Crime Immemorial

On March 8th, 1921, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the body of a young boy, aged between five and seven years old, was fished out of a pond near the O’Laughlin Stone Company, by a worker named John Brlich. The child had been killed by a blow to the head with a blunt object, and seemed to have been in the water for quite some time. He had brown eyes and blond hair, and was dressed in a manner that suggested his parents were quite affluent.

Investigators dubbed the boy “Little Lord Fauntleroy” due to his fancy clothing, but they were soon to learn that despite the child’s seemingly privileged upbringing, his family—whoever they were—appeared content to let the boy remain anonymous in death.

Descriptions of the child immediately began to circulate, but no one came forward to claim him. Police even displayed the body at a local funeral home for several days, and offered a reward of $1,000 for any information about the boy’s identity, but weirdly, there were no takers. It was as though Little Lord Fauntleroy had slipped in from another dimension, only to meet a lonely fate far away from anyone who once knew him.

The only real clue ever brought forth in the case was the statement made by an employee of the O’Laughlin Stone Company, who claimed that a couple had come to the business more than a month before the child’s body was pulled out of the nearby quarry. This couple, the witness reported, had asked if anyone had seen a little boy, and had seemed very upset. Additionally, the man—perhaps Little Lord Fauntleroy’s father—was noticed to scan the area around the quarry, as though looking for something. This couple left in their vehicle shortly afterward, and were never located. It was speculated by some investigators that perhaps the dead boy had been kidnapped for ransom, and his kidnappers had informed his parents that the child would be near the quarry. This does not explain why this same couple did not come forward later to identify the boy, however.

There was subsequently a report that the woman who had asked about the child had committed suicide by jumping into the same quarry where the boy’s body had been found, but a thorough search of the pond turned up nothing.

There was also a possible lead in the form of a man from Chicago named J.B. Belson, who thought the child might be his nephew, and that the murderer could possibly be his sister’s ex-husband, who had allegedly threatened to kill her two children on numerous occasions. This story was summarily looked into, but likewise went nowhere.

In 1949, authorities speculated that the boy might be six-year-old Homer Lemay, who had disappeared right around the same time that Little Lord Fauntleroy was murdered.

Homer’s father, Edmond, claimed that Homer had been adopted by a Chicago couple called the Nortons, and that the Nortons and Homer were vacationing in Argentina when the child was killed in a car accident. Edmond Lemay further asserted that he wasn’t aware of his son’s death until he was sent an article about the crash in a newspaper. Investigators found this story suspicious, especially considering that Edmond’s wife had also vanished and Edmond had been caught forging her signature. Further, police were never able to track down the Nortons, and found no record of the accident which had supposedly killed Homer Lemay. Though Edmond was placed on trial for the forgery, he was acquitted, and detectives were never able to conclusively connect him with the disappearance of his son, or link Homer Lemay with Little Lord Fauntleroy.

A local Waukesha woman named Minnie Conrad managed to raise enough money to bury the unknown child, and even took it upon herself to take care of the boy’s grave until her own death, at which point she was buried in the very same cemetery. Over the years, it was reported that another woman concealing her face with a veil would occasionally come and leave flowers on Little Lord Fauntleroy’s grave. This woman has never been identified, and to this day, the name of the little murdered blond boy with the expensive outfit has never been determined.