Illegal anniversary: Rita Shea

Queens patrolman Howard Bailey, morgue attendant Victor Genz, and a Texas medical student, Benjamin Lockhart, were arrested in the December 4, 1965 abortion death of Rita Shea, a 33-year-old Long Island woman. Lockhart confessed to performing the abortion in a motel room near Kennedy airport. After Rita died, her body was put in a car outside her home. Bailey, a married man, had evidently arranged the abortion to keep his affair with Rita a secret.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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