Crime Immemorial

It was the evening of Sunday, January 21st, 1962. The Maps family—thirty-nine-year-old artist Edward, his twenty-two-year-old wife Christine, and the couple’s four-month-old daughter Julie Louise—had been visiting with their neighbors since about eight-thirty p.m., eating an apple pie they had brought and having a pleasant chat. They left at a little past nine p.m. so they could put the baby to bed for the night, and all were evidently in high spirits.

Nearly two hours later, police and firefighters were called to the Maps home at 510 Sarah Street. Flames were dancing in every single window of the residence, and officers were forced to break down the back door to gain entry, as the entire house had been locked up tight.

Inside, they discovered the bloody, burned form of Christine Maps. Her skull had been fractured in several places, and she was holding a cloth diaper up to her head in order to staunch the bleeding. Baby Julie Louise was found wrapped in a blanket in her crib, her tiny face turning blue from smoke inhalation.

Both victims were quickly removed from the burning dwelling and taken to the nearest hospital, though the infant was pronounced dead on arrival. Christine Maps passed away at approximately two-forty a.m. on January 22nd.

Only three hours after authorities responded to the fire, and shortly before Christine Maps was pronounced dead, a warrant was issued for her missing husband, Edward Maps, who it was presumed had killed his wife by bludgeoning her in the head with a blunt instrument before setting the house on fire to conceal his crime. It certainly seemed an open-and-shut case, though several mystifying details would emerge as the investigation progressed.

It appeared that Christine had been struck from behind at least three times as she was changing the baby’s diaper in a room just off the kitchen. The gas stove had been turned on to four-hundred-fifty degrees, and the oven door was left open. The perpetrator had then set fire to several piles of papers and clothing around the house; authorities also recovered two boxes of sulfur and a brass part from a kerosene lamp. All of the home’s windows were closed, however, leading to several of the small blazes evidently going out on their own before firefighters arrived.

Near where Christine had fallen, detectives recovered a plate smeared with animal blood and a woman’s ice skate covered with animal fur. The Maps’ reportedly did not have any pets, and investigators were unable to determine where the blood and fur had come from.

Even weirder, a letter was recovered from the crime scene, which had apparently been written by Christine and addressed to her baby daughter. It read, “Dear Julie Louise, We are still alive, but the day goes badly. I still feel the squirrel cage fantasy and baseless. Edward says you are the base but that is unfair to you, although much of my work concerns you.”

Deepening the mystery even further was the question of what had ultimately become of prime suspect Edward Maps. Police found his wallet and other personal belongings left behind in the burned family home; all of his sculptures had been smashed; and both of the family’s vehicles were still in the garage. No buses or taxis ran in the small Pennsylvania town at that time of night, so how exactly had Edward gotten away so quickly?

Two days later, the case took an even more curious turn. On the morning of January 23rd at around eight a.m., a friend of the family, Henry Evans, told police that he received a phone call from someone who he was certain was Edward Maps. According to Evans, the caller had said, “When you see Bob, I want you to tell him that I forgive him.” Bob, in this case, was likely referring to Robert Wolbach, Christine’s father.

Evans then told investigators that he had tried to convince Edward Maps to turn himself in, but that Edward had answered, “I can’t do that. I have too many things to do.” The caller then reportedly told the witness to give his love to Julia—which could have referred either to Julie Louise or to Christine’s mother, who was also named Julia—and hung up. If indeed this caller was Edward Maps, no one ever saw or heard from him again.

Though detectives searched high and low for their sole suspect, following up on alleged sightings of him as far away as London, England, no trace of him was ever found, even though he was featured on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list until 1967. Finally, in late 1971, Maps was declared dead. His whereabouts in the years following the murder were never determined, and it remains unknown whether he is still alive, though as of this writing, it seems unlikely, as he would be more than a century old.

Although it does not appear that police ever suspected anyone other than Edward Maps of murdering his wife and daughter, there is some circumstantial evidence that may point to a different killer entirely: Christine’s father, Robert Wolbach.

Edward Maps, it should be noted, was far from a beloved addition to Christine’s family. The thirty-nine-year-old Edward was an artist and a known eccentric who dressed like a beatnik and never seemed to work for a living, leading his father-in-law to presume that he was a lazy sponger who expected a free ride.

