Indiana’s “Upstate Slayer”: Part Two
The Mary Cheever Effect
When Gary Historical Collective admin Christopher Harris posted about the Mary Cheever case on its anniversary this past March, he said,
“The Mary Cheever murder case is a poignant reminder of the complexities of criminal investigations and the impact of societal issues on justice. It highlights the interplay between personal relationships, societal prejudices, and the broader context of a community plagued by corruption and crime.”
Christopher is right beyond meaning.
By March 7, 1949, The Indianapolis Star named the unknown suspect “The Upstate Slayer.” However, Mary’s murder shook Gary on March 3rd.
The Immediate Aftermath
There was a social storm brewing. Women had been soft-complaining about increased crime in the “Uptown” neighborhood of Gary, now called Borman Square. There had been a wave of purse snatchings and robberies since January. The Gary Police Department caught wind of this storm on the very night of Cheever’s death, but there was little they could do about it.
Before the mortally wounded teacher was in the back of the ambulance, police were going door-to-door in the surrounding community, questioning witnesses.
This sector of the investigation is very murky despite numerous reports from witnesses. As far as what’s publicly available, there is, once again, no official timeline or outline that details what GPD did immediately after arriving on the scene. We can only go off of media reports. These reports come from newspapers and the few periodicals published about the crime years after the fact.
Common sense dictates that police officers would have fanned out to interview potentially hundreds of people in the immediate area. The first interviews were with occupants of the two apartments on either side of the spot where Cheever was gunned down. Then, the police would have split up and entered the blocks surrounding Jefferson Park. Of all the interviews, only a handful would reach the surface of public publication.
One of the first witnesses was Lorraine Gotta, the wife of steelworker Herman Gotta. The couple lived on the ground floor of the Lake View Apartments, the same building as Cheever, while Cheever resided on the fourth floor.
According to the Daily Republcan-Register, 1949, Mrs. Gotta heard screaming and saw “a negro man dragging her through the alley by her hair,” then heard a shot and saw the man running away.
Another account from Gotta claimed while reading a book near her window; she heard a shot and a scream. She witnessed a black male, 25 years old, five feet — four inches, dragging Cheever by the arm after the shot. He dropped Cheever’s arm, and she fell to the ground and looked towards her building. A light from Cheever’s building illuminated his face.
The Indianapolis Star indicated that at least two other witnesses living at Lake View reportedly saw the same thing, but their names have never gotten released.
Mary lived with a roommate, Miss Georgia Bopp, known as Ruth Bopp, from French Lick, Indiana, and of the Alpha Omicron Pi Alumnae. She was also a romantic language teacher specializing in German and Latin. Georgia moved to Gary in 1939 to pursue a career in its esteemed school district. She did not hear anything and only caught wind of the murder when told by authorities. She reportedly offered no known motive for the crime and fainted at the news of the death of her friend.
As far as reported witnesses, that’s it. The lack of solid information leaves room for many theories to formulate. This will be touched on in part three. For now, we go back to March 4, 1949.
The Police Reaction
To head the criticism off, the department immediately went into the black and poor communities and rounded up every single hoodlum, misfit, and other criminal type they had on record. The press reported on March 4 that the GPD was questioning eight individuals already. Mary Cheever’s body hadn’t gotten cold. Gary’s police chief at the time, Millard Matovina, sometimes reported as being “suave,” ordered all of his officers to pull extra duty.
“We are aroused as much as the citizens,” Matovina said in the press. “We want to get the killer.”
Chief Matovina put six detectives on Cheever’s case. Det. Sgt. Timothy Curely was placed in charge. Tips flooded the phone boards, which increased exponentially when the AFL and teachers’ unions offered $1500 to capture the killer. The reward would balloon up to $5000.
Finally, by the 9th, the Gary Police Department had questioned over thirty black men. Most of these men got racially profiled, although law enforcement did make an effort to round up the black petty thieves and purse-snatchers they had on record.
