Questioned about wife's disappearance

Associated Press · December 2, 1949

Nicholas Brooks (right), 30, Rome, N.Y., house painter who is charged with kidnapping a 15-year-old boy, was quoted by Detective Mitchell Cleveland (left) last night as saying he left his wife, Gilda, 26, struggling in the Genesee River the night of Nov. 3. She has been missing since that date. Cleveland quoted Brooks as saying the boy, Orsemus D. Bitely, Jr., also of Rome, was with them at the time. The boy told FBI agents a similar story in Rochester, N.Y.