The Death of Julia Johnson
Spring on the prairies often suddenly and with little warning. The weather becomes warm, snow melts quickly, the days are much longer than remembered. But winter usually does not let go of her grip until it is almost summer. And on a typical spring day, 25th April 1928, five-year-old Julia Johnson disappeared.
Julia Johnson was the daughter of immigrant parents living at 138 Austin Street in Winnipeg. She was described as a pretty and shy girl who rarely ventured far from home. That day, Julia was playing with a tennis ball near her home while waiting for a friend to come home from school. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, Mrs. Johnson had spoken to her daughter and that a neighbour, Mrs. Pauline Kral, who was close to the Johnsons and mother of Julia’s friend, Elizabeth, had seen Julia playing just before she vanished. Mrs. Kral said that she told Julia not to go anywhere, and that Julia replied, “No I won’t. I’m just playing here.”
Five minutes later, Mrs. Johnson went to check on Julia, only to find that the little girl was gone.
Julia was last seen wearing a red and black dress, black shoes, fawn-coloured stockings, and a brown hat. She was about forty pounds, had blue eyes, and dark brown hair.
Location of 138 Austin Street
The police searched the neighbourhood that afternoon and interviewed locals. Boy scouts, school children, and neighbours joined in the search, looking in parks, allies, and sewers. Authorities brought in trained sniffer dogs to search around the Johnson home, but turned up nothing.
The police noted that behind the Johnson home was the Green River Building, at 187 Sutherland Avenue. The building was vacant, and the lot between it and the Johnson’s was rented by a blacksmith, called Nathan Taplinsky, to store wagons used for hauling scrap metal. His smithy was at 190 Sutherland Avenue. Taplinsky was questioned, as he was known to chase children off his wagons so they would not hurt themselves. Taplinsky stated to police that he had last seen Julia with some other children in the lot at about 2:00 PM as he was leaving for home.
Location of 187 Sutherland Avenue
Between 3:00 and 3:30 PM, Julia was seen playing with her ball across from her home. This was about the time that the Mrs. Johnson and a Mrs. A. J. Newmark spoke to Julia and saw her for the last time. At 3:50 PM, Mrs. Kral was at her home at 136 Austin Street when she last saw Julia. Five minutes later, Mrs. Kral’s son, Alfred, came home and asked if she had seen Julia, as Mrs. Johnson was looking for her. Mrs. Johnson was much distraught by Julia’s absence, as she was very shy and would not wander off on her own. Mrs. Johnson would contact the police at 4:30 PM, and Constable McKim would be the initial responding officer.
Due to its proximity, and Taplinsky’s wagons being a popular hang out spot, McKim and John Johnson, Julia’s brother, went to the Green River building. However, they found it locked and secured and searched no further. After nightfall, the search was called off, though police continued to patrol the neighbourhood for the rest of the night.
The following day, as Julia was not being found, the thought of foul play crossed the officers’ minds and the Detective Division was called in. Inspector R. R. MacDonald took charge of the case. The detectives were at a severe disadvantage. If Julia had been abducted, then no commotion had been made. Unless it was someone she knew. Furthermore, there had only been five minutes between the last time Mrs. Johnson had seen her daughter, and when she realized Julia was missing.
A door to door search commenced and all neighbours were questioned. Several noted seeing a middle aged man in the neighbourhood the day Julia went missing. They described him as anywhere between 45-65, wearing dark clothing, unshaven and possibly being Eastern European in appearance. The witnesses were taken to the Rupert Street police station and asked to point the man out from a photo lineup. All the men the witnesses picked out were already in custody and were promptly eliminated from their suspect pool.
The Johnsons were devastated by Julia’s disappearance, and while they did not have much money, they put up a $50 reward ($741 CND in 2017), which was increased to $2,000 (nearly $30,000 in 2017) with donations from the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg Tribune, and the Winnipeg Police commission. The publicity of the case and the reward money brought in tips from as far afield as British Columbia and Santa Monica. Many of the tips were sadly useless. Many spiritualists and mediums claimed to have made contact with Julia, but lead to nothing.
Mrs. Johnson did cope well with her daughter’s disappearance, having “taken to her bed” while Mr. Johnson kept searching.
