The Perils of Pauline

10/9/2024

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
The year is 1940, the place is Rockland, Maine and one day Alzada Pauline Young, who is only 16 years old, inexplicably disappears on Halloween Day, and despite an intensive search for her she is not found, until one day.

John Phelps confessed to killing his stepdaughter Pauline c.1940

The Phelps family lived in a duplex on 28 Crescent Street. Thelma Phelps, the mother had two children by a prior marriage, Pauline age 16, and Evangeline age 13 who lived at the Pownal State School, where children with disabilities or behavior problems were institutionalized. She had married John Phelps, a man 20 years her senior, and had two children with him, Rachael age 11 and Bernard age 9.

Thelma Phelps worked at City House, an almshouse and her husband John Phelps, 54, at the W.P.A. which hired unskilled labor.

On Halloween Day, when Thelma Phelps arrived from work that night, she asked her husband where Pauline was. He told her he did not know, but thought that she had gone to a friend's house on Thomaston Street. She told city marshal Fish to pick her up and bring her home if he ran across her.

Chief of Police Arthur D. Fish of Rockalnd standing by piazza at Phelps residence, as other officers unearth portions of body of Pauline Young c.1940

However in the next few days, no one saw or heard from "Pauline" as she was known by her family. It seemed the earth had swallowed her up, and it turned out this was indeed quite accurate as to her actual whereabouts. The police came to the home and searched for her, but no trace was found.

On November 9, her stepfather John Phelps was found stumbling and bleeding profusely near the police station at 2 a.m. He tried to kill himself by taking five bichloride of mercury pills. When that didn’t work, he slashed his left wrist with a jack-knife. He was taken to Knox County Hospital where he made a complete confession to the police, after they insisted on knowing why he had tried kill himself. The whole incident played out on the afternoon of October 31.

Phelps told authorities he had brought his step-daughter home after she had been absent a week, and found her at Albert Wilson's house. He told her he didn't want her to be gone any longer, and described Pauline as "unruly".

He called his wife at work, and she told him to keep Pauline at home. It was at this point the argument escalated between Phelps and Pauline.

Phelps told his wife once she returned from work, that Pauline refused to stay home, and told him she was going away to be married. He asked to stay home for supper and she replied: "To hell with supper, to hell with you, and to hell with mother." Then she ran out the back door.

He explained that the younger children were not there since they were trick or treating.

However this version was not entirely accurate.

The newspaper quoted Phelps:

She cursed and came at me with a butcher knife. I threw a hammer at her and it struck her on the forehead. I turned her over and she was not breathing, and I knew she was dead. I didn’t know what to do with the body, but finally removed the head with an axe and a knife and carried it out to the henpen where I buried it. The body I dragged down the cellar stairs.

Group of officials from the sheriff's and police department after the girl's body, the head missing, had been taken from under the piazza and a playhouse. In the center, looking at the basket, is Dr. H.J. Weisman county medical examiner. c.1940

He stashed the body in the cellar until the next day when his children were at school, and his wife was at work. He then dismembered it into five or six pieces and buried it under the house porch.

He got under the piazza by way of a cellar window.

However Phelp's account of what happened is questionable since the neighbors heard a woman scream four times, followed by a dull thud.

The neighbors then described that about 7 PM Thelma Phelps arrived home from work, and she said to her husband three times: "I can't, daddy" — this being the way she addressed her husband.

Ruel Westmoreland, Marion Alley and Ruby Weeks who occupied the other side of the house, suspected something was wrong when they saw him carrying bags between the house and the henhouse, and they heard him working in the cellar.

The neighbors made no report initially, however they became suspicious when the days passed and Pauline was not seen again, and within a few days they notified authorities.

Thelma Phelps told police she had not reported her daughter missing, as it appeared that it was common for Pauline to spend days away from home with friends. She told police she had been at work when the crime was committed.

John Phelps suspected he would be found out eventually, which is when he attempted suicide, followed by his confession.

John Phelps was eventually convicted of murdering his stepdaughter and was sentenced to life in prison c.1941

Based on the information provided by Phelps, police found two bags under the porch of the house, one underneath the henhouse and another under a dog house. The fifth was under a shed behind the two-story frame structure. Digging up the shallow graves they found her shoulder in one burlap bag, her legs in another, an arm and her chest in a third bag, a thigh and her torso in another and in the last bag was a single thigh. No head. So they checked Witham’s Wharf, “where it was understood the head had been thrown,” the newspaper reported. This spot was half a mile from the Phelp's home. They dragged the harbor. Nothing. The head has never been found.

Stories circulated among local kids about where it could be. Adults pondered whether Phelps was cunning enough to have hidden it somewhere undiscoverable in order to hide “marks which would prove that more than a single blow was administered.” There were stories of neighbors seeing him walk towards a neighborhood quarry with a burlap bag. When asked what was in it, he said it was kittens that he planned to drown.

Pauline's body was buried on December 14, 1940 and disinterred for another examination in January, 1941.

As soon as her husband confessed, Thelma Phelps quit her job, quickly left town with her two children and went to Danforth. In January, 1941 she was brought back to town by the county attorney to identify Pauline's body when it was exhumed.

Thelma Phelps with her two youngest children c.1940

Phelps pled innocent in municipal court in November, 1940. In 1941, he had three indictments against him: murder, dismemberment of a human body and abandonment of a human body.

It was revealed that for a week or so before her death, Pauline had been avoiding her home and staying with a friend. Was she frightened of being alone with her stepfather? Why had John Phelps taken the trouble to go find her at her friend's house and bring her home, especially since her mother said to police it was common for Pauline to spend days away from home?

Phelps went on to plead guilty to murder, and was sentenced to life in prison. In 1963, his plea for clemency was rejected. He died in 1968 at the age of 81.

By 1942, Thelma Phelps had divorced the murderer of her daughter, and married her third husband Frederic Mailman (d.1973).

It seems that Thelma had a streak of bad luck when it came to the children from her first marriage to Lowell Young (1895-1937). They married in 1921, and she gave birth to Sherly Belle Young on June 6, 1922. The child died 3 days later. She gave birth to Alzada Pauline in 1924, and Evangeline in 1927. Neither of these births were registered. Thelma sought a divorce from Lowell Young on September 10, 1929 on the grounds of cruel and abusive treatment and non-support.

Duplex on Crescent Street c.2008

She married John Phelps a month later. Pauline had been sent off to live with her maternal grandparents; when she joined her mother and stepfather is unknown.

Thelma's other daughter, Evangeline was institutionalized at a young age at Pownal State School as it was known then (later it became Pinelands). Originally it was The Maine School for the Feeble-Minded. In order to hide her identity she was registered as Evangeline Phelps. The existence of Evangeline came to light when John Lowell murdered her sister, and mention was made of her in the newspapers. Evangeline died in 1947 at the age of 19.

John Phelps himself didn't seem to have good luck with his marriages either. He married Bertha Trott in 1903 when he was only 16 years old, but it was short-lived and he married Eunice Belyea in 1908. This marriage produced at least six children, possibly more, and then he married Thelma York Lowell in 1929.

Thelma died in 1994, at the age of 87.

After the gruesome murder, the duplex on Crescent Street developed a reputation for being haunted. The fact that Pauline's head was never found, caused rumors to swirl that it was still somewhere on the grounds or beneath the house.