Who Killed Poison Dick No. 244-948?

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In 1940, a man was found at the bottom of a salt water swimming pool off the northern branch of Roosevelt Boulevard in Key West, Florida. He was tied to a rock and covered with mud. Surprisingly the coroner concluded he had committed suicide, but did he?

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Dr. William R. Warren, Key West Health Officer

January 8, 1940
Key West

The pool was a popular spot among the locals of the city. Girl Scouts held meetings and fish fries there. 

The body was found by Silvio Carrera, a WPA watchman. It was floating face downward in the pool near the diving platform. A Parks' Dairy truck was passing by, and Ike Parks the driver stopped when he heard Carrera shout, "Here's a dead man." Parks ran to where Carrera stood, and turned the body over. It revealed the man had been dead probably from three to five days. The feet and hands had been tied with a green cord. Hanging from the hands and a cord around the man's waist was a dog collar looped through the man's belt. The belt encircled a small rock that did not appear heavy enough to hold the body on the bottom of the pool. The corpse could not have floated in from the bay as the intakes into the pool were screened.

It was incredible to think that scores of swimmers using the pool had not noticed a dead man floated in the water a few feet from them, .

Dr. William R. Warren the city health officer autopsied the body at Pritchard's Funeral Home. The fingerprints were sent to the FBI. ​Despite the suspicion that it was suicide there was no water found in the lungs, pointing to the theory that he was killed and then dumped in the pool. It was determined the man found in the salt water pool was murdered, and died by strangulation or asphyxiation.

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Justice Esquinaldo c.1954

Laundry marks on the cheap trousers he wore were checked by the Columbia Laundry Company, but no record was found. He was wearing a cheap watch and carried a knife in his pocket. There was nothing to identify him except a note in his wallet that read: Poison Dick No. 244-948.

A coroner's jury was taken to the swimming pool, and the justice of the peace reconstructed the scene. As the group was standing around the pool, a couple with a child approached the jury curious to know the reason for the gathering. The man who identified himself as Alex Jungmarker, explained to Justice Enrique Esquinaldo Jr.  that he had been swimming at the pool two days before. Esquinaldo asked him if he had lost a sweater, and the answer was yes. It turned out that police had found a sweater at the scene, and they wondered if it belonged to the dead man. The clue was no longer relevant.

Two hundred persons paid a visit to the street morgue at Pritchard’s Funeral Home and viewed the remains. This included city officials who said he was not a Key Wester. The coroner thought perhaps the man was a former convict. 

Three days after the body was discovered, police published a description of the man and the clothes he was wearing in the local newspaper with hopes of identifying him. It read:  

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About 33 years old; five feet, eight inches tall; weight about 160 pounds; reddish hair; gray eyes. Wire gray worsted trousers with a thin brown stripe; light gray shirt with a red and white stripe; a blue gray tie; plain black shoes with an English toe, size C-8. Laundry marks in the trousers pockets included M13154; X-731 HV and 21570. Laundry marks on the under drawers and shirt were T-B-B, the shirt being size 15. In a wallet was found a note bearing the words and numerals, "Poison Dick. 244948”. Any information regarding such a man should be transmitted to Hamlin, the sheriff's office or Peace Justice Enrique Esquinaldo, Jr." 

Coroner's report determined the dead man had been murdered. c.1940

​Sheriff Roy Hamlin was informed that a man who formerly roomed with Mr. and Mrs. Millon C. Roberts at 702 Pearl Street had disappeared. The mystery seemed to be solved when Mrs. Robersts said the body belonged to Henry D. Hatch Jr. Not only Mrs. Roberts, but by five other local citizens confirm this was Henry Hatch. He worked as a bellhop at the Trumbo Hotel, and had been reported missing a week before.

However that theory was upended when Mr. Hatch arrived at the office of Justice Esquinaldo. He explained he enlisted in the U.S. Army on January 1, in the 13th Coast Artillery and was stationed at the Key West barracks. His poor mother who lived in Hamlet, North Carolina was notified of his death. A new message was sent to her telling her that her son was alive.

​Those who had identified the body as Hatch, tried to renege on their words, claiming the condition of the body was misleading. Hatch denied he knew the dead man. Confusion as to the identity could be due to the fact the body was bloated and certain facial characteristics were obscured.

​After his brush with notoriety when he was believed to be a murder victim, Henry Hatch appeared to part ways with the military and in 1952, he was arrested for a vagrancy charge in Santa Maria, California. He lived in San Francisco, California and worked as a painter. When he died in 1961, he was a patient at the Mendocino State Hospital, which was a psychiatric hospital near Ukiah, California. It provided rehabilitation for the criminally insane, as well as alcohol and drug abuse rehabilitation.

