CRY BABY: THE DEATH OF CAROLYN WASILEWSKI

In November 1954, fourteen-year-old Carolyn Wasilewski left her Baltimore home saying she planned to meet a friend and register for a dance class that evening, something she intended to handle on her own. She was known in her neighborhood as a spirited teen with a rebellious streak and was a member of a local group called the Drapes, a small circle of teenagers known for causing the occasional disruption around town, and their style loosely reflected the greaser subculture that was popular at the time. Even with that reputation, nothing about her plans stood out as unusual to anyone around her. She left home with every intention of coming back, but she never returned.

The next morning, an engineer on a train heading into Baltimore spotted something on the tracks that immediately concerned him and reported it. Investigators arrived at the scene soon after and confirmed the discovery. It was Carolyn. As they examined the area, they came to believe she had been placed on the tracks after her death. Several pieces of her clothing were missing, including her shoes and her Drapes jacket. In a detail that raised even more questions, the name “Paul” had been written on her thigh in lipstick or Mercurochrome, just as described in the early reporting.

As officers expanded their search, they found bloodstains and several of Carolyn’s personal items on Gable Avenue, a location roughly eight miles from where her body was discovered beneath the Belvedere Avenue bridge and not far from her family’s home. The discovery created more confusion for investigators, because the two locations were so far apart that it was unclear how they fit together. There was no shortage of people to look at, especially since Carolyn had just recently testified in a case involving a friend. She had kept letters and photographs of a man named Paul, who was incarcerated at the time, a detail that left investigators unsure whether the name written on her thigh was connected to him or meant to mislead. Police additionally pursued accounts that a man in his early twenties had been seen with Carolyn on the night she disappeared, yet that lead, like so many others, never developed into anything conclusive.

During the first year of the investigation, detectives chased every lead and questioned hundreds of people, but nothing they gathered explained how Carolyn ended up on the tracks. Much of the original case file has never been released, so most of what remains comes from the public record and the theories that formed around it. To this day, authorities still hear from individuals who believe they may hold a memory or detail connected to the case. Carolyn’s world and the era around her were later said to have influenced John Waters’ film Cry-Baby, starring Johnny Depp, which reflected Baltimore’s mid-century teen culture. Even after seven decades, people still revisit the story and wonder what may have been missed.