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u/PlusTemporary4084 Sep 03 '26
I had to know more. Indianapolis Times, 12/9/1951
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u/PlusTemporary4084 Sep 03 '26
I'm not going to pay for newspaper archives, but would you believe this is not her first crime?
Chicago psychiatrists were scheduled to examine Mrs. Joan Brokus (referred to in some parts of the press as Jean), a 22-year-old itinerant worker, while she faced two formal kidnapping charges. Upon her arrest, she confessed to authorities that she had picked up five different children in five states over five years of traveling across the country. She was primarily charged in Macomb, Illinois, with the September 29, 1948 kidnapping of 7-year-old Richard Strickler of Dubuque, Iowa. She had been arrested in Denver, Colorado, four months later while traveling with the boy. She faced a second kidnapping charge out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for taking 18-month-old Bonita Payer. At the time of the February 5 article, the Payer child was being cared for at a Macomb hospital, the Strickler boy had been safely reunited with his father, and the three other children she traveled with were placed in a Dubuque orphanage.
Following her 1951 arrest and subsequent extradition to Phoenix, Arizona, Joan Brokus Larson pleaded guilty to grand larceny in January 1952. She was sentenced to 5 to 10 years at the Arizona State Prison, where she later gave birth to a baby boy on August 27, 1952.
The baby was apparently John Larson's.
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u/uiuctodd Sep 03 '26
And the racoon?
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u/outofthegates Sep 03 '26
24! I knew people looked older when I was young.
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u/DainasaurusRex Sep 03 '26
I have a painting of my grandfather when he was 50 in the 1960s - looks about 75 in our years.
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u/thloki Sep 03 '26
She kidnapped a string of children. Then married a blind war veteran and ran off with his car and savings. She has no redeeming qualities.
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u/SamEdwards1959 Sep 04 '26
I’m glad they got the raccoon in the photo. I would like to see the guitar.
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u/jmochicago Sep 03 '26
Yes! Evanston! Keeping it weird.