SUSPECT UNKNOWN WOMAN TARRED

That was the front page headline on 14 June 1939 in the New Jersey Courier...the initial story appears below...but make sure to read the whole story! This wasn't quite what it seemed at first... "Lakewood police and county detectives are endeavoring to unravel a suspected 'tarring and feathering' crime. It was believed from bits of clothing found on trees and bushes that the unknown victim was a woman, who had been covered with paint, walked through the woods, and wallowed in the muck of a sewage tank. The suspected crime was first discovered on Sunday by Charles Galati of Whitesville, an employee of the sewage plant. Officers found the spot where a car had parked about a quarter of a mile southeast of the plant. and found also a man's shirt and a pair of slacks. The dresses were daubed with red, orange or aluminum paint and black asphalt. Two small empty cans which had contained red and aluminum paint were found in the woods near the spot. There were no signs of a scuffle, police said. From the spot where the car was parked, the trail led through the woods to the edge of a sludge pool. The person had here apparently stepped out about two feet into the muck, stepped out and walked around the pool, then sat on a crossbar of a small dock over the pool. Footprints, believed to be those of a woman, were found on the gravel of the bank around the pool and orange paint and sludge covered the crossbar. Lakewood police chief Walter A. Curtis said that the most baffling point in the sequence indicated that the victim had climbed up a 12-foot tank on a wooden ladder, sat on the roof of an adjoining control cabin, pulled the ladder up and dropped it into the tank, climbed down into the liquid, and then climbed back up and put the ladder down on the outside, climbing down to the ground. From the sewage tank, the trail led back through the woods to where the car had been parked. Only one set of footprints was found, the Chief said. Following their investigation, police advanced two theories. The first is that the victim was doused with paint and left to wander aimlessly through the woods, becoming crazed with the heat and the paint; and the second that after the painting act, some person or persons forced the victim through the woods and into the disposal tank. Police thought it unlikely that it was the work of a practical joker or that a candidate for initiation into any secret order would trudge two miles through the woods and immersed himself in a sewage tank. Investigation was complicated by the discovery that the trail which led through the woods followed a circuitous route an finally returned to where the suspected painting took place." Pretty odd story, right? Why did the police think there was a 'victim' at all, when there were no signs of a scuffle, only one set of footprints, etc? Well, a little more than a month later, and there was a break in the case, as this story dated 21 Jul 1939 reveals: "Lakewood's orange paint mystery was considered solved last week end with the announcement that police had obtained a confession from an elderly man who apparently went temporarily insane, painted his body, walked through the woods and around Lakewood sewage disposal plant, leaving a two mile trail of paint behind him. Police chief Walter A. Curtis, announcing the close of a four day investigation of the baffling case, withheld the name of the man because, he said, no arrest is contemplated. It is reported that the man committed a similar act seven years ago. Chief Curtis and County Detective Robert Gibson first suspected the man when they found a tag bearing his name and shirt with his initials at the spot in the woods where it was thought at first a 'tarring and feathering' epsisode had occurred. He was questioned but told police he had been huckleberrying at the spot and that the clothes were there when he drove his car into the woods. Then Thursday noon Chief Curtis received a telephone call from the suspect, who informed him, "There isn't any woman. I did all that business myself. I do funny things sometimes." A statement which he signed Friday, Chief Curtis said, explained that he had parked his car on Cox Avenue and walked a half mile to the sewage plant, then returned to the car and painted his body with red and orange paint and black asphalt. He told police that he painted himself "because the flies were so bad", covering all of his body but his face. He then described how he walked to the sewage treatment plant, slipped into a sludge pool and climbed into a 12 foot sewage tank with the aid of the ladder "to see what was inside." He said he opened a valve merely out of curiosity. Then he returned to his car and attempted to wash the paint off in a nearby brook. Failing at this, he said, he dipped some women's clothes into the gasoline tank of his car and rubbed the paint from his body. He told officers that he had no particular reason for his act, and Chief Curtis attributed it to a morose spell. It was learned that the man's family has made plans to have him examined for mental deficiency. Neither the police department nor the Jersey Central Power and Light Company, owners of the sewage treatment plant, will press charges against him, Chief Curtis said."