On December 20, 1952, 35-year-old Odessa Meister left her home on Columbia Street in Cumberland, Maryland. She would board the Cumberland Transit Lines bus for work and be seen getting off the bus at the Celanese plant on McMullen Highway. Witnesses stated that she was seen approaching a car near the plant's gate after the driver honked the horn. After they talked for a few minutes she got into the car and was never seen alive again.
She wouldn't be seen for almost a month. On Jan. 16, 1953, two high school boys found her body on McNamee's Hill in a pile of cardboard and Life Magazines. She was lying face down 60 yards down the hill and approximately 100 feet west of the extension of Leiper Street. Her eyeglasses and handkerchief were found 50 yards from her body leading down to her.
Odessa was beaten to death. She was hit about the head around 8 times with a blunt object like a tire tool or wrench. There was no sign of a struggle as her clothes seemed to be in good condition, but there was a bruise on the second finger of her right hand. It's believed that she was not beaten where she was found, but she did die there as blood was at the scene. Her stockings were not torn and would have been snagged on the brush in the area if she had walked there. It's likely her killer carried her unconscious body and dumped her there.
SOURCES:
Western Maryland's Historical Library
The Cumberland News Jan. 17, 1953
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