Mansfield’s infamous Sternbaum case started with a murder & arson

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part II of a four-part series. Part I published on Feb. 26. Part III will publish on Feb. 28 and Part IV will finish the series on Feb. 29.

MANSFIELD — Mansfield had two murder cases that dominated the 20th century. Both were called “The Trial of the Century” by the local media.

Many in town still have vivid memories of the 1989 New Year’s Eve murder of Noreen Boyle. She was strangled to death in her home at 616 Hawthorne Lane and then buried under a house that her husband was building in Erie, Pa.

The ensuing trial of Dr. John Boyle in the spring of 1990 was broadcast nightly by WMFD-TV.

That story was made into a movie in 2018, and Richland Source brought the film, A Murder in Mansfield, to town for a couple of showings at the Renaissance Theatre.

Far fewer in Mansfield are familiar with the the first “Trial of the Century” — for a simple reason. It took place 70 years ago, in February and March of 1954.

The latter case stemmed from the Dec. 4, 1952 murder of 31-year-old Leah Sternbaum. The mother of three small boys died of multiple skull fractures before her body was charred by the flames of a fire set in her husband’s grocery store office.

The similarities between the two murders, 37 years apart, are striking — and eerie.

Both attrractive young women were killed around midnight in December. Both were homemakers who had multiple, pre-teen children in the house. Both married prominent, professional, local men with budding bank accounts. Both had philandering husbands who were each charged with their respective murders.

Finally, both women were survived by family members that pointed a suspicious finger directly at those spouses from the very beginning.

Leah Mandel of Willard married Max, the son of a Mansfield grocery store owner, in 1944. They had three children, Mark, and twins, Karl and David, who were 6, 3 and 3, respectively, at the time of the murder, Dec. 4, 1952.

Max, 33, was treasurer of the family business, Sternbaum Complete Food Marts. There were two Sternbaum locations in Mansfield, and one each in Ashland, Willard and Fremont. Another store was in the works and would open in Bucyrus in 1953.

On the night in question, Max Sternbaum called his wife at home, at 212 Richland Ave., and asked her to pick him up at his office, 169 Vale Ave., at about 12:15 a.m.

This was a frequent request, as Max liked to work in quiet, and Leah liked the activity of getting out of the house, even at her husband’s typically odd hours. They had a housekeeper to look after the children.

Shortly after the call, Max said two men apparently gained entry to the rear of his office. As he was sitting at his desk, one shoved a gun in his back and said “Don’t move.”

Max replied, “All right, what do you want?”

The robber, described only as a man wearing brown pants, instructed Max to take off his watch and place it and his wallet on the desk.

Then, a second voice from behind said, “Someone’s coming!”

At that point, Max was apparently smacked over the head. When he regained his senses, his office was filled with smoke and flames. He crawled out the front door but in doing so noticed what he assumed was his wife laying on the floor in the back of the office, although this would be a point of contention in the trial (How did Max know it was Leah?).

Neighbors arrived before the fire department, which was stalled by a B&O freight train blocking both the Mulberry Street and North Main Street crossings.

Meanwhile, neighbors tended to a bloody Max, who was restrained twice from trying to re-enter the building to rescue Leah.

“He started screaming ‘My wife! My wife!’ And he started to claw his way back into the place,” said Robert Vanderbilt of 164 Vale Ave. “We had to hold him, or he would’ve been killed, too.”

When authorities arrived, they were also kept at bay by the flames and smoke. When the scene cleared, Leah’s body was discovered.

But she didn’t die from the fire.

Richland County Coroner D.C. Lavender determined Leah Sternbaum’s death was caused by a quadrangular skull fracture — her head was smashed at least five times by a heavy, blunt object.

There would be some dispute if the fire might have been the cause of death, but it didn’t really matter.

“Either way, it’s a clear case of first-degree murder,” Richland County Prosecutor Theodore Lutz said.

Police classified it as a murder, robbery and arson. The bandits made off with approximately $60 and discarded the watch nearby.

It should be noted there were a wave of robberies in Mansfield that first week in December, 1952.

In addition to the Sternbaum case, police were soon investigating the robbery of the Orange Street Cafe. There had also been a break-in as someone tried to crack the safe at Isaly’s ice cream emporium on North Franklin Street — all within 72 hours of the Sternbaum holdup.

Mansfield police deployed immediately.

