In the final days before Christmas of 1944, a 28-year-old woman named Laura Fischer was staying at the De Soto Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. An Austrian native who had been living in New York as a textile worker, Laura's time in the vibrant city was cut tragically short. Her life ended in a crime that would soon be linked to a string of similar killings across the country, leaving a trail of violence that began in her hotel room.
On December 22, 1944, Laura Fischer was found drowned
in the bathtub of her room, number 722. The discovery was made by a chambermaid, a grim and sorrowful scene to stumble upon just before the holiday. It was immediately clear that this was no accident. Laura had been murdered, and her personal belongings, including her money and jewelry, were missing. The New Orleans police were faced with a homicide and robbery, a brutal act against a visitor to their city.
The investigation into Laura's death soon looked beyond the city limits of New Orleans. Authorities began to connect the case to a man who had recently made a brazen escape from a Michigan prison. His name was Joseph Dunbar Medley, a career criminal with a history of armed robbery. Less than a month before Laura's murder, on November 27, 1944, Medley had absconded from his trusted position as a prison clerk, stealing war bond funds raised by his fellow inmates. He fled to New Orleans and checked into the De Soto Hotel, the very place where Laura was staying.
Medley, who also used the alias Larry Fischer, did not remain in New Orleans. After killing Laura and robbing her, he traveled to Chicago. There, and later in Washington, D.C., he would kill again. His victims, including Laura, shared a chilling characteristic: they all had red hair. This pattern helped investigators link the "bathtub murders" in different states and intensified the nationwide hunt for the escaped convict. The FBI joined the search for the man who was now a suspected serial killer.
In March 1945, the manhunt for Joseph Medley came to an end in St. Louis, where he was arrested. While he was apprehended, the legal proceedings focused on the murder he committed in Washington, D.C., as authorities determined the evidence in that case was the strongest. Medley was extradited, stood trial, and on June 9, 1945, was found guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery. He was sentenced to death.
Though convicted for another crime, law enforcement officials, including New Orleans Chief of Detectives John A. Grosch, fully intended to bring Medley to justice for the murder of Laura Fischer. However, the death sentence in Washington took precedence. After a failed escape attempt from death row, Joseph Dunbar Medley was executed by electrocution on December 20, 1946.
Laura Fischer was the first of three women known to have been killed by Medley during his murderous spree. Her death at the De Soto Hotel, now known as Le Pavillon, marked the beginning of a violent cross-country journey for her killer. While the man responsible for her death was held accountable, the story of the young Austrian textile worker who met a terrible fate so far from home remains a quiet and tragic chapter in a larger, more notorious crime story.
