Many interesting police cases have surrounded Downriver communities over the years. However, one of the most baffling ever investigated happened 75 years ago this week and involved the disappearance Oct. 15, 1937, of a man and two women in Melvindale who left a cafe and were never seen again.
Publicity about the case went nationwide and it was the largest non-criminal manhunt in Michigan history.
The information in this report is a summary of events about the case that was compiled from news reports and other information gathered through research outlining some background on the trio and the effects their disappearance had on family members.
What the future holds for this unsolved case may be just as mysterious.
On Oct. 15, 1937, three people vanished from the Hollywood Cafe in Melvindale, leaving nothing but a shroud of mystery. The victims in this case were Thomas Lorimer, 24 years old, 17736 Flint, Melvindale; Mrs. Artie Mabie, 42 years old, 17295 Palmer, Melvindale; and Mrs. Margaret Redden, 35 years old, 723 Lansing, Detroit.
News reports revealed that Redden and Mabie arrived at the Hollywood Cafe first and later became acquainted with Lorimer when he came in. At about 1 a.m. Oct. 15, they all left in Lorimer’s new car and then returned to the cafe at 3 a.m. At that time, they were seen by Melvindale Officers Harry Bryngelson and Leonard Anderson. The officers pulled up to the vehicle and discovered Lorimer, Redden and Mabie inside. After a brief conversation, the officers then released the trio, seeing they knew all three of them and nothing appeared wrong. The officers then watched the vehicle and occupants drive away in the darkness on Oakwood toward Dearborn. The officers also wrote down the vehicle description as a 1937 Olds with a Michigan license plate 71-697.
Background information on the Missing Trio:
Margaret Boyd Redden was originally from Buffalo, N.Y., and came to Detroit with her parents in 1915. She married James Redden in Detroit in 1925 and was working at T. A. Bollinger Real Estate as a secretary. The business adjoins the Hollywood Cafe. The couple were childless and were separated at the time of her disappearance.
Artie Carson Mabie was the oldest of the three. She was from Clearwater, Idaho, and had met and married Sylvester Mabie in Butte, Mont., in 1917. The couple moved first to Detroit, and then to Melvindale in 1925. They had no children. Artie Mabie and Margaret Redden knew each other well, as Redden worked for Sylvester Mabie as a secretary when he was Melvindale’s city clerk from 1927-34.
Thomas Lorimer was born in Scotland on Feb. 14, 1913, and emigrated with his family to Quebec, Canada, in 1928. He married Evelyn Fleming in about 1934 in Canada and had one child before settling in Melvindale in 1936. He worked at the American Malting Co. in Detroit with his father and brother. He also had purchased a new 1937 Oldsmobile a few months earlier. It is reported that Lorimer was acquainted with Margaret Redden because he made his car payments at the business she worked at.
In a strange twist of fate, news reports also said that the fathers of Margaret Redden and Artie Mabie also had disappeared without a trace.
The investigation
Early in the investigation, police discovered that the three were of steady habits and never remained away from home. The trio had very little money between them and took no extra clothing or valuables. The vehicle had only five gallons of gas in it. Mrs. Mabie’s upper dental plate was at the dentist’s office for repairs and police found her car parked outside the cafe.
Chief Ermil Pitt obtained assistance from local, county and state police. Melvindale police spoke with family members and friends of the missing trio and were unable to establish a motive for their disappearance. Meanwhile, other police agencies were searching throughout Michigan for any trace of them. The Rouge River also was being dragged with a grappling hook and pike pole to see if the car had driven into the water. The Detroit River shoreline also was dragged from Woodward Avenue to Wyandotte.
When the searches yielded nothing, Sylvester Mabie offered a $500 reward for information leading to the safe return of his wife. Melvindale police then searched Ford woods with 50 volunteers and hound dogs with no results. An airplane also was used in the search to check over the Detroit River and area lakes for clues.
