In the cold December of 1938, Margaret Martin, a bright and hopeful 19-year-old woman from Kingston, Pennsylvania, was ready to begin her career. The eldest of four children, she was remembered by friends and family as a shy, devout, and studious person. Her parents called her "a living saint," and a former classmate recalled her as a "friendly girl who had many friends." Having graduated with honors from Kingston High School in 1937, Margaret had just completed a secretarial program at the Wilkes-Barre Business College in early December, graduating with distinction and eager to find work.
On the morning of Saturday, December 17, 1938, just seventeen days after her graduation, a promising opportunity seemed to arrive. Because the Martin family did not have a telephone, a neighbor took a message for Margaret from a man who said he was starting a new insurance company and needed a secretary.
The caller, who claimed he got her name from the business college, arranged to meet her nearby at Kingston Corners to discuss the position. Believing this was her first professional prospect, Margaret walked the short distance from her home for the interview. Witnesses later reported seeing a young woman matching her description speaking briefly with a man before getting into his car, described as a brown Plymouth or a black sedan. The driver was a neat, sandy-haired man, estimated to be between 25 and 30 years old. It was the last time Margaret Martin was seen alive.
When Margaret failed to return home that evening, her worried family contacted the police, and a search began. Efforts to publicize her disappearance were severely hampered by a six-month strike that had shuttered local newspapers. For four agonizing days, her whereabouts remained a mystery. The search came to a horrific end on December 21, when a 19-year-old muskrat trapper named Anthony Rezykowski was checking his lines along Keelersburg Creek in the remote woods of Northmoreland Township, Wyoming County, about 25 miles from Kingston. He spotted a large burlap sack partially submerged in the icy water. Inside was the nude, bound, and mutilated body of Margaret Martin.
An autopsy revealed the appalling brutality of her final hours. Margaret had been beaten, tortured with a knife, and sexually assaulted before being strangled to death. Her body had been tied up with a clothesline, with her legs pushed up under her chin. The Pennsylvania State Police launched an intensive investigation, involving approximately 75 troopers who combed the snow-covered countryside for clues. They soon theorized that the murder itself had not happened at the creek.
Investigators traced the crime to an abandoned sawmill near Forkston, about 15 miles from where Margaret’s body was dumped. Inside the boiler firebox, they found the charred remains of her clothing and pieces of her jewelry. In the frozen mud outside, they discovered the footprints of a man and a woman; at one point, the woman’s tracks vanished, replaced by marks indicating something had been dragged. Police believe the killer’s plan was to dismember Margaret’s body and incinerate her remains, but he was likely interrupted. The mill's owner recalled hearing a scream and firing warning shots at a presumed trespasser on the night Margaret disappeared. Fleeing the sawmill, the killer then drove to the remote creek and discarded her body.
Hundreds of mourners, including several plainclothes officers hoping to spot a suspicious individual, attended Margaret’s funeral at St. Ignatius Church on Christmas Eve, the same day she had planned to attend a high school alumni dance. Over the years, investigators looked into numerous theories and potential suspects, including a local mortician, a teacher at her business college, and a man who left the area shortly after the murder, but no one was ever charged. The vague description of the man and the car, combined with a lack of forensic technology and the initial difficulty in publicizing the case, left detectives with few solid leads.
Decades have passed, but the savage murder of Margaret Martin has never been solved. It remains an open cold case with the Pennsylvania authorities, a haunting reminder of a young life full of promise cut tragically short. As of October 2026, her killer has never been brought to justice, and the identity of the man who lured her to her death with the false promise of a job remains unknown.
