In the final days of World War II, a shocking crime of betrayal and violence cut short the life of a woman known in her Washington, D.C. social circles. Nancy Boyer, a 50-year-old female, was a divorced hairdresser described by some as a well-connected socialite. She lived in a fashionable ninth-floor apartment at the prestigious Washington House on 16th Street N.W., a place where she enjoyed hosting friends and acquaintances for lively gatherings.
On the night of Monday, March 5, 1945,
Nancy hosted one of her frequent all-night poker parties. Among the guests was a man who introduced himself as Larry Fischer. Charming and handsome, he fit in with the crowd, but his real name was Joseph Dunbar Medley, a dangerous convict who had recently escaped from a Michigan prison. As the party wound down in the early hours of Tuesday, March 6, the other guests began to depart. An antique dealer named Mrs. Ann Ellington recalled leaving around 5 a.m. and asking Medley if he was heading her way. He declined, telling her, "No, Miss Ann, I'm going back upstairs to get Nancy and we're going out to eat." It was the last time anyone reported seeing Nancy Boyer alive.
For two days, friends and neighbors were unable to reach Nancy. Growing increasingly concerned, they alerted the building manager, Ida Soelter. On the evening of Thursday, March 8, Mrs. Soelter used a passkey to enter the apartment. Inside, she made a grim discovery: Nancy Boyer was dead. She had been shot three times in her own home. The man who had stayed behind after the party was gone, and so were several of Nancy's valuable possessions, including a fur coat, an emerald ring valued at $800, and several hundred dollars in cash.
The investigation, led by Chief Detective Robert J. Barrett of the Washington D.C. homicide squad, quickly focused on the man known as Larry Fischer. It soon became clear that Nancy's murder was part of a larger, more sinister crime spree. Joseph Dunbar Medley was a career criminal who, after escaping prison in November 1944, had embarked on a path of robbery and murder across the country. Before arriving in Washington, he had murdered 28-year-old Laura Fischer by drowning her in a New Orleans hotel bathtub in December 1944. He then traveled to Chicago, where he killed 38-year-old Blanche Zimmerman with an overdose of drugs and alcohol in February 1945. A grim pattern emerged: all three of his known victims were women with red hair.
Medley was identified as the prime suspect, and a manhunt ensued. He was eventually tracked to St. Louis, Missouri, and arrested by FBI agents on March 18, 1945. When apprehended, police found a silver fox jacket and a handbag similar to those owned by Nancy in his possession. Though wanted for murders in three states, authorities determined the evidence in Nancy Boyer's case was the strongest. He was extradited to the District of Columbia to stand trial for first-degree murder and armed robbery.
During the trial, the prosecution, led by Daniel B. Maher, reenacted the slaying, portraying Medley as a cold-blooded killer who preyed on a woman who had welcomed him into her home. On June 9, 1945, after only 12 minutes of deliberation, a jury found Joseph Dunbar Medley guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to death. His time on death row was not without incident; in April 1946, he and another condemned inmate briefly escaped from the D.C. jail before being recaptured. After a last-minute legal appeal failed, Joseph Dunbar Medley, 45, was executed by electric chair on December 20, 1946. The murder of Nancy Boyer marked the end of a violent cross-country rampage, but for those who knew her, it was the tragic loss of a vibrant life taken by a ruthless predator.
