saw on that cold
winter day in nineteen twenty one,at first looked like a bundle of some
type of debris in the snow.With their curiosity peaked the trio got closer

(03:07):
to investigate. It was then thatthey were horrified to see two bludgeoned bodies
lying near the sidewalk. Not recognizingthe identities of the bodies, the three
children ran to their school as fastas they could to get help. Instead
of running inside the building. Thoughthey saw that all the other students were

(03:28):
standing outside the school waiting to belet in, The three screamed out to
no one in particular about what theyhad found. It was then that some
of the older students started to connectthe dots. Their school building had always
been unlocked well before schools started bytheir principal, Louise Wolfe and their teacher,
Mabel Foot. The pupils yelled acrossthe street for help from Frank Owen,

(03:54):
a carpenter who was working on anew high school being built across the
street. The schoolhouses were only beingused temporarily until the new school was finished,
so Frank and the group of studentsall walked back to the scene to
see what had happened. It turnsout that Frank's wife, Lottie, was
a sister of the school's principal,Louise. When they came upon the scene

(04:16):
and Frank saw the bodies, heimmediately recognized one of them as his sister
in law. Mabel Foote, whoagain was only twenty four years old,
had just graduated a year earlier fromBaldwin Wallace College in nearby Barea, Ohio.
She taught the freshmen and sophomores atthe school. Mabel lived with her

(04:40):
parents, Joel and Ella, andher siblings on Shaff Road in nearby Brooklyn
Heights. She would frequently spend thenight at the home of her cousin,
Mary Shankford, who lived nearby.Louise Wolfe, who was the thirty eight
year old school principal, taught thejuniors and seniors. It's been reported that
Louise had lived a very difficult life. Her parents died while she was a

(05:02):
child, and she and her siblingswere separated after being adopted by different families.
As an adult, Louise lived witha woman named Effie Buffle. At
that time, it was common forunmarried teachers to live with another person to
help pay for living expenses. Therewere rumors that the two may have been

(05:24):
more than just roommates, but noone knows whether that was true. In
any case, Louise and Mabel hada daily routine at work. The school
day would end at three thirty pm, and the two would stay afterward degrade
papers and clean the classrooms. Atfive pm, they would make a nearly
two mile walk to catch the fivethirty pm street car at the corner of

(05:46):
Bean and State Roads when the studentsdiscovered the bodies. Louise was found laying
face down, with her face havingbeen severely battered. She had a broken
nose and several cuts on her body. One of her rubber shoe covers or
what we used to simply call rubbers, was behind her, while the other

(06:09):
was still on her foot. Herclothes had been torn, but her belongings
were all still with her. Mabel'sbody was face up that was farther away
from the road near the orchard.She had also been beaten with various cuts
and bruises on her. Her pursewas found between the two bodies with the
money still in it. Her umbrellawas bent and the tip was missing,

(06:33):
suggesting that Mabel had used it anattempt to fend off their attacker. There
was also evidence that Mabel did notdie immediately from the attack. She made
her way to her overnight bag fromwhich she retrieved a nightgown and wiped the
blood off her face. Mabel likelydied later from blood loss or exposure.

(06:56):
The killer likely knew of the women'sdaily routine, and it probably lived in
the area at least previously. BecauseMabel's watch had stopped at five fifteen PM,
police believed that was the time ofthe attack. Footprints left in the
mud indicated that there was only oneattacker, who police believed was almost certainly

(07:17):
male. It was reported that everyable bodied man in the area who could
get off work helped search the nearbywoods and orchards. Footprints were discovered leading
to an old chicken coop a fewhundred yards from being rowed, and police
surmised that the killer, who waslikely covered in blood, hid there until
dark and then made his getaway.The weather had been quite treacherous around the

(07:43):
time of these crimes, with rainand snow erasing potential evidence. Dogs,
for example, were unable to followthe killer scent through the woods. On
top of that, the road wasso muddy that vehicles couldn't travel down it
to even pick up the bodies.Instead, they had to be carried to
the school. Not surprisingly, thelocal residents were beyond shocked by these brutal

(08:07):
murders. Many were afraid to leavetheir homes knowing there was a violent killer
at large. But they were alsosaddened by the loss of Louise and Mabel.
The two of them had played animportant role in the community and were
widely admired. Police were determined tosolve this case, questioning anyone who was
even slightly suspicious. No one wentin or out of town without being questioned,

(08:33):
and any little scratch or bruise ona person meant that they would be
questioned. There were two early suspectsquestioned by police, but the only thing
really working against them is that theydidn't have a credible account of where they
had been during the time of themurder. Neither had any scratches on them,
and they were both eventually cleared.So police worked countless hours on the

