Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

It’s Mystery Fires time!  The “Reno Gazette-Journal,” August 14, 1985:

JAMESTOWN, Calif. (UPI) - A historic hotel with a colorful Gold Rush past keeps bursting into flames. Its owners blame an arsonist--one that's been dead 100 years or so. Ghost experts say it could be the work of a grudge-bearing, bald-headed, pajama-clad spirit who may have caused the great Jamestown mining disaster in the 1850s that killed 23 people. In the past decade, the 123-year-old Willow Hotel has been struck by mysterious fires five times.

Flames nearly burned it to the ground in 1975 and the most recent blaze, on July 20, destroyed the former two-story hotel-restaurant's 80-year-old annex. "I said to myself, 'Oh no, not the ghosts again,' " said Deanna Mooney, who bought the hotel with her husband, Sean, in 1972. Former bartender Mike Cusentino, 55, said he first saw the apparition in 1973.

"I woke up one night in one of the eight hotel rooms upstairs and there's this little gray guy right at the door, about 6 feet away from me," he said. "He was in his 60s, bald-headed with a fringe of hair around the top wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. "I stared at him and in a matter of seconds he was gone." 

The Willows was once the pride of the "Gateway to the Mother Lode," as the Sierra foothills town of Jamestown was known during its wild mining days, and boasted gunslingers such as Bat Masterson among its guests. Parapsychologists called in to "exorcize" any spirits said they got rid of three of nine or more ghosts pervading the hotel. Ghostbuster Frank Nocerino said the arsonist could be one of several vengeful ghostly suspects, including the bald-headed spirit who may have also caused the cave-in of a gold mine shaft that runs underneath the hotel in the 1850s.

But he also believes the series of blazes could have been set by several people who died in a fire that burned nine buildings in 1896. The town didn't have water for firefighting, so dynamite was used to put out the flames. "The rest of the town was blown up to save the Willow," Nocerino said. "I guess the people who were killed in the fire resented that."

A Ghostly Revenge

Early 19th century Welsh cottage, as depicted by Richard Redgrave

Some time back, I posted about a man’s supernatural revenge against his sister.  The tale seemed to me fairly unusual, so I was a bit surprised to find a similar story in Edmund Jones’ compilation of 18th century Welsh High Strangeness, “A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth and the Principality of Wales.”

Families, eh?

In the house of Edward Roberts, in the Parish of Llangynllo, came to pass a stranger thing.--- As the servant-man was threshing, the threshel was taken out of his hand and thrown upon the hay-loft; he minded it not much: but being taken out of his hand three or four times gave him a concern, and he went to the house and told it. Edward Roberts being from home, his wife and the maid made light of it, and merrily said they would come with him to keep him from the Spirit, and went there; the one to knit, and the other to wind yarn. They were not long there before what they brought there were taken out of their hands, and tumbled about in their sight; on seeing this, they shut the barn door and came away more sober than they went there. They had not been long home before they perceived the dishes on the shelf move backwards, and some were thrown down: most of the earthen vessels were broke, especially in the night; for in the morning they could scarce tread without stepping upon wrecks of something which lay on the ground. This circumstance being made known, induced the neighbours to visit them. Some came from far to satisfy their curiosity; some from Knighton; and one came from thence to read, confident he would silence the evil Spirit; but had the book taken out of his hand and thrown up stairs. There were stones cast among them, and were often struck by them, but they were not much hurt: there was also iron thrown from the chimney at them, and they knew not from whence it came. The stir continued there about a quarter of a year. At last the house took fire, which they attempted to quench; but it was in vain. They saved most of the furniture, but the house was burnt to the ground; so that nothing but the walls, and the two chimneys, stood as a public spectacle to those who passed to and from Knighton Market.

The apparent cause of the disturbance was this,---Griffith Meridith and his wife, the father and mother of Edward Roberts’s wife were dead, and their son, who was heir to the house, enlisted himself a soldier, and left the country. Roberts and his wife, who were Tenants in the house that was burnt, removed into their father’s house; he being dead, and the house much decayed, they repaired it, and claimed it, as thinking it was their own, and that her brother would never return: but in that year the brother unexpectedly came home, thinking to see his father; he wondered to see the house altered, and making enquiry, went to his sister and claimed the house; which she refused, as having been at charge with it. At last he desired only a share of it, which she also refused; he then desired but two guineas for it, which she still refusing; he went away for Ireland, threatening his sister that she should repent for this ill dealing; and she had cause to repent. 

Now here was very plainly the work of some Spirit, enough to convince, or at least confound an Atheist of the being of Spirits; but whether it was her brother’s own Spirit after his death, or an evil Spirit which he employed to work this revenge upon an unnatural sister, cannot be determined, but the last is more likely.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Behold, the entrance to this week's Link Dump!