After about a month, two theories were reported to be the most popular with the average man. The first was that the trio met with foul play and their bodies were disposed of by a clever killer. The second was that they purposely vanished, intending never to return.
The search branched out to California when a unchecked source said that Lorimer crossed from California to Mexico. The Associates Investment Co., which financed Lorimer’s car, also was investigating and said Lorimer did not cross the California state line, unless he did so in Arizona, which is not patrolled. Further checks in California and along the Mexican border revealed no sign of the three.
In December 1937, the case turned to Duluth, Minn., after a private detective said he spotted Lorimer’s car occupied by Lorimer and Mrs. Mabie based on a circular he had obtained. A search by Duluth police turned up nothing.
Thomas Lorimer’s daughter, Shirley Ann Lorimer, turned 3 years old on Jan. 1, 1938. According to reports, the birthday present she wanted the most was her father, which was unattainable. She could not be comforted by Christmas presents from family members.
The investigation continues
In June 1938, Official Detective Magazine offered a $500 prize for real evidence if murder was established in the case. Also in the same month, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office opened a new investigation on the missing trio. This attracted nationwide attention. Chief Pitt showed county investigators his records in the case. Detroit homicide detectives then requestioned every person connected in any way with the case to put an end to the triple-murder rumor.
In September and November 1938, investigators went to interview Smokey Joe Anderson at Arkansas State Prison, after he said he had killed the trio. However, in March 1939, Anderson went to the electric chair without providing any substantial leads on the missing trio case.
The Missing Trio case was recounted in True Detective Magazine in April 1940, which was seeking new leads in the case.
In the following decades, from the 1940s to the present, several articles have appeared that revisited the case, but no fresh leads or theories have been presented. Several cars have been recovered from the Detroit and Rouge rivers, but none was a 1937 Olds.
The aftermath for families
Sylvester Mabie, husband of Artie Mabie, was granted a divorce from his wife in 1942 in Wayne County Circuit Court when no trace of her could be found. He never remarried and died in 1955 after a long illness.
James Redden was arrested in November 1937 by Detroit police on suspicion of the disappearance of his wife, Margaret, and her companions, but no evidence could link him to the case.
Detroit police picked him up again on Oct. 15, 1938, after he quarreled with a friend, but he was later released. He remarried in 1940. In 1945, James Redden inherited his former wife’s estate, totaling $500 in insurance policies, after probate court declared that she was legally dead. He then dropped from sight.
The parents of Thomas Lormier moved from Melvindale to California in 1941. His father, James, died in 1959 and his mother, Beatrice, died it 1966, never giving up hope that her son would return home.
Evelyn Lorimer, the wife of Thomas Lorimer, left Melvindale with their daughter and remarried in 1943 in Oregon. She died in 1991. Shirley Lorimer was almost 3 years old when her father went missing. She married in 1956 and had two children, but died in Oregon in 1967 at the age of 32.
The Hollywood Cafe
Paul Borman, who purchased the Hollywood Cafe in 1935, sold the business to Albert and Lottie Brock in 1940.
The investigators
Melvindale police Officers Harry Bryngelson and Leonard Anderson were the last to see the trio before they disappeared. Bryngelson was a lieutenant when he retired in 1948; he died in 1968. Anderson was a detective lieutenant when he died in 1961 while still employed.
Ermil Pitt had been Melvindale’s police chief only five months in 1937 when the three disappeared. He retired in 1950 and wrote about his memories of the case in 1991. He died in 1996.
The police equipment used in the 1930s to conduct searches were primitive and crude by today’s standards. It would be interesting to see if today’s cutting edge technology and underwater sonar detection equipment could locate the missing trio and their car in the Detroit or Rouge rivers, if they are there. That also is a popular theory as to where they ended up.
The case has stumped the best investigators at the local, state and federal levels because it appears to defy all logical and rational explanations as to any motives for the disappearances.
It is considered by many to be among the most intriguing and mysterious cases in the annals of Michigan police history.
