In the last house on the block lived Cora Radecop and her husband Adry, a pharmacist at the Save-More drug store. They had two daughters - Eudora and Frances. Frances 'Franny' Radecop was an outgoing young woman who excelled at music and acting. She was the President of the Junior Epworth League of the SeaView Methodist Church and served as editor of her high school yearbook.
Both Frances and her sister were enthuasistic members of the Seattle Skating Club, appearing in club carnivals alongside guest stars like Vivi-Anne Hultén and Gene Theslof. They spent hours training alongside Karol and Peter Kennedy, who went on to be Olympic Medallists and World Champions. Frances made it as far as competing at the Washington State and Pacific Coast Championships and passed her Silver Dance test. When she was offered a music scholarship to Washington State University in her final year of high school, figure skating took the back burner. Many felt that she really could have made something of herself as a skater had she not have made music her number one priority.
Frances Radecop with representatives of West Seattle High School's honors society and cast members of her school play, 1944
Just two months after Frances graduated from high school, her family's world was turned upside down. At six in the evening on August 25, 1944, Cora returned home from a shopping trip and discovered Frances' blood-splattered body in the living room, surrounded by scattered sheet music and an overturned music stand. She had been strangled and beaten on the head with a blunt instrument. The coroner's report found no evidence of rape and police expressed the view that Frances had been murdered by "someone she knew well". Neighbours reported seeing a young man enter the home several hours before Frances' body was discovered.
A week later, Seattle cops grappled with another murder mystery. Twenty two year old Wyona Saikley, a War worker at the Boeing Aircraft Plant, and her husband were viciously attacked with a knife. The woman died of her wounds. Shortly thereafter, fourteen year old George Anderson found his mother Marguerite lying dead in her bed. In what was deemed as 'the pop bottle murder', Marguerite Anderson had been attacked viciously with a glass soda bottle. The violent attacks, which all occurred in the span of less than a week, led fear-mongering reporters to write of a "murder wave" in Seattle, even though police steadfastly believed none of the murders were connected.
Just a year before Frances Radecop's murder was solved, the city of Seattle played host to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships for the very first time. If fate had taken her in a different direction, she may well have been one of the competitors that year. We'll never know.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.