The disappearance of Dorothy Arnold was the most-talked-about scandal in 1910 Manhattan. A wealthy socialite, the 25-year-old aspiring writer went out one day, telling her mother she was going to buy a new evening gown. She ran into a friend, whom she told that she was going for a walk in Central Park. That was the last anyone saw of her.
She had a lunch appointment with her mother that she never kept, and her family, not wanting the bad publicity, hired private investigators instead of notifying the police. By the time they did notify the police months later, the trail had gone cold.
Some people suspect she committed suicide over a rejected manuscript or died of a botched abortion, but those who saw her that day said she was in excellent spirits, so that seems unlikely. Others suspected that her 40-something boyfriend, George C. Griscom Jr., murdered her, but he was in Italy at the time. Her disappearance remains one of the country’s great unsolved mysteries.
