In 1928, Winnipeg was still reeling and recovering. It was still recovering from WWI, as well as the 1919 General Strike, and the repeal of the prohibition of alcohol. Winnipeg was in recovery. For one family, a nightmare was just beginning.
Born to immigrant parents, Julia Johnson was a pretty five year old girl. She was seen wearing “red and black dress, black shoes, fawn-coloured stockings, and a brown toque. She weighed about forty pounds, had blue eyes, and dark brown hair.”
On April 25th, 1928, Julia was waiting for a friend to return home from school. She wanted to play. Though she was described as shy, Julia was often seen running up and down Austin Street with the other children, laughing and playing. Behind her home stood an abandoned building – the Green River Building at 187 Sutherland Avenue. The children were repeatedly warned not to go play there, as it could be dangerous.
These warnings often came from Mr. Taplinsky, the blacksmith who rented the lot between the Green River Building and the back of the Johnson home. He was often seen warning the children away from his shop and his wagons. On that very day, he’d seen Julia around 2PM and warned her not to play too close to his smithy. She heeded his warning.
Going back to her home, Julia was seen by a neighbour and her son playing with a tennis ball. Another neighbour, Pauline Kral, called out to Julia around 3:50PM. Julia was waiting for Pauline’s daughter to return home from school so they could play together.
Five minutes later, Alfred Kral, Pauline’s son, asked his mother if she’d seen Julia. She replied she’d just seen the girl five minutes prior. She went outside with her son and found a frantic and panicked Mrs. Johnson. In the five minutes that Pauline had seen Julia, the girl had vanished. The police at the Rupert Street Station were called.
Pauline, Alfred, and many other neighbours quickly started searching. Mrs. Johnson didn’t think Julia would have gone far by herself – she was shy and nervous in nature, and she didn’t like being alone for too long.
Julia’s brother John and Constable McKim went around asking neighbours about where Julia might be. They checked in with Mr. Taplinsky at the smithy, who told them about seeing Julia around 2PM. He also mentioned that the children sometimes tried to sneak into the abandoned building. John and Constable McKim went looking around the Green River Building, but they found it locked up tight and didn’t notice anything unusual.
As night approached, the neighbours soon called off their search. Everyone was hopeful that Julia would return home – it was getting dark and she was likely hungry. As the neighbours went back to their own homes and their own families, Mrs. Johnson was left to her own devices. Even with police continuing to patrol the area, she was left with very little reassurance.
There was no sign of Julia the following day. An investigative team from North End “E” Division was set up. The team included Inspector R. R. MacDonald, who was in charge of the division, Chief of Detectives George Smith, Sergeant of Detectives Fred Batho, Detective Sergeant Charles McIver, and Detective Alex Kolomic.
They set about going door to door, asking neighbours to repeat their previous statements and searching homes. All of the neighbours were cooperative. The investigative team knew that Julia couldn’t have gotten far – five minutes was not a lot of time to vanish, to take off, or be taken by force.
Still, they ensured that their search was thorough. They searched “homes, fields, forests, and sewers. A trained police dog sniffed around Julia’s home but found no leads. Police questioned neighbours, transients, and known ‘deviants’.”
A new lead did come forward during the searches. A few neighbours noticed an older man, between the ages of 45 and 65, walking around the street trying to talk to children. He was described as wearing dark clothing, and had an unshaven appearance.
The neighbours who’d seen the man were asked to view a gallery of photos at the Rupert Street Station. Every suspect that the witnesses identified were located and brought in for questioning. Each suspect was then eliminated. This mysterious old man was never officially identified, and he was never found. It seemed as if Julia’s trail was growing as frigid as a Winnipeg winter.
Seeing as the papers had started catching wind of the story, the Johnsons and the police decided it might be in their best interest to ask for help. The family, though financially unstable, offered up a $50 reward – a hefty sum of money in 1928. With the help of the Free Press, Winnipeg Tribune, Winnipeg Police Commission, and private donations, the reward was raised to $2000. With the promise of financial gain, the tips started pouring in.
Two weeks after Julia’s disappearance, tons of spiritualists, mediums, and others claiming to be such, made wild claims about Julia’s whereabouts. Some claimed that they’d had “visions of Julia being held in a pink house in Lockport”. Others claimed she’d been kept alive in a sewer. Other outrageous tales claimed Julia had been taken by occult groups for sacrifice, or that she’d been taken as a bride and was being groomed until she was old enough to marry and have children. Each new claim only proved one thing – these people were charlatans. And Mrs. Johnson was despairing.
Between the fiction, some fact was found. One legitimate tip led police to one neighbour. This neighbour hadn’t been involved in the original searches, but they’d discovered that he’d had a lengthy criminal record. He steadfastly refused to cooperate with police, which only made them more and more suspicious.
