Is Lady in the Lake a True Story? How Two Mysterious Baltimore Deaths Inspired the Show

Two mysterious — but seemingly unrelated — disappearances and deaths are at the heart of Apple TV+’s limited series, Lady in the Lake.

Set in 1960s Baltimore, the seven-part noir thriller was created and directed by Alma Har’el and based on Laura Lippman's 2019 novel of the same name. The show stars Natalie Portman as Maddie Schwartz, a Jewish housewife who leaves her husband to pursue a career as an investigative journalist.

In the process, Schwartz becomes entangled in two cases with no apparent connection: The death of a Black woman named Cleo Johnson (played by Queen’s Gambit star Moses Ingram), whose body is found in a nearby lake, and the disappearance and murder of a local 11-year-old girl named Tessie Durst.

Two real-life crimes that occurred in Baltimore in 1969 inspired Lippman's novel: The murder of a young White Jewish girl named Esther Lebowitz and the mysterious death of a single Black mother named Shirley Parker. The circumstances and media coverage surrounding each case varied greatly — and that disparity struck a chord with Lippman.

Ahead of Lady in the Lake's premiere on July 19, 2024, Portman revealed to PEOPLE that she was able to explore her lineage by playing the role of Schwartz and filming the series in Baltimore.

“My grandmother was in her 40s during the 1960s, and she was originally from Baltimore — where this is set — in the Jewish community,” Portman explained to PEOPLE. “I really got to explore what her life might have been like, what challenges she might have faced, what feelings she might have been frustrated by. And so that was really amazing to imagine.”

But how much of Lady in the Lake is a true story? Here’s a closer look at the individuals and crimes that inspired the best-selling novel and television series.

Who was Esther Lebowitz?

In 1969, Esther Lebowitz was an 11-year-old fifth-grade girl living in Baltimore.

She and her family (which included her two siblings and her parents, Abraham and Shulamis) resided in the northwestern corner of Baltimore, known for its tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community. Lebowitz attended the Bais Yaakov School for Girls, a private Jewish school.

What happened to Esther Lebowitz?

On Sept. 29, 1969, a rabbi gave Lebowitz and two other children a ride home from school. The rabbi dropped Lebowitz off at a drugstore not far from her home so that she could buy school supplies — but Lebowitz was never seen alive again, The Baltimore Sun reported.

Two days later, police officers discovered Lebowitz’s body in a field off the side of the road less than a half-mile from the young girl’s home. She had been bludgeoned in the head, injuries the medical examiner believed were caused by a hammer, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Who killed Esther Lebowitz?

When Lebowitz’s body was discovered, she was covered in a sandy substance and blue paint — evidence which proved to be critical in finding her killer. Police were able to determine that the sand was a type of gravel used in fish tanks and traced it to a tropical fish store on Park Heights Avenue, The Baltimore Sun reported.

In the basement of the store, which was directly adjacent to the drugstore where Lebowitz had been headed, police discovered strands of Lebowitz’s hair and a hammer with her blood on it.

The findings led police to their main suspect: Then-23-year-old Wayne S. Young, who operated the fish store with his mother. When questioned by police, Young confessed to killing Lebowitz.

“I did this. I killed that little girl,” he reportedly told a police sergeant, according to court transcripts.

What happened to Wayne S. Young after he killed Esther Lebowitz?

Young faced trial for Lebowitz’s murder in 1970, and his lawyers claimed that he was temporarily insane when he killed her, per The Baltimore Sun.

A doctor from Clifton T. Perkins Hospital (a maximum-security psychiatric facility) testified that Young committed the heinous crime because he was “trying to destroy his mother” — who was allegedly “overprotective, doting, almost overwhelming” — after the two had had an argument.

Despite his insanity defense, a jury found Young guilty in less than 30 minutes, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

In November 2015, Young was granted a new trial in Lebowitz’s murder under the Unger ruling, in which a judge decided that jurors before 1980 were given unconstitutional instructions.

However, while awaiting his retrial, Young died in prison on Dec. 23, 2015, at the age of 69, per The Times of Israel.

Who was Shirley Parker?

Shirley Lee Parker was 35 years old in 1969. A twice-divorced mother of two boys, Parker held multiple jobs as a single provider: She worked as a window model for a chain of department stores, as a barmaid at a local Baltimore nightclub and as a secretary at the Urban League, according to Afro News.

“My mom, she was a good mom. She was very attentive to me and my brother’s needs,” Parker’s younger son David told the outlet in 2017. “She was a very outspoken type woman and everybody liked her, everybody.”

What happened to Shirley Parker?

