Rockport MA is a quaint New England town where tourists shop on Bearskin Neck, unaware of the horrors that happened almost a century ago.
On May 21, 1932, Rudolph Oker went to his father’s Rockport shop and found him on the floor in a pool of blood with his skull cracked open. Arthur Oker’s safe and his pockets had been emptied. Suspicion quickly centered on a man with a brown coat and straw hat who had been seen in the store and walking away a few minutes before the murder, but the suspect was never found.
A year and a half later on Oct. 31, Swedish immigrant Mrs. Augusta Johnson announced at a church gathering that she had additional evidence and was going to the police. She never got the chance. At 8:20 a.m. the following morning, a neighbor saw smoke coming from the second floor of her home, where Augusta Johnson was found dead on her bed engulfed in flames. Her skull had been cracked in the same manner as Authur Okers.
Residents became terrified. Households were searched, a reward was posted, and a mystic volunteered her services. Men purchased guns, families adopted guard dogs, and mothers stayed locked in their homes with their children. The State brought in four detectives and 35 state troopers to investigate the crimes. False leads abounded, and members of the community began suspecting each other. The investigation spread far and wide. Police pulled over a couple of men from Ipswich who were inexplicably driving the widow Oker’s car. Miss Madeline Gautreau died suddenly from arsenic poisoning at an Ipswich tourist camp. To this day some people say they know who the killer was but are unwilling to come forward.
In their book, “Murder in Rockport, Massachusetts, Terror in a Small Town”, Local authors Robert Fitzgibbon and Wayne Soini reveal long-lost details about the crime, the investigation, and a surprise suspect from the state police archives.
Further Reading: Rockport: Whatever You Say, Say Nothing by Rob Fitzgibbon
Historic Ipswich 