The Case of the Mother That Almost Got Away

    The Hotel Croydon, situated at the intersection of Rush and Ontario Street in Chicago, was conveniently located within walking distance of the vibrant theater district. Its bar, the Croydon Cocktail Circle, was a popular after-hours spot for actors, musicians, and performers eager to extend their night following a show. The bar was known for its signature drink, the "Russian Lullabies," which included one shot each of vodka, gin, and Crème de cacao.

    On the night of October 21, 1948, a guest on the 9th floor, perhaps winding down after a few drinks, entered their room and found water trickling down the wall and pooling on the floor. Upon investigating, they discovered it was coming from the room above and promptly called the front desk. House Officer William Feen was dispatched to assess the situation.

    After receiving no response to his knocks at the door, he forced his way into the room and quickly identified the problem—the bathtub faucet was running at full pressure, causing water to spill over. Inside the tub lay a man and a woman. Their nude bodies, clasped in each other's arms, were completely submerged in the bathtub. A note was found in the room near several partly empty bottles of pills that read: "May God forgive us. To our friends, our love. Jessie and George."

    The hotel's general manager verified that Mr. and Mrs. G. Reading from Detroit, had occupied that room since checking in on October 15. However, police soon discovered that Mrs. G. Reading was not who she appeared to be—at least not yet.

    The following morning, her attorney, Clarence C. Rhoads, explained that Mrs. G. Reading was actually Mrs. Jessie Beck, the estranged spouse of Clarence Beck. It was only after Jessie’s uncontested divorce was finalized and she was awarded full custody of her two daughters in a hearing scheduled that very day that she and George Reading were set to marry.

    A letter to the dead man from Jessie's husband was found in the room and read in part: "Don't jump off any tall building-no woman is worth it."

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     Police identified the couple as Mrs. Jessie Beck, 31, formerly of Waukegan, Illinois, and her fiancé, George Reading, 40, of Detroit, Michigan. Police said that the 'shapely, slender Mrs. Beck' was a perfume counter clerk at a Chicago drugstore who was seeking a divorce from her husband, Clarence. Reading was described as a traveling salesman.

    Chicago police indicated that the couple apparently had taken some pills from bottles found in the room, leading them to conclude that the deaths were a double suicide, but stated of the circumstances, "some aspects were puzzling." A post-mortem examination was ordered to determine whether their deaths were caused by drowning or poisoning.

    Mrs. Beck's body was ordered sent to Waukegan, Illinois, for services and burial following the autopsy.

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    Attorney Clarence C. Rhoads, who represented Mrs. Beck, announced that she was set to finalize her divorce from Clarence Beck, a shoe salesman originally from Davenport, Iowa, hours after the discovery of the bodies. Rhoads noted that Mrs. Beck and Reading were planning to marry immediately after. According to the attorney, Mrs. Beck was to receive sole custody of her two young daughters, with Mr. Beck agreeing not to contest the divorce.

    Mrs. Beck had been living apart from her husband for several years. She supported herself and her children by working as a librarian before taking a job at a perfume counter in a Chicago drugstore.

    The divorce filing described her as a "good, true, and virtuous wife" and requested child support. Rhoads explained that this was necessary to align with the typical rulings of judges, which deem that a wife may waive alimony but cannot forgo child support. Although Mrs. Beck initially sought no support, she ultimately agreed to this arrangement.

    Beck consented to the divorce in a stipulation signed on May 28; however, he did not submit the required paperwork until two days before Mrs. Beck was discovered dead, five months later.

    In an interview with reporters at his father's home in Waukegan, Illinois, Mr. Beck refuted claims that he had been pursuing a divorce, asserting that he had never "even thought about it."

    To counter these statements, Mr. Rhoads made public a letter from Beck written to his wife on July 14 on a letterhead of "Newman's Apparel for Women and Misses, 121 West Second Street, Davenport, Iowa."

    The letter accused Mrs. Beck of stalling the divorce proceedings and said, "Unless I hear from you within a few days, I shall get the divorce here, and believe me, it won't be so nice for you as you had the privilege of getting it for yourself."

    He wrote, "I will see that Barbara gets what is best for her even if it means blowing your brains out—if you got any."

    Rhoads also received a letter from Beck, written July 23, inquiring about progress with the divorce and remarking, "It certainly seems that as simple as it is, it could have been over weeks ago."

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    Jessie Maria Shook was born on February 2, 1915, in Evansville, Indiana, to Garrett Lee Shook and Sylvia Adeline Stanley. Tragically, her father passed away from tuberculosis when Jessie was just three years old. At the age of five, her mother remarried, and Jessie took her stepfather's last name, Haggerty.