Authorities probed an incident about four months earlier at Sternbaum’s parking lot Aug. 28, 1952. Two masked men in a parked car were reported to authorites. They looked like they were “casing” Sternbaums, the Good Samaritans noted. The duo fled when a patrolling cruiser apparently spooked them.

Just three hours after the murder, Mansfield Police hauled in a 21-year-old man who was meandering along Mulberry Street. He was held for questioning but was later released.

A mere 26 hours after the crime, two teenagers were arrested for the Orange Street Cafe job, which netted them $3,500 and a prison sentence. Although one of them had a gun, they could not be tied to Leah’s murder.

A 25-year-old Pavonia man was also held, but eventually released when he could not be connected to the crime either.

Two days after the murder, Lewis P. Morris committed suicide by shooting himself in the forehead after breaking into Hurley’s Laundromat and Service on Sturges Avenue. The Sternbaum defense team pointed to Morris as the most likely suspect in Leah’s murder.

Max insisted the pants and shoes Morris was wearing when he committed suicide were the same as those that one of the intruders wore the night of Leah’s murder. Also, Max identified gloves belonging to the perpetrator that were found in Morris’ jacket.

However, Mansfield police and the prosecutor’s office didn’t buy it. They said Morris had an alibi for the night of Leah’s murder. He was at home with his wife. Also, his wife testified at Max’s trial that the family car was broken down, so her husband was housebound at the time.

Another suspect was tracked all the way to Kansas. But he had a rock-solid alibi. He confessed to two robberies in Nebraska at the time of the Sternbaum murder, and was promptly arrested and extradited to serve time for those crimes.

On June 19, 1953, 38-year-old Samuel Milleaf was returned to Mansfield from New York City. He was serving 90 days for carrying a concealed weapon, but was dropped as a suspect after he passed a lie-detector test.

Through it all, Max Sternbaum never strayed from the suspect’s list.

Indeed, the day of the murder, Leah’s father, Louis Mandel, confronted Max directly at his home and in front of the family.

“I pointed my hand right at him and I said, ‘This is a planned job, a trap set!'” Mandel later testified. “And (Max) didn’t say anything.

“I’ve been saying that all along.”

On Jan. 13, 1953, just five weeks after the murder, Mansfield police Det. Bruce Friday asked Sternbaum, “if he would voluntarily submit to a lie detector’s test for the purposes of elimination.”

Max’s attorneys weren’t opposed to a lie-detector’s test. They just didn’t want the local authorities administering it. So, Max took a three-hour lie detector’s test administered by a man named Bernard Higley of Columbus.

The defense team called Higley an “expert,” and he stated that Max passed the test. That was that as far as the Sternbaum team was concerned.

That test was meaningless according to Leah’s family, Mansfield police, the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office, and the Richland County prosecutor, who branded Higley as nothing more than a truant officer.

At trial, no testimony relating to a lie-detector’s test was admissable.

On Nov. 6, 1953, the News Journal cryptically hinted at a “break” in the Sternbaum case. The story was vague at best, but clearly local authorities had leaked to the press that something was about to happen.

It did.

Richland County Common Pleas Judge G.E. Kalbfleisch reconvened a grand jury on Nov. 12 in a surprise move by Lutz, the county’s prosecutor.

Leah Sternbaum’s body was soon disinterred for a second autopsy, and she was reburied just three hours later.

On Nov. 30, five Sternbaum family members were subpoened to testify before the grand jury.

On Dec. 3, the News Journal reported the grand jury heard testimony from a “mystery woman.”

In total, 54 witnesses were called over nine days.

Finally, on Saturday, Dec. 5 at noon, they returned an indictment against Max Sternbaum for first-degree murder and arson.

A mere 90 minutes later, Max was arrested at his brother David’s farm, seven miles south of Mansfield near Hastings and Newville Road. Max was surrounded by his supportive family, including his parents, his sister and her husband, as well as his brother and sister-in-law.

He was taken into custody without incident by Sheriff E.P. Long and deputy Joseph Hetler. Accompanied by his brother, David, Max was wearing a light blue sports coat when he was booked into the Richland County Jail.

He pleaded not guilty on Dec. 9, and no bail was set as this was a capital crime.

Max Sternbaum, now 35, spent the next 64 days in the Richland County Jail awaiting trial. If convicted, he was looking directly at a seat in the electric chair.

It would be the longest trial in Ohio history to that point, and was the very definition of a “Show Trial.”