Legitimate tips did produce leads for the police. One tip pointed to a neighbour with a lengthy criminal record. When police went to question him, he refused to talk. The police were eventually forced to let him go as they had nothing on him. In 1929, the man faked drowning in the Red River and ran away to Seattle, Washington. He eventually got into trouble with the Seattle police, was arrested, and when questioned, the man mentioned that he was in trouble in Winnipeg. The man was promptly deported to Canada and after reaching Winnipeg, was questioned by police. However, the man continued to refuse to talk about Julia and the police had to let him go. This was apparently the last time Winnipeg police had contact with him.
The police would continue searching for Julia. In 1929, Police searched a massive area of Winnipeg. Every empty building was searched, including the Green River Building behind Julia’s home.
A machinist named Wilfred Adams was hired by Muzeen and Blythe Machinists to start working on the Green River building to get it back in working order. Adams was to dismantle a large boiler in the basement. On 22nd March 1937, Adams would make a gruesome discovery. At 2:00 PM, Adams cut open the combustion chamber of the boiler and found the mummified remains of a young girl. A hat and tennis ball lay in the boiler with the tiny body.
It was Julia Johnson.
Julia was fully clothed. She laid in a U-shape so that the head and feet were almost touching. One shoe was off her foot. The ulna and radius bones were separated at one elbow. X-rays showed that Julia had a fractured pelvis, but no other wounds. There was no sign of strangulation when examined. Julia’s body was sent to the University of Manitoba to be examined by Dr. Daniel Nicholson of the Pathology Department. Test conducted on her clothing for blood or sperm only found blood on one of her stockings.
The case was re-opened. The first task was to determine who had access to the Green River building. The last owner had been the N. P. Beverage Company owned by Walter Hamilton. The business had closed down and the building vacated on 7th April 1928. Hamilton was tracked down and stated that there were two keys to the building and both had been given to John Godwin of the Montreal Trust Company, who was the rental manager of the building.
Godwin, by this time, was living in Toronto. He remembered Julia’s disappearance and said that he had gone to the building and checked that it was locked up and secure. Godwin stated that he had then gone to Nathan Taplinsky, had given him a key, and arranged to have Taplinsky check on the building meters and to let in prospective tenets to view the building. According to Godwin, and with business partner, Abraham Bulstein, as a witness, Taplinsky had told Godwin to hang the keys on a nail in the door post. Godwin said that he had used the key several times and had always put it back on the nail. He remembered that the key should have been with Taplinsky when Julia went missing.
Police located a William Clark, a Winnipeg Hydro Meter reader from 1928, who stated that he had obtained the key to the Green River building from Abraham Bulstein at the blacksmith shop. After Clark had finished his inspection, he had put the key back.
Unfortunately, Inspector MacDonald, head of the initial investigation, had passed away in 1936. It was therefore impossible to know how the police had gained access to the building or if the boiler had been checked in 1928.
On 8th April 1937, detectives brought in Taplinsky and Bulstein for questioning. Taplinsky stated, just as he did in 1928, that he had seen Julia playing with other children around his wagons at about 2:00 PM. He chased them off, and that was the last time he saw her. Taplinsky denied that the Green River building key had ever left his shop that day. When pressed, Taplinsky became nervous and started to cry, but maintained that the key never left his shop. Bulstein denied seeing Julia that day and affirmed Taplinsky’s statement that the key had never left the shop.
While the investigation continued, an inquest was held regarding the evidence. The jury concluded that “… from the evidence submitted, we the jury find that the deceased, Julia Johnson’s death was from causes unknown, and we are entirely dissatisfied
with the conflicting evidence submitted by GODWIN (Rental Mgr.), CLARK (Meter Reader), TAPLINKSY and BULSTEIN (Blacksmiths).”
The investigation ground to a halt. No new evidence would turn up. No new suspects were questioned. Nothing. The Julia Johnson case has remained unsolved for 90 years, and will likely go down as Winnipeg’s own Babes in the Wood case. It is still unknown if Julia was murdered, or if she had suffered a tragic accident. It is unknown what happened to the neighbour who faked his death and fled Winnipeg just after Julia’s disappearance. Did he have anything to do with her? How did Julia end up in the boiler? From the position of the body, she must have been placed there. Was Julia snatched, or was she lured away?
But what is important to remember is that a family suffered a tragedy. The loss of a young child must have ripped a hole through Johnsons. Their only consolation was finding the body and laying her to rest.
Five minutes can change everything.
Sources:
http://www.winnipeg.ca/police/history/story5.stm
http://historicnews.blogspot.ca/2011/08/julia-johnson-mystery-winnipeg-1928.html
http://kidnappingmurderandmayhem.blogspot.ca/2012/03/little-julia-johnson-unsolved-murder-in.html