Lillie Mae Ritchie:The Lake Cottage Murder 1969

    

   Lillie Mae Ritchie was born in Kentucky. She was living a peaceful life in a Dewart Lake cottage near Warsaw, Indiana, 6 miles south of Syracuse in 1969.  It’s a lovely little lake with houses and trees almost all the way around it these days.  Lillie worked at a factory that manufactured mobile homes. Her sister and brother-in-law lived in nearby Millersburg, Indiana. Lillie had been divorced for about two years and her ex-husband now lived in Arizona. 

   The newspapers made quite a bit about her being a divorcee. This is another example of victim blaming. In 1969, a divorced woman was assumed by misogynistic minds to be sleeping around with all kinds of men. Any woman who was single was assumed to be responsible for her own murder according to those misogynistic minds as well. They forget that only the murderer is to blame here and no one else. 

  She carpooled with a man to work and when she failed to pick him up a couple of days in a row he and others went to check on her. 

  Her neighbors had noticed Lillie’s radio playing at full volume for several days. On November 9th they broke into the cottage and found her lying naked on the bed. She had been dead for several days. 

  Neighbors had also noticed that her car had been missing. 

  Police estimated that on November 5th she was strangled. Her car, a 1967 Pontiac Firebird was stolen. Police put out a bulletin about the car. 

  On November 21 a suspect was arrested in Texarkana, Arkansas on a forgery warrant of “defrauding an innkeeper”. That man, Gary Dale Rose, said he had not been the one at the hotel but that earlier in the year his identification was stolen while he was working in Idaho. This proved to be true. 

 On December 12th Lillie Mae Ritchie’s car was found in Tiffin, Ohio. 

 The suspect, Jeffrey W. McComsey was later arrested in Starke, Florida. 

  

  Confused?  I was too. 

  Let’s follow Jeffrey W. McComsey’s trail a little while.  He was born on October 23, 1948 in Pennsylvania. He grew up there and later joined the Navy. In a 1967 Navy “Cruise Book” he is pictured working in communications. That ship went to Japan, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Hawaii and basically all over the Pacific. 

  

   In May of 1969 McComesey was in Treasure Island, San Francisco, CA with the Navy but went AWOL.  He began making his way across the country; probably heading back to Pennsylvania. I assume he hitchhiked. It seems like he also took on work as a farm worker.  While in Idaho, he stole the I.D. of Mr. Gary Dale Rose of Texarkana, Arkansas who was working there at the time. I imagine that they worked on a farm there together. By early November McComesy is in Indiana and the farm work season is ending. He is still a long way from Pennsylvania when he sees Lillie Mae Ritchie and her two year old Pontiac Firebird. In his confession he said he asked her for a ride into town.  She agreed and sat down to put her boots on. He grabbed a towel and strangled her. He dragged her to the bed and wrapped the bed covers around her neck. He seemed to think it would look like an accidental strangling by getting twisted up in the covers. 

  Then he left in her car. He made it to Tiffin, Ohio and abandoned the car there. It looks like he was staying off the bigger highways. At some point before November 21st 1969, he checked into a hotel using the stolen ID of Gary Dale Rose. But he skipped out on paying and that got the real Gary Dale Rose of Texarkana in a little bit of trouble for a while. McComsey did make it back to rural Pennsylvania to his parent’s home around November 11th but took off again on the 12th. (His father was sled if he had seen him by news reporters and said that he had seen him on November 11th, 1969.) In December of 1969, Jeffrey W. McComsey was apprehended in Starke, Florida. Starke is a small town between Jacksonville and Gainesville. I imagine that McComsey was seeking farm work in the orange groves. 

   News articles reported that McComsey was identified as the killer by his fingerprints. I wonder if he left fingerprints at the scene and in her car. 

   McComsey confessed to the murder of Lillie Mae Ritchie and theft of her car.  He denied raping her.  He said that he strangled her as she was putting on her boots to drive him to town. He said he then dragged her into the bedroom and undressed her to make it look like a sex crime. Does anyone else out there doubt that?  Why would you go to the trouble of trying to make it look like a sex crime when it wasn’t?  I believe he raped her. Whether he raped her before or after he killed her is another question. 

   He was tried and convicted and sentenced to 15 to 25 years. Initially charged with first degree murder; he later pled guilty to second degree murder. He was not charged with rape. (Remember, rape was not considered a serious or violent crime in the late 1960’s and 1970’s.)

  Perhaps if he been convicted of rape as well he might have served a little more time.  Sadly, taking a life did not earn him a life sentence.  He was free in the 1990’s and is still free and alive.  He has lived in Florida but mostly in and around Nashville, Tennessee. He’s out there somewhere. 

  Lillie Mae Ritchie grew up in rural Kentucky near a place called Clear Creek. She is buried there in a family cemetery called Owen Cemetery. I looked it up on Google Earth and it is so beautiful and peaceful. She is back where she was born and among family who tend the graveyard very lovingly. 

   Lillie Mae Ritchie was only 29 when she was murdered. She had her whole life ahead of her. She should still be here with us. 

   Rest in Peace Lillie Mae Ritchie.