I really need to get a pair of these for outside Strange Company HQ.

Watch out for the Wampus Cat!

The bizarre case of the Putney Pusher.

The celebration of strawberries.

The taming of a fungus.

The grave of an unknown shipwreck victim.

Newly discovered rock art in the Sahara.

A phantom sewing machine.

India's first selfie.

The intelligence of plants.

The horrors of 19th century merchant service.

Living in Versailles had it's share of horrors, too.

A bit of High Strangeness in Alaska.

Costa Rica's Cave of Death.  And the name is no joke.

The power of the 16th century veil.

A helicopter heroine.

The unsolved murder of a prospector.

Visits from dead mothers.

A look at time capsules.

The "King of the Beggars."

The rise of Parisian washerwomen.

The East India Company and an "intriguing character."

The origin of "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes."

We've probably been wrong about T. Rex.

An important Neolithic monument.

The weird inventions of a science fiction pioneer.

Science confirms some key events in the Bible.

A wartime rescue that ended in betrayal.

Some simple vintage recipes.

When you accidentally dig up a skeleton.

The relics of old St. Paul's Cathedral.

Reconstructing the face of a Neanderthal.

The wife, the farmhand, and murder.

A suspicious death and a murder.

Some portraits of East Enders.

When New York's Tank Corps had a mascot cat.

Yet another domestic murder.

There are people who pay good money to watch the birth of a Cabbage Patch Kid.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll hear a tale of ghostly vengeance.  In the meantime, there's nothin' like 1970s television.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

You have to admit that “I was a crocodile at the time” isn’t an alibi you hear in every murder trial.  The “Greenville News,” March 23, 1963:

BLANTYRE, Nyasaland (UPI) A man accused of killing a child by dragging her into a river while disguised as a crocodile testified Friday he had changed himself into a crocodile through magic taught him by a witch doctor's ghost. Elard David Chipandale, 35, said, however, he could not change into a crocodile before the court because he "threw away my magic powers when arrested" on the murder charge. He said he could not testify in "crocodile language" for the same reason. Chipandale is charged with murdering 8-year-old Mponde Lyton. Also on trial is the girl's grandfather, Odreck Kasoci.

Chipandale told the court his witch doctor uncle's ghost taught him to tie certain "magic twigs and bark" to his body, transforming him into a crocodile. He said the change into a crocodile was gradual. He said "my teeth became as large as index fingers, my mouth and nose became huge, and my fingers became as sharp as knives." He testified Kasoci offered him money to kill the girl but at first he refused because "I was a friendly crocodile who ate only fish." But after persistent requests, Chipandale said he agreed to murder the girl for $12.60. But he testified Kasoci paid him only $1.40 for the job. Several witnesses testified Thursday they believed Chipandale could turn himself into a crocodile by magic, although no one had seen him do it.

The case came to notice in August 1960, 16 months after the girl died, when Chipandale sued Kasoci in a native court for the blood money. At that hearing Kasoci admitted hiring Chipandale to kill the girl, but said the price was only $7. Chipandale won the case and got his money for the job. A native policeman who attended the hearing reported the case to authorities and both men were arrested. The state charged that Chipandale, dressed in the bark of a tree to make himself look like a crocodile, waited by a river for the child.

Then he dragged the girl, slid into the river, stabbed her and broke her left arm. When nearby villagers, attracted by her screams, approached, the "crocodile man" swam off down the river. However, Kasoci denied to the murder court that he paid Chipandale to kill his granddaughter. He said the native court "intimidated" him into paying Chipandale the money. Kasoci testified that police beat him into signing a confession and that he did not pay Chipandale any money.

You probably will not be surprised to learn that both men were sentenced to death.

A Fake Death and a Real One; Or, At Home With the Banish Family

"South Bend Tribune," August 23, 1965, via Newspapers.com

All families have their little mysteries.  Thankfully, however, few are as bizarre and apparently senseless as the one inflicted on a seemingly quite normal household in South Bend, Indiana.

Things began getting weird on the morning of June 3, 1965, when 18-year-old Scott Banish casually told his parents, Edward and Loretta Banish, that he was going with a group of friends to Warren Dunes State Park, to do some swimming in Lake Michigan.  When by the end of the day Scott had failed to return home, his parents went looking for him.

Edward and Loretta found Scott’s car in the lake’s parking lot, with his wallet and clothing inside.  On the beach was Scott’s towel and blanket.  When they failed to find Scott himself, his parents called police.

Investigators learned that the friends Scott was supposedly going to swim with had all called off their plans because the lake was too cold.  Police divers failed to find Scott’s body in the lake, but it was presumed he had drowned.  The young man was pronounced dead of a tragic, but hardly unusual accident.  Little did the Banish family know that their tragedies were just beginning.

