The Ghost of Gloddaeth Woods

Gloddaeth Woods, circa 1908

This week, Elias Owen’s 1887 book “Welsh Folk-Lore,” brings us one of those quaint old tales extolling the many charms of Welsh countryside, a land where things are very seldom dull.

The following tale was told the Rev. Owen Jones, Pentrevoelas, by Thomas Davies, Tycoch, Rhyl, the hero in the story.

I may say that Gloddaeth Wood is a remnant of the primæval forest that is mentioned by Sir John Wynn, in his History of the Gwydir Family, as extending over a large tract of the country.  This wood, being undisturbed and in its original wild condition, was the home of foxes and other vermin, for whose destruction the surrounding parishes willingly paid half-a-crown per head.  This reward was an inducement to men who had leisure, to trap and hunt these obnoxious animals.  Thomas Davies was engaged in this work, and, taking a walk through the wood one day for the purpose of discovering traces of foxes, he came upon a fox’s den, and from the marks about the burrow he ascertained that there were young foxes in the hole.  This was to him a grand discovery, for, in anticipation, cubs and vixen were already his.  Looking about him, he noticed that there was opposite the fox’s den a large oak tree with forked branches, and this sight settled his plan of operation.  He saw that he could place himself in this tree in such a position that he could see the vixen leave, and return to her den, and, from his knowledge of the habits of the animal, he knew she would commence foraging when darkness and stillness prevailed.  He therefore determined to commence the campaign forthwith, and so he went home to make his preparations.

I should say that the sea was close to the wood, and that small craft often came to grief on the coast.  I will now proceed with the story.

Davies had taken his seat on a bough opposite the fox’s den, when he heard a horrible scream in the direction of the sea, which apparently was that of a man in distress, and the sound uttered was “Oh, Oh.”  Thus Davies’s attention was divided between the dismal, “Oh,” and his fox.  But, as the sound was a far way off, he felt disinclined to heed it, for he did not think it incumbent on him to ascertain the cause of that distressing utterance, nor did he think it his duty to go to the relief of a suffering fellow creature.  He therefore did not leave his seat on the tree.  But the cry of anguish, every now and again, reached his ears, and evidently, it was approaching the tree on which Davies sat.  He now listened the more to the awful sounds, which at intervals reverberated through the wood, and he could no longer be mistaken—they were coming in his direction.  Nearer and nearer came the dismal “Oh!  Oh!” and with its approach, the night became pitch dark, and now the “Oh!  Oh!  Oh!” was only a few yards off, but nothing could be seen in consequence of the deep darkness.  The sounds however ceased, but a horrible sight was presented to the frightened man’s view.  There, he saw before him, a nude being with eyes burning like fire, and these glittering balls were directed towards him.  The awful being was only a dozen yards or so off.  And now it crouched, and now it stood erect, but it never for a single instant withdrew its terrible eyes from the miserable man in the tree, who would have fallen to the ground were it not for the protecting boughs.  Many times Davies thought that his last moment had come, for it seemed that the owner of those fiery eyes was about to spring upon him.  As he did not do so, Davies somewhat regained his self possession, and thought of firing at the horrible being; but his courage failed, and there he sat motionless, not knowing what the end might be.  He closed his eyes to avoid that gaze, which seemed to burn into him, but this was a short relief, for he felt constrained to look into those burning orbs, still it was a relief even to close his eyes: and so again and again he closed them, only, however, to open them on those balls of fire.  About 4 o’clock in the morning, he heard a cock crow at Penbryn farm, and at the moment his eyes were closed, but at the welcome sound he opened them, and looked for those balls of fire, but, oh! what pleasure, they were no longer before him, for, at the crowing of the cock, they, and the being to whom they belonged, had disappeared.

What the fox cubs thought of all this was not recorded, but I’m sure they were grateful for the spectral protection.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

After you finish reading, you're all invited to the Strange Company HQ game room.

The legend of a Louisiana "wild girl."

The historical importance of cloves.

Imagine finding out one day that you have a cellar full of ancient graves.

An ancient seed grew into something wonderfully weird.