On the night of April 23, 1969, Parker vanished “under mysterious circumstances” after a night out with her boyfriend, Arno West, and some friends, per The Baltimore Sun.

West told police that Parker had become angry during their evening out, so he took her on a drive to cool off. She exited his car near Druid Hill Park and began walking, according to West’s account, and he followed her out of concern.

When he reportedly saw her climbing the 15-foot railing around the Druid Hill Park Reservoir, he claimed he convinced her not to enter the lake and drove her home. But later that same week, West allegedly found Parker’s purse hanging on the iron fence surrounding Druid Lake and reported it to police.

However, Parker’s mother, Theresa, contradicted West’s story and claimed that her daughter never returned home on the evening of April 23. She quickly reported her daughter missing to the police, according to The Baltimore Sun, but became concerned when a week went by with no updates.

In the weeks following Parker’s disappearance, police dragged Druid Lake — which is 30 feet deep — based on West’s claim that he found her purse there. However, their search turned up empty, and Parker remained missing without a trace.

Parker’s body was eventually found six weeks after she initially disappeared, thanks to an unrelated complaint written to The Evening Sun about broken lights in the Druid Lake fountain.

On June 2, 1969, an electrical crew addressing the lights discovered Parker’s body on top of the fountain, lying face-down in about 18 inches of water, according to The Baltimore Sun.

The location of her body — as well as the place she was last seen alive — earned Parker the post-mortem moniker of the “lady in the lake.”

How did Shirley Parker die?

How Parker died and ended up on the top of the Druid Lake fountain — which is 35 feet tall and 380 feet from the edge of the lake — remains a mystery. Her body was severely decomposed and, as a result, key evidence could have been washed or decayed away, assistant medical examiner Dr. Ronald Kornblum told the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper at the time.

Dr. Edward Wilson, who was also an assistant medical examiner, was able to rule out several causes of death, however. According to The Baltimore Sun, Parker was not “strangled, stabbed or used narcotics.”

West, Parker’s boyfriend and the last person to see her alive, was questioned about her mysterious death. According to Afro News, he failed a lie detector test but was released because there was no evidence that a crime was committed.

“It remains a questionable death but was never a murder,” Sgt. Roger Nolan, supervisor of the Baltimore Police Department’s Cold Case Squad, told The Baltimore Sun in 2000. “There was no force or trauma to the body and she most likely died of hypothermia.”

Parker’s son, David, has his own theory about what happened to his late mother. He told Afro News that he believes his mother — who he said was an “excellent swimmer" — went swimming in Druid Lake to clear her head after her argument with West. But then, upon exiting the lake, she fell backward and hit her head.

“The autopsy said she had a hole in the back of her head,” David added to back up his theory. “I think she hit her head and fell back and was unconscious and with the water coming down on her, she drowned.”

However, David’s theory offers no explanation for how Parker’s body ended up on top of the 35-foot-tall fountain in the middle of the lake.

What was the public reaction to the deaths of Esther Lebowitz and Shirley Parker?

The disappearances and deaths of Parker and Lebowitz happened in the same city, within five months of each other — but the tragedies received much different media coverage.

Lebowitz’s murder rocked the Orthodox Jewish community where she was raised and garnered extensive coverage in The Baltimore Sun and other local news outlets. When she was first reported missing, both Jewish and non-Jewish city residents banded together to form search parties for Lebowitz.

“Somehow this event, as heinous as it was, for one brief moment really pulled the city together,” Lebowitz’s cousin, Abba Poliakoff, told The Forward in 2014. “Everybody was caught up in the tragedy, not just the Jewish community.”

When Lebowitz’s body was found, the community was devastated. Nearly 1,500 people turned out for her funeral, and the Jewish community later packed the courtroom during Young’s trial for her murder — and continued to do so at his court hearings over the decades.

“It wasn’t just the Jewish community — it was the whole area,” Neil Schachter, president of the Northwest Citizens Patrol, told The Baltimore Sun in 2014. “What Kennedy was to the United States, Esther Lebowitz was to the Northwest area. People will tell you, ‘I know where I was when I heard about Esther Lebowitz.’ ”

Parker’s case, however, was much less publicized. Her disappearance was reportedly not covered in local newspapers, and the discovery of her body earned minimal coverage in the Baltimore Afro-American. The difference in media attention initially inspired Lippman to write Lady in the Lake, the novel behind the July 2024 Apple TV+ series.

“Until I went to work at The Baltimore Sun, I never heard about it,” Lippman told NPR about the Parker case. “Her disappearance was not covered in the daily paper. And when her body was found, it was a story that appeared once or twice and then quickly disappeared.”