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WAUWATOSA MURDER MYSTERY: Who killed Buddy Schumacher?

In 1925, ‘Posse Searches for Wauwatosa Boy’

Schumachers’ 8-year-old left they went.
It seemed Buddy may not have heeded all the warn-
home to play, never to return ings.
He left home alive for the last time at about 9 a.m.
By PAUL HOFFMAN on July 24, 1925. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed, cheer-
Special to Wauwatosa NOW ful boy waved

@
In the summer of 1925, Art and Florence Schumach- goodbye to his
er lived at 191 Alice St., which is now 74th Street, one sister and went to MORE ONLINE
building north of State Street with their two children: meet up with three WauwatosaNOW.com/
Jeanette, 10, and Arthur Jr., 8, also known as Buddy. neighborhood Buddy
The house was previously owned by Florence’s friends. Read all the stories in our series,
parents, John and Alice Armstrong. At that time, that Buddy joined check out old newspaper articles
portion of 74th Street was called Alice Street in honor Arno Yunk, 10, and from the time and view a photo
of Alice Armstrong, as her family had earned high The July 26, 1925, front page of The Milwaukee Journal, brothers John and gallery of Buddy and his family.
two days after Buddy disappeared.
standing in Wauwatosa. Arnold Wolf, 12
Besides being a successful business owner as a horse- and 10 respectively,
shoer, the Irish-born John Armstrong also had been a Milwaukee Road freight trains passing through and they jumped on a freight train car headed west
Wauwatosa town supervisor after moving from Mil- sometimes brought drifters, and the Menomonee River toward a Menomonee River swimming hole near where
waukee in the late 1800s. And his wife had quite a head could present danger for unaccomplished swimmers. Hoyt Park is today.
for business, too, as Alice owned various properties. Shortly after they got onboard, the boys were sur-
In 1925, Jeanette and Buddy were both attending Children were warned prised by a vagabond who was also on the train. Bud-
Lincoln Elementary School and Sunday school classes In some areas just outside of town, vagrants were dy’s companions jumped from the train and fled back
at Mount Olive Lutheran Church on Washington Bou- known to set up camp. And with an insane asylum in in the direction from which they came. Buddy jumped
levard on Milwaukee’s west side. town that occasionally allowed patients to roam the
Wauwatosa in the 1920s had its dangerous areas. grounds, parents warned their children to watch where Please see BOY, Page 14

NEXT WEEK: WORST FEARS COME TRUE

Part 2 of our special series will look at the nationwide search for Buddy and the ultimate discovery of his body just one mile from his home.

FROM THE AUTHOR

Writer uncovers mystery in ‘famous’ unsolved murder

By PAUL HOFFMAN
Special to the Wauwatosa NOW
This month marks the 85th anniver-
sary of one of the few unsolved murders
committed in Wauwatosa: the killing of
8-year-old Arthur “Buddy” Schumacher
Jr., son of a pharmaceu-
tical supply salesman
and grandson of one of
the city’s key leaders in
the early 20th century.
For seven weeks, the
community and state
searched desperately to
find the boy before his
Hoffman badly decomposed body
was found just a mile
let go because witnesses changed their “Grandmother (Florence) and
minds about key pieces of evidence Grandfather (Art) never said anything to
against him and two separate confessions me. It was as if it had never happened,”
to the killing by mentally challenged men Keith Egloff said.
were seen by police as not credible, the Egloff and his brother, Brian Egloff,
story faded away. are Buddy’s closest surviving relatives.
Keith and Brian’s mother, Jeanette, was
The case, and story, go cold Buddy’s older sister and only sibling.
In fact, the story started fading away Jeanette and her husband, Lee Egloff,
for Wauwatosa’s weekly newspaper even told their sons very little about Buddy’s
before the second confession as the murder.
News, after covering the case in some “Buddy or the case was never a topic
fashion in each week’s paper throughout, of discussion in our family,” Keith Egloff
inexplicably stopped publishing stories said, adding that all he was told about it
WNT
about the case. over many years probably took no more
There is no police file on the case as than a few minutes.
the Wauwatosa Police Department, Keith did say that his father men-
●

from his house. which would have had the files, has no tioned to him in the late 1950s or early
July 22, 2010

The entire case played out intensely in
local and state radio and newspapers,
sometimes in a fairly sensationalistic
manner in the Milwaukee papers.
But shortly after the top suspect was
records prior to 1934. 1960s having read a newspaper article
After a short time, Buddy’s parents, about the most famous unsolved police Photo Courtesy of Brian and Keith Egloff
Art and Florence Schumacher, reported- cases in Wisconsin, and Buddy’s murder This photo of Arthur "Buddy" Schumacher
ly never even mentioned it, except per- Jr., was posted all over the state after his
haps in private. Please see MURDER, Page 14 disappearance in July 1925.
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