The story of that tech giant who drowned when his yacht mysteriously sank keeps getting weirder.

Some unknown music by Mozart has been discovered.

The space mystery of the "flyby anomaly."

Down a medieval well.

A brief history of pet cemeteries.

Papal conclaves gone wild.

The origins of the dinosaur-killing asteroid.

Time-traveling at the British Museum.

One of the U.S. Air Force's less distinguished moments.

More Nazca geoglyphs have been discovered, and boy are they weird.

Some strange things that have been found in walls.

The life of Marie of Luxembourg.

The real discoverer of penicillin.

Evidence of a Neolithic society in Morocco has been discovered.

A very unfortunate family.

The significance of mummy cheese.

Elephants talk to each other, but we can't hear it.

The life of a 19th century Baptist missionary in India.

The rules of mourning for Paris widows, 1894.

Ancient humans and dinosaur footprints.

The heiress who may have been the model for the Statue of Liberty.

Cat memes go way back.

The sad, and probably short, life of Lady Mary Seymour.

Some haunted artworks.

Traveling the Silk Roads.

18th century pies really didn't mess around.

The mysterious poisonings of several children.

Yet another domestic murder.

An archaeologist's message in a bottle.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll bring on the Welsh Weirdness!  In the meantime, here's one of those songs I remember from way back when.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

The following news item is very brief, completely (as far as I can tell) unresolved, and probably even massively unimportant.  However, it charms me as just one more snippet of evidence that we live in a very strange world.  The "Minneapolis Star Tribune," August 8, 1930, via Newspapers.com:

Amateur detectives of Fort Reno, Okla., are working on a mystery which includes nary a corpse, only a hole in the ground. It is a large hole, about 18 feet deep and was made within a few feet of the place where a hole was dug in 1925 about the same time of the year. A single footprint has been found at the bottom of the hole. Nobody has been able to discover why or who made the excavation. One young man suggested that somebody wanted the hole for his front parlor and then found he couldn't bring it in, so he left it there.  But very few take stock in that theory.

Feel free to leave your own theories in the comments.

The Business Partnership of Torrance and Waldie

Engraving of 18th century Edinburgh

William Burke and William Hare created for themselves a prominent place in the annals of infamy with their assembly-line practice of committing murder in order to sell cadavers to an Edinburgh medical school during 1827-28.  A much more obscure, but equally ghastly predecessor to this line of homicide-for-profit took place in that same city a few decades earlier.  It deserves notice as the first known case of what would eventually be termed “anatomy murder.”

In November 1751, two nurses named Helen Torrence and Jean Waldie sought a suitable subject for some local apprentice surgeons.  Their first plan focused on a dead child they had attended.  They hoped to substitute some heavy object in the coffin, and make off with the body.  This scheme being foiled, they then turned their attention to another young patient of Torrence’s, a boy of eight or nine named John Dallas.  The boy was not expected to live, and would be, in the opinion of his kindly nurse, “a good subject for the doctors.”

Young Dallas, however, inconsiderately refused to die, and even showed dangerous signs of possible recuperation.  The two ladies, determined not to be cheated of a corpse a second time, resolved to take matters into their own hands.

On December 3, Janet Dallas, the boy’s mother, called on Torrance.  The nurse invited her to the local pub.  While they were gone, Waldie went to the Dallas home and kidnapped the boy, hiding him in her own flat.  Torrance soon joined her there, and they forced ale “which would scarce go over” on the weak and sickly John.  He died a few minutes later.

Once the boy went from patient to profitable merchandise, it was time to make a deal.  The apprentices, after examining the body, offered Torrance and Waldie two shillings.  The nurses were indignant, exclaiming “that they had been at more expenses about it than that sum.”  When the students offered to throw in “tenpence to buy a dram,” the ladies were mollified, and the bargain struck.  When Torrance agreed to carry the body herself to their rooms, she even got a bonus of sixpence.

Young John’s parents initiated a frantic search for their missing child, and four days later his body was found “in a place of the town little frequented,” and bearing clear marks of having been dissected.  (When the apprentices heard that the boy was feared to have been murdered, they panicked and dumped the corpse.)

