Murder or Suicide?

The Mysterious Death of Marion Hunt

Marion Gladys Hunt was born October 1st, 1905 in Port Chester, Westchester County, New York to parents George W. Hunt and Catherine A. Brown. ¹ She was my grand aunt.

Port Chester is an approximate 30-minute drive northeast of New York City. Marion attended the local public schools there until she was of working age.  She worked as an assistant bookkeeper according to the 1925 NY State Census. ² While in high school Marion was voted the prettiest girl in Port Chester. Her brother-in-law Charles Schwefel was a hotel manager in Manhattan.  Encouraged by her own desire and her friends to become a model and actress, she decided to move in with Elsie and Charles at their home in Queens in late 1925.

Marion had some success as a cloak model early on. She worked at Floersheimer and Salkin Dress Manufacturers and was highly regarded. ³ However, the allure of the big city and the Roaring Twenties led her to the party scene.  Her sister and brother-in-law complained that she was going out too much but like many young, carefree people, she continued.  She went to many private parties but avoided the club and cabaret scene according to a friend, Miss Mildred McCoy of Philadelphia. By all accounts of friends, she was cheerful, happy, and carefree in the weeks before her tragic demise.

At 6:45 AM on January 28^th, 1927, while walking to work, a police officer named Robert Callahan found Marion dead on the front steps of her sister, Elsie (Hunt) Schwefel, and brother-in-law, Charles Schwefel’s house in the Queens Village section of New York City.  She had a single gunshot wound to her temple.  She had another wound or injury on the back of her head.  There was little blood. Near her body was a torn photo of a man and a .22 caliber revolver. She was only 21. ⁴

Photo Credit: Daily News 29 January 1927 (public domain)

The New York City Police Department launched an investigation with over 20 detectives.  They initially focused on the person who was in the torn photograph, assuming a possible connection. The investigation led them to a man named Harry Richman, a Broadway club owner. They also focused on a man named “Dick” whom Marion may have had some affection for at her place of employment. ⁵

Harry Richman 1930: Wikimedia Commons (public domain photo)

Two physicians who initially examined her did not notice any powder burns on her temple.   After less than two days, Marion’s official cause of death was listed as “probable” suicide.  The medical examiners claimed they had indeed found powder burns.  ⁶  This was greatly disputed by Elsie. ⁷ The police felt because she had bichloride of mercury in some of her organs that she must be suicidal.  Elsie was adamant that the poisoning was accidental and happened months before the death.  The autopsy did not show any poison in her throat which she would have had to have consumed immediately prior to the shooting if she indeed was attempting suicide by poison and then gunshot just to be sure of success.

 Two news reporters named Thomas S. Rice and Wilbur Rogers of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle conducted their own investigations. They disputed many of the police assertions.  They detail the inconsistencies in lengthy articles in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on February 1^st and 2nd, 1927. Apparently, she was shot on the top step and fell backward toward the walkway.  If she shot herself on the top step then the gun should have landed right there or on a lower step.  The gun was found farther away.  Another reporter followed up with dentists in Philadelphia; Dr. Storr, Dr. Speirs, and Dr. Steers.  According to the police, Marion went to Dr. George Steer’s office for dental work and stole his pistol. ⁸

When one reporter called Dr. Storr, (There was no doctor listed as Steer), he denied ever knowing Marion.  He denied ever losing a pistol.  He denied ever speaking to the New York City Police. ⁹ The police claimed that Marion returned to New York City on the 7:30 train but the reporter found that there wasn’t a 7:30 train from any train station to New York City.  The police also gave a specific address where she visited the night before the shooting, but a reporter's follow-up showed that the address was a butcher store and no one lived there.  Mr. Rice believed, after his investigation, that Marion was murdered. ¹⁰

Photo credit Daily News (Public domain)

Follow-up investigations by reporters learned that Marion had indeed gotten the pistol but she either purchased it at a pawn shop or borrowed it from a male friend.  She had it for protection because her neighborhood was lonely with many vacant lots.  About two months after her death, there was a news article in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  On March 29th, 1927, the article states, “Bandit who “confessed” Hunt Murder sentenced.  Edward H. Gibson of 164 Orange St. Albany, was sentenced to from 10 to 20 years in Sing Sing yesterday by County Judge Nathan S. Turk in Queens County Court.”  Gibson pleaded guilty to holding up Edward Smith the previous December in Queens.  “Last month during District Attorney Richard S. Newcombe’s investigation of the death of Marion Hunt cloak model, who was found on the doorsteps of her Queens Village home.  Gibson asked for Newcombe and made a signed “confession” that his gang had killed the girl.  After two days of questioning, it developed that his “confession” was “trumped up” by him thinking that it would take attention away from his other crime”. ¹¹

Many New York newspapers speculated about the case for weeks and there were many inconsistencies. However, the truth may never be known. It doesn’t make sense for someone to confess to murder to deflect from a robbery charge.  The police officer who found Marion stated the pistol was nearby but not right by her body. The autopsy did not determine that she was pregnant. The jilted lover theory led nowhere. Harry Richman said he gave out 4000 autographed photos on New Year’s Eve and did not know Marion. The man named “Dick” or Richard whom Marion may have liked was never found despite having worked at the same place she did. One news story stated that Marion was partying all night and returned home in a taxi drunk.  An unnamed man had assaulted her in the taxi. She then went into the house and was thrown out by her sister Elsie.¹²

