In 1940, a mystery took over a community near Port Angeles, Washington, when a mysterious woman surfaced from the waters of Lake Crescent. Identifying her took incredible attention to detail, and innovation.
On July 6th, 1940, two fishermen set out on Lake Crescent in the Olympic National Park for a relaxing day of fishing and boating. As they set out on the lake, they encountered a bundle of blankets, wrapped in ropes. Suspicious as to what the bundle was, the fishermen proceeded to alert the authorities.
It didn’t take long for the bundle of blankets to be fished out of the lake, and for the authorities to determine that they were looking at the body of a woman. The woman’s face was entirely unrecognizable, though her body hadn’t yet decomposed, showing marks of strangulation around her neck.
The mystery overtook the community, and they soon dubbed the woman “The Lady of the Lake”.
When the body was taken for autopsy in Port Angeles, Harlan McNutt, a medical student, made a fascinating discovery.
“The Lady of the Lake” had flesh that resembled something like Ivory Soap. In a process known as “saponification”, minerals from the lake had interacted with the fats of the woman’s body. This turned her skin into a putty-like substance, resembling soap. Her body had also essentially been refrigerated for the time she had been in the lake, due to the water’s near-freezing temperatures.
McNutt also noticed that due to her hands and face being exposed, the woman was missing portions of her face, making her unidentifiable through visual means. The woman was also missing her fingertips, making fingerprint identification also impossible.
While it was very apparent that the woman had been beaten and strangled, there was precious little else that could be used to determine who this woman had been in life.
It took about a year, but finally, investigators were able to find something.
McNutt did not want to give up on discovering the identity of “The Lady of the Lake”. He kept searching for clues, and eventually, he came across something truly fascinating. In searching the woman’s mouth, he found that she had a very distinctive upper dental plate.
As news of this discovery went through the official channels, a dentist in South Dakota answered the call. He identified his work, and indicated that he had made the dental plate for a woman by the name of Hallie Illingworth.
Hallie hd been born on January 8th, 1901 in Greenville, Kentucky. As an adult, Hallie moved frequently in search of better job opportunities, and a better life.
In 1935, after two failed marriages, Hallie moved into Port Angeles, Washington, and worked at the Lake Crescent Tavern, now known as the Lake Crescent Lodge. She was known to get along with the community, and she was well known around the Port Angeles area for being amicable, and hard-working.
While at work, Hallie made the acquaintance of beer truck driver Montgomery “Monty” Illingworth. Monty was known as a brutish ladies man, but he caught Hallie’s eye as he often made beer deliveries to the tavern.
On June 16th, 1936, the two married. It was known by most of Hallie’s friends and coworkers that the marriage was very volatile. Hallie would often report to work sporting bruises on her face and arms. Five short months into the marriage, the police had been called to their home to break up a fierce fight the couple were having that had grown violent.
In the late-night to early-morning hours of December 21st and 22nd, 1937, Hallie Illingworth disappeared. Suspicion immediately fell on Monty, but he simply told those who were suspicious that Hallie had run off with another man, leaving him high and dry. While few believed his story, it was incredibly difficult to refute.
The longer Hallie went without sending word to her family, the more they believed that Monty had done something to her. But they were never able to find the proof.
In 1938, Monty was granted a divorce in-absentia, and left Washington for California. He brought his girlfriend with him, a young woman from Port Angeles. The community highly suspected that Monty had been seeing this woman long before Hallie disappeared.
When the identity of “The Lady of the Lake” was revealed, Hallie’s friends, family, and coworkers felt vindicated in their suspicions of Monty. While there was still the matter of a burden of proof, it seemed the most likely explanation for what happened to Hallie was that Monty had murdered her in a fit of rage, did away with her body, and then ran off with his young girlfriend.
Monty Illingworth was found living in Long Beach, California, now married. He was arrested on October 26th, 1941, and taken into custody by Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies. He was then charged with murder, and extradited from California to Port Angeles, Washington, to face trial for the murder of his wife, Hallie Illingworth.
On February 24th, 1942, the trial of Monty Illingworth began in Clallam County Superior Court. The community was so interested in the trial, it competed heavily with news from the frontlines of WWII.
The defense stated that there was no way the woman who had been found in Lake Crescent was Hallie. Illingworth testified that Hallie had been alive the last time he’d seen her, and that she had run off with another man.
The prosecution refuted this claim. The dentist from South Dakota was able to positively identify the distinctive dental plate he’d created, and he stated that he had placed it in the upper portion of Hallie’s mouth. Friends and coworkers were also able to positively identify the clothing that had been found as belonging to Hallie, and that they’d seen her wear the clothing before.
Despite the strong witness and dental evidence, it was a literal rope that figuratively hung Monty Illingworth.
When Hallie had been found in the lake, she had been bundled in blankets, and tied with rope. A shopkeeper remembered Monty taking approximately 50 feet of the rope, and the store still had some in stock. The fibres from the shopkeeper’s store matched the fibres of the rope used to tie Hallie.
It was theorized that Monty had murdered his wife in a fit of passion. The theory went that they probably started arguing, and Monty had taken his rage out on his wife to its extreme. He then made attempts to hide his crime by disposing of her body in the lake, believing that it would never resurface.
On March 5th, 1942, after four hours of deliberation, the jury found Monty Illingworth guilty of second-degree murder. He was given a life sentence, to be served at the Washington State Prison.
Monty Illingworth served nine years in prison, before being paroled in 1951. He returned to California, where he passed in November of 1974.
The mystery of “The Lady of the Lake” overtook the Port Angeles community of Washington for a number of years. With the perseverance of a young medical student, and a community determined to see justice done, Hallie’s brute of a murderer was held responsible for his crimes.
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Sources:
Did you know?This beloved Washington lake once turned a woman into soap – curiocity.com
Lady of the Lake – Mavis Amundson – historylink.org
Three years in a freezing lake turned a woman’s flesh to soap, but her thug husband didn’t get away with his crime – E. L. Hamilton – The Vintage News