All of those questioned were black because of Mrs. Gotta’s supposed description. However, it wouldn’t come out until 1955 that Mrs. Gotta told GPD she saw a “light-skinned” person and not a dark-skinned “negro”, as the media reported and emphasized in the earliest days. The People Act, written in 1955, adds the additional detail of the perp wearing a “brown coat and cap with a bill resembling a baseball cap.” Gotta had reported the same, but the details were slightly diminished.
Gary police gave the FBI the bullet that killed Cheever. There are no reports about the bullet published.
Meanwhile, the Indiana State Police and the GPD began nightly escorts of certain women returning home from work. The increased law enforcement presence eased worries somewhat.
However, these escorts quickly morphed into daytime patdowns of black people all over Midtown. Everyone was questioned, regardless of who they were—even children.
This aspect of the Mary Cheever case has been glossed over throughout history. Black officers were sent out into their communities to question people, even if they were nowhere near matching the given description.
Mayor Eugene Swartz took action by ordering Chief Matovina to work on shutting all prostitution hovels in the city. Yet, he stopped short of ordering gambling dens and private lounges to close.
“Gambling is lower here than it has been in any recent time,” Mayor Swartz said.
This would come back to bite him in less than a day.
The Petticoat Rebellion
Dorothy Mial, who wrote Our Community in 1960, details a type of community she describes as a “frustrated community.” According to Mial, frustrated communities are cities or towns that go through “repeated crisis and repeated reform, where the reforming majority have been made aware of their inability to call into being the moral backbone and nervous system of a community.”
She described Gary as one such community.
In the Mial passage, she quotes an unnamed black Gary preacher during a community meeting. He says, “I doubt you folks would have been out of your indifference yet if Mary Cheever hadn’t been murdered. Haven’t fifteen persons already been murdered down here in my [Midtown] district?”
Someone loudly answered him, saying, “He’s right! We people from Glen Park have done nothing. It’s time we joined the town.”
This sort of positive back-and-forth between the city’s racially segregated districts was rare at the time, and this sort of civic brainstorming was even rarer. The pioneers did not think about civic refinement. They weren’t even thinking about it in their own time.
Gary was a full-bird mill town on the surface of everything else. Sweaty men grunting and sweating day in and day out, enduring tremendous noise, heat, tension, and long hours, had little regard for the psychological twisting and turning of social reform. This often worked out in favor of politicians who talked a good game about cleaning the city of vice and crime but turned a blind eye in practice.
However, a phenomenon occurred in the city the Hammond Times jokingly referred to as “the petticoat rebellion.”
This storm brewed for two months, and now it was here. For three cold, dreary Gary days, the city’s women gathered with its academics and social leaders. Two women, whose identities remain unknown, organized a women-only compact. Peggy called Sue. Sue called Mildrid. Mildrid called Pat. Pat called Karen. In 24 hours, the call for action snowballed into a large women’s meeting at the YMCA on 5th Avenue in Gary.
Every organization was there: College Club, AAUW, Hadassah’s NCCW, and others. The oldest female principal was there, quoted as saying, “I just represent all those who want to do something about this terrible situation.”
Daughters were afraid to go outside at night, sisters did not want to go grocery shopping alone, and nieces were frightened of taking the city bus anywhere.
The call for action rose to a crescendo.
“Gary’s been divided long enough,” someone said. “It’s time to act.”
“The city council meets tomorrow night. Let’s organize a mass meeting there!”
“Cancel everything and call every woman in Lake County!”
Gary’s wives, female community leaders, teachers, nurses, and professionals gathered to voice their opinions about their safety and actively engage in civic responsibility. Meetings were held in private, and in record time, the storm was ready to be unleashed on the day of Mary Cheever’s funeral.
Seeds of Rebellion
Cheever’s pastor, Frederick Backmayer of First Presbyterian Church, was the first to promote social reform publicly. His rallying cry echoed efforts that had started before Mary’s body was cold.
“The forces of Sodom and Gomorrah run riot in our midst,” he said. “When people are told we are from Gary, we hang our heads in shame…Mary, you have paid with your life a debt that this city can never repay. But in your name today, we have covenated to make Gary what God intended it to be — a city of integrity!”
