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I apologize for the lull in facts lately. I’ve been battling a virus and, being a weak and decrepit thing, it takes me a while to get back to being able to operate a keyboard. I think I’m there. We’ll see. If I make it through sending this fact, then we’ll know I’m good.<\/p>\n
In June, 1946, Vickey Heyman married medical student Bernard Rumsch in a New York City wedding that spared no expense. Heyman was a nineteen-year-old, starry-eyed Hunter College undergraduate who had lived in the same apartment house as Rumsch.<\/p>\n
Vickey Heyman was also a very nervous and insecure bride.<\/p>\n
At the wedding reception on Saturday, a thoughtless remark from a meddling old biddy sent the young woman into a dizzying tailspin of depression. “She isn’t good enough for him!” Heyman overheard the remark and took it to heart.<\/p>\n
“See! I’m not fit to marry you!” Vickey wailed to her husband.<\/p>\n
Bernard Rumsch attempted to soothe the jangled nerves and guilt-plagued conscience of his pretty young wife by assuring her that everything would be all right once they managed to escape from the clutches of the washday gossips and head west on a glorious honeymoon (with a quick stopover in Chicago).<\/p>\n
They flew to Chicago from New York the night of June 30, checking into the Palmer House at 5:00 p.m. After they had settled comfortably into their sixth floor room overlooking State Street, Rumsch finally relaxed. He believed Vickey’s wedding jitters were over, and that she had put the unfortunate episode behind her. “I’m going out for a shave and a shoeshine,” he announced. “Be back in a little while.” Vickey seemed happy and in good spirits, but then she asked him not to go. But Rumsch was becoming agitated with her at this point and fled from the room.<\/p>\n
Rumsch, wearing a sports jacket and a white shirt open at the collar, went out to check on his airline reservations to Denver. The honeymooning couple were staying in Chicago just this one night, and he was anxious to reach Colorado.<\/p>\n
Bernard Rumsch was gone for less than half an hour.<\/p>\n
When he returned, a crowd of rubbernecking pedestrians had formed a tight knot in front of the hotel and were staring at a formless shape lying on the sidewalk just below the Rumsch’s room. Rumsch could not quite make out the object of curiosity. He brushed past the throng of people and proceeded through the doors of the State Street entrance and down the corridor of the hotel, where he heard that a woman had plunged to her death. In a sudden panic, he raced up the stairs toward the house phone, brushing past the bellhops and matrons. When Vickey did not answer he raced outside and found the crumpled body of his wife lying on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
According to eyewitness Harry Levin, the woman cast a long glance toward the sky, pausing for just a second before the taking the fateful plunge from the sixth-floor ledge and landing on the sidewalk in front of the A.S. Beck shop salon (now Mysels Furs). In her fall, Vickey narrowly missed hitting a pedestrian from Willoughby, Ohio.<\/p>\n
Bernie Rumsch stared in sickened disbelief. An ill-chosen remark… a thoughtless decision to go out for a shave… and now his life was in tatters. What could he say to the folks back home?<\/p>\n
Jack W. Heyman, an engineer, said his daughter had expressed concerns about the upcoming nuptials, but he had talked it over with the girl, and she had decided to go through with it.<\/p>\n
“She married that boy because she loved him and I know the boy loved her,” Heyman said, but there as no ready explanation for Vickey’s sudden and unexpected action.<\/p>\n
The police dispersed the crowd. “Gwan’ home now! Nothing more to see! Show is over.” The Palmer House cleaning crew wiped the fresh bloodstains from the pavement. And, in only a few minutes, the entire matter was completely forgotten in the hubbub of downtown Chicago on a warm Sunday night in June.<\/p>\n
Culled from: Return Again to the Scene of the Crime<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\nAsylum Inmate\u00a0Du Jour!<\/h3>\n
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