On the night of August 22, just over two months after their son’s disappearance, Edward and Loretta were playing cards in their family’s basement game room with their thirteen-year-old daughter Kathy and two visiting relatives.  After a while, Edward announced that he was tired, and would go upstairs to bed.  Soon after he left, Loretta heard loud thuds from above.

When she went to see what was going on, she found her husband standing in the living room, near the front door.  He was covered in blood.  Before Loretta could go to him, Edward collapsed, dead from seven savage stab wounds.  Police assumed that he had confronted a burglar, who then attacked him.

Nine days after Edward’s murder, Loretta received what may have been the biggest shock of all, when police informed her that Scott was alive, if not exactly well, as he had just been arrested in Fort Wayne, Indiana after submitting a forged ID to an army recruitment office.  The recruiter had read newspaper items about Scott’s “drowning,” and immediately recognized him.

When questioned by police, Scott readily admitted to deliberately faking his own death.  His motive was an honorable one, even if his methods were slightly cracked: he wanted to join the army.  The Banish family had a long history of serving in the military, and Scott longed to carry on that tradition.  However, when he had tried to enlist before, he was rejected on medical grounds.  (He had Hodgkin's Disease.)  Scott thought that if he tried again under a new identity, he might be more successful.

The young man immediately became the police’s number one suspect for Edward’s murder, apparently on the theory that anyone capable of faking a death was also capable of creating a real one.  Scott professed to be shocked when he learned his father had been murdered.  He stated that for the past two months he had been working on a tuna fishing vessel, the “Joanne,” operating in the waters off Oregon, under the name of “Danny McFarland,” and he had the paycheck stubs to prove it.  This failed to convince the police of his innocence.  They reasoned that Scott could have sneaked away from the boat long enough to kill his father.  However, when investigators contacted the “Joanne” captain, Paul Vines, he confirmed that a boy matching Scott’s description who called himself “Danny McFarland” had been working for him as a deckhand for the past two months.  Vines added that on the night Edward Banish was murdered, his boat, with “Danny” on it, was one hundred miles off the coast.

This would seem to be about as cast-iron as alibis get, but the police were stubbornly determined to prove that Scott was their elusive killer, especially after the youth failed a lie detector test.  They argued that “McFarland” must have been another young man who happened to resemble Scott, and that their suspect had somehow obtained the pay stubs from him.  The local sheriff, William Locks, hauled the teenager in for interrogation.  Locks bluntly told Scott that there was enough evidence to convict him of his father’s murder--blood had been found on Scott’s pants that was “the same general type” as Edward’s.  After twelve straight hours of what was probably fairly brutal questioning, Scott finally confessed to the slaying.  He told Locks that the killing was accidental--that he had panicked and attacked his father as he was caught trying to find his birth certificate so he could enlist in the army.

Scott was, of course, immediately arrested.  He then repudiated his confession, stating that the sheriff had pressured him into it by threatening to put him in jail for the rest of his life, whether he was “innocent or not.”  Locks told him that the only way to escape a lifetime sentence was if he confessed, after which he would be given probation for involuntary manslaughter.

At the preliminary hearing, the captain and crew of the “Joanne” testified that on the night of the murder, Scott was on the ship, as he had been every night for the two months of his employment.  Two more witnesses who had helped repair the boat on the night Edward died also swore they had seen Scott on the boat.  They were able to provide a log proving they had indeed done this maintenance on the night of August 22.  After this eight-day hearing, the case was sent to a grand jury, which ruled there was not enough evidence against Scott to justify an indictment.

In 1968, Scott sued the sheriff and six of his deputies, claiming false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution.  However, the court ruled against him on the grounds that the blood on Scott’s pants, the lie detector results, and his confession all were probable cause for his arrest.

Soon after this, the Banish family moved to Illinois, where Scott led a quiet, respectable life until his death in 2015.  As for his father, this was one of those cases where once the police lost their pet suspect, they simply threw up their hands and moved on to other crimes.  Edward’s unnervingly strange murder remains unsolved.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to the first Link Dump of May 2024!

We're still wondering:  "What the hell was Oumuamua?"

We're still wondering: "What the hell was the Dover Demon?"

We're still wondering: "Where the hell is the Mongolian Death Worm?"

Watch out for those blood-sucking Capelobos!

The days when you could take a hippie bus from London to Calcutta.

The grave of an unhappy civil servant.  (It veers into "libelous tombstone" territory.)

The end of Royal Navy muzzle-loaders.

Victorian "strawberry parties."

The children who remember past lives.

A newly-recovered account of Plato's final hours.

Orangutan, heal thyself.

The Persian king who humiliated ancient Rome.

54 years of Eurovision headlines.

The Baron who gave his name to Munchausen's Syndrome.

Murders at a health care facility.

The man who excelled at pushing peanuts with his nose.  Which just goes to show that we all have hidden talents.