(09:01):
case, but ultimately to no avail. There were a few suspects here and
there, but nothing really solid.One of the Parma Township trustees, the
man named JD. Loder, saidhe saw two men wearing muddy clothes passed
by his house the evening that themurders occurred. Another area resident claimed that

(09:22):
a man holding a club of somesort was looking into her window as a
few nights before the crimes. However, none of these men were ever located
or even identified. The investigation didtake a sharp turn, however, a
couple months after the murders. InApril nineteen twenty one, police received a

(09:43):
letter signed by quote a Lorraine Avenuecitizen, and the person who wrote the
letter claimed to have been a witnessto the murders. It's important to note
that Lorraine Avenue is a main thoroughfareon the west side of the city of
Cleveland. The closest point of LorraineAvenue to the murder scene is about eight
miles as the crow flies, sowhile it's not super far from the murders,

(10:07):
it's also not in the immediate area. Back in that time, it
would have been a decent journey fromone location to the other. The letter
writer stated he knew who the personwas that committed the murders and provided a
name of the alleged murderer. Policeimmediately began searching for the person named,
and they found him. They broughthim in for questioning, during which the

(10:31):
man admitted that he was the onewho actually wrote the letter, so this
man wrote a letter to police identifyinghimself as the killer. Police kept looking
into the letter, though they consultedan expert in Bertillion, which involved the
use of photography to document crime scenesand evidence before they were disturbed by investigators.

(10:54):
This expert concluded that the fingerprints onthe letter were similar to fingerprints foul
done one of the teacher's textbooks.After that, the letter writer was taken
to the scene of the crime,where he provided a detailed account of what
happened there. Aside from that,witnesses reported seeing the man near the crime
scene at various times, both beforeand after the murders. One person said

(11:18):
they saw him standing and watching adrain pipe being installed near the crime scene
just hours before the murders. Theman behind these vicious crimes, it seemed,
had finally been identified. Police theorizedthat the man's family helped him out
by burning his bloody clothes after themurders, although the family categorically denied this

(11:41):
accusation. The family also alerted policeto the fact that the man, who
was never publicly identified, was mentallyunstable. Police eventually concurred with his mental
instability after finding out that he hadlong been totally obsessed with murder cases.
A mental health professional interviewed the letterwriter and found that he had the mental

(12:05):
capacity of a child. He likelygot the details of the crimes from a
combination of newspaper stories and his imagination, so this man was ruled out as
a suspect. Eventually, the casestalled out and detectives were at wits end.
They had followed up on a tonof leads, but none of them

(12:28):
led to any substantial suspects. Residentsof Parma Township got together for several community
wide meetings at which they discussed thecase, any available evidence, and possible
suspects. A large reward was alsooffered for information that helped identify the killer
in Charles's foot. Mabel's uncle hadthe opinion that killers sometimes returned to the

(12:52):
scene of their crime, so hebegan going to the area every evening for
a while looking for anything suspicious.While this made some local residents kind of
ill at ease, it seemingly providedno help in solving the case. Police
began to step up the pressure onanyone that had even the slightest possible connection

(13:13):
to the case. They began intenselyinterrogating these people, and local men were
so intimidated by these practices that theybegan to voluntarily provide their fingerprints just to
avoid an appearance of guilt. Localpolice were joined by detectives from the Caihoga
County Sheriff's Office and the City ofCleveland Police Department. Still they came up

(13:37):
with nothing. Separate funeral services forMabel and Louise were held on February twentieth,
nineteen twenty one, four days aftertheir murders. They were each buried
in their respective families private cemeteries,although the locations of those cemeteries are not

(14:01):
known today. As is still commontoday, police detectives ran surveillance at both
funerals in case they noticed anyone actingsuspicious, but no suspicious characters were seen,
so no suspects came out of thatendeavor either. Police were once again
hopeful when a man named Fred Getlingcomplained that he had murdered the two teachers.

(14:26):
Get Ling was a lifelong criminal witha record dating back sixteen years to
nineteen oh five, when he wasconvicted of manslaughter for killing a man on
Christmas night. In nineteen o four, After being convicted of that crime,
Getling was found to be insane andwas confined to the Lima State Hospital for
the Criminally Insane. He would bereleased after just over two years, and

(14:50):
then would be convicted of burglary aboutsix months later. For the burglar conviction,
Getling served ten years in prison,during which time he threatened to kill
the warden with a razor that hehad in his possession. As an aside,
for regular listeners of this show,you may recall that this is not

(15:11):
the first time we've mentioned the LimaState Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Ceely
Rose, the subject of episode nineteen, was also sent to the same facility,
where she ultimately died. Eventually,Getling's confession of killing Mabel and Louise
was dismissed by authorities and he wasclear to the murders. Not long after

(15:35):
that, he murdered a man namedHarry Kyme with an axe. Anne was
sent back to the Lima State Hospital. In that case, the judge stated
that he strongly suspected that Ghetling hadmurdered the two teachers because, quote,
I cannot make myself believe there aretwo men so fiendishly brutal as you have

(15:56):
shown yourself. Unte was in nineteentwenty three, about two years after the
murders. Incidentally, the newspaper articleI found regarding the axe murder stated that
Getling was a two time axe murderer. It wasn't clear whether one of those
two incidents was the nineteen o fourmanslaughter case or something else, though.