    At the age of 20, Jessie tied the knot with Clarence Walter Beck. According to Mr. Rhoads, their marriage was fraught with conflict. The couple first wed in Woodstock, Illinois, on February 12, 1935, but ended their marriage six years later in Lake County. They remarried just six months after their divorce on December 15, 1941. On November 28, 1945, Mr. Beck sought a divorce, claiming desertion. However, this case was dismissed on March 8, 1948, due to the plaintiff's failure to pursue it further.
    
    Clarence was born to John Frederick Beck and Lillie Beck. John worked as an agent for the steam railroad, which provided the family with a stable middle-class lifestyle. Unfortunately, Clarence did not follow in his father's footsteps. Over the years, he moved from town to town, spending months away from his family.
    
    During this period, he held various jobs, including freight brakeman for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, a clerk at Druce Drug Company, and a shoe salesman for Andrews Shoe Company. Meanwhile, his wife maintained steady employment and cared for the children.

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    Clarence wrote multiple letters and threatened to file a lawsuit in Davenport, Iowa, for alienation of affections, naming George Reading as the co-respondent. However, to Mr. Rhoad’s knowledge, Mr. Beck had not yet followed through with this action.

    Police had copies of the letters found in the hotel written by Clarence Beck to his wife's lover. The letters read in part:

"I believe your affair with Jessie has lasted just about long enough and that it has taken a comic phase not even worthy of a poor fiction story.

Has it ever occurred to you just how I might feel about this thing? Well, I'll tell you. It makes me feel sort of foolish. You see, I have had you followed and am well aware of the fact that you were even out here in Davenport and took Barbara and Carol home, and of your trips to California, Chicago hotels, and so forth.    

I suggest you forget about Jessie entirely. In case you should insist on being ardently in love with her, here's what could happen. My lawyer could sue for alienation of affections; no one could lose but you, and in case I shouldn't like what you do, only God knows what might happen because I have no control over my emotions when things don't go the right way. Clarence Beck, Still Jessie's husband. Remember."

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    In 1907, George Oscar Reading was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Oskar "Essie" Ryding and Marie Louise Peterson, both of Swedish descent. Essie worked as a draughtsman in the terra cotta industry, crafting detailed drawings and plans for terracotta products. Marie and Essie raised their seven children in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Evanston, Illinois.

    On October 20, 1927, George wed Maria Fagstorm, and shortly after, two children were born to the couple. However, they separated after the birth of their second child. Authorities later found that George had informed neighbors in Detroit that he was a widower.

    In the early 1930s, George relocated to California. On October 16, 1940, he was living in Alhambra, California, and was a self-employed engineer.

    At the time of his death, George was working as a Machinery Precision Salesman based out of Detroit, Michigan. Along with letters from Clarence Beck, police discovered a voter’s card from Detroit, a Los Angeles Athletic Club membership card, and a California driver’s license among George's belongings.

    Furthermore, Reading possessed a photograph clipped from a newspaper of Arthur Kenneth Reading, who served as the district attorney in Massachusetts from 1923 to 1937 before becoming the state’s Attorney General.

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     Mrs. Beck's husband, Clarence, told reporters he was convinced that his wife's lover murdered her and dumped her body in a hotel bathtub. and then committed suicide. Police found the nude bodies of Mrs. Jessie Beck and George Reading in an overflowing bathtub and said that a note and a vial of pills found nearby indicated a double suicide. But Beck said, "It definitely was murder and suicide. Because of our children and my wife's nature, she would never commit suicide."

    Beck said he learned his wife telephoned their daughter Barbara, who was living in a foster home, a few hours before her death, and said: "Honey, I'll be out Sunday." Beck said, "That is further proof she did not intend to take her life."

    Beck said he and his wife had been separated for seven years and that he knew she had been carrying on an affair with Reading for some time. He acknowledged having written two letters to Reading "more or less at the request of" his wife. He said he did not remember the exact dates of the letters, though they were written within the last several months.

    Beck said he was willing to cooperate with police in the case but that officials had not contacted him about the deaths.

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     Mrs. Marie Reading from Evanston, Illinois, testified before the coroner's jury that she and George had been separated for 19 years. She stated that she had "heard indirectly" about her husband obtaining a Mexican divorce but still regarded herself as married to him, asserting she was "supposed to be his wife." When asked about the divorce decree issued by a court in Wayne, Michigan, on July 15, 1948, she claimed she was unaware of it.

