Alice Crimmins

I saw her mentioned in the current [italic]Looking for Mr. Goodbar[/italic] discussion and thought I'd start a new thread.

In 1965, her young son and daughter disappeared from her apartment and were later found dead. (At the time, she was in the middle of divorcing her husband.) She was convicted of manslaughter twice in the death of her daughter; between those convictions, she was convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of both children, but that conviction was overturned. She is apparently still alive, but her whereabouts have been largely unknown since she was paroled in 1977. Many believe she was convicted solely on the basis of her sex life and her bad-girl fashion sense (that's her on the right below).

The case inspired the 1978 TV movie [italic]A Question of Guilt,[/italic] starring Miss Tuesday Weld. The 1977 bestseller [italic]The Investigation,[/italic] by crime novelist Dorothy Uhnak, had many parallels to the Crimmins case, but Uhnak always vociferously denied that she used it as inspiration. John Waters loved her slatternly sense of personal style and gave her a mention in [italic]Female Trouble.[/italic]

Her case also inspired the first Mary Higgins Clark bestseller, [italic]Where Are the Children?[/italic]

John Waters is obsessed with her and can talk about her for hours.

The Alice Crimmins case was so crazy because she was clearly prosecuted entirely on the basis of being what at the time was thought to be "a bad mother" (which meant being promiscuous), which is how she kept getting convictions for Eddie's death reversed, and how she got the first major conviction for Missy's death reversed. But that still doesn't mean she didn't do it (although it would be hard to think of a real motive for doing so).

I vaguely remember when this was happening. Back then a mother killing her children was unheard of. How sad is it that nowadays it wouldnt be so shocking.

[quote]John Waters is obsessed with her and can talk about her for hours.

Wasn't "Remember Alice Crimmins?" the line Donna Dasher uses to encourage Dawn to kill Taffy in Female Trouble?

Yeah, well, I know a woman who used to bring her dates back to her apartment after her young son fell asleep. That’s just poor judgment. Get your pussy filled in a hotel or his place; don’t bring strange men anywhere near your kid.

Am I the only one?

Thanks for posting this, OP. I couldn’t remember her name. Why didn’t she just let the husband have the kids? I have to re-research this one.

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