Legacy MattersIf you have a deep dark secret that implicates yourself or someone in your family as an accomplice in a murder, a secret that might solve a mystery that has puzzled the nation for years, then writing what you know down and sealing it in an envelope marked Do Not Open Until My Death is the way to go.
After 73 years, the mystery of what happened to Judge Crater, "the most missingest man in America" may be solved because one woman left such a letter in her safety deposit box.
From ABC News
On Aug. 6, 1930, Judge Joseph F. Crater stepped off a midtown Manhattan curb and into a cab after seeing a Broadway play with his showgirl girlfriend. He was never heard from again.
---
The possible break in the case came after the death a little more than two months ago of an elderly woman, whose name is being withheld by detectives at this time.
The woman's death prompted her family to open a safe-deposit box where they discovered a letter labeled "Do Not Open Until My Death." In the letter, the woman recounted her own father's deathbed statements to her, statements which, if true, could bring to a close one of the oldest enduring mysteries in America. And so far, detectives say, everything the woman wrote has been corroborated.
The letter contained the names of cab driver Frank Burn, and his brother, a police officer named Charles. The letter claimed that Frank Burn had killed Crater and buried the body under the boardwalk at New York's Coney Island. Charles Burn was named as the killer in another notorious homicide.