http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/new-folder daily 0.75 2013-01-03 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/modern-pictures-from-the-case daily 0.75 2016-02-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358783181810-QDQ9PV68KJGABDCH9F0W/IMG_3575.JPG New Castle today - Catherine's house Catherine's house still sits on 16th Street, a rather forlorn rental now, with its porch enclosed and its gutter hanging—no longer a new and modern home. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358783181810-QDQ9PV68KJGABDCH9F0W/IMG_3575.JPG New Castle today - Catherine's house Catherine's house still sits on 16th Street, a rather forlorn rental now, with its porch enclosed and its gutter hanging—no longer a new and modern home. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782176625-1MP4VN2N3S2AYOR3TGMN/IMG_3567.jpg New Castle today - Catherine's room A small room at the top of the stairs in the back of the house on 16th Street is a likely candidate for Catherine's bedroom, perhaps shared with her little brother when her parents hosted a paying boarder. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1357263776702-9MDCDPIM2VJF1RLBV42V/IMG_3572.JPG New Castle today - Catherine's windowseat One of the few touchingly personal details that come through the newspaper accounts, despite the staggering number of them: Catherine had a favorite place to sit before a bank of windows in her house, thought the exact spot's unclear now. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782204121-J6MU2NWGDH8TXX3G7XBV/IMG_3562.jpg New Castle today - The Winters attic Entrance to the attic of the Winters house is through a trapdoor in the ceiling of the largest bedroom, likely the parents'. Catherine's doll stayed there all the years after she disappeared, with the girls' doll buggy, missing-person posters and other memorabilia of the search. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782230735-SACHC2K1BRRFZRFZHLJQ/IMG_3558.jpg New Castle today - The Winters basement Once accessed by a trapdoor in the open porch, the basement offered the Winters case its only physical evidence: a much-disputed red sweater, a blue hair ribbon, and a bloody man's undershirt. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782265113-Z699OXUTXFMWBW8KASYW/IMG_3576.jpg New Castle today - 16th Street New Castle's 16th Street was a neighborhood of new homes and middle-class families in 1913. Catherine Winters walked up this sidewalk on March 20 and into infamy—and then into nothing. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782296275-VMNMBQNOBXT1J2Y489Z8/IMG_3579.jpg New Castle today - Catherine's neighborhood Catherine ghost stories abound in New Castle. This house a few doors down from hers was in recent years the subject of a Chicago ghost-hunting team, following up rumors of supernatural sightings and bones in the basement. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1357257902531-VRT7K8XPUIFH9HFY2QWC/IMG_2921.JPG New Castle today - Dr. Winters' office A bank (far right) has expanded into the site of Dr. Winters' 1913 dentist office. He occupied a set of rooms on the second floor, and Catherine likely passed underneath his bay window on her way into oblivion. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1357246346543-BNNOX3PU1179E4YNR1Q6/IMG_3488.JPG New Castle today - Catherine and the Gypsies Sleepy Broad Street storefronts sit near the spot where Gypsies stopped to water their horses at a public trough and several people claimed to have seen Catherine watching. (Photo by the author.)   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782332225-F30R3IE1CTD3VQR1Y2VW/IMG_3503.jpg New Castle today - Downtown New Castle There were many "last" sightings of Catherine on March 20, 1913, differing in location and separated by several hours, crippling the search effort from the start. Near this spot, Dan Monroe—a family friend who was most widely believed—claimed to share a few words with Catherine just before she vanished into thin air. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1357267482709-AKKFEIPNOOCJURNR8B2Y/IMG_3497.JPG New Castle today - The railroad station One of the few remaining rail stations in New Castle bears testament to one of the nagging theories of what happened to Catherine—that she was lured onto one of the myriad trains criss-crossing the city, either by a friend or a foe. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782352122-WM75CVZPO4HK2CL1J73W/IMG_2923.jpg New Castle today - Henry County Courthouse Henry County's beautiful brick courthouse, surmounting a rise in the flat Indiana farmland, housed local-government offices and police headquarters in 1913. Some of the most momentous decisions of the case—to suspend the Grand Jury, to abort the murder trial of Catherine's parents—played out within its walls. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782381246-9WXSHPWINXAXDZ89MAMS/IMG_2884.jpg New Castle today - The courtroom In these pews, townsfolk gathered to watch the Winters trial end before it could begin. