RHODYLIFE

The Milk Bottle Murder trial makes history

Posted 7/19/22

History was made two times in the Rhode Island Superior court during the Milk Bottle Murder trial of 1939.

Elmer Lester Leduc was a 19-year-old boy who lived with his mother Vernal and his father …

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RHODYLIFE

The Milk Bottle Murder trial makes history

Posted

History was made two times in the Rhode Island Superior court during the Milk Bottle Murder trial of 1939.

Elmer Lester Leduc was a 19-year-old boy who lived with his mother Vernal and his father Louis, a worsted mill worker, on South Main Street in Woonsocket. During the winter of 1938 he stole six dollars from his father’s pocket and journeyed to NY to seek employment. After a short time, he decided he wanted to come back home. That New Year’s Eve, he telegraphed his maternal grandmother, 72-year-old Anna May (Sears) Baker, asking her to send him money for the fare.

Anna borrowed three dollars, added it to the three dollars she had in her possession and sent it off to him. After spending the cash on a show and brandy, he caught a freight train back to RI, arriving on Jan. 4, 1939. It was about 10:30 in the morning and he went straight to his grandmother’s Providence home. Anna, who had been widowed since 1936, operated a boarding house on Pine Street and lived in one of the second-floor apartments. The following day, the elderly woman was discovered laying on her floor dead, hidden beneath a pile of dresses and rugs. Her skull was broken and there were injuries on her face and chest.

Five suspects were taken into custody, including some of her boarders. Police also questioned the family. It be-came known that Elmer had recently requested money from Anna so that he could return home and, not knowing he had done so, police wanted to ask him why he had not followed through with his plan. They made it clear that Elmer was not a suspect. However, when they contacted the facility he had been staying at in NY, they learned he had checked out two days before the murder and now no one seemed to know where he was.  

Standing at 5’10 tall and weighing 165 pounds with brown hair and eyes, the teenager was already under a five-year deferred sentence, handed down on Nov. 26, 1937. That month, he had been arrested for stealing five purses from women in Woonsocket. Using a younger sister to help him, he would grab a purse, hand it to her and they would both run in opposite directions.

When he read in the newspaper that police were looking for him, he had already hitch-hiked to GA. Immediately, he made a plan to travel on to FL and board a ship for South America. But he was tired, hungry and without money so, on Jan. 11, he mistook a fireman for a policeman, walked up to him and confessed that he was wanted for murder.

Elmer was returned to RI on Jan. 16. He told police that he did not need a lawyer as he intended to plead guilty. In his statement, he confessed to getting into a heated argument with his grandmother when she began chiding him for all the trouble he had gotten himself into over the years. He said that after she had gone to a bureau to get a handkerchief and turned back around, he “saw red” and heard a buzzing and ringing sound in his ears. He said he grabbed a milk bottle and hit her over the head with it. As she fought back, he strangled her and she fell. The next thing he claimed to be conscious of was kneeling on the floor at her feet. He stated that he tore open her dress to find the small cloth purse she kept pinned inside. He stole $12 from it then rifled through her pocketbook for 35 cents and took a watch from the bureau. Before leaving, he went to the sink and washed the blood from his hands.

Elmer claimed he had a headache as he went on to the bus terminal on Fountain Street where he disposed of his bloody vest in a trash can. He escaped back to NY. There, he sold the watch to a pawn shop for one dollar. As time went on, police discovered that the fingerprints on the broken milk bottle belonged to him.


Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.


EDITOR’S NOTE:
Part two will be published next week

Back in the Day, Kelly Sullivan

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