The parents, rather gruesomely, were arrested first, followed by Torrance and Waldie.  The apprentices gave their story, whereupon the Dallases were freed and the nurses put on trial, a proceeding which took place on February 3, 1752.

The best their counsel could say in their favor was a protest that they faced the death penalty for two of the charges.  Their argument was that, although the murder itself was a capital offense, the kidnapping was a lesser crime, and the sale of the body not illegal at all.  The prosecution retorted that those charges were still relevant to the case.  Although stealing the child while alive, and selling him when dead, would not merit the supreme penalty, the killing in-between most certainly did.

The two nurses were swiftly convicted.  Torrance then tried to “plead her belly” (i.e., claim that she was pregnant, as the law could not execute a woman in that condition.)  She was examined by four midwives, who reported that she was not expecting a child.  Helen Torrance and Jean Waldie paid for their crime at the end of a rope on March 18. It is recorded that “Both acknowledged their sins, and mentioned uncleanness and drunkenness in particular.”

Their bodies were dissected at the medical college.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

It's time for this week's Link Dump!

Game on!

Yet another marriage that ends in murder.

The first American to be fatally hit by a car.

Fun with handcuffs!

The election battles which followed the battle of Bosworth.

The complicated history of America's oldest tombstone.

Why Jane Goodall believes in the afterlife.

Let's talk Beer Duels.

Let's talk fossil frauds.

The questions surrounding a female Civil War soldier.

Remembering "The Sorrows of Young Werther."

Images of a "ghost city" in the Pacific Ocean.

Ghost laying in Shropshire.

The woman who inspired Betty Boop.

The women who made 18th century condoms.

The incredible career of a 16th century knight.

Paging you "intelligent design" fans:  Our DNA is basically a computer.

Mourning the unmourned.

Some mysterious French Neanderthals.

We now know who was buried in a lead coffin under Notre Dame.  And he wasn't a vampire.  Bummer.

The ghost of the Taft White House.

The "Raphael of Cats."

The wonders of sea sponges.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at an "anatomy murder" that pre-dated Burke and Hare.  In the meantime, here's a bit of Bach.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

The following story, which appeared in the "Liverpool Mercury" on July 28, 1815, falls into the "random weird stuff" category.  (Via Newspapers.com)

The following, (copied from the Sun paper) contains a further account of the singular phenomenon already related in page 407 of our last volume.  Other papers, we understand, both in America and England have noticed the remarkable circumstance to which we are now alluding. The following is an authentic and correct account, for the truth of which, Captain Hayes, of his majesty’s ship Majestic; now lying in Plymouth harbor, and the whole of his officers and ship’s company, may be appealed to:

On the morning of the 27th August, 1813, the Majestic being then off Boston, the men on board observed, at the rising of the sun, the complete figure of a man in the centre of that luminary, with a flag divided by three lines, in his hand. He was at first on his back, but as day advanced, he gradually assumed an erect posture, and at midday stood upright. Towards evening he as gradually declined, descending with his flag head foremost. We have seen a drawing of the phenomenon, and nothing can be more correct than the human figure, its dress complete and the flag.

On the 28th, it retained the same outline, but had become a skeleton.

On the 29th the figure was disjointed, and its parts gradually assumed the appearance of six separate flags, united in a circle by an apparent cord or line. After this, nothing more was observed on the sun’s disk, but a few small spots.

The American papers, we believe, notice only the extraordinary appearance of the Sun on the above mentioned days. Perhaps the observers on that continent were not in a position to catch the precise appearance which the particles of matter presented to the ship’s company of the Majestic.  There could be no optical delusion on the occasion, as the phenomenon was observed by so many different eyes, and for so long a time. The first figure was seen during the whole of the 27th, the skeleton the whole of the 28th, and the six flags during a great part of the 29th.

