Obscure Occurrences : The Mysterious Case of Little "Buddy" Schumacher

 Arthur Louis "Buddy" Schumacher was born on the 2nd of September, 1916. His parents, Arthur and Florence, were a content and ordinary couple, living a simple life in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Their firstborn, Jeanette Alice, was around 17 months old when the couple birthed Buddy.

(Source: Wauwatosa Wiki)

Disappearance

 The date was 24 July 1925. The sun had just begun to rise when eight-year-old Buddy set off to meet his friends. He informed his family that he planned to board a train with them to go to a nearby swimming hole. Arthur and Florence didn’t give much thought to it and sent Buddy on his way, telling him to have fun as he headed towards the door knob. 

 Buddy and his friends reached the train station and climbed aboard before disembarking 15 miles away from home. Unfortunately, this would be the last time the eight-year-old was seen alive.

Investigation

 When Buddy failed to return home by the evening, Arthur and Florence questioned Buddy's friends, who told the couple that they hadn't seen him for most of the day. The boys claimed losing sight of him somewhere between the swimming hole and the train tracks. Thinking that their son might have stopped to visit an extended family member, the perturbed couple contacted their kin, but they quickly realized that nobody had heard from or seen Buddy. 

 With little else left to do, the couple organized a search party, thoroughly combing the local area. But they came away empty-handed and heavy-hearted, finding no signs of their missing child. Eventually, the police were alerted and the information was passed on to the local media. Word of the disappearance spread like wildfire before newspapers began offering reward money for anyone who could shed light on what had happened to little Buddy. However, the cash went unclaimed.

 The local rumour claimed that the eight-year-old had been taken by a family member who wanted revenge against Arthur for some unknown reason. Meanwhile, other parents in the neighbourhood began to fret about the safety of their children, causing George, the police chief of the Wauwatosa Police Department, to reassure them. Beginning his investigation, he decided to speak with Buddy's friends, who initially claimed that an unkempt man had appeared at the swimming hole. He had allegedly chased the children into a forest before they had lost sight of the eight-year-old. 

 With time, however, the boys would go on to tell various differing accounts about what had happened that day. Eventually, they finally settled on a story, claiming that they hopped off the freight train before a mysterious man followed suit, chasing them violently. As they fled from the man, Buddy had fallen on the tracks before being approached by the “transient” man.

 As Wauwatosa was essentially a transport hub with a good railway line, many homeless individuals had become drawn to the area. Many of them set up camps near the tracks, looking for work and using the railways to travel and find employment. As soon as it became public knowledge that Buddy was last seen with a transient man, the homeless community came under attack. Locals began to resent the homeless men and women scattered around the area and looked for ways to punish them out of fear. Investigators received tip after tip, claiming that various individuals from the community were responsible for the disappearance. 

 On the 27th of July, three days after Buddy disappeared, a ten-year-old orphan led investigators to the site where he was last seen. He and his friends explained that they had recently been harassed by two middle-aged men on numerous occasions. This led detectives to theorize that these men, who seemed to enjoy harassing young children, were involved with whatever had happened to Buddy. However, both men were now gone from the area and were never found. 

Discovery

 A further seven weeks would pass before Buddy's parents were released from the uncertainty of not knowing what happened to their son. On 13 September 1925, Buddy's body was discovered less than a mile away from his home by a man searching for mushrooms. The eight-year-old was just four feet away from a well-used footpath. Shortly thereafter, the man had contacted the authorities. Unfortunately, not long before the body was found, the Schumachers had left the town to visit their family and escape the incessant media attention, resulting in Buddy's uncle identifying the body. 

 The eight-year-old’s decomposing body had been grotesquely mutilated, and he had been subjected to a series of horrifying blows, sexual assault and strangulation. Furthermore, a handkerchief with the letter “A” embroidered on one of its corners had been stuffed down his throat, evidently causing his death. 

(Source: Paul Hoffman)

 Now investigating a homicide, the police turned their attention back to the transient community, who set up camps near the railway tracks. Although they barely had any evidence in their possession, they felt that the owner of the handkerchief was the perpetrator behind this horrific crime. Hoping that somebody would recognize the handkerchief and come forward to help solve the case, investigators circulated the description of the item among the public via newspapers.

Suspects

Edward Vreeland

 As the police continued to investigate, they set their sights on one particular member of the homeless community, a man named Edward Vreeland. Detectives had pursued this individual before Buddy's body had been recovered, but they had stopped questioning him when his friends failed to positively identify him. In the weeks following the discovery of Buddy's remains, however, authorities approached the young boy's friends again and asked them to look at a police line-up which included Edward. Two of Buddy's three friends identified the man as the one who'd chased them from the train.

