Ch.44:Constance Mae Thomas

  

  Constance May Thomas was 19.  She had graduated from Decatur Central High School, just southwest of Indianapolis, and was attending Beauty School working toward a career. She was living in Indianapolis at the  Lucille Raines Residence, a home for young women who were single and working or attending school at 947 Pennsylvania street. 

   It should have been a happy time for her. She was young and had her whole life ahead of her.  But she was largely all alone in the world. Her father had died in October of the year before. Her mother had died when she was only 15. Her adolescence had been a tragic one. Her parents had also had very hard lives in their younger days. 

   Her father, Joel, was an older father.  He was born in 1897 and a search on Ancestry produced a WW1 draft card AND a WW2 draft card. In the 1900 census his father and mother were living at 1205 Sycamore Street in Cincinnati. His father, Joel sr, from Virginia, was a day laborer. It’s just a few blocks from the Ohio River. Joel’s father, Joel Sr.,  was born in 1854 and mother, Carrie, was born in 1869 in Germany.  In the 1920 census, Joel and his parents have moved only a few blocks to 1920 Vine Street.  His father, now in his 70’s,  is working as a bartender in a saloon and Joel is working in a machine shop. In the 1930 census, he and his parents are still together but neither of his parents is working. Joel supports his parents by working as a model maker at an adding machine company. In 1940, he is listed alone in the census as living in the tenth ward of Cincinnati and making a living as a laborer. He is living in some sort of apartment building at 1900 Vine Street. His parents are gone. On February 16, 1942 he registered for the draft of WW2 at 44 years of age. We forget how rough it was for the generations in those days. He and Constance’s mother, Lillian, married in a Methodist Church on July 29th 1950. 

   He died in 1969 of pneumonia after suffering a long bout with skin cancer of the face.  He is buried in Walnut Hills Cemetery in Cincinnati. 

  Her mother, Lillian Golden Thomas had died in 1966 when Constance was only 15. There’s no easy time to lose your Mom but at 15, it seems especially devastating. Her death was sudden and caused by a ruptured ventricle of the heart. 

    In 1940 her mother was 30 and working in textile mills in Roanoke, Virginia. Lillian was living with her older sister, Nellie M. Sandridge who was only 33 and a widow.  I couldn’t find anything about how Lillian originally met Joel. 

   When Lillian married Joel Thomas; she used her maiden name of Gulden…it’s sometimes spelled Golden.  On Constance’s death certificate the source said “Gold” but that person either couldn’t remember or did not know the name Lillian.

   Constance is born in 1951 when her mother was 42 and her father is 54. 

   Constance’s father died in 1969. Mr. and Mrs. Jack and Helen Swank were her guardians now according to newspaper articles surrounding her death. If her father had been ill for years; Constance must have lived with the Swanks as she finished high school. (Constance’ death certificate lists Ida Marshall of Indiana National Bank as her guardian.)

   Constance had been born in Cincinnati, Ohio where her mother and father had met. They had lived in Camby, Indiana as well. That’s near Decatur Central High School. 

   On September 4th, 1970, she went to a  Friday night football game at her old high school with a boyfriend.  Decatur Central was playing Speedway High. Constance was wearing a blue plaid dress. 

   He said they left at halftime. Connie’s car ran out of gas on Hwy 67 and they began walking in the rain. He said she walked away from him because she was irritated with him. He said he never saw her again that night. All we have is his side of the story. 

   She never made it back to her room at the Raines Residence. She was found about 5 miles from her car,  near Hanna and 67, on Sunday September 6th, 1970 by an older man who had stopped to urinate. He had been returning home from visiting his son in Greenwood. He saw Constance’s legs sticking out of the foliage. He reported this to the police that day.  

    Initially a deputy thought she had been bludgeoned in the head with a brick.  An autopsy would show that she was actually shot with a .22 caliber weapon to the side of her head. It was not a contact wound; not point blank. She was found lying on top of her purse. Her feet were reportedly clean.  Her shoes were found further away. 

   The autopsy would also show that she was four months pregnant. The boyfriend admitted that they had sexual relations that night before the game and also in the past and that he could be the father of her baby. 

    Her boyfriend’s name was not mentioned by authorities. They mentioned giving him a lie detector test. A 1972 article states that he was cleared by the polygraph test. There’s no mention of police asking him about owning a .22 caliber pistol. There’s no mention of police questioning his friends and family to see how he was feeling about Constance. 

    The papers easily report that Constance was pregnant. They have no qualms about splashing her private business all over the paper. They shy away from embarrassing her boyfriend. Neither they nor the police ever mention his name. 

    We know that a woman’s chances of being murdered go up astronomically when she is pregnant. Her partner may not want the burden of a wife and child.  It could be that this was the situation with Constance and this boyfriend. 

    A few years later, Constance’s name would come up in connection to a few other young women who were shot with a .38 caliber pistol by Raymond Charles Lamb.  It almost seems like investigators lumped her case with theirs; and despite the many differences in circumstances they moved on to other things. (The 70’s were incredibly busy with violent crime. I imagine that most law enforcement agencies were understaffed and underfunded.)

    Constance had no parents to advocate for her. She didn’t have sisters or brothers to push for a more  thorough investigation and for Justice. There was no one to print flyers or raise money for billboards.

   She didn’t have any close friends at the Raines Residence. She had not lived there long. The other young ladies there had not realized she was even dating anyone.  They said she often talked of wanting to return to the “Valley Mills” area. I had not heard of that place or seen it connected with her Father. After hours of searching for information about her Mother, I finally think I know what she meant. Her Mother grew up working in textile mills in Roanoke, Virginia. In her Mother’s younger days it was a valley full of mills. 

    I had difficulty finding Constance’s final resting place. Her death certificate lists it as Eagle Rock, Virginia.  I wasn’t finding it at first under Constance May Thomas. The newspapers spelled it “May”. Her name is actually spelled Constance Mae Thomas. I found her grave under that name. I was relieved and happy to see that she is buried next to her Mom. The place where they rest is in a green and beautiful area. Large oak trees shade the small well-tended graves behind a low wrought iron fence. There is a little white church there. It looks like a painting, a postcard or a dream.  It’s not far North of Roanoke. Constance and her unborn baby got to go back to the valley of f mills just as she had wanted.