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SEE ALSO SIDEBAR: A Fatal Attraction
MOST OF US take the waters that surround Long Island for granted. But occasionally that tranquil carpet of blut rises up in a violent reminder that our illusion of what is normal exits at the whim of chaotic forces beyond our control - and understanding.
So it is with our perceptions of suburbia: Lurking in tidy houses behind power-washed vinyl siding and bay-front windows is the inevitable dark tale that makes us nervously re-examine our notions where we live and who we are.
Though modern day headlines might suggest otherwise, murder and mayhem are nothing new on Long Island. Liek stories about the great blizzard or the decades-ago nor-easter, they take on the patina of legend with time. But their details, like the constant march of whitecaps, mesmerize us. Her, writer and buff Gail Rough Stratford recounts eight real-life murders, culled mostly from newspaper reports of the day, that captivated Long Islanders of their time - and perhaps now us as well.
1931 The Body On the Beach
STARR FAITHFULL'S BODY was found on the Long Beach shore on June 8, 1931, her long brown hair flowing over an expensive silk dress. She wore nothing else.
The autopsy gave the cause of death as drowning. Sand was found in Starr's lungs, an indication she was still alive as she lay in the shallow surf. There were bruises in the shape of fingers on her arms and evidence of a sexual assault. The sleep-inducing prescription drug Veronal was found in her system.
Immediately, the suspicion was murder. As the search for her killer began, a disturbing picture of the victim emerged. Starr, 25, lived with her mother and stepfather, Stanley E. Faithfull, in Manhattan. Starr's mother had divorced her father to marry Stanley and had changed her two daughters' last names from Wyman to Faithfull. Starr was described in newspaper accounts as a "good-time girl." But she had once been in a mental hospital and was still under a psychiatrist's care.
The Faithfull family's finances had shrunk, and Starr, who previously had traveled to Europe, could no longer afford those jaunts. Instead, she became a regular on the Manhattan piers where the great liners docked, dropping in on bon voyage...