Was Marion roughed up and murdered by a lone man or a group of thugs? Did she end her life because she was in debt for 17 dollars according to a news article? ¹³ Was she distraught over being scolded by her sister? Why did the medical examiner list her death as probable?  She was never called a “Flapper” although she was referred to as a “Butterfly” like the famous cases of Dorothy “Dot” King and Louise “Lou” Lawson who were murdered in 1923 and 1924 respectively.¹⁴¹⁵ Young, beautiful women who were drawn to the brights lights and the big city like a moth to a flame. Marion was a respected young woman from a respectable family. Sadly however, her story ends like Lou and Dot’s. Another unsolved death of a young, carefree Butterfly. Our family remembers her fondly.  She was taken from us far too young.  Marion rests in the Hunt family plot in Greenwood Union Cemetery at Rye, Westchester, New York. ¹⁶

A variation of this story originally appeared in the Hunt Family Newsletter in April 2021. None of this story was written using artificial intelligence.

Restaurant photo credit Joshua Valcarcel; The Gramercy, Lakeway, Texas.

There is a YouTube video about the murders of Lou and Dot by “Out of The Past”:

Photos of Marion courtesy of the Hunt family collection (public domain). Headstone photo credit: Eric Hunt

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1. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Baptism Record, Marion Gladys Hunt, 30 April 1907, St. Peter’s Church archives, Port Chester, New York.

2. “New York State Census 1925,” database with images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 10 August 2023), entry for Marion Hunt, 1925, Village of Port Chester, Rye, Westchester, New York, Election District 10, page 26.

3. Unknown Author, “Mystery in Death of Model by Bullet,” New York Times, 28 January 1927, page 1, copy privately held by Eric Hunt, 2023.

4. Unknown Author, “Marion Hunt, 21, Model, Slain in Queens Village,” Port Chester Daily Item, 28 January 1927 (https://www.newspapers.com/image/713982594/?terms=%22Marion%20Hunt%22&match=1 : accessed 10 August 2023).

5. Unknown Author, “Mystery in Death of Model by Bullet,” New York Times, 28 January 1927, page 1, copy privately held by Eric Hunt, 2023.

6. New York State Dept. of Health, Death Certificate, number 632, Marion Hunt, 28 January 1927, NYC Department of Records and Information Services (https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/5841804 : accessed 10 August 2023).

7. Unknown Author, “Marion Hunt Slain, Her Sister Insists , Assailing Police,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 3 February 1927, (https://www.newspapers.com/image/686561307/?terms=%22Marion%20Hunt%22&match=1 : accessed 10 August 2023).

8. Wilbur E. Rogers, “10 Sleuths Start Secret Probe of Hunt Girl’s Death,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 2 February 1927, (https://www.newspapers.com/image/686084653/?terms=%22Marion%20Hunt%22&match=1 : accessed 10 August 2023).

9. Wilbur E. Rogers, “Dentist in Hunt Girl’s Suicide Proves a Myth,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1 February 1927, (https://www.newspapers.com/image/59882844/?terms=%22Marion%20Hunt%22 : accessed 10 August 2023).

10. Thomas S. Rice, “Poison in Hunt Girl’s Body May Not Have Been Taken on Death Night Facts Missing,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1 February 1927, (https://www.newspapers.com/image/686560538/?terms=%22Marion%20Hunt%22&match=1 : accessed 10 August 2023).

11. Unknown Author, “Bandit Who Confessed Hunt Murder Sentenced” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 29 March 1927 (https://www.newspapers.com/image/686074622/?terms=%22Marion%20Hunt%22&match=1 : accessed 10 August 2023).

12. Joseph Brady, “Police Shield Man in Model’s Suicide,” The Daily News, 3 February 1927, (https://www.newspapers.com/image/411566210/?terms=%22Marion%20Hunt%22&match=1 : accessed 10 August 2023).

13. Unknown Author, “Marion Hunt, 21, Model, Slain in Queens Village,” Port Chester Daily Item, 28 January 1927 (https://www.newspapers.com/image/713982594/?terms=%22Marion%20Hunt%22&match=1 : accessed 10 August 2023.

14. Monumental Inscriptions, database with images, Find A Grave (findagrave.com : accessed 10 August 2023), entry for Louise Lawson, memorial 113060623, Glenwood Cemetery, Alvarado, Johnson County, Texas.

15. Monumental Inscriptions, database with images, Find A Grave (https://findagrave.com : accessed 10 August 2023), entry for Dorothy Marie Keenan, memorial 198849874, Calvary Cemetery, Woodside, Queens, New York.

16. Monumental Inscriptions, database with images, Find A Grave (https://findagrave.com : accessed 9 August 2023), entry for Marion Gladys Hunt, memorial 8125573, Greenwood Union Cemetery, Rye, Westchester, New York.