EDMUNDS, ROBERT J Dec 9, 1945 age 22 KIA Belgium/France

ROBERT JAMES EDMUNDS  b. Oct 21, 1923 Detroit d. Jan. 9, 1945 Killed In Action Belgium/France

Cpl 36562431 Army

Buried Acacia Park Cemetery, Beverly Hills, MI

Parents: John Durbin Edmunds b. 1892 Chicago d. 1948 Detroit & Minerva Jeanette (Johnson) b 1893 Wisc d. 1950 Detroit

Sibling: John D Jr. In 1940 a Salesperson, Business Machines
 

The family moved from Illinois to Detroit and by 1940 lived at 16828 Fenmore. In 1930 father John was a salesperson for tabulating machinery – anyone remember those? Then in 1940 he was Dist. Mgr. for a printing company. He died in 1948 in Detroit, 3 years after son Robert was killed. (Ancestry family trees have incorrect info on Minerva and Robert; sources need to be reviewed with a critical eye towards the full picture actually making sense.)



Robert graduated from Redford in 1942 and registered for the draft 28 June 1942 in Detroit. He was employed by Berry Paint Co. The registration describes him as 175 lbs, blue eyes blonde hair and 5’10”. He gave a non-relative as kin – Mac Ferrell.  His grave is a simple granite stone, no military bronze marker with branch of service so his unit history can’t be traced. He may have been in the Battle of the Bulge.








Unfortunately Robert’s history is overshadowed by the subsequent events in his family. The father died 1948, brother John divorced his wife of 8 years, Margaret with whom he had 3 children,  in 1949. Then came events of October 24, 1950. It made front page news. Mother Minerva was found in her modest northwest Detroit home brutally slain. She was found days later when friends notices she missed appointments and so alerted police. (They probably also knew of problems with John.) There were lurid headlines around the country. Son John confessed to the murder and surrendered in Saginaw.

The newspapers gave gruesome details, shocking even today. The white-haired widow had been hanged by a clothesline from a rafter then cut down and dragged into a cellar alcove. The evidence on the bottom made clear that wasn’t how she was killed; the autopsy and John’s gave a morbid scene of him striking her with a blow to the head as she sat at her desk. Then he locked the door and hitchhiked to Saginaw, his own car had been wrecked in Flint 3 days earlier.

A family relative told of a violent encounter John had with mother a week earlier about money to cover debts for fraudulent checks.  Even when he was employed at Grand River Nash Co. he made a deposit on a car with a bad check. And he broke into his mother’s safe.

Earlier in the summer he attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping tablets. Police even found a physician’s letter which tried to get John admitted to Ann Arbor’s University Hospital as a mental patient.  Someone that was useful to John in the court case.
He escaped trial when he was ruled insane. After 27 months of treatment for schizophrenia and matricidal tendencies he was returned to Detroit to stand trial for first degree murder.  In Aug 1953 he was acquitted, found innocent by reason of insanity and free to go.

Now comes the clincher – on Sept 11, 1953 John is to be the beneficiary of his mother’s estate of $6,000! This money was the balance of a $10,000 G.I. insurance policy paid to Mrs. Edmunds when son Robert was killed in the war. A court case ensued as it was argued under common law a man can’t profit from his own crime. On the other side, John’s attorney argued that since John was insane at the time he was not responsible for his actions. John Edmunds won; he left smiling, and had hopes to remarry Margaret. It didn’t appear to happen: John died 1986 in Lansing; Margaret died 1995 in Oregon.

Perhaps we have a sense of why non-family was Robert’s notification person on his draft registration.