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782407429-QF2CKA6NKT4T0JB172JL/IMG_2886.jpg New Castle today - Judge Jackson Edward Jackson oversaw the Winters grand jury and the aborted trial, and his picture still hangs in the Henry County Courthouse, where he was prosecutor and judge. Not mentioned on its nameplate: his disastrous later stint as Indiana governor, during which he was found to be on the payroll of the KKK and almost universally vilified. He is considered the worst governor in state history. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782809027-0M21587XD5LZTZSYCJ3E/IMG_2881.JPG New Castle today - The courtroom Eldon Pitts, an East Central Indiana journalist and long-time Catherine Winters researcher, stands in the Henry County Courthouse, where a drop ceiling obscures a gallery and tall windows overlooking the streets Catherine walked on her last day. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782438879-K5TTWK1X5MGURV4038CT/IMG_2915.jpg New Castle today - Inside the courthouse Dr. and Mrs. Winters climbed these steps in spring 1914 to be tried for the murder of their daughter/stepdaughter, but left shortly after free citizens when the county prosecutor stunned the town and dropped all charges. Gossip, however, would never leave the Winterses in peace. (Photo by the author.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782956066-RG9J8R66SEERIS3PI7KN/IMG_0257.JPG New Castle today - The Winters gravesite Dr. Winters and his second wife are buried in a country cemetery near Mooreland. Half a century later, when the citizens of New Castle raised money for a memorial for Catherine, they chose to place it in the city cemetery, far away from her father and stepmother. (Photo by the author.)   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358783045132-LR1FRTB5JPV59X3QXIL1/IMG_0250.JPG New Castle today - Catherine's memorial Several New Castle institutions pooled their resources in 2004 to erect a long-overdue memorial for the city's lost little girl. The stone in South Mound Cemetery would, ironically, go missing soon after when the cemetery moved it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782700460-V4PEFWH6FC1VXVDPLXON/IMG_0254.jpg New Castle today - Catherine's memorial New Castle officials, family descendants, local historians and many others gathered for the laying of Catherine's memorial stone in South Mound Cemetery in 2004. As befit the Catherine Winters story, however, the place chosen for the memorial soon became a source of controversy and cemetery management moved it—without notifying those who had organized the effort, leading them to believe it had, like its owner, disappeared. http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/the-sites-of-catherine-winters-new-castle daily 0.75 2016-02-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782134410-YWSKCJR2MK7IJY3JK47H/Catherine-Winters-Photo%5B1%5D.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle - Catherine and her doll Images of Catherine and her giant white hair bow, her doll, her teddy bear, and other innocent accoutrements struck a chord with the newspaper-reading public and those viewing a traveling news film at movie theaters far and near. (Image courtesy of Eldon Pitts.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358782134410-YWSKCJR2MK7IJY3JK47H/Catherine-Winters-Photo%5B1%5D.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle - Catherine and her doll Images of Catherine and her giant white hair bow, her doll, her teddy bear, and other innocent accoutrements struck a chord with the newspaper-reading public and those viewing a traveling news film at movie theaters far and near. (Image courtesy of Eldon Pitts.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1357258324068-ENU69SAJ76FU8TWDJKRR/Document001.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle - Downtown New Castle This 1912 postcard shows downtown New Castle as Catherine knew it: a crowded county seat bustling with industry, business opportunity and a burgeoning population. This view looks east down the city's main thoroughfare toward 16th Street, a middle-class neighborhood of new homes where Catherine lived. (From the author's collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1357258516802-8TUVH150LL4ZSJHKCV5V/Document004.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle - Rose City New Castle's flower-growing industry—most notably the Heller greenhouses' American Beauty rose—was known worldwide and gave New Castle its favorite nickname, the Rose City. In 1913, growing roses in your yard or wearing them in your hair or buttonhole on special occasions was a mark of your civic pride. (From the author's collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1357258687590-EEXJQT075Q8F57EDW2B3/Document005.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle - The Blue River valley Not content to claim itself tops in economic development, town boosters liked to call New Castle and its environs the beauty spot of Henry County and East Central Indiana. (From the author's collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1357258909762-TLFIMWD2UA26VWEQ7LSC/Document003.