Little Lord Fauntleroy (murder victim)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Little Lord Fauntleroy is the nickname for an unidentified American boy found murdered in
Waukesha, Wisconsin Waukesha ( ) is the county seat of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. Its population was 71,158 at the 2020 census. The city is adjacent to the Village of Waukesha. History The area tha ...
, in 1921.


Discovery

On March 8, 1921, the remains of a boy were found floating in a
pond A pond is an area filled with water, either natural or artificial, that is smaller than a lake. Defining them to be less than in area, less than deep, and with less than 30% emergent vegetation helps in distinguishing their ecology from ...
near the O'Laughlin Stone Company in
Waukesha, Wisconsin Waukesha ( ) is the county seat of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. Its population was 71,158 at the 2020 census. The city is adjacent to the Village of Waukesha. History The area tha ...
. Authorities estimated he was between five and seven years old. He had blond hair, brown eyes and a tooth missing from his lower jaw. He had been struck with a blunt instrument. The boy could have been in the water for several months. He was dressed in a gray sweater, Munsing underwear, black stockings, a blouse and
patent leather Patent leather is a type of coated leather that has a high-gloss finish. The coating process was introduced to the United States and improved by inventor Seth Boyden, of Newark, New Jersey, in 1818, with commercial manufacture beginning Septe ...
shoes; the clothing quality suggested the child was from an affluent family. Police displayed his body at a local funeral home, trying to identify him; no one claimed the body. The boy was buried on March 17, 1921.


Investigation

An employee of the O'Laughlin company said he had been approached by a couple five weeks before the body was found. The woman, who wore a red sweater, asked if he had seen a young boy in the area. She was reportedly crying. The man accompanying her was seen watching the area where the child was located. They later left in a
Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...
vehicle and have never been found. A possible scenario for the case is that Little Lord Fauntleroy may have been abducted from a wealthy family in another location and disposed of somewhere else to prevent his identification. After the investigation halted, money was raised by a local woman, Minnie Conrad, for the child to be buried at Prairie Home Cemetery in Waukesha. She was buried in the same cemetery in 1940 after she died at the age of seventy-three. There were sightings of a woman, wearing a heavy veil, who would occasionally place flowers on the boy's
grave A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as grav ...
. Some have speculated that this woman knew the actual identity of Little Lord Fauntleroy.


Homer Lemay

In 1949, a medical examiner from
Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
, Wisconsin, suggested that investigators felt there may have been a connection between the unidentified boy and Homer Lemay, a six-year-old who disappeared around the same time the child died. Lemay was said by his father, Edmond, to have died in a vehicle accident during a trip to South America when he was being cared for by family friends (described as the "Nortons"), but there was no existing record of his death. Edmond Lemay stated that he learned of his son's death after receiving information from a South American newspaper that detailed the accident. He also was accused of falsifying his wife's signature while she was missing, but was later found not guilty. Detectives were unable to find any information about such an event or even the existence of the two Nortons.


See also

*
List of unsolved murders These lists of unsolved murders include notable cases where victims were murdered in unknown circumstances. * List of unsolved murders (before 1900) * List of unsolved murders (1900–1979) * List of unsolved murders (1980–1999) * List of u ...
*
Little Lord Fauntleroy ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was published as a serial in ''St. Nicholas Magazine'' from November 1885 to October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's (the publisher of ''St. Nicholas'') in 1886. The ill ...


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fauntleroy, Little Lord 1910s births 1921 deaths Deaths by beating in the United States Incidents of violence against boys March 1921 events Child murder in the United States People murdered in Wisconsin People from Waukesha, Wisconsin Unidentified American children Unidentified murder victims in Wisconsin Unsolved murders in the United States 1921 in Wisconsin