Harrison W. Noel

Harrison W. Noel (16 April 1905 - June 1977), murdered cab driver Raymond Pearce and six-year-old Mary Daly in an apparent copycat kidnapping in early September 1925. He was condemned to death but the sentence was upended on appeal by using insanity defense. Noel was committed to an institution and died in Trenton, New Jersey in 1977.

Early life Noel was born in Manhattan, New York City, on April 16, 1905, and moved five years later to Montclair, New Jersey, where he was living with his mother and stepfather at the time of the murder case. He exhibited signs of a mental disorder while in college and spent time in Overbrook Hospital for the Insane in Cedar Grove, New Jersey.