Only after his disappearance was it discovered that Edward actually had a very large trust fund provided for him by his own wealthy father, and it was this fund that he used to support his family while he pursued his artistic ambitions.
Edward had been a Marine and had served in World War II, but developed severe emotional problems after his service, and was thought to be suffering from schizophrenia. Despite his nonconformity and the hostility shown to him by his father-in-law, however, the majority of the Maps’ friends and other family members described Edward as an intelligent, funny, sensitive, and loving husband and father who never quarreled with anyone, and who would die before harming Christine or Julie Louise. Several of them later went on record as stating that they would never believe that Edward could have slaughtered his family.

On the other hand, Robert Wolbach’s animosity toward his son-in-law reportedly began even before Edward and Christine had married, but escalated perilously afterward. Shortly following the wedding, the Maps’ had moved into an apartment that was owned by Christine’s parents, and Robert Wolbach was mightily irritated by his perception that Edward acted like he owned the place. He was also annoyed that his wife Julia wanted to loan money to Christine and Edward to help them put a down payment on a house of their own.

In October of 1961, there had evidently been an altercation between the two men. Edward Maps had apparently complained about some trivial matter in the apartment, and Robert Wolbach—by his own admission—had slapped him, threatened to kill him, and then told him that he had to be out of the property by November 3rd. The Maps’ did move out of the apartment and into their own home, and soon after, the Wolbachs divorced, with Robert returning to New York City and Julia staying in Pennsylvania to be near her daughter and granddaughter.

Significantly, Julia claimed that the main reason for the divorce was that her husband was abusive and mentally ill, and had threatened to kill her on more than one occasion. He was apparently also convinced that Julia was having an affair with Edward, a charge which she vehemently denied; in fact, Robert Wolbach proclaimed often and openly that he blamed Edward Maps for the dissolution of his marriage.

Despite Julia’s denials regarding the affair, detectives did search Julia’s home and interrogate her several times concerning Edward’s whereabouts after the fire, though no evidence was found to suggest that she knew where he had gone.

Besides Robert Wolbach’s well-documented hatred of Edward Maps and his allegedly abusive behavior, a few other tantalizing clues hinted that Wolbach probably should have been more stringently investigated for the murders. Firstly, the neighbors who the Maps’ had been visiting on the evening that Christine and Julia Louise were killed stated that Edward Maps had specifically told them that he hoped Robert Wolbach wouldn’t come by later and cause trouble. The Wolbachs’ property, furthermore, was only a few yards away from the Maps’ home, across an alley.

Secondly, although Robert Wolbach supposedly had an airtight alibi for the time his daughter and granddaughter were murdered—he was reportedly on an Alaska Airlines flight bound for New York City from Miami when the fire occurred—there were some damning discrepancies concerning this story.

Alaska Airlines, for example, told the FBI that they had not had a flight leaving Miami at any time on January 21st. Further, although Wolbach claimed he had checked into the Chesterfield Hotel in New York City at three-fifteen a.m., hotel employees stated that he had not checked into the hotel by four a.m., and there were suggestions that he didn’t arrive there until perhaps eight a.m. on January 22nd.

Judging by these details, it seems entirely possible that Robert Wolbach killed his daughter and set the fire, then took a different flight to New York City, checking into his regular hotel much later than he told police. Notably, in 1962, showing identification to purchase an airline ticket was not a requirement, so the mere fact that he had indeed bought a ticket on a flight from Miami to New York on the date in question does not mean that he was even in Miami at the time, and there was no way of knowing what flight he did board on that date, if any.

Oddly, it does not appear that these inconsistencies were ever followed up on by investigators, and indeed, Robert Wolbach was not even interviewed by the FBI until three weeks after the murders. The large farm that Wolbach owned at the time was likewise never searched, and some researchers believe that Wolbach might have also murdered Edward Maps and buried the body somewhere on the sprawling property.

And in an eerie touch, an unidentified person left flowers on the graves of Christine and Julie Louise Maps in 1966, on the day before Edward and Christine’s wedding anniversary.

The strange saga of the Maps murders still haunts the town of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, and to this day, endless questions remain. The whereabouts of Edward Maps were never established, nor was the extent of his complicity in the crime, or the reasons why the FBI inexplicably removed him from their Most Wanted list four years before he was declared dead. Sources also state that the fugitive report on Edward Maps was destroyed by the FBI in 1977, though again, no particular reason was given for this action.

Robert Wolbach was never investigated for the double homicide, and has passed away, as has his former wife Julia. No other information on the crime has been forthcoming, and neither Christine Maps nor her baby daughter Julie Louise has received justice for their horrible fates.