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by Robert Fitzgibbon (Author)
Without reservation, she opened the door. Without hesitation, she hopped into the car, adjusting the skirt of her summer-weight navy blue suit to keep it unwrinkled as she sat down.
And just like that, 19-year-old Frances Cochran jumped into the void.
On July 17, 1941, in Lynn, Massachusetts, attractive nineteen-year-old Frances Cochran stepped off a commuter bus and into a mysterious black automobile. Three days later, police discovered her mutilated body in a Salem lovers' lane.
Her murder made national headlines on the eve of World War II. Investigators checked twelve thousand cars and interviewed almost two thousand witnesses. They scrutinized a "Peeping Tom" men's club. Despite leads that spanned the continent, decades passed and the killer was never caught. Like a poisonous vine, the death of Frances Cochran is tangled with other unsolved murders, including the 1947 Los Angeles Black Dahlia case.
As local author Rob Fitzgibbon reveals, it is also a story shrouded in the "Salem Factor," the odd and inexplicable coincidences that occur in an area notorious for witchcraft and hauntings.
Author Biography
Robert Fitzgibbon is a software professional and North Shore resident. He coauthored Murder in Rockport Massachusetts (The History Press, 2025) with Gloucester historian Wayne Soini. Great-grandson of a Cape Ann quarryman, Rob delves into history for stories of the mysterious, the eerie, and the forgotten.
