June 6, 1945 was the one-year anniversary of D-Day. The Chicago newspapers that day carried stories about the Allied occupation of Europe and about GI's mopping-up on Okinawa. 

That morning, the Tribune carried a small article on page 10: WIDOW IS FOUND SLAIN IN HOME.  43-year-old Josephine Ross had been murdered in her apartment at 4108 N. Kenmore Avenue, a building overlooking historic Graceland Cemetery.  Someone had entered the apartment in the morning when she was still in bed and had stabbed her to death.

But that was not all.  Her throat had been slit and the killer had taped the flesh back together with adhesive tape.  He had also put her body in the bathtub and washed off the blood.

Mrs. Ross' daughter was the one who reported the murder and, because the body was found in such an unusual state, she had to pass a lie detector test to convince police she had not staged the crime scene.

Townhall District detectives wondered if there might be a connection between this unusual case and the gruesome, unsolved murder of a model named Estelle Carey in the same neighborhood back in '43.  Carey, whom the press dubbed a "gangster's sweetheart," was thought to have been rubbed out by the mob.  However, Josephine Ross was no gangster's sweetheart and it seemed unlikely that her murder was mob related.

Ross had several boyfriends and ex-husbands but investigation cleared all of them.  Dark hairs were found clutched in her hand and two witnesses stated that they had seen a dark haired stranger running from the building but, beyond that, there was little to go on.

The police soon ran out of leads and the case went cold.