This column first appeared in March 2012.
Dr. Winters and his wife were immediately arrested, along with a former boarder (William Ross Cooper, a one-armed telegraph operator for the Big Four Railroad) living in the home. The affidavit charged the trio with the attempted murder of little Catherine by “striking, beating and wounding” her and trying to burn her body. According to newspaper accounts of the day, the trio were “given a severe cross-examination.” Abel offered up his own theory of the crime. He claimed that Byrd Winters, 34, had an affair with Cooper, 28, and Catherine unwittingly discovered the tryst. The detective surmised that Catherine was killed to keep her quiet and her body was shoved into the furnace at the Winters’ home. No remains were found in the furnace, however. Abel assured investigators that one of the three would crack under intense questioning because, “That’s how we did it in New York.”
However, Mrs. Winters didn’t crack. She kept her composure by calmly telling investigators how the sweater belonged to a nephew. It had been thrown away by Dr. Winters’ former mother-in-law who also lived in the house. The ribbon was the hatband of a long lost hat and the undergarment had simply “outlived its usefulness.” Henry County Circuit Court Judge Ed Jackson presided over the case. About 100 witnesses were called to testify, including little Frankie Winters. Jackson dismissed the case after two weeks.
The Winters’ posted bail and Dr. Winters embarked on an ingenious campaign to get his daughter back. In fact, his techniques were so innovative that they are still in use today by parents of missing children. First, he wrote weekly letters to every newspaper in the country pleading with them to keep the story alive. Then he and his wife made appearances at movie houses all over the Midwest telling the story of his beloved missing daughter in slide show form between movies.
Dr. Winters wrote President Woodrow Wilson pleading with him to intervene in the case. He wrote letters to every Knights of Pythias lodge in the country requesting that they help a fellow Knight to find his daughter. Despite the growing support for the Winter’s plight, a trial was scheduled to start on July 10, 1914, due to the claims of a local chemist who tested the stains on the undershirt and declared that they were indeed human blood and more than a year old. Inexplicably, that enticing claim was never proven and the county dropped the charges the same day the trio were to stand trial, claiming there was insufficient evidence to precede.
Adding to the circus atmosphere in New Castle during the Catherine Winter’s affair, on July 7, legendary gunfighter-turned lawman Bat Masterson arrived in New Castle and registered at the Bundy Hotel. He told reporters that he and seven other private detectives had been hired by persons unnamed to follow up on a lead from a man who said he had seen Catherine alive on July 2. Masterson claimed the charges against the Winters’ and Cooper were unfounded and he promised at least five arrests in the case. Those arrests never happened.
Instead, Masterson himself was arrested in New Castle on the day the trial started on a charge that he allegedly directed a brick-throwing attack on an Indianapolis restaurant where waiters were striking. Masterson was a well-known strike breaker for the Pinkerton’s detective agency. The famous Wild West lawman was taken to Indianapolis to face the charge and it is unknown whether he ever returned to pick up his belongings at the Bundy Hotel.
Private eye Abel, watching his prospects for a payday evaporate before his eyes, slammed the family and district attorney in the local newspapers then fled to Chicago when Dr. Winters threatened to sue him for defamation and false arrest. Despite the dentist’s best efforts, the case gradually faded from the headlines. Then, as today, rumors and innuendo swirled around the Winter’s case for decades to come. Some believed that Catherine had been kidnapped and murdered by a complete stranger. Witnesses claimed that a man had been seen trying to entice two local girls into his buggy shortly before Catherine disappeared.
Adding to the Doctor’s anguish, over the years, dozens of women stepped forward claiming to be Catherine. In a typical case, a decade after the disappearance, Mrs. Clyde Taylor of Middleport, Ohio, visited local newspapers claiming to be the long-lost child. She’d visited a fortune-teller, she said, who told her that she had “gone by many names.” Supposedly, this innocuous statement unleashed a flood of repressed memories which caused the housewife to think she may have been Catherine. Dr. Winters quickly dismissed her claim by simply looking at her photograph.
Dr. Winters believed that gypsies had kidnapped his daughter until the day he died. His search for Catherine continued for the rest of his life. In fact, one of his searches managed to locate a kidnapped girl, but she wasn’t Catherine. A young girl had been abducted in Louisiana and taken to Ohio by an ex-convict. She was reunited with her parents and the ex-con arrested and jailed.
Dr. Winters died a pauper in 1940, having spent all of his money searching for his daughter. Before his death, Dr. Winters estimated that he had been spent over $50,000 on the search for his daughter. Winters, his wife and at least a dozen private detectives traveled nearly 22,000 miles pursuing at least 2,000 false leads. No fewer than 70 newspapers nationwide, including the Cincinnati Post, Chicago Tribune and Seattle Star offered rewards for information that would solve the mystery, all to no avail. He spent his life tracking down “Gypsy” caravans and consulting mediums in hopes of finding his daughter. He became a fixture at the Henry County Railroad depot greeting every train at the station scanning the passengers faces in hopes of finding his daughter. All of the train conductors knew him by name and would routinely tell him that Catherine was not on board. Her room was kept just as she left it with her favorite doll resting in Catherine’s baby buggy. As the dentist gasped out his final breaths on his deathbed, he turned to his wife and said, “Now I’ll find out what happened to Catherine.”
Byrd Winters died in 1953 never revealing any private thoughts she might have had about Catherine’s disappearance. However, according to one local newspaper, she often complained about her husband “touring the vaudeville circuits with enlarged pictures of the girl” while neglecting his dental business.
Frankie Winters died in Compton, California, in 1955 at the age of 49. There were no reports of whether he ever told anyone what he thought happened to his sister. Little brother Frankie cared for Catherine’s white kitty cat for years after her disappearance hoping she would someday return to play with it.
The Winters’ saga inspired at least two songs, “Where Did Catherine Winters Go” and “Telephone To Heaven,” written locally about the case. The first one proved to be a minor hit and helped the girl’s disappearance gain much needed national attention.
What did happen to Catherine Winters? Most likely we’ll never know. But many businesses in downtown New Castle believe that Catherine Winters’ ghost haunts their restaurants and stores. I have spoken to at least four business owners who claim that the lost little girl is responsible for poltergeist activity that occurs in their buildings at night after all of the customers and employees have left for the day. At least one of these businesses claimed to have caught the spirit of Catherine Winters on a security tape. So who knows? Maybe Catherine never really left after all.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