    George Reading, Jr., aged 19, shared that he had not seen his father in a decade, while 20-year-old Laurel Reading testified that her father had not provided her with any support.

    Stanley Shook recounted that the last time he saw his sister was the weekend before her death when she visited her children, Barbara, 13, and Carol, 6, at a private home in Zion, Illinois, where they were living. Stanley informed the Cook County coroner's jury that his sister Jessie was not the type to take her own life, emphasizing that "her children came first."

    Mrs. Sylvia Haggerty, the mother of Mrs. Beck, expressed her certainty that her daughter had not killed herself. She was "positive" her daughter had been murdered. She told the jury that Jessie had recently told her to have Reading investigated "if anything ever happens to me." Mrs. Haggerty said this came after he had told her, "If you don't marry me, you won't marry anyone else."

    Stanley Shook mentioned that his mother had informed him that Reading had threatened Jessie. He believed this was most likely motivated by her attempt to end their relationship due to objections to her impending divorce and plans to remarry by her two children. He said he had no doubt his sister was murdered.

    Both Stanley Shook and Mrs. Reading testified that the signatures on the suicide note found in the hotel room, signed 'Jessie and George,' were in Reading's handwriting.

    The inquest was continued for ten days at the request of authorities who said they wanted to continue with chemical analysis of the bodies and the pills. The victims were thought to have taken either poison or a sedative before immersing themselves in the bathtub. Police also wanted to investigate claims made by acquaintances of Reading and Mrs. Beck, who said the two quarreled violently a few hours before their deaths.

    Clarence Beck did not participate in the coroner's inquest concerning the deaths, despite being in the Chicago area and speaking with reporters that morning.

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     A verdict of murder and suicide from sleeping tablets and drowning was returned by a coroner's jury investigating the bathtub death of the attractive brunette whose body was found wrapped in the arms of her lover in an overflowing bathtub in the Croydon Hotel on October 21, 1948.

    The jurors held that Mrs. Jessie Beck died from drowning while under the influence of barbiturate poisoning "administered by George Reading with intent to destroy the deceased." Reading, the jurors decided, died of self-injected poison with suicidal intent while temporarily insane.

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Epilogue

    Jessie's husband, Clarence Beck, was never interviewed by investigators.

    Arthur K. Reading, the former Attorney General, told the Boston Globe that he had no relative named George O. Reading and did not recognize the man mentioned in dispatches from Chicago. Mr. Arthur K. Reading stated that during his public life, many people claimed a relationship due to the similarity in names. He was, in fact, Arthur K. Reading, the uncle of George Oscar Reading and brother of Oskar "Essie" Ryding.

 

Next: The Case of the Unknown Blonde

Primary sources:

The Leader, Hinton, West Virginia, Thu, Oct 28, 1948 ·Page 5

The Republican, Springfield, Massachusetts, Mon, Oct 25, 1948 ·Page 11
The Rock Island Argus, Rock Island, Illinois, Thu, Oct 21, 1948 ·Page 2
Times Herald, Washington, District of Columbia, Sat, Oct 23, 1948 ·Page 36
Riverside Daily Press, Riverside, California, Fri, Oct 22, 1948 ·Page 2
Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, Fri, Oct 22, 1948 ·Page 2
Star-Herald, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, Sat, Oct 23, 1948 ·Page 7
The Muscatine Journal, Muscatine, Iowa, Fri, Nov 12, 1948 ·Page 1
Quad-City Times, Davenport, Iowa, Sun, Nov 07, 1948 ·Page 10
National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; WWII Draft Registration Cards For Illinois, 10/16/1940-03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147; Box: 100
Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007
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Cook County Clerk. Cook County Clerk Genealogy Records. Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago, IL: Cook County Clerk, 2008.
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Cook County Clerk. Cook County Clerk Genealogy Records. Cook County Clerk’s Office, Chicago, IL: Cook County Clerk, 2008.
Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics; Lansing, Michigan; Michigan. Divorce records
Year: 1930; Census Place: Waukegan, Lake, Illinois; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 0076; FHL microfilm: 2340264
Year: 1930; Census Place: Evanston, Cook, Illinois; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 2132; FHL microfilm: 2340235
Baraboo News Republic, Baraboo, Wisconsin, Sat, Oct 23, 1948 ·Page 1
Daily Press, Newport News, Virginia, Thu, Oct 28, 1948 ·Page 3
"U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012"; School Name: Waukegan High School; Year: 1934
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