100 YEARS AGO

Mansion theft mystery

After a four-month stay at his summer home “Villa Crest” in Manchester-by-the- Sea, Mass., retired New Orleans attorney Walter D. Denegre found more than $20,000 (over a quarter million dollars in today’s money) worth of rare jewels and the steel-lined casket that contained them had been stolen during a well-attended reception at his mansion, where a corps of servants moved among nearly every room. He placed an ad in a Boston newspaper offering an extravagant reward of $10,000, owing to the jewels’ sentimental value, for their return, or a proportionate amount for partial returns.

Before long, the ad elicited a response from a man calling himself “M. Doris,” who wrote that he had the jewels and would return them if the $10,000 was sent in his name to the post office in Nassau, Rennselaer County. He demanded a personal ad be placed in an Albany and a Troy afternoon newspaper announcing the arrival of the registered letter. After some negotiations, a deal was struck for $5,000 in exchange for a portion of the missing valuables and the ad was placed with an arrival date listed for the letter.

Police from Massachusetts and New York, and Postal Service detectives staked out the Nassau office, as well as the two newspaper offices. The men grew tired of waiting by the day before Thanksgiving and all went home to celebrate the holiday. It was then that a mysterious woman carrying a large black bag arrived at the post office to collect the letter, but discovered it had already been returned to the sender.

— Times Union, Dec.6, 1920