True Crime Collection

Disappearance of Thora Chamberlain

Thora Afton Chamberlain was born 22nd November 1930. On 2nd November, 1945, Thora was last seen outside Campbell High School in Campbell, California, after the end of her classes. According to her classmates, she spoke for several minutes with a motorist on Winchester Boulevard, who told her he was looking for someone to babysit his sister's children for the afternoon. The man wore a US Navy uniform and military medals. Thora accepted the offer and got into the car with him.

Law enforcement's suspicions fell immediately upon Thomas Henry McMonigle, a San Mateo, California, resident with an arrest record going back to his teens and including antecedents for assault and attempted rape. Thomas had left the area immediately and moved to his father's home in Illinois. On 6th December, Thomas attempted to commit suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills while riding a bus to San Francisco, but he was rushed to a hospital and made a full recovery. After his discharge, he was immediately arrested by FBI agents investigating Thora's disappearance.

Thomas, who had never served in the Navy, confessed to have found the uniform and medals in a footlocker that he had stolen from a real serviceman. This footlocker was found in Thomas's home's garage in San Mateo. However, he offered wildly varying stories about Thora's  death and what had happened to her body. At various times, Thomas claimed to have murdered Thora by shooting, stabbing or strangling her; to have shot her accidentally; to have seen her die after a fall from his car; and to not be involved in her death at all. An examination of Thomas' car found a bullet hole in the inside of a door, lending credence to the idea that Thora had been shot in the vehicle. Thomas claimed to have removed the bullet from the door and buried it under a certain tree in his backyard; and also to have ripped out the car's padding and upholstery because they had been stained with Thora's blood, and subsequently buried them in a drainage ditch near his workplace. Both places were searched, and the bullet and car parts were recovered successfully. The bullet was tested and proven to have been fired from Thomas' .32 caliber colt revolver.

Thomas also claimed to have thrown Thora's body off a cliff overlooking Half Moon Bay on the San Mateo County coast, know as the Devil's Slide. Police searched the area and found 2 pairs of red and blue socks wedged on the cliffs face, which were recognised by Thora's parents. Thomas' claim that he had buried Thora's clothes in his backyard could not be confirmed, but a separate excavation by the FBI at the construction site where Thomas had been working at the time of the disappearance turned up a pair of shoes, schoolbooks, papers, a zippered binder and a cowbell property of Thora.

The prosecution theorised that Thomas abducted Thora with the intention of raping her, murdered her, when she tried to resist, and later carried her body to the Devil's Slide and tossed it into the ocean. He was pronounced guilty by the jury after only 38 minutes of deliberation, and sentenced to die in the gas chamber. While in death row, he confessed to the murder of a San Francisco woman by the name of Dorothy Rose Jones and later claimed to have murdered 11 people overall, but he was not charged with more murders. In his last statement before his execution in 1948, however, Thomas claimed that he was not involved in Thora's disappearance.