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Hundreds met at Williams and Burns Funeral Home, where Pastor Backmayer spoke, to pay their last respects to Mary. Most attendees were Lew Wallace students, who were allowed to leave school at 11:30 a.m. that day to attend services. There was standing room only, with many forced to wait outside. Later that evening, the more extensive service began.
Let’s Not Get Hysterical
About 400 people participated in the initial stages — four hundred out of nearly 180,000 people. That changed quickly at a meeting at Seaman’s Hall. Over a thousand people showed up, most of whom were white women.
“If no action is taken in two weeks, then we women will take action ourselves, with God’s help,” Hilda Burton, a school teacher and one of Mary Cheever’s best friends, said.
The meeting was capped with a statement from a woman named Peg. “Our city has become a despicable example of crime and vice. It’s not enough to be good; we’ve got to be good for something. And now, rain or no rain, we’ll march to city hall!”
That’s precisely what they did.
Onward to Gary City Hall, the crowd marched, snaking through Gary’s downtown streets in a puritan fury. They trudged through the rain, puddles, muddy sidewalks, and wet pavement. The group reached the hall doors in a mass of humanity and barged into the scheduled City Council meeting. Hundreds of people, standing room only. There were so many people the crowd leaked outside the building — taking no heed to the rain.
The majority of these social purists were white. Their complaints rang loudly in City Hall, surprising Mayor Eugene Swartz. He sat rose-faced, stony, and angry as the crowd barked their demands at him and the city council.
“If this town wants a gambling cleanup,” Swartz squeaked through tightened vocal cords, “it can have it.”
Other city council members were not so free with their charity. “Let’s not get so hysterical that you forget that we’ve had eight other murders in this city since the first of this year,” one blustered indignantly.
The intruding mass of women gasped in anger and surprise at the bluster, causing a loud raucous that rang inside and out of the hall. Hysterical?
The word “hysterical” was used purposefully and was lost upon no one. The beehive of women went up into a roar.
“We want a clean, white shirt for the city!” Someone shouted.
“We want action now, or you’re not going to leave the premises,” someone else exclaimed.
“The Indiana State Police needs a presence here!” Another yelled.
Mayor Swartz continued to emphasize that shutting down gambling dens and other places of vice would not have the support of most of the citizenry. The puritanical mob did not care. They continued to pester the city administration, reading out loud the many resolutions passed by their social clubs, community organizations, and religious institutions.
City council president Hobart Wiggerely attempted to strike the gavel and disrupt the crowd three times, but his attempts were wholeheartedly ignored. Finally, Swartz stood up and was able to be heard.
“I want to give the town what you people want. If you wish to have gambling cleaned up, it will be from one end of the town to the other. It won’t be for certain individuals,” he started.
Shouts of “clean ’em up!” answered his solution.
“Empty out the slums!” came another reply.
Swartz swallowed hard. Yet, with his reservations, he continued.
“Despite all we can do against vice and gambling, we can’t clean out the slums,” he attempted to explain.
Drones and moans of protest met him in return.
“I’ll do it if you want me to, and I will do it immediately. The police have been ordered to close down all prostitution and gambling. However, the conditions that have brought about the recent crime wave here should not be attributed to vice alone. Slum conditions result in inadequate economic conditions for large numbers of people.”
This answer needed to be better.
“Most of the slums are owned by some of our better people who milk the property for whatever they can get out of it and don’t put anything back into it for improvements.”
His words were once again drowned out by mad, babbling heads. They didn’t care about economic conditions or the socioeconomic complexities of running an urban city. They wanted the slums cleared.
Who are in the slums? Black people, poor people, unwanted, undesirable people. It wasn’t said directly, but one must be blind and deaf not to understand the implications. Black people were present here as well, at least a handful. They listened quietly and peacefully as exhalations of social order went up at their expense.
