That horrible story of the Utah serial infanticide mother immediately called to mind the similar case in Pennsylvania years ago. After publishing that crime post I researched the Pennsylvania case. How do we research anything these days? We google it! There is next to nothing. That was a sensational case, how could that be? Google does a magnificent job of collecting information on public occurrences that have been written about since Google was founded. Before then, not so much. In other words, if a public occurrence flashed like a supernova, intensely but briefly, pre-1998 and nobody has written much about it since, you ain't gonna get jack googling it. I first encountered this "gap" when I researched the Millman Perry death. That case could have been a novel or movie and there was next to nothing on it, too. Because Millman died in 1935. There hasn't been anything written on that in decades. So Google doesn't have anything.
Anyway, the Pennsylvania serial infanticide wasn't mere "years ago," as I had thought. It was discovered in 1980. Sergey Brin and Larry Page don't date women that old. Sergey Brin and Larry Page were seven years old in 1980. Okay, okay, but it was still 1980, it wasn't 1935 for godssake. I guess the Stella Elizabeth Williamson case flashed like that supernova and just disappeared. I googled "babies in attic pennsylvania" and got the name. There's a "murderpedia," or something like that, site that has about as much about it as there is. There were five babies found in a chest in Williamson's attic. The babies were wrapped in newspapers dated between 1923 and 1933. I spent hours on this: there is no photograph of Williamson, no crime scene photos, no autopsy reports; I google-mapped the address, couldn't even find a current image of that! The only photograph of the house I could find was in one of those snap-shot photos taken of the front page of a newspaper.
It may be, it may be, that Pennsylvania plays a part in this. Pennsylvania's "government in the sunshine" laws, there isn't much sunshine there. Journalists had to go to court to learn what Joe Paterno's salary was! Penn State wouldn't tell 'em. The autopsy reports would surely be a public record, especially by this time, but back in the day, the Coroner refused to release any information except that the babies had been strangled. That I have been able to uncover online, it was not even revealed who the mother was, who the father was, who the murderer, or murderess, was; who, if anybody, knew of Williamson's pregnancies, who, if anybody, knew of the murders at the time or afterwards. There was newspaper speculation at the time that Williamson's mother had been a mid-wife, had been an abortionist. The most damning evidence, and it is quite damning, is a letter written by Williamson in February 1960, and discovered by her male companion Guy K. Schrack at the time of her death in 1980. On the envelope was written "To be opened after my burial." Williamson died on August 25, 1980. Schrack opened the letter on September 2 after Williamson's burial:
"Today I started to bleed and I want to make things right if anything should happen to me. In the attic in an old trunk you will find babies I had to Howard Drass thirty years or more. How I got away with I don't know but I did so I don't want anyone else to be blamed for something they know nothing about. This is one reason I could never marry anyone else. I have lived a good life since so as God is my judge this is the truth. Please forgive me if you can....
Stella
He never wanted me. Only something to play with and I was a fool in his hands."
"Started to bleed?" Williamson was 56 years old when she wrote the letter, awfully late in life for a pregnancy scare.
The name Howard Drass was omitted from contemporary reports and never officially disclosed. He was senile when investigators went to interview him.
Official Pennsylvania closed the Stella Williamson case on October 10, 1980 and buried the babies on October 29. Nice.
