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throwing her in a car. She claimed to<br />
remember nothing from that point<br />
until she found herself at the hospital.<br />
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported her<br />
claims that her hands and feet were tied<br />
when she was ditched from the car. Her<br />
stomach was pumped at the hospital for<br />
traces of poison, but nothing was found.<br />
Local police commented on a “highly<br />
nervous” Anna, stating she went to the<br />
hospital voluntarily. A week later Anna<br />
confessed that the kidnapping was a<br />
ruse. And she had something else to<br />
say:<br />
“I’m ready and willing to tell what I<br />
know of the case, if the state of New York<br />
is willing to take me up to Windham<br />
and let me talk… My statement is ready<br />
if they are ready to hear it now.”<br />
A full year after the murder only<br />
one short article appeared in the New<br />
York Daily News reporting that the state<br />
<strong>Suspense</strong><strong>Magazine</strong>.com<br />
Attorney General’s office was hoping to<br />
finally solve the Rothenberg murder.<br />
There it ended.<br />
Newspapers lost interest in the<br />
story of Howard Rothenberg, local<br />
chatter faded as life returned to normal<br />
in Windham. Summers came and went,<br />
filling boarding houses with vacationers.<br />
Over the decades, the boarding houses<br />
declined and the popular season on the<br />
mountaintop went from summer to<br />
winter as skiing became the primary<br />
vacation industry. Spending weeks in<br />
the country became passé and more<br />
exotic vacation destinations were easily<br />
made accessible by air travel.<br />
The Branaugh family left the<br />
county and the boarding house became<br />
a private residence. The sawmill near<br />
where Howard’s body was discovered<br />
became a VFW lodge.<br />
The trail of Charles and Rose, Esther,<br />
and Anna went cold. They moved on<br />
with their lives. Rumors circulated that<br />
the Rothenberg marriage eventually<br />
ended.<br />
In 1991, the NYS Department of<br />
Law searched their files and found no<br />
record at all of the Rothenberg case.<br />
They stated that perhaps the attorney<br />
general at the time never had custody<br />
of the case files since most of the case<br />
was based on rumor. Greene County<br />
courts also have no files on the case.<br />
Except for old newspaper clippings,<br />
faded photographs and stories passed<br />
down through local family members,<br />
and a medical death certificate, it’s as<br />
if the murder never happened. But<br />
it did. The proof is the tiny grave of a<br />
forever young boy sleeping eternally in<br />
a Newark cemetery. <br />
75
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