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle - American Beauty Heller Bros. produced the American Beauty rose, carried New Castle's name around the world, and covered miles of flat Indiana farmland in glass, much of which would be destroyed in a catastrophic tornado in 1917. (From the author's collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1358781881659-B1GC7SSVO59M6107Q76G/Lydia-Margaret-Ritter-mom-of-Byrd.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle - Grandma Ritter Lydia Margaret Ritter, Byrd's mother, lived with her daughter and son-in-law off and on. She answered the door in spring 1914, when Detective Robert Abel and a handful of police and journalists arrived unannounced to search the family's basement. (Photo courtesy of Amy Hough Terry.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406006372170-5760AWUBPAKJL2F5X2FE/image-asset.jpeg Catherine Winters' New Castle https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1438644924620-ETGNFXWGL67HIJCAV2F8/1917+tornado+postcard.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle Mayor Watkins, central in the Catherine Winters saga, lost his home and almost his family in one of the state’s worst tornados in 1917. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406006686676-SFWZHDQSNAY3YGRVMQQV/Bundy+Hotel2.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle Catherine’s stepmother Byrd Ritter Winters, prior to her marriage to Dr. Winters, worked at New Castle’s Bundy Hotel, where later such notables as Bat Masterson would stay while investigating the girl’s disappearance. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1438645078785-5UJNTOUHP6YUG0B7P2VD/Byrd+about+age+16.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle Byrd Ritter Winters as a girl. (Photo courtesy of Amy Hough Terry.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1438645212867-OQK242OH3A8HXKQLIMQX/Byrd+about+age+25.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle Byrd Ritter Winters as a young woman, before her marriage to Dr. Winters. (Photo courtesy of Amy Hough Terry.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406006731983-FBK2FNHWDUR4I0YS0JHC/Byrd+age+10-12%2C+Honey+Creek.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle A young Byrd Ritter, wearing a straw hat, poses for a family photo. (Photo courtesy of Amy Hough Terry.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406244926315-RYV4JLGM882CR9GAVEHI/Winters+parents+newspaper.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle Catherine’s father and stepmother became familiar faces in newspapers across the state and beyond. (Image via New Castle Public Library microfiche.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245181897-86WX2J3QA6S4TBABL4OV/courthouse+period+postcard.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle Catherine Winters walked passed the Henry County Courthouse on March 20, 1913, her way into oblivion. Later her father and stepmother’s personal drama would unfold here. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1438645435203-HILLFFRL9FQZ3BFPLK1T/CW+sheet+music+.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle Before billboards and milk cartons, there was sheet music—a savvy publicity tool (and for local songwriters the Gorbett Brothers, a financial opportunity) when every middle-class parlor strove to have its own piano. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245235245-6RIKXN8WXQI5ZR531Y0G/Holland+School+creditDougMagers+and+HCHS.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle Because Holland School, where Catherine was in fourth grade, closed for a measles outbreak on March 20, 1913, Catherine was free to sell sewing needles door to door the day she disappeared. (Image courtesy of the Henry County Historical Society.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245268159-4SMCOA7SSO38XCRGEGLU/New+Castle+c1913+era+postcard.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle A bird’s eye view of downtown New Castle, where a plethora of factory job had created a housing shortage. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245282813-6B7MQR6SZ60UZ2JVTI67/NC+Democrat+postcard.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle New Castle, a town of some 10,000, had upwards of five newspapers, who competed for every shred of news in the Catherine Winters case. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245296889-XVVVP4DI4WXEN9ML36LN/Winters+offc+HCHScredit.jpg Catherine Winters' New Castle The office Dr. Winters rented at the time of his daughter’s disappearance sat on the courthouse square, facing the building where he would later face murder charges. It is believed Catherine walked under his bay window on March 20, 1913. (Photo courtesy of the Henry County Historical Society.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245312875-AAR2MSER2YCXPKC6YOZ9/piano++factory+postcard.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle The French Piano Factory was just one industry drawing labor and money to New Castle and giving the town outsized aspirations for its future. