Grisly Marblehead Murder Re-Examined 7 Decades Later In New Book

MARBLEHEAD, MA — For more than seven decades the brutal killing of Marblehead school teacher Beryl Atherton on a stormy Black Friday night has remained an unsolved mystery on the North Shore.

For 40 of those years, Harry Christensen has pored over the evidence and details of the case looking for answers to the questions that police could never definitively conclude: Who could have committed this horrific and gruesome act that night in 1950, and why?

Now, for the first time, Christensen has put his comprehensive collection of notes, interviews, details and theories together in the book "Murder in Marblehead" where he and longtime friend and former Danvers Public Schools Superintendent Rich Santeusanio look to shorten the suspect list and invite readers to provide their theories on one of the region's most notorious crimes.

"We have narrowed it down to three different suspects," Santeusanio told Patch. "We give a scenario on each of those and then there is a website where people can give their own opinions on who did it. We're hoping people will interact with this.

"It would be nice if this led to the identity of the person who did it. We are still hoping that it will be solved."

Christensen's interest in the case was fueled while growing up in his hometown at a time when the murder was still a topic of frequent conversation. As a Salem State student, he was then tasked with writing a term paper on an unsolved murder and chose the infamous tale from his own hometown.

"That's when he began his research," Santeusanio said. "Once he started, he couldn't stop. He went well beyond the term paper."

Christensen over the decades interviewed police involved with the investigation and gained access to autopsy and crime scene reports that few others have seen. He incorporated his findings in talks on the subject throughout the North Shore before finally deciding to put it all together into a book along with Santeusanio — with whom he worked in the Danvers Public Schools in the 1970s.

"He's been talking about writing about it for a long time," Santeusanio said.

Santeusanio — who had previously published education materials — said that while Christensen was responsible for a lot of the specifics of the grotesque killing itself, he took on the task of many of the background details, such as the vicious storm that pounded the area that night and led to Atherton's body not being discovered for three days.

"It was definitely a collaborative process," Santeusanio said. "Especially during the COVID period, it certainly kept us busy."

Santeusanio and Christensen self-published the book and are now in the midst of a bit of a book tour of the North Shore speaking to rotary clubs, senior centers and community groups, sharing all they know about that fateful night and the frantic days that followed and shook the seashore town.

The book includes information on some of the suspects at the time and why police dismissed them. Santeusanio said he and Christensen believe police did have someone that they identified as the likely killer but never had enough evidence to bring forth charges.

"There is so much sensitive information in there we figured would do this ourselves and not try to find a publisher," Santeusanio said. "We have already sold a lot of books — so far mainly to people from Marblehead.

"There are still so many people who will tell you that their grandmother knew her, or their aunt lived in the neighborhood next to her. There are so many connections locally.

"It's been a very hot topic for a long time."

"Murder in Marblehead" can be found on Amazon books here with hard copies available for sale at the Marblehead Garden Center and Arnould Gallery & Framery.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)