The New Haven Rock Murders
Was Convicted Murderer Harold Meade Responsible for the Killing of Four Young Girls in and Around New Haven in 1969
By Shawn R. Dagle
In the woods and hayfields surrounding New Haven four young girls were found brutally slain in the spring, summer and early fall of 1969.
Besides a vague description of a strange white colored vehicle seen in the area of some of the abductions police had few clues to go on.
Then in December of 1970 police arrested 25-year-old gas station attendant, tow truck driver, ice cream vendor and apartment superintendent Harold Meade for the brutal murder of three special needs patients who left the institution where they were staying for a shopping trip.
The victims had been murdered with a rock. One – a twenty-year-old boy – had been beaten and found naked in the woods near West Rock Park. He later died at the hospital. The bodies of the two girls – aged 15 and 23 – had been found behind a ventilator shaft for the West Park Tunnel on the Merritt Parkway.
Witnesses described seeing a late model blue automobile in the area near the time of the murders. Police sifted through hundreds of cars matching the description of the vehicle seen by the witnesses. One of those vehicles belonged to Meade who was also connected to murders by other evidence as well.
After initially claiming his innocence, Meade changed his plea to guilty and was given three life sentences.
Given the similarities in the murder of three special needs victims and the murders of the four girls in and around New Haven (who had their heads crushed with stones) investigators began to question if Meade may have been involved in the latter.
In 2000 investigators and prosecutors took their suspicions public telling the Hartford Courant that they suspected Meade had been involved in the murder of the young girls.
According to investigators an eyewitness had identified Meade as being at the scene of one of the murders. Meade had also allegedly confessed to the crimes on multiple occasions. It appeared that police had identified their killer. Or had they?
What appeared at first to be a very convincing circumstantial case against Meade upon closer scrutiny is far from conclusive. Five decades later questions still persist about who murdered those four young girls in the spring, summer and fall of 1969.
The first of the victims was Diane Toney – an 11-year-old African-American girl who vanished after watching a parade in downtown New Haven on May 18.
Diane had gone to the parade with her grandfather and at some point had gone off on her own. When her grandfather couldn’t find her he thought perhaps she had gotten a ride home from someone she knew. She never returned home.
Months later a skull fragment was discovered by two men in the woods in North Guilford (it was later reported that a man discovered the skull fragment while mushroom hunting. Which account is correct is unclear). The fragment belonged to Diane. More of her bones were later discovered in the same woods.
Diane’s mother was able to identify part of a green polka dot dress found partially buried near her remains as belonging to her missing daughter.
The same month as Diane’s disappearance another girl went missing 30 miles from New Haven at Kiwanis Park in New Caanan.
10-year-old Mary Mount was last seen playing in a pile of sand at the park (or with a kitten depending on the account) the evening of May 27.
Her brother left to go to a Boy Scout meeting. Mary never returned to her home just a football field’s distance away.
When Mary’s father – an executive at IBM – went looking for her later that evening he could not find her. The only trace of Mary was one of her shoes left in the park.
Then on June 18 two high school sophomores made a grisly discovery. The pair had gone to an area near the Norwalk Reservoir to go fishing for calico bass and perch. When searching the woods for a nearby stream they noticed an unusual smell. They then discovered Mary’s body.
Mary’s remains were found in a remote pine grove miles from her home near Old Huckleberry Road or as one newspaper account reported “the highway to nowhere” as the locals called it.
Mary was still dressed in her pink shorts and pink flower patterned blouse when she was found. Like Toney the young girl’s skull had been crushed.
Three days after Mary’s disappearance a third girl went missing. On May 30, 14-year-old Dawn Cave of Bethany left her home after getting in an argument with her sister. Later that summer her body was discovered in a hay field by a young girl searching for her horse about a mile from her home.
Dawn’s body was badly decomposed. She was found face up, circled with stones in what appeared to be a makeshift grave. Some of the stones near her body appeared to have blood stains on them. She also had a fractured skull.
The fourth and final victim – five-year-old Jennifer Noon of New Haven -went missing in September after never returning home from kindergarten. Jennifer was last seen by a crossing guard looking “forlorn” after she left school to return home for lunch. She never made it home. Jennifer’s shoes, sweater and socks were later found across the street from a cemetery in Hamden.
Then on September 29 a mile way from where her clothing was found Jennifer’s remains were discovered in a heavily wooded section of Hamden known as “Rocky Top.”
In a strange coincidence Jennifer’s remains were discovered by the same man who had discovered the bones of Diane Toney in North Guilford. Fred Muerrle – a World War II veteran and supervisor at Winchester Arms in New Haven, who trained and handled search dogs - discovered the remains of both girls.
Muerrle often helped police search for missing persons. In 1961 Muerrle and his Doberman Pinscher found a missing woman wandering in a swamp and in January of 1964 he and his dogs were able to track and rescue a three old boy who had wandered off from his home and was found near a rocky ledge approximately a mile away crying but not injured.
After a fragment of Toney’s skull was found in the woods of North Guilford – not far from where Muerrle lived in Durham – he and his dog discovered more of her bones in the same woods.
Muerrle told reporters that he had decided to search the area of Hamden (already at least partially covered by police and searchers earlier) for Noon’s body after her clothes were discovered near the cemetery nearby.
Walking through the woods Muerrle said he noticed some crows in the trees and there below found Jennifer’s skull and her body behind a boulder that according to a press report was “wedged in the ground.” Muerrle – who worked approximately a mile from Noon’s school – marked the trees with chalk so he could find the spot again and went to notify police.