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Fishing boat in the keys c.1938

On January 14, 1940 Officer Hamlin questioned fishermen, since his hands and feet were tied with a green fishing line, and he had some in his pocket. A rubber purse such as fishermen carry and a fisherman's knife were among his belongings. Hamlin also heard that a fisherman who had been in Key West a few days before the body was found was missing, however it turned out the man was alive.

The FBI informed the authorities that no record of the prints were on file in Washington.

On January 18, 1940, a coroner's jury determined that body of an "unidentified man, about 50 years old, whose body was found bound and covered with mud in a swimming pool here January 8 had been slain. The verdict said death was due to suffocation, strangulation or asphyxiation."

An observation made in a local newspaper was, "men can slip out of the picture easily, unknown, forgotten; living or dead, as a pebble on the beach."

Nine months after the body was discovered in the salt water pool, the bullet-riddled body of a swarthy-complexioned man was found floating in the waters off Card Sound in Key Largo. He was identified as a former Pennsylvania convict and NY parole violator. This was verified after the FBI compared his fingerprints and confirmed his name was Leon Massi, 41, of Erie, Pennsylvania. Authorities believed he was hunted down by New York gunmen at some hideout in Key Largo, south of Miami. At the end of October 1940, the jury was expected to return a true bill for the unnamed man found in January and Leon Massi.

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Seawall along Roosevelt Blvd, Key West c.1961

In 1943, Harry Bell and Edward J. McGrath were indicted by a Monroe county grand jury for the murder of Massi, a labor leader. Bell surrendered to police in New Jersey. It turned out authorities in Monroe county had been trying to find Bell since 1940. McGrath was tried for the crime and was discharged on a directed verdict of not guilty because the judge declared testimony of witnesses based entirely on circumstantial  evidence failed to connect him with the murder.

Poison Dick's case had no such resolution. Ten months after the discovery of the body, the same jury in Key West who abandoned the case against Carl Tanzier alias Count Van Cosel who'd unearthed the body of Maria Elena Hoyos from her grave, and kept it in his home, reported it had been unable to determine the circumstances by which the man found in the salt water pool had met his death. It’s assumed that during those months the man was probably given a burial in a potter’s field somewhere in Key West, possibly in the Key West Cemetery. Thus ended any effort to identify him, and find his murderer.

​​Only a few years later another mystery was spawned with the death of Sheriff Roy Hamlin.

His wife Emma Hamlin found a note written on pink toilet paper that started an investigation into what appeared to be the murder of Hamlin. On November 7, 1960, his body was found on SR-7 near Southern Blvd. with a .38 caliber bullet in his head. Investigators found no evidence of foul play.

His funeral was held in Miami, and his wife later found a "murder note" folded in one of his pant pockets. She turned it over to the police. The note said, "I picked up a man in South Miami. He has my gun. He's going to kill me, take my money and car. I am writing this in the rest room of a filling station." It was signed Roy. 

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Roy Hamlin who investigated Poison Dick's murder himself met a mysterious end c.1960

The suicide theory presented by police was called into question.

Palm Beach County investigators said they had searched Hamlin's pockets and effects at the scene, and in their identification laboratory but did not find any note.

Herb Lugsdin was the first to see the body about 9:30 p.m. and asked a nearby gas station attendant to call the police. When Lugsdin and his wife were returning home along the same road about 11:45 the body was still there, and he telephoned the sheriff again from his home in Lake Worth.

Deputy Strickland arrived at the scene, and called other investigators. They said that only Hamlin's foot prints could be found leading from the car. His pockets were not turned out, and there was no sign of a scuffle.

Mrs. Hamlin said her husband left home with about $100 in his wallet, however it only contained his driver's license and other pieces of identification. The wallet was still in the pant pocket, but the money was gone.

The 62-year-old Hamlin had been living in Miami for 3 months prior to his death, recuperating from an operation. According to his wife he was in good spirits when he said goodbye, and left for Key West saying he wanted to be there for the election, since he was running for his third term as justice of the peace. He won by a healthy majority, since the voters had no idea he was dead. 

The note was taken for comparison to Hamlin's handwriting, and sent to the Florida Sheriff's Bureau in Tallahassee. One of the investigators said Hamlin's signature and writing did not match the note. The toilet paper was neatly folded and not jammed in his pocket, and they could not locate a gas station that had pink toilet paper in the bathroom.

The story died out, and nothing more was learned as to whether Hamlin killed himself or was murdered. Did his wife Emma plant the note? Why did it take investigators over two hours to respond to a report of a body on a roadway? 

Like the story about Poison Dick, there are so many questions that are fated to remain unanswered.

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