 Detectives felt that they had solved one of the most sensational cases of the 1920s. Having decided that Edward was guilty, the police began building a case against him, gathering evidence which fit the narrative they created. Within weeks, two boys had come forward to the police, informing them that Edward had taken the two for a walk and “mistreated them.” 

 On the 22nd of September, Edward arranged a meeting with the lead investigators working on Buddy's case. Here, he confessed that he'd been kicked in the head by a horse when he was younger, and as a result, he had often suffered memory blackouts. He claimed that it was possible that he had in fact slain Buddy and simply did not remember it. Adding further fuel to the fire, Emma Abel remembered washing the handkerchief later used to suffocate Buddy, stating that she had returned it to Edward after cleaning.

 Edwards's tale of memory lapses quickly leaked to the press, who ran stories labelling him as nothing short of guilty. Meanwhile, word of Edward's guilt reached his brother Charles. Determined to prove his sibling’s innocence, Charles travelled to Wisconsin and hired a local attorney to represent Edward. 

 Soon, however, things began to go awry. The handkerchief that had been used to suffocate Buddy was found to be missing. Investigators thoroughly combed the police station looking for it, but to no avail. It was found a few days later in the district attorney's safe, apparently placed there without the knowledge of the officials. Soon after its rediscovery, investigators brought in Mrs Abel and asked her to positively identify it. But much to their surprise, Mrs Abel failed to do so, claiming that she couldn't say whether it was the one she had returned to Edward.

 To further worsen the situation, Buddy's friends suddenly recanted their identifications of Edward after having spoken with the man in prison. They stated that they had felt pressured by the police to point to Edward.

 As forensic techniques were limited at the time, law enforcement had very little to work with. While they had initially been confident in their apprehension of Edward, things were quickly taking a turn for the worse. With so much of the case falling apart, the authorities had no choice but to release the man. He was returned to the correctional facility to finish his sentence for vagrancy.

William Brandt

 In mid-October, a prison warden from Stillwater contacted the Milwaukee police, informing them about a recently convicted inmate. A twenty-one-year-old man named William Brandt had been given life in prison for taking the life of a fourteen-year-old named Francis. The prison warden had allegedly felt similarities between the deaths of Buddy and Francis. Both boys had been mutilated and had handkerchiefs stuffed down their throats.

 Although Brunt was interviewed by detectives, he denied any knowledge of Buddy's death. But five weeks later, he was quoted in a newspaper saying;

 “I guess I killed that boy in Milwaukee. I do not remember killing him, but I remember being with him and I remember hiding the body.”

 Brant suffered from epileptic seizures, which led to him having memory blackouts and spells of brutal violence. This drew investigators back to Brandt for further questioning. While the police felt that they had their man, the twenty-one-year-old's answers fell short of accuracy. He claimed that Buddy was covered in blood following his death, but the eight-year-old had been found fairly clean. Brandt also stated that he had stuffed the boy's overalls down a drain pipe, but, in fact, Buddy was wearing them during his discovery. Furthermore, Brandt said that he had removed the corner of the handkerchief with “A” on it to avoid identification, something that is surely untrue as the handkerchief was perfectly intact. Additionally, Buddy's friends failed to identify Brant as the man who had followed them. Ultimately, Brandt walked back his confession towards the end of 1925.

Frank Stencil

 In December of that year, another confession came to the surface, this time from Frank Stencil, a man who was awaiting sentencing in Ohio for breaking into a New York Central Railroad Station. Frank claimed killing Buddy by strangling him, but authorities, noting their track record, were much more sceptical this time around.

 Within a few weeks, Stencil changed his mind and recanted his confession. When he was interviewed by the authorities, he confessed to having crafted the story after reading about the eight-year-old's death. The press labelled both of these men as “morons.” 

Conclusion

 With no more suspects and no new evidence, Buddy's case came to a standstill. The local community had nothing new to offer, and the transient community, given the treatment they had received, had no interest in cooperating with the police. The case was eventually forgotten by newspapers and the public alike. Two years after their innocent son’s death, Arthur and Florence moved house and accepted their nephew into their home, raising him as a surrogate son.

 The Wauwatosa Police Department no longer has case records for the years before 1934, and everybody involved in the case has already met their demise. The whereabouts of the case's physical evidence, including the embroidered handkerchief, are unknown. These facts suggest that Little Buddy’s sexual assault and murder would remain trapped inside a cloud of mystery forever.

References