cultural constant

When children are stolen from their beds while a family sleeps, then viciously murdered like little Judith Ann Roberts or JonBenet Ramsey, the public outrage, media coverage and accusations aplenty hasn't changed - -

Museum exhibit to explore history, impact of crime in Miami

Published in the Miami Herald
BY LUISA YANEZ

"...Another high-profile criminal case featured in the exhibit is the still-unsolved 1954 killing of 6-year-old Judith Ann Roberts.

It began with an intruder breaking into the home of the little girl's grandparents in what is now ,. Her kidnapper took her from a living room bed, where she slept with her sister during a family vacation from Baltimore.

By sunrise, her body was found on a desolate road in Coconut Grove. She had been beaten, strangled and sexually abused.

Judith Ann's murder was the first Miami child slaying to receive intense media attention -- an earlier version of the infamous JonBenet Ramsey case. In the next few months, everyone from the little girl's father, to homeless men, to the little girl's grandfather were blamed.

The lead detective, Irving Whitman, who lives in Miami-Dade, is expected to attend Thursday's exhibit opening. ``I've never forgotten this case,'' said Whitman, who is 88 and still hopes the murder will be solved one day."[...read more]

unbelievable

Stories of years ago unsolved brutal murders similar to JonBenet's seem to be cycling again lately. This one, the sexual assault and murder of little 6 year old Judith Ann Roberts who like JonBenet was taken from her bed in the middle of the night is covered in NPR contributor's Stacy Horn's March release of her new book about Joseph Banks Rhine and the parapsychology lab at Duke University, titled Unbelievable--


Cold Cases and Psychics
By Stacy Horn
March 19th, 2009

"...From a Miami Herald article by Luisa Yanez: “An intruder breaks into a Miami home late at night and kidnaps a 6-year-old girl from her bed. Within hours, her body is dumped on a desolate road in Coconut Grove. She had been beaten, strangled and sexually molested. The 1954 murder of Judith Ann Roberts, just a month before her seventh birthday, was Miami’s first media-soaked, high-profile murder of a child. Call it South Florida’s version of today’s JonBenet Ramsey murder mystery. The abduction and slaying of a little girl visiting her grandparents rocked small-town Miami, where folks until then thought nothing of leaving their doors unlocked at night. Across the country, headlines trumpeted news of a sex maniac on the prowl in sunny Miami.”

Peter Hurkos said he’d crack Judith’s case within two weeks, but fifty years later Judith Ann Roberts’ murder is still unsolved and under investigation by Detective Andy Arostegui of the Miami Cold Case Squad."