Biography
Camelia Crempa was detained after deputy sheriffs killed her mother Sophie and wounded her father John during a September 1935 confrontation over a public-utility dispute in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. In a contemporary first-person account, she described being taken with her father to the Union County courthouse jail. The report identified her as nineteen and said she had been released into her attorney’s custody. The exact detention and release days remain unconfirmed.
The utility-dispute report corroborates the September 1935 family detentions after deputies killed Sophie Crempa and wounded John. The issue’s hospital/jail wording does not resolve the conflicting physical-location and relative-day reports already preserved in this profile; no exact endpoint is substituted. Daily Worker, October 1, 1935, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n235-NAT-oct-01-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=2
Sources and evidence limits
The September 30 report quotes Camelia describing both herself and her father being taken to Union County courthouse jail after the shooting. It says John remained in jail, while Camelia had been released to attorney Leonard Pontus; John Jr. had been arrested at work the day before the shooting and remained held. The report calls the shooting Thursday, yielding September 26, 1935 and September 25 for the son by calendar. A contemporaneous Associated Press report in the September 27 Eugene Register-Guard has differing relative-day wording and describes the father being taken to hospital and the daughter temporarily detained. Physical detention is corroborated, but exact calendar days are not stored as settled: September month precision is used. The hospital and jail locations are attributed to their respective reports; no conviction or complete custody duration is established. The original September 30 article prints age 19, not OCR 18. No birth year is inferred. Month placeholders do not establish a same-day or one-day stay.
- Daily Worker, September 30, 1935, original pages 1–2, Power Trust Is Murderer in Raid
- Associated Press report in Eugene Register-Guard, September 27, 1935, page 5; digitized by University of Oregon
Birth and death dates are unverified. No race or organizational affiliation is inferred. Historical detention does not imply present custody.