By 2000, after decades of investigation into the four murders, police were relatively confident they had identified their suspect – Harold Meade.
By then details had emerged including an alleged confession of sorts Meade had supposedly made to a cellmate – to whom he is alleged to have told that the only way police would connect him to Diane Toney’s murder was if they had kept her panties.
According to the Courant – which wrote a story about Meade that year – his father owned a gas station approximately a mile from where Dawn Cave was found.
There was also a woman who lived across the street from where Dawn Cave was found who claimed she had seen Meade dragging Cave over a stone wall near the scene – returning later with blood on his hands before leaving in his car.
Investigators also claimed Meade had a milk route which took him to Mary Mount’s neighborhood. Meade also allegedly confessed to a state trooper.
A milkman also claimed to have seen Noon in a car with a man he later identified as Meade after seeing him on television.
While Meade admitted his involvement in the murder of three special needs victims he told the Courant he did not kill the four girls. He also denied having a milk route in Mary’s neighborhood.
The circumstantial evidence against Meade appeared overwhelming. Yet was it? A closer examination of the evidence says otherwise.
The woman who had allegedly seen Meade pull Dawn over a stone wall had failed to pick Meade out of a lineup after the murder. It was only 20 years later that she would identify Meade - claiming she had been too scared to identify him at the time.
Investigators further questioned her claims after she alleged to have also witnessed other crimes Meade committed.
It is interesting to note that woman had told police after the murder that the man she had seen pull Cave over the wall was driving a white vehicle.
A suspicious white vehicle had also been seen at Kiwanis Park when Mary Mount disappeared.
There were also reports from girls in the area who said they had been approached by a strange man in a white car offering to give them rides.
Police claimed they had tracked down the strange man in the white car trying to pick up girls in the area but that they had cleared him of any responsibility in the crimes.
However when the three special needs victims were murdered Meade was driving a dark vehicle – the vehicle that helped police link him to the murders not a white one.
Other evidence also contradicts Meade’s involvement. A girl matching Jennifer Noon’s description was seen by multiple witnesses in East Rock Park in New Haven with a strange man shortly after she disappeared.
The man was described as being in his late 50s or early 60s, weighing 200 pounds, dressed in a dirty, yellow polo shirt with a pot belly. Meade was only in his mid-twenties at the time.
In 2000 the state’s attorney told the Courant that there was not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Meade had committed the murders.
Meade was never officially charged with any of the four killings. Who murdered these four girls still remains a mystery.
-November 21, 2022
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SOURCES
The Bridgeport Post “Mary Mount’s Body Is Found” June 18, 1969
The Bridgeport Post “It Was a Beautiful Day But Made For Tragedy” June 18, 1969 Evelyn Lee
The Bridgeport Telegram “Garb Matches Mary Mount’s Evelyn Lee, Frank Decerbo June 18, 1969
Hartford Courant “Missing Girl Feared Linked With 2 Killed” Kirk Hastian July 16, 1969
The Bridgeport Post “FBI Studying All Clues in Mary Mount Slaying
Hartford Courant “Tips Plague Police in Girl’s Slaying” Kirk G. Hastian July 3, 1969
The Bridgeport Post “New Canaan Children Still Believe Mary Mount Will be Found Safe”
The Bridgeport Post “New Canaan Father Begs for Daughter’s Return” May 29, 1969 Evelyn Lee
The Bridgeport Telegram “Mary Mount 10 Buried Quietly” June 20, 1969
Hartford Courant “New Canaan Girl Missing; Police Suspect Kidnapping” AP
The Hartford Courant “Sleepless Twon Waits for a Clue” June 11, 1969 UPI
Naugatuck Daily News “Fishermen Find Girl’s Body in Wilton Woods” June 18m `1969 UPI
The Bridgeport Post “New Canaan Children Still Believe Mary Mount Will be Found Safe” Evelyn Lee June 10, 1969
The Bridgeport Post “Police Still Probing Jennifer Noon’s Death” AP December 18, 1970
The Bridgeport Post “Jennifer Noon’s Death Unsolved Year Later” September 21, 1971 AP
The Bridgeport Telegram “Jennifer’s Body Found in Woods” AP September 30 1970
Hartford Courant “Hunt Grows for Missing Five Year Old” September 23, 1970
The Hartford Courant “Police Check Out Suspect in Slaying” October 1, 1970 John Lantogua
The Bridgeport Post “Police Still Probing Jennifer Noon’s Death” AP December 18, 1970]
The Bridgeport Post October 2, 1969 “Bones Believed Missing Girl 11” AP
Hartford Courant “Mother Identifies Dress on Bones” October 2, 1969 William J. Perez
The Hartford Courant “After 27 Years Girls Gets Final Resting Place” November 14, 1996 Amy Ash Nixon
Naugatuck Daily News “Body identified As that of Missing Bethany Girl” July 2 1969 UPI
The Hartford Courant “Four Deaths: A Trail Left Cold” April 12, 2000 Dave Altimari, Colin Poitras, Jane Dee
Hartford Courant “Missing Woman Found in Woods” September 28, 1961
Legacy.com obit
The Hartford Courant “Bloodhound Finds Guilford Boy” Janary 6, 1964 AP
The Hartford Courant “Court Rejects Appeal in Murder” May 14, 1981 UPI
Nagautuck Daily News “New Haven man 24 Arrested in Connection with Slayings of Three
The Hartford Courant “Four Deaths: A Trail Left Cold” April 12, 2000 Dave Altimari, Colin Poitras, Jane Dee