The Mysterious Disappearance and Murder of Edith Ford: Unresolved After 89 Years

The Mysterious Disappearance and Murder of Edith Ford: Unresolved After 89 Years

Written by Libby Ortiz

 

Edith Ford was born in October 1898. Little of her personal life is known up until her untimely disappearance in January of 1935 when she was 37 years old. 

The Known Details

What we know: In her adult life, Edith lived in Bangor, PA. She worked as a silk worker and waitress in Bangor, Reading, and Atlantic City. She took frequent trips to Atlantic City for pleasure. What she did on these trips was unknown, but we do know that occasionally she went with Joseph (Guisseppe) Cimo to participate in their extra-marital affair. These trips last anywhere from 15-20 days at a time.

The Last Day: January 12, 1935

We have a few accounts of what Edith did on her last day (Saturday, January 12, 1935) she was seen. She visited her mother’s house. At some point during the day, she went to her sister’s house for a meal. This meal consisted of liver sausage, fried potatoes, pickles, and bread and butter.

 

Around 6:30 she rendezvoused with Joseph (Joe) at Finkbeiner’s Cafe for a beer.

Joseph excused himself to test his cheese at the cheese store he owned and when he came back to the cafe, Edith was no longer there.

Apparently she had left to go to the Strand Theater with another man.

Joe said he saw her leave the theater with another man in a car with a New Jersey license plate.

 

The alarm bells did not go off for many months as it was Edith’s habit to be gone for long lengths of periods at a time.

The Discovery

On the morning of Saturday, June 15th Olga Di Thomas opened a cistern in the back of her father’s property to water the garden. She saw something white in the water.

 

 When the police arrived they inspected the figure and then called the coroner to the area. The crew were able to lift the form from the well and found that it was a body that was connected via guy wire to a large rock that weighed around 126 pounds. The only article of clothing found with the body was a singular black glove. Curiously, the wire had been fashioned around her pinky finger, which took some attention to detail to do so. Amateur sleuths indicate this may signify a broken promise or broken heart.

 

To add another clue, they found that the only access to the cistern was either through the grape arbor or an old lane. Because the cistern was set back into the Di Thomas property, the party responsible for the crime would have to have known about the cistern and thus be local to the area.

The Investigation

Following the discovery of the body, the police detectives took Joe Cimo in for questioning as he was the last known person to have seen or interacted with Edith. Oddly enough, Cimo admitted that he was at the scene when the police retrieved the body. When prodded further, Cimo said he used to live next door to the infamous cistern and used it on occasion. To further tie himself to the crime, it was discovered that Cimo’s wife had a prior violent altercation with Edith when the affair was made known to the wife. Despite all of this information, Cimo and his wife were released from questioning.

 

During her autopsy, the coroner determined that she was strangled via guy wire and curiously found her last meal in her stomach. Clearly she must have been murdered soon after she ate supper at her sister’s house as food remains in the stomach for approximately two hours. Aside from these two facts, no other clues could be uncovered from the body.

 

More details surrounding Edith and Cimo emerged. A few weeks after Edith was last seen, Cimo asked Edith’s brother, Howard if he had seen Edith recently. Howard said no, then Cimo explained that he had received a letter from Edith stating that she found a job and moved to Florida. Cimo then told police conflicting stories regarding letters from Edith which were further explained by Al Shook, a local shopkeeper who would read these letters to Cimo. Further, a woman came to police stating that Cimo had dictated a letter to be written, “Dear Sweetheart: I am very sorry for what I have done and can’t write so well. I am going away to Florida and will stay there.” Signed Edith.

The envelope was left blank and therefore could not have been sent through the mail.

 

On August 10, 1935 a warrant was issued for Cimo’s arrest on the grounds of murder, however he was released as the police only had inconclusive evidence.

Unresolved Questions

89 years later we still don’t have any answers. To date, Cimo has been the only person held for official police questioning. Edith Ford’s clothes have never been found. Only questions remain. What happened to her clothes? Why was she killed?  When exactly was she killed and why had her body not deteriorated if it had been in the cistern for 154 days? Was her body being stored somewhere else, in a cool environment that happened to preserve the body? Most importantly, who killed Edith Ford?