In 1935 Mount Rainier, Maryland, 26-year-old Corinna Loring was just 2 days away from marrying her fiance Richard Tear.

Corinna worked as a stenographer during the week and as a Sunday school teacher at her church. She lived at home with her mother and father.

Richard was a former Marine who was now working as a medical assistant at a local hospital.

Friends of Corinna said that she often talked about her upcoming marriage and was seemingly excited about it and the future. The wedding date had also been pushed up multiple times. Supposedly this was because Frances Loring did not support the marriage but she denied this.

On November 4, 1935, Corinna's mother Frances Loring left the family home to go to a church meeting at 8:10 PM. When she left Corinna had been ironing some undergarments for her trousseau and was wearing her "light housedress".

Supposedly, she was waiting for her fiance to visit before he went to work, but she did not plan on going out again for the night.

At 8:40 PM Richard Tear drove to the home to visit with Corinna. But he found the house dark and seemingly empty as no one answered when he knocked. He waited for 35 minutes before writing a quick note and going to work.

The note said:

Sweet, It's 9:15 so I'll have to get to work. I'll see you after work tomorrow.

Love Dick

When France Loring returned home, she found her daughter gone. The iron had been unplugged, her ironed clothing was folded, and the house was untouched.

The house dress was placed neatly across her bed.

When Corinna did not return that night, her family reported her missing on Tuesday. When Tear discovered that she was missing the next day, he also reported her missing.

5 days later, a man discovered Corinna's body five blocks away from her home under a thicket of bushes in a wooded area. Decomposition had started, but wounds could be seen on her face and the coroner found that she had been killed by strangulation.

The cord ( which was one you wrapped a package in) that she was killed with was still around her neck when she was found, and some newspapers say that the marks on her face looked like they may have been made with ice tongs.

The first people arrested where her fiance Richard Tear and her former suiter Audrey Hampton. Both were questioned, released, and then fully exonerated. Some newspapers say that Tear was brought back in for questioning multiple times.

Corinna's watch was found near her body. It was broken and was stopped at 9:10. The police believe that this is when she was killed. Her earrings had also been seemingly ripped out of her ears and a bloody napkin ( a newspaper says like one a burger would be wrapped in) was found near them.

When her body was found, she was wearing a day dress. The only things missing where her hat and belt. The hat hadn't been seen since she went missing ( police never found it) but she had left the belt at home. Her mother says that she never wore that dress without the belt and assumes she left the house in a hurry.

Based on the dirt marks on her slippers, the police made the assumption that she had not been killed where she was found but had been dragged there after being killed.

During the investigation of the crime scene, "interested spectators" trampled thought the place where the body had been found looking for clues themselves. Police reported that the people most likely destroyed more evidence then they helped find.

One suspect that was arrested was a man named Victor Harrison Redmond. He was a repeat offender for assaults or harassment against young women and had been reported to be harassing at least 4 women in the Mount Rainer area. Frances Loring told police that he may have been one of the men who was hired to paint their home a few months prior, but she was not sure.

When they had been searching the area in which Corinna's body had been found, a few searches ( Tear and a few others) reported spotting a man matching Redmounds description "looking suspicious". But before the police could detain him, he left quickly in a car.

But after investigation, the police could not find any connection between Redmond and Corinna's death. Around this time they spoke with a few people, one of which was a woman who said she saw a man standing on the porch of Corinna's family home.

but by this time, the police spoke with a newspaper and said that they hoped to have a break in the case. After this report, newspapers continued to write articles about how police were counting to investigate, but no new information came out and it seems that by April of 1936, the case officially went cold.

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I think tragically, Richard was the only one who could have killed Corinna.

He was known to be coming over to the house when she was alone and who else would she have changed clothing for or left the house willing with?

My guess is that when he came over they started to argue about something. It might have been about the wedding or the apartment they were moving into.

Somehow it was decided that they were going for a walk to talk it out so Corinna went and changed into a day dress, but being so flustered from the argument, she forgot the belt.

They walk the 5 blocks to the wooded area where the argument escalates into Richard hitting her hard enough with something (car keys?) to leave the marks on her face.

This probably doesn't kill her so he strangles her with whatever he had in his pocket, dragged her body under the bushes, and then went back to her house and wrote the note.

I'm just really surprised that based on all the newspaper articles, he really is only investigated right after her body is found. It's like they talked with him once and then focused all their attention on the guy who seemed to fit the profile.

I can't seem to find any trace of Richard after newspapers stop printing about Corinna's death, so I am not sure what happened to him afterward.

So, what do you all think happened?

Sources

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1935-11-11/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1935&sort=relevance&rows=20&words=Richard Tear&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=1&state=&date2=1963&proxtext= Richard Tear&y=7&x=19&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1935-11-28/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1935&index=1&rows=20&words=Corinna Loring&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1963&proxtext= Corinna Loring&y=17&x=8&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1935-12-01/ed-1/seq-25/#date1=1935&index=18&rows=20&words=Corinna Loring&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1963&proxtext= Corinna Loring&y=17&x=8&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1935-12-09/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1935&sort=relevance&rows=20&words=Corinna Loring&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=5&state=&date2=1963&proxtext= Corinna Loring&y=17&x=8&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=3

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1936-04-04/ed-1/seq-14/#date1=1935&sort=relevance&rows=20&words=Corinna Loring&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=3&state=&date2=1936&proxtext= Corinna Loring&y=16&x=17&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=4