Juliet Stuart Poyntz, 50, vanished from Manhattan in early June 1937 after leaving the American Woman’s Association Clubhouse on West 57th Street. Clubhouse operators had been noting daily telephone calls from a man with a deep voice; on the day she disappeared she spoke with that caller and was seen walking toward Central Park and never returned.

An alumna of Barnard College and a co-founder of the Communist Party of the United States, Poyntz had worked as a suffragist and a union organizer and later acted as a Soviet intelligence asset. She traveled to Moscow in 1936 and reportedly became disillusioned after witnessing the Great Purge. When her calls stopped, the clubhouse manager eventually checked her room and found clothing, luggage, her passport, and a bank account with funds all left behind, suggesting no planned departure. Friends and her attorney delayed going to police because of her covert ties; the disappearance was publicly reported about seven months later.

Many believe she was abducted and killed to prevent her from defecting and writing about the Party, and Carlo Tresca publicly accused Soviet agents of involvement, but no arrests were ever made and the case remains unsolved.