Death at 816 Whitcomb Road: Part 1
The ghastly scene left behind and the questions that remained
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Release Date: July 8, 2025
A woman at the window
On the afternoon of January 29, 1926, 41-year-old Cleveland machinist, Carl Benevol, was out for a walk when he heard a feeble knocking coming from the house at 816 Whitcomb Road. Curious, he approached and was shocked to see a woman at the window, signaling for help.
He tried the door. It was locked and the woman on the other side appeared unable to get to the door to let him in.
Quickly Carl went off in search of help.
When he returned a few minutes later the door was open, and the woman was sitting on the interior stairwell holding a small child.
“See what happened upstairs,” she whispered. “They’re all dead”. 1
Friends and family around the dinner table
Elvira D' Ercole was born September 3, 1893, in Penne, Italy, the sixth of eight children to Vincenzo and Elisabetta D' Ercole. Beginning when Elvira was 10, the family immigrated to America as they could afford it. Her parents were the first to leave in early 1903, then came her work-age siblings, and finally Elvira and her two younger siblings, Anna and Luigi, who made the trip in 1905.
The whole family was reunited in Altoona, PA, and in November 1910, 17-year-old Elvira married 19-year-old Arturo Fulvi, a scrappy brewer who’d arrived from Italy just three years earlier.
The two quickly set about starting a family of their own, giving birth to three sons, James, Victor and Rueben, in six years.
By 1917, the Fulvi family had moved from Altoona to Cleveland, OH where many of Elvira’s siblings were already living, and where Arturo found stable work as a mechanic. They purchased a modest house in Collinwood, a neighborhood with close-knit immigrant families like their own, and set about having more babies. Mary was born in 1917, Dorothy in 1919, and the baby of the family, Gino, in 1923.
On Thursday, January 28, 1926, Arturo and Elvira invited eight friends over for a simple dinner party. The evening’s menu consisted of steak and potatoes, spaghetti, stewed fruit, canned pineapple and chestnuts, as well as milk and coffee. Despite Prohibition, there was also homemade wine and beer at the table – whether Arturo had made the intoxicants himself in a basement barrel or had purchased them on the black market is unknown, but the wine was flowing throughout dinner and beyond. 2
Shortly after the meal ended, 12-year-old Victor said his goodbyes, left the party and headed to the home of his maternal grandparents, Vincenzo and Elisabetta, some four blocks away where he would spend the night. 3
The celebrations, however, continued, with several family members — likely Elvira’s siblings and their spouses, perhaps even her parents — dropping by to join the festivities.
At some point, ten-year-old Rudy, eight-year-old Mary and six-year-old Dorothy were probably sent upstairs to bed.
The eldest son, 14-year-old, James, was perhaps allowed to stay down with the adults for a while longer, but he, too, was eventually sent to bed.
Whether three-year-old Gino went to bed with his siblings or remained up with the adults is unknown.
Finally, around 11 o’clock that night, the party broke up and guests and relatives started to leave. Exhausted and perhaps a little intoxicated, Elvira and Arturo decided to leave the dirty dishes and leftovers on the table. It had already been a long day. They’d deal with the cleanup in the morning.
The family’s pets, a dog and a cat, were sent to the basement, and then Elvira and her husband trudged upstairs. Sleep was calling.
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A shocking and gruesome discovery
After coming to the aid of Elvira and Gino, Good Samaritan Carl Benevol ran to find a phone, perhaps at a local business open on the Sunday holiday, but more likely at a public pay phone on a nearby corner. Reaching the operator he asked to be connected to the nearest doctor. And then the undertaker. Maybe even the police.
Then he returned to 816 Whitcomb Road, sat down beside the dazed mother and her young son and waited.
Eventually he asked what happened.
“I don’t know,” whispered Elvira. “They must have been drinking wine.” 4
Who arrived at the Fulvi home first, the doctor, the undertaker or the police, is unclear. But within minutes the house was filled with people.
The doctor went to work examining Elvira and Gino, then quickly ferried them to nearby hospitals. Both were weak but expected to make it. A guard was stationed out front of Elvira’s door and told to alert his supervisor when she had recovered enough to remember what had happened.
The undertaker went upstairs.
Local papers would describe the scene as “ghastly” in the next morning’s pages: 5
The two girls, Mary and Dorothy, were dead in bed, clasped in each other’s arms. On a dresser sat a life size doll.
In the bathroom were the bodies of the two boys [James and Rueben], their arms gripping their stomachs, as they had died in great agony.
In another bed was the body of the father [Arturo], one foot stretched toward the floor. He probably died trying to get out of bed. All the bodies were rigid and cold.
The county coroner was quickly notified.
As for the police, they began their investigation — gathering evidence, speaking to guests and family members, reconstructing timelines and quickly forming theories to explain how five members of the Fulvi family had tragically died inside their locked home.
Was it an accident, murder, suicide, or something else?
Copyright 2025 Lori Olson White
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End Notes
1 “Murder Plot Suspected as Death Claims Five Family in Night: Guests at Feast on Fatal Night Escape Without Harm”, The Brownsville Herald, Brownsville, TX, Feb. 7, 1926, P. 8.
2 “Five members of Ohio Family Die in Poison”, Birmingham Post-Herald, Birmingham, AL, January 30, 1926, P. 1.
3 “Five members of Ohio Family Die in Poison”, Birmingham Post-Herald, Birmingham, AL, January 30, 1926, P. 1.
4 “Murder Plot Suspected as Death Claims Five Family in Night: Guests at Feast on Fatal Night Escape Without Harm”, The Brownsville Herald, Brownsville, TX, Feb. 7, 1926, P. 8.
5 “Murder Plot Suspected as Death Claims Five Family in Night: Guests at Feast on Fatal Night Escape Without Harm”, The Brownsville Herald, Brownsville, TX, Feb. 7, 1926, P. 8.
Well ... You have got me hooked. Looking forward to seeing how this story unravels.
Lori I hope you’re not going to leave me hanging. I need to know what happened next.