“In the summer of 1929, he faked his drowning in the Red River and ran away to Seattle, Washington. He was arrested in Washington and when his true identity was established, he expressed extreme concern about anyone in Winnipeg learning of his whereabouts. He was deported back to Canada and returned to Winnipeg. When questioned again he still refused to discuss the missing child.” He was released, and the police seemingly never spoke to him again. While frustrating for the family, they simply had no evidence, no matter how good of a suspect the man made.
Over the years, police kept searching, but nothing new came to light. It wasn’t until nine years later that some questions were answered.
On March 22nd, 1937, Wilfred Adams, a machinist, was checking out the Green River Building. It had been rented out by Muzeen & Blythe. Adams was tasked with readying the building for its new tenants. At 2PM on the 22nd, Adams was tasked with dismantling a boiler in the basement. He opened the boiler door and found the mummified body of a child and a tennis ball, preserved in the ashes. After nine long years, Julia Johnson had been found.
George Smith, who was now Chief Constable, and Charles McIver, now Deputy Chief, arrived at the Green River Building with Constables Watters and Linton, Detective Sergeant Robert Hamilton, Detective Dave Nicholson, and Coroner Dr. H. M. Speechly in order to investigate. What they found was devastating.
“The body was fully clothed and lay bent in a U-shape so that the head and feet were almost touching. One shoe was off her foot. The ulna and radius bones were separated at one elbow. X-rays also showed that she had a fractured pelvis but nothing else. The neck was examined for signs of strangulation but nothing was found.” He cause of death was marked as ‘causes unknown’.
While the question of Julia’s whereabouts had been answered, one very big question remained: What in the world happened to Julia Johnson?
The Winnipeg Free Press reported that she’d obviously been shoved inside the boiler. Whoever had killed her had used a pole against her stomach to push her in after they’d done the deed. Police had found a long, rusted over pole beside the boiler.
The police re-opened the case, now ready to investigate a homicide rather than a missing child. Their first order of business was determining who had access to to the abandoned Green River Building. They set to work.
Police discovered that the last occupants of the building had been N. P. Beverage Company. It was owned by Walter Hamilton. As the business had closed, Hamilton had vacated the building on April 7th, 1928 – only 18 days before Julia had gone missing.
Police located Hamilton and inquired about who had access to the building after his business had closed down. He told them that there were two keys to the building, and John Godwin, as the rental manager of the building, had both keys.
Godwin was found living Toronto, and cooperated with police. He told them that he remembered the disappearance, and said that he’d gone to the building himself and was reassured that it had been secure and locked up tight. He had no idea how anyone could have gotten in without the key.
He went on to say that Taplinsky, of the smithy, had a key. He’d given it to the blacksmith so that he could let potential renters check out the building, as well as let in the meter readers. Godwin said that he’d seen the key on a nail on the doorpost – he’d used it multiple times himself. He was sure that the key was there on the day that Julia went missing.
Following that lead, police found the man who was the Manitoba Hydro meter reader for 1928 and interrogated him. He informed them that Abraham Bulstein, Taplinsky’s business partner, had given him the key to enter the building and read the meters, and then he’d put it back where it belonged when his job was done.
Detective Sergeant Hamilton and Detective Nicholson brought Bulstein and Taplinsky into the Rupert Street Station on April 8th, 1937 for questioning. They were also joined by Deputy Chief McIver.
Taplinsky reiterated that he’d seen Julia around 2PM, warned her away from the building, and that was the last he’d seen of her. He flabbergasted the police by denying that he had any such key to the Green River Building. He was pressured on this point, but he became very nervous and he began to cry. He continued to maintain that the key had never been in his smithy, and he’d never seen it before. Getting nowhere, the police ended the interview, hoping for more answers from Bulstein.
They were out of luck. Bulstein denied ever having seen the key, and he denied ever being in possession of the key. He claimed that if they’d had the key, they would have given it to the police back in 1928 when Julia had first gone missing. Bulstein was also asked about Julia, but he denied ever having seen her that day.
Tracking down a former employee of Taplinsky’s, police were befuddled. The employee confirmed the existence of the key, and confirmed that it had been kept on a nail on the doorpost. However, he denied having any knowledge of what they key was for, and he denied having seen Julia on the day she disappeared.
The case stagnated, and eventually went cold. One by one, everyone involved with the mystery of Julia Johnson passed on. No one knows why the blacksmiths lied to police. And no one knows who the mysterious old man was.
91 years later, we know where Julia had been for nine years. But one question still remains – What happened to Julia Johnson on April 25th, 1928?
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Sources:
The Julia Johnson Mystery – Patrol Sergeant Mark Hodgson – Winnipeg Police Service Historical Stories
Little Julia Johnson – Robert A. Waters – Kidnapping, Murder, and Mayhem