West Palm Beach’s Most Twisted Theft and Murder Tale Comes to Life in New Novel – The Crystal Ball Chronicles – Lena Clarke, postmaster and minister’s daughter, became the most infamous woman in America in 1921.
West Palm Beach, Florida, Friday, October 20, 2023
A crime-filled odyssey that took place more than a century ago is finally told in its entirety. The Crystal Ball Chronicles tells the 1921 story of 35-year-old Lena Clarke, West Palm Beach’s postmaster. Clarke lived with her elderly parents and older sister when she was appointed postmaster in 1920, a top position among Palm Beach County public servants. Her brother’s untimely death on Christmas Day, 1920 set Clarke on a downward spiral that led to embezzlement, the theft of a $32,000 bank deposit, and the murder of Fred Miltimore, the man she tried to pin the theft on. The murder took place in Orlando, Florida at the San Juan Hotel. Clarke’s father was a nationally known minister and theologian, and her mother was a leader in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union movement. Lena Clarke, however, was intrigued by the supernatural and the occult and became obsessed with spies and notorious celebrities of the time. She slipped into her world of delusion, hidden from West Palm Beach’s citizens, as she went about volunteering with the Red Cross and working in her church while writing soulful poetry at night, telling fortunes in her studio, and handling rattlesnakes with her brother.
Lena Clarke left her own breadcrumbs behind to tell her story. Tucked away in the archives of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County were family letters, diaries, photographs, and manuscripts that Clarke herself had donated in 1961. In the ensuing sixty years, no one had examined the material in detail to discover the secrets it held.
“I started volunteering at the Historical Society in 2022 and finally had the chance to delve into the Clarke archives,” said author Ginger Pedersen. “I began to piece together the clues and facts that brought to light many new facets to the story.”
“The biggest missing piece of the puzzle was that the Palm Beach Post archive had been pilfered of all the newspaper pages that contained stories about the murder and trial in 1921. They were gone,” Pedersen said. “Then a chance discovery at the University of Florida revealed that the university had digitized their Florida newspaper collection, revealing a second unknown archive of the Palm Beach Post. The missing articles were found.”
After the research phase, which included reading the testimony from the murder trial, reviewing hundreds of newspaper accounts from around the nation, contacting family descendents, and a trip to the National Archives, Pedersen and Naughton had a dilemma: how to tell this intriguing story.
“We knew that a standard nonfiction account wouldn’t do the story justice,” Janet Naughton said. “It was too intriguing and dramatic for a cold telling of facts.” A fictionalized account, creating dialogue and characters, is how they decided to tell the story. “It allowed us to give voice to the characters and let them tell their own story. We used Lena Clarke’s own writings on her life and her poetry to serve as much of her dialogue,” Naughton said.
“It’s a chilling tale, a true crime romp that takes the reader along as the story unfolds in real time, from the viewpoint of a fictional newspaper reporter, Kate Brennan, who gets caught up and swept into the story,” Pedersen said. “Every true crime and mystery fan will enjoy this book.”
Palmango Press LLC
Palmango Press specializes in publishing Florida-based books, republishes classics in Florida literature, and fiction novels with a historical focus. www.palmango.com