The above is an occurrence which may merit the attention of the philosophic. It is singular, we conceive, but nothing miraculous or portentous. Indeed, as the sun is the centre of a system of planets, several of which are much larger, and probably more important than ours, we do not know why the common luminary should shape his face, or have it shaped for him, so as to indicate the particular occurrences on this earth.  The sun is, no doubt, a material luminous body—perhaps liable to an internal irregular motion of its parts; at least, this phenomenon would seem to prove it so; and most people have observed how frequently the ignited cinders of a common fire present, at different times, the various appearances of men, trees, horses, houses &c.  The evidence, however, for the phenomenon itself, we must again add, is of the most undoubted and respectable kind. We have seen, and have by us, copies of drawings made by Captain Hayes on the occasion. 

The Cabbagetown Monster

The following article written by Lorrie Goldstein, which appeared in the March 25, 1979 issue of the “Toronto Sun” is the sole source for the claim that a sinister monster lurks in the sewers underneath the “Cabbagetown” neighborhood of Toronto, Canada--but the story is remarkable enough to be worthy of note.  Make of it what you will.

There’s an eerie city lying beneath the streets of Metro, a city none of us knows much about.

Ernest has been a visitor to that silent world of sewers, drainage pipes and the ruins under old houses, and the memory of what he saw there will haunt him for the rest of his life.

“I wish you’d never come here,” he says as he sits in his small, neat Cabbagetown apartment with Barbara, his wife of 19 years. “If I tell you what I saw, people will think I was drunk or crazy, they’ll never believe me.”

On a summer day last August, Ernest, 51, firmly believes he saw some kind of “creature” while crawling into a small cave near his Parliament Street apartment looking for a kitten from a litter he’d been caring for. But about 10 feet inside he says he saw a living nightmare he’ll never forget. 

“It was pitch black in there… I saw it with my flashlight. The eyes were orange and red, slanted… it was long and thin, almost like a monkey…three feet long, large teeth, weighing maybe 30 pounds with slate-grey fur.”

Ernest speaks reluctantly of what happened next…

He is convinced the thing spoke to him.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “It said “Go away, go away,” in a hissing voice. Then it took off down a  long tunnel off to the side…I got out of there as fast as I could. I was shaking with fear.”

 

Ernest didn’t come to the Sun with this story. The Sun found him after hearing about his experience from a reliable contact who works with a relative of Ernest’s, one of the handful of people to whom he has confided the experience.

He would agree to talk about it only if his last name was not revealed.

“I’m in the phone book,” he said. “I couldn’t stand being called by a bunch of cranks.” 

“I believe Ernie saw exactly what he says he did,” said Barbara. “He was terrified when he came back to the apartment and he doesn’t scare easily. Look, he’s been known to have a drink in the past--like most people, and to occasionally tie one on, but he’s not a drunk and he wasn’t drinking at all that day.”

Checks with friends, relatives and acquaintances in the neighborhood supported Barbara’s evaluation of her husband.

I accompanied Ernie to the spot where he said he had seen the creature. 

It is at the bottom of a narrow passage between the building where he lives and the one next door. The only way to reach the tunnel entrance is to clamber 15 feet down the wrong side of a fire escape, which had once served as an exit to the street but today simply leads to a narrow chamber with walls on four sides.

The tunnel entrance runs under a slab of concrete at the foot of the chamber. Inside, there is a narrow passageway, branching off to the left about 10 feet back.

The corpse of a cat lies half-buried in the tunnel, reminding Ernest of the “strange noises, like animals in pain,” he heard coming from the chamber last summer.

The concrete slab has collapsed on one side during  the winter, making it impossible for even a small adult to get inside.

“I saw it where the tunnel turns.” Ernest said.  “The last I saw, it was heading off into the dark. The passage-way seemed to drop down very quickly and go a long way back.”

Ernest believes the tunnel leads to the sewer system that runs beneath Metro and that the entrance beneath his apartment may have been only an access point used by the creature to the surface.

Metro’s sewer department agreed to inspect the tunnel since it could be a safety hazard. Children might try to enter it.

A long-time sewer worker told the Sun it was possible, although not probable, that the tunnel led into the sewers.

He said the tunnel was probably the result of poor drainage over the years which had caused erosion underground, hollowing out the passage.

“Who knows where it leads, or how far it goes?” he said. “You’d have to get in there and the way it is now, it would take a lot of work.”

Despite the strangeness of Ernest’s story, the workers did not scoff at the tale