Dorothy Arnold - Investigation

Investigation

The Arnolds feared that the case could be socially embarrassing — Arnold had eloped and spent a week with George Griscom, Jr., a month before. Instead of calling the police, they made discreet enquiries through John S. Keith, a family friend, and hired Pinkerton detectives to investigate the disappearance. Keith searched hospitals, morgues and jails in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia for three weeks until giving up.

The Arnold family turned to police six weeks after their daughter had disappeared. In a press conference, Francis Arnold said he believed that Arnold might have been attacked and killed in Central Park and her body thrown into the reservoir. Although he refused to mention Griscom's name, journalists tracked him down.

Griscom, who was in Naples at the time, sent a telegram where he stated that he did not know where Arnold was. In January 1911 Arnold's mother and her brother John travelled to Italy to forcibly interrogate him, without results. Griscom could only hand over a letter where Arnold had mentioned her depression over a story she had written and which had been rejected by a magazine. Intrigued by the disappearance, and probably to quell any suspicions he might have something to do with it, Griscom later spent thousands of dollars searching for Arnold — without results. He paid for ads in major newspapers asking her to come home.