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Two Beatlemaniacs Come Home

Oct. 7, 1964 - Two Cleveland, Ohio, teenage girls who came to England three weeks ago so they could be near the Beatles were picked up today by London police.

Scotland Yard officials said the girls, Martha Schendel (left) and Janice Hockings (right), both 16, were “none the worse” for the experience. They had about $500 left of the $1,980 they were reported to have brought with them.

The girls disappeared from Cleveland last month shortly after the Beatles gave a concert there. Authorities traced them to London, and a UPI cameraman reported seeing two girls answering their description in the crowd that welcomed the Beatles home from their U.S. tour.

Officials said Martha and Janice arrived in London Sept. 17, checked into a downtown hotel for two nights, and then took an apartment in the fashionable Holland Park area.

“They are pop music mad and have been going to various West End clubs and also did a trip to Liverpool,” police said.

Liverpool is the home of the Beatles. It was not known if the girls ever made contact with their idols.

A nationwide alert had been issued for the girls, and today their pictures were seen by millions of newspaper readers in the London afternoon papers.

Two policewomen spotted Janice today walking down Oxford Street, London’s main shopping district. She was with an English youth. She told them the address of the apartment, and police found Martha there.

U.S. Embassy officials arranged overnight accommodations for the girls tonight after police contacted them.

Police said the girls had several suitcases of clothes and plenty of money — “they don’t seem to have been spreading it around.”

In Cleveland, Mrs. Isabel Schendel, mother of Martha, told authorities her daughter had withdrawn $1,980 from a college fund to finance the trip. Mrs. Schendel said she would fly to London to return with her daughter.



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