(16:19):
An organization called the Brooklyn Women's CivicLeague planned and gathered funds for a memorial
to honor the teachers. Their effortskicked off in nineteen twenty three, and
they eventually raised enough funds to builda memorial to both Mabel and Louise.
The memorial was dedicated in nineteen thirtytwo and was placed at the entrance of

(16:40):
Brookside Park on Pearl Road in Cleveland. That memorial still stands today, and
I recently visited it and took somephotos which will be hosted on the Great
Lakes True Crime Facebook page for anyoneinterested in seeing it. The memorial is
in a small park right on PearlRoad at the intersection with Wildlife Way,

(17:00):
directly behind the huge Cleveland Metroparks Zoosign. The name of that small park,
by the way, is Footwolf MemorialPark. The park had long been
a City of Cleveland property, butcounty records show that ownership of the park
transferred to Cleveland Metroparks in nineteen ninetyone. From what I observed, the

(17:22):
area seems to be neglected and couldreally use some TLC by Cleveland Metroparks.
It has now been over one hundredand one years since these senseless murders,
and no one has ever been broughtto justice for these crimes without a responsible
party being identified. We also don'thave a motive behind the murders. We

(17:44):
do know that robbery does not appearto have been the motive, as both
women still had their jewelry, money, and other belongings with them. Sexual
assault also doesn't seem to have beena part of these crimes, and investigators
did not find that either women hadany enemies or recent arguments with anyone.
As mentioned earlier, Louise lived witha woman named Effie Buffle, and it's

(18:07):
been reported that rumors at the timesuggested that the two were more than just
roommates. If this were true,the possibility of a love triangle or jealous
lover was attached to one theory aboutthe crimes. The theory asserts that Effie
was potentially jealous of the closeness thatLouise had with Mabel and perhaps even had
a relationship with In this theory,Effie could have perhaps murdered both women,

(18:33):
contradicting the police assumption that a mancommitted the crimes. While not a terribly
likely scenario, this would explain whyneither woman appeared to run from the perpetrator.
Another theory involves Mabel and her involvementwith a charity organization. Mabel kept
the books for this group, andthis theory holds that she uncovered wrongdoing in

(18:53):
the organization and someone murdered her andstole the accounting book which she was said
to have had in her travel bagthat was found with her body. To
me, that concerned Lorraine Avenue Citizenis a more likely perpetrator than those proposed
in either of these theories. Thefact that he knew details of the murders

(19:15):
and sent police a letter about themurders is very suspicious and even more likely
suspect though would be Fred Getling.In my opinion. The fact that he
seemed to kill without any discernible motivetwice before is cause for alarm. Plus
the judge and the Axe murder case, who certainly had access to far more

(19:38):
information on the case than we donow, seemed to be convinced that Getling
was the murderer of Mabel and Louise. Why he was cleared by investigators is
not entirely clear, but he mayhave gotten away with two murders. We
may never know for sure, though. It's all for this episode. Again,

(20:02):
check out the Great Lakes True CrimeFacebook page for photos of the memorial
to Mabel and Louise, which stillstands today. Thanks for your positive reviews
and support of the show. Besure to check out our website and please
touch base on Twitter or Facebook.I'd love to hear your thoughts on this
case. And finally, check outthe show notes for more information and also

(20:26):
for a real quick Netflix review andsuggestion. I recently caught up with Swap
Shop on Netflix, and this showhas nothing to do with true crime or
any type of crime for that matter, but if you're looking for an escape
from this genre, Swapshop was prettyinteresting. It's ostensibly based on a radio

(20:48):
show called Swap Shop, but itreally follows several groups of people who go
around looking for some rare finds thatthey can turn around and sell for a
profit in their antique and novelty stores. It inspired me to try to sell
a few things that I had layingaround the house too. By the way,
so that's swap Shop. It's onNetflix. Season two just dropped in

(21:10):
February. Anyways, for Great Lakestrue crime, this has been your host
and producer, Steve. Thanks forlistening, guys,