Telephone girls and their shocking hairstyles.

How a ring helped identify a murder victim.

Contemporary reports of the Lusitania sinking.

The "underbelly" of Victorian Paris.

The first seeing eye dog.

The Dark Watchers of the Santa Lucia Mountains.

Crowning a dead May Queen.

The WWII spy who used leprosy to her advantage.

The gardeners of the British Parliament.

The Spring dance of German witches.

The letters of a British military wife in India.

The power of the pun.

Headline of the week:  Was Amelia Earhart eaten by giant crabs?

The birth of Pop-Tarts.

The birth of Penguin Books.

Common legal knowledge in 15th and 16th century England.

In praise of the history of words.

A prisoner of war in the House of Lords.

The first murderer to be caught using fingerprint evidence.

From doorstop to Stone of Destiny.

The time a man flew a B-47 under the Mackinaw Bridge.  Maybe.

In search of Hetty Green's heirs.

The first guidebook for American tourists.

A fake lawyer who won a real case.

The areas where WWI never ended.

The long-time mistress of Wilkie Collins.

An eccentric entrepreneur.

Why do we stop finding new music?  (Although I think most pop music made nowadays is unbearable, I do now listen to a lot of classical and Early Music, which I never did in my younger days. So I'm not sure if this article's premise is correct.)

A woman's mysterious death.

The New York City Army Cats.

A husband's revenge.

Science explains the "Pharaoh's curse."

The murder of a young woman.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a bizarre case of a missing person and a murder.  In the meantime, here's some early Nilsson.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This is another of what I call “mini-mysteries”--murder or missing-persons cases where there just isn’t enough information for a regular blog post.  This account of a “Missing 411”-style disappearance appeared in the Glens Falls “Post-Star,” November 15, 2017:

HORICON — Two years ago Wednesday, Thomas Messick Sr. vanished in the woods of Horicon while deer hunting with friends and relatives. And despite the thousands of hours dedicated to the search, it remains unclear what happened to Messick, whether he got lost in the woods, had a medical problem or was the victim of foul play. His son, Thomas Messick Jr. of Troy, said loved ones are hoping for some closure and remain as “perplexed” about what hap- pened as the professional and volunteer searchers who scoured the woods south of Brant Lake for weeks in November and December 2015.

“We’re still praying for answers,” he said. Messick Sr. was 82 when he disappeared Nov. 15, 2015 near Lily Pond in an area of state land that is part of the Lake George Wild Forest. Messick was supposed to remain in a stationary post while others in his party moved into the woods to push deer toward him and another hunter. When the group reassembled late that afternoon, Messick was not among them. The state Department of Environmental Conservation oversaw a massive search that went on for weeks, using dogs, helicopters and divers to check ponds in the remote area, to no avail. The DEC scaled back the effort to a “limited continuous search” after two months, in which local forest rangers and search-and-rescue teams will conduct spot searches and training exercises in the search area and nearby areas not previously searched. State Police Aviation helicopters and forest rangers also periodically checked the lands and waters in and around the search area, but no one has reported finding any sign of him or any of his belongings, including the rifle he carried.

The area is also popular with hunters, anglers and hikers, but no one who has been there in years since has reported finding anything that could be linked to Messick. 

“The search for Thomas Messick remains in limited continuous status since Jan. 20, 2016 after DEC forest rangers and others spent two months and more than 10,000 searcher hours seeking him to no avail,” DEC spokesman David Winchell wrote in an email. “Since that time, DEC forest rangers and others have periodically searched and conducted search training in and around the area where Mr. Messick went missing but have not found any sign of him.

“DEC asks hunters and others in the woods to report any possible signs of Mr. Messick or his belongings to the DEC Ray Brook dispatch at 518-897-1300.” 

Messick Jr., who was not among the family members hunting with Messick Sr. that day, said the family theorized that his father walked off and either had a medical problem (he had a history of heart issues) or got lost and settled in a spot behind a tree or rock where he couldn’t be found. The forest area also has some caves and crevices. 

“They had over 300 people a day in the woods for over two weeks,” Messick Jr. said. “They covered a lot of ground.” 

He said his father was an avid woodsman and hunter. 

“He was a hunter instructor for a lot of years, so he knew what to do,” his son said. 

The State Police continue to investigate an active missing persons case for Messick Sr., but the agency reported no new developments in its investigation as of this week. The disappearance was one of two unexplained missing persons cases in the region involving outdoorsmen in a matter of days in November 2015.

On Nov. 24, Fred “Fritzie” Drumm, 68, disappeared from his property on Burgoyne Road in the town of Saratoga. Police theorized he went for a walk on his 170-acre piece of land along Fish Creek, but no trace of him was found, either. Police do not believe the two cases were related.

To date, no trace of Messick has been found.  As far as I can tell, Drumm remains missing, as well.