Mayor Swartz continued to try to reason with the crowd of nearly 2,000 for four hours. He spent the night explaining the situation of crime and vice and the connections (or lack thereof) between Chicago and elsewhere. He tried to connect the dots between gambling, prostitution, and racketeering and explain how cracking down hard on them would lead to undesirable consequences in the future. His overtures were heard but disregarded.
Hundreds of people jammed the city hall rotunda. Even more were gathered outside, unable to find their way inside due to the sheer volume of humanity in front of them. Women, hot and sweaty in their coats, passed out. They were housewives, mothers, sisters, aunties, community leaders, school officials, out-of-towners, and people from all walks of life. There was no talking them down.
“We’re going to clean Gary from top to bottom. We’re going to start in the morning,” Swartz conceded. This order seemed to ease the edge off of the expecting, leery crowd. They started filing out, slowly but assured.
An unknown Gary city councilman was later quoted in McCall’s saying about the mob, “It was like having a crochet needle explode in your hand.”
Vice Busters
As promised, Mayor Swartz and the Gary Police Department started early on March 9th. They randomly chose two vice establishments in the Red Light District. Doors swung open, and an army of police officers and city officials marched in.
Armed with axes, poles, and other devices, they proceeded to bust up pool and card game tables and threw chairs and other decorations around in a show of faux force.
“It’s over, boys,” the officers said. “Vice and gambling is no more in the City of Gary.”
The crackdowns continued in subsequent days, with dozens of establishments being raided and shuttered. No arrests were made. Yet, Mayor Swartz did not outright ban prostitution, though most sex hovels self-imposed closure upon themselves to avoid the law.
According to McCall’s 1951–06: Vol 78 Iss 9, Gary had 500 brothels, most operating around the clock, catering to the region’s steelworkers. Nearly all of them were in Midtown. Each hovel had racketeers and pimps moving money in and out constantly. Most prostitutes paid racketeers and their cohorts for protection. The prostitutes themselves raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars every month, which in turn was used to fatten the pockets of Gary’s “better people.”
“It’s my opinion that it would be better to suffer a limited operation of prostitution than to take a chance of exposing the community to an outbreak of criminal assault and sex offenses, which have been the bitter experience of other cities that tried the same things,” he was quoted saying in the press. “Now, however, I am confronted with a rising demand for a total crackdown on all vice, and I feel I can do no less than comply.”
Politically, Swartz had tied hands. He knew what made the world go round and knew that a complete crackdown on vice would lead to future consequences the Puritans did not care to understand. Big wigs were out in Gary’s streets — powerful men with mysterious connections to larger criminal syndicates. There were independents, rich hustlers scattered throughout Gary who owned legitimate businesses — including being slum lords.
The “better people” Swartz had referred to earlier were entirely in charge of vice and areas of slum fare. He contemplated meeting with the vice lords of the day, but there would be no guarantees of cooperation. He could not force them to evict problem tenants or to give up their properties in the name of purity — murders or not.
Meanwhile, the mob of women and angry folk organized into the Women’s Citizens Committee. The WCC was headed by Ida Saks and represented by fifteen board members. Though racial tones perforated throughout the movement, even several African-American social orders participated in the WCC. Yet, their motivations were slightly different from their white counterparts.
African-Americans of Gary were also tired of crime and vice, though it anchored on their communities like a hungry tick. It was their community that suffered eight prior murders. It was their community that was burgled the most. It was their community that constantly shouldered the blame for Gary’s shortcomings.
It was their community that felt all the blowback from the police investigations and suffered the crushing weight of judgment and general social exclusion from the white community. It was blacks who endured brutality at the hands of the Gary Police Department, even on good days, and blacks who complained endlessly about it in their locally produced publications, especially in the Gary American.
Some saw the WCC as a catalyst to protect Gary’s black experience further. The resolutions, the proposed reforms, and the chance to be heard were opportunities that could not be missed. However, this was when the police department simultaneously rounded up dozens of them.
Yet, while the WCC expanded and people thought their puritanical vision of paradise was at hand, another murder would call into question Gary’s safety on a much larger scale.
