This is the ninth in a series.

It was the spring of 1930. The effects of the great stock market crash the year before were just filtering down to the common man.

Ellis Parker, one of the most famous detectives in the country, made Long Beach Island his summer home. The village of Lakehurst, N.J. was nationally known as the center for the U.S. Navy’s lighter than air program, but in May of that year it would become the scene of what some at the time would call the most heinous and baffling murder in the state’s history.

The Asbury Park Press broke the story on May 16.