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245325021-455VHH7TR97Q4Q8QDT6J/photo+from+the+era.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle An unknown 1913 party touring the Indiana countryside at a time automobiles and horses shared the same unpaved backroads. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245336047-MSL4YPZLHOL6PIN2TIZ4/one+NC+train+depot+1913+era.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle People claiming to have seen Catherine at one of New Castle’s several train stations on March 20, 1913, complicated an already hopelessly convoluted case. (From the author’s collection.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1406245368318-I5NIT3ALU2YZDO6F1U2R/NEW+Winters+in+dental+offc.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle Later accounts would describe Dr. Winters as a perfunctory dentist rooting for dirty tools in jumbled drawers, but contemporary newspaper articles made no mention of this. (Image via New Castle Public Library microfiche.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1438645563764-YDG0ELO6321ZU055OGTM/1940+NEW+Winters+house+1914.JPG Catherine Winters' New Castle The Winters home sat in one of New Castle’s newer middle-class neighborhoods, an easy walk of a few blocks to the courthouse square and Dr. Winters’ office. (Image via New Castle Public Library microfiche.) https://static1.squarespace.com/static/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/50e5da09e4b0251241131902/5438239fe4b06cb51a567757/1412965279310/ Catherine Winters' New Castle http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal daily 0.75 2017-03-19 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2017/3/19/the-never-ending-story monthly 0.5 2017-03-20 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2014/5/7/open-wide-and-say- monthly 0.5 2014-06-20 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2014/5/7/the-question-of-dr-winters-ugly-temper monthly 0.5 2014-05-07 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2014/5/7/tell-mrs-w monthly 0.5 2014-05-07 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2014/5/7/4u5luwvw3ew0gc8a31q7w4om0d1oy1 monthly 0.5 2014-05-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1399495689508-KDMIDJ2NURTGQLX2RNBD/Screen+Shot+2014-05-07+at+4.01.53+PM.png Blog - St. Catherine of the flea market Looking for that elusive 1915 sheet music ... Denied again. http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2014/4/15/on-the-long-slog monthly 0.5 2014-04-15 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2013/9/3/catherine-winters-and-new-mom-anxiety monthly 0.5 2013-09-03 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2013/3/18/this-week-the-anniversary monthly 0.5 2013-03-18 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2013/2/15/where-our-stories-intersected monthly 0.5 2013-02-15 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2013/2/7/not-the-first-national-news-storyand-not-the-last monthly 0.5 2013-02-07 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2013/1/28/catherine-winters-and-jonbenet-ramsey monthly 0.5 2013-01-29 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2013/1/14/the-story-begins monthly 0.5 2013-01-29 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/journal/2013/1/3/catherines-anniversary monthly 0.5 2013-01-04 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/contact daily 0.75 2014-07-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1404303225337-6ACSVYNZTFO00XSDIMXY/image-asset.png Contact http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/more-info daily 0.75 2015-08-01 http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/cast-of-characters daily 0.75 2016-02-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1408502654485-HAF17W1C6ZUFXJ3OL6LF/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1408504231009-85CD3ZG8CO4MJAMU9RQ2/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1454876566777-7W9K9LD859JLJGGJIA4S/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1454876532059-LK7LHXOSS1TWKH14XC01/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1408504512250-FVG646WEP6MEZXFN3DJT/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1408502993421-KELXPTXPIFC7YYAC3J21/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1408502934208-B6QVNOZ5QJP7R1H7B1OQ/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1408503064701-OITR9UQ77NURMFJLRGWR/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1408503117801-X8733KV9UMCRESZHSB1G/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1408503951275-854RHPX54YFWKVQSBRMF/image-asset.jpeg Cast of Characters http://www.whereiscatherinewinters.com/welcome daily 1.0 2017-03-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1404101819334-UOFGBEBXHV9W6A3S1BT8/image-asset.jpeg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1404101619364-Z3BSS97Q40VEIT88KISF/image-asset.jpeg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50e5c227e4b025124112c71c/1404107595054-ZV943TQ2P3SO8634C8A1/Frankie+Winters+sr+portrait+1925.JPG Home