The Kentucky Post, July 31, 1962
(This is to show how poor the image of Earl Conover was on the fax I received):
caption: Rosa Weaver has this clipping about her father's disappearance, but no clues as to what really happened in 1949.
By Jack Hicks
Students at R. C. Hinsdale Elementary School in Edgewood like to stop by the office and give their principal a hug.
Rosa Weaver enjoys the affection. perhaps in part because paternal hugs were something she missed growing up.
Her father, Earl Conover, disappeared from Ms. Weaver's life when she was a year and a half old.
Now, more than four decades later, Ms. Weaver has hired a private investigator to try to solve the mystery.
Conover was 34 and a seemingly happy, well-adjusted and successful businessman when he disappeared in February 1949. A partner in Tri-State Offset Co., a downtown Cincinnati lithographing firm, he was active in the Norwood English Lutheran Church. He and his wife, Ruth, had two children, and Mrs. Conover was pregnant with a third.
It wasn't unusual that Conover attended a nigh business meeting and then stopped at a College Hill cafe to meet one of his partners, Buford Payne, and an employee, Russell Smith. About 1 a.m. the men left the cafe and headed for their respective cars. "See you in the morning." Conover said.
As far as Ms. Weaver is aware, Conover was never seen again by his family or associates.
Conover had little money in his possession, and the subsequent investigation indicated no financial problems with his business.
Initially, police theorized Conover was accosted by someone trying to rob him and steal his car, and the husky 6-foot, 230-pounder was murdered when he resisted.
Conover's car was found about a month later in Columbus. It contained presents for his 9-year old daughter, Judy.
Several bodies turned up about that time, including one in a shallow grave about halfway between Cincinnati and Columbus. The bodies brought another round of press coverage , but Conover wasn't one of the dead men.
Police quizzed a trio of holdup men, believing they may have stolen Conover's car for use in a robbery. That, too, brought headlines but little else.
In time Conover's disappearance faded from media attention. His family moved to Park Hills to be near Mrs. Conover's relatives.
Insurance and Social Security benefits were eventually awarded to the family in the official acceptance that Conover was dead, Ms. Weaver said.
"When I was growing up we said our father was dead. It just wasn't talked about much. It was pretty much family secret." Ms. Weaver recalled.
Ruth Conover never remarried, and she came to believe that her husband had run off with another woman, Ms. Weaver said. "They find dead bodies." was her mother's theory.
Mrs. Conover died about 13 years ago, never knowing what happened to her husband.
The family learned early on that a woman employee of the lithograph form, whom Conover reportedly sometimes gave ride, left her job about 60 days after Conover's disappearance, and later sent a letter from St. Louis that she wouldn't be returning to her job.
The woman was Martha Conley, spelled Connelley on some documents, and she also seemed to drop from sight. The woman is the key to the mystery Ms. Weaver believes. If she or evidence of her life can be found, It might answer a lot of questions, the Hinsdale principal said.
Ms. Weaver has retained a private investigator, a former FBI man, William Markham. He has put elements of the mystery in order, Ms. Weaver said, and has even located and interviewed one of the holdup suspects who resides in a Cincinnati retirement community. He remembers being questioned in 1949 about Conover's disappearance.
Ms. Weaver agrees that perpetrators of a random robbery-murder wouldn't likely have disposed of a body so thoroughly that it was never found. But then who knows?
It's that mystery that drives Ms. Weaver. Her father was a musician and a hobby photographer, and surely, somewhere, if he were alive, he would have crossed paths with someone who remembers him, she reasons. She also considers police and lithography organizations another source.
Earl Conover would be 77 now. Unable to recall him, Ms. Weaver isn't sure she would want to encounter him face to face. "He seems almost like a storybook character to me," she said.
But to set the record straight, to solve the curiosity of her sister, and perhaps in the memory of her mother, Ms. Weaver intends to continue the search
.
The Cincinnati Post, September 6, 1996:
47-year mystery, bittersweet answer
By Jack Hicks, Post Staff Reporter
Rosa Weaver now knows most of the answers about her father. He wasn't murdered when he disappeared nearly a half-century ago, leaving his young family. Instead, he began a new life, with a new family, in another part of the country.
Only one question remains, but it's one she'll never get to ask:
Why?
Mrs. Weaver, principal of R.R. Hinsdale Elementary School in Edgewood, Ky., was just 18 months old when her father, Earl Conover, disappeared in early 1949.
Conover was 34 at the time, married with two children and another on the way. He was a partner in a Cincinnati lithographing company, with no apparent financial or family problems.
Authorities and family members immediately suspected foul play. Conover had left a meeting with business associates in a College Hill cafe, with a "see you in the morning." Neither the associates, nor Conover's wife, children, parents or other family members ever saw him again.
His car was found abandoned in Columbus, Ohio, with birthday presents for his 9-year-old daughter, Judy, in the trunk. It seemed to re-enforce the theory that Conover had been abducted and murdered.
But late last month Mrs. Weaver received a surprise mailing. Martin Cassidy of Seattle, Wash., had read a July 1992 Kentucky Post story outlining Mrs. Weaver's search for her father.
Cassidy believed his late father, Edward Cassidy, was Earl Conover.
Documents accumulated by Martin Cassidy indicated that Conover had made his way to Seattle, where he applied for a Social Security card under the name of Edward Cassidy. Soon after, it turned out, he was joined by Martha Conley [sic], who had worked at the lithograph firm. She had taken a trip West and informed her employer and family that she wasn't coming back. She apparently never contacted her family here again.
Conover, aka Cassidy, and Miss Conly lived together as man and wife and had four children. The younger Cassidy and his siblings have been unable to find a marriage certificate.
In 1953 Cassidy moved to Yakima, Wash., where he became an employee, and then as executive, of a printing firm. he was active in church, lodge, and civic groups, just as he had been in Greater Cincinnati.
Cassidy died in 1967, at age 53, of a heart attack. Miss Conley is about 80 and still living in Yakima, though in poor health. Her son has not told her of his contacts with people in this area.
Martin Cassidy always was curious about his parent's lack of family and reluctance to talk about it, other than saying they were from the Cincinnati area. He began to trace his roots and ran into an immediate dead end on the name Cassidy. His mother's lineage led to her brother in Crescent Springs, Ky., who said a detective hired by Mrs. Weaver had contacted him, trying to find Miss Conley and perhaps link her with Conover.
The Crescent Springs resident knew nothing of Conover, but mentioned a column on Mrs. Weaver's quest that had had appeared in The Kentucky Post in 1992.
Cassidy located the column and then contacted Mrs. Weaver. Their exchange of information and photos have satisfied both that they share the same father.
Cassidy and his brother, Edward [sic], plan to come here later this month to meet Mrs. Weaver and other relatives. Mrs. Weaver's mother is deceased, but her sister, Judy, lives in Washington, D.C., where she is executive director of the national League of Women Voters.
"Suddenly my Christmas card list has gotten longer," Mrs. Weaver said of her new family.
Mostly there is relief in her knowledge, Mrs. Weaver said. But there also is sadness, for her mother, who lost a husband, and for her sister and brother and herself, who as children had no father.