[Read more…] about Seraphic Secret In the Land of Israel, Part II
Seraphic Secret In the Land of Israel, Part II
Joan Winters
American Showgirl Murdered in Gethsemane
It reads like the plot of a movie.
A young, beautiful, restless American showgirl travels to the exotic east where she finds intrigue, romance—and a violent death.
As reported on November 3, 1933 in the Los Angeles Times:
(AP) Jerusalem, November 3 —Joan Winters, described as an American professional dancer, and an Indian Moslem were found slain at the foor of the Mount of Olives near the Garden of Gethsemane today.
The two bodies were found in an olive grove outside the city wall. Police found no clews as to their assailants.
Authorities said they are at a loss to account for a motive.
The slain Indian was tentatively identified as Mohamed Karaman, an Indian civil servant from Madras.
Over the next few days more details were revealed. Joan Winters was a stage name. Her real name was Carol Vesta Niedergesaess. But during the First World War the family changed its name to Godfrey and she became Carol Godfrey.
There were hints of a romance between Winters and Karaman. The couple met in Athens and from there sailed to Haifa. Her father, Bert Godfrey of Brooklyn, dismissed the idea of a romance between his daughter and Karaman as “a remote and absurd possibility.” Karaman, maintained Joan’s parents, was hired as a tour guide.