On December 14, 1995, firefighters responding to a fire at the home of 76-year-old Walter Page in Manchester, New Hampshire, found the World War II veteran and semi-retired stockbroker dead in his cellar office. An initial examination determined Page did not die in the fire but had been fatally stabbed multiple times.

In the days before his death Page, who served as treasurer for his local Masonic lodge, discovered significant financial irregularities. Someone had embezzled $109,000 from the lodge’s accounts; Page received an anonymous threatening phone call the day before he was killed, and other lodge members also received threats. A Molotov cocktail was later left at one member’s door.

Investigation attention focused on Bonnie Bickford, wife of the lodge treasurer Karl Bickford; she was convicted for the embezzlement and for the attempted arson at the other member’s home but was never arrested for Page’s murder. The fire at Page’s house destroyed evidence, and no conclusive link to the killer has been proven. The case remains an open, unsolved homicide.