This week’s cold case dates back more than 50 years and involves the slaying of the popular registrar of the University of Maryland.
Alma Preinkert was born in the District, graduated from George Washington University and received a master’s from Maryland. In 1936, she became the first female registrar of the university in College Park.
She was much beloved on campus. Students said Preinkert always found time for those seeking information or help, even though by 1954 she was handling the records of some 42,000 Maryland students around the world annually.
In the morning of Feb. 28, 1954, a prowler broke into Preinkert’s home at 1436 Chapin St. in Northwest Washington next to Meridian Hill Park in what today is on the border of Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights.
The intruder used a ladder stolen from a nearby rooming house to climb to the second floor, then broke a glass window to reach in and unfasten the lock.
Preinkert awoke to the man ransacking her bedroom. Preinkert apparently startled the intruder and he fatally stabbed the 58-year-old woman.
Preinkert’s sister, who lived next door, heard the commotion and tried to help Alma Preinkert, but the intruder stabbed her, too. Neighbors could hear the screams and the man escaped on foot. He left behind another clue, though, a gold tie clip.
The sister survived, but police believe Preinkert was killed in a burglary gone bad because her pocketbook had also been rummaged through.
Hundreds of people attended Alma Preinkert’s funeral, including Maryland Gov. Theodore McKeldin.
Dozens of police detectives tried to solve Preinkert’s slaying and the entire Metropolitan Police Department combed the neighborhood looking for her killer, according to reports at the time.
Investigators interviewed hundreds of people, and a $1,500 reward was offered, but no arrest was ever made.
Today, a building on campus, the Preinkert Field House, is named after Alma Preinkert. Preinkert Drive takes students to the Robert H. Smith Business School and South Campus Dining Hall. A painting of Preinkert is in the archives of Maryland’s Hornbake Library.
