Jean De Koven

American ballet dancer Jean de Koven was born on January 1, 1915, in the United States. She taught classical dancing and had trained ballet students in New Jersey schools before going abroad. In July 1937, she traveled to France, arriving in Normandy on July 19 and staying with her aunt, Ida Sackheim, in a hotel on the Left Bank of Paris. On the afternoon of July 23, she took her camera and told her aunt she would return by 8pm, in time to go to the opera. She never came back.

Her disappearance triggered a search. Sackheim received a letter demanding $500 for her niece's safe return, and later ransom notes and mysterious telephone calls followed. Police investigated but could not locate the contact man, even though he advertised frequently in the Paris edition of an American newspaper. By September, Sackheim offered a reward for information leading to De Koven's whereabouts.

Her body was discovered on December 8, 1937, beneath the front porch of a villa at La Celle-Saint-Cloud. She had been doubled up in a shallow grave. De Koven was the first of six victims of German-born serial killer Eugen Weidmann, also known as "Karrer," a gang leader who confessed and had as many as nine accomplices. She was 22 years old. Before vanishing, she had been corresponding with a man who resided in another Paris hotel and later moved away. De Koven had lived in Brooklyn, New York, before her trip. Her murder remains a grim chapter in the annals of true crime.