This Day in History: 1935-06-04
Mahwah and Ramsey were baffled by the case of a Paterson girl who had been thrown out of a car and refused to talk about it. Officer Albert Schmidt and Mahwah Police Chief Charles E. Smith were summoned to the blinker light on Route 2 (now Route 17) in Mahwah just before midnight to find a girl, Betta Meinwitz, 18, of Paterson beside the road. They took her to the Good Samaritan Hospital where she was examined by Dr. Vernon L. Hawes. She was found to have bruises around the head caused by her being forced from the car. The Paterson Police had sent out an alarm on her since she had disappeared from her home at 3:00 PM the previous day. She remained in the hospital until picked up by her parents the next day, but she never revealed to anyone how she had come to be dumped in Mahwah. Chief Smith said that if she liked to spend her time being tossed out of cars and not talking about it she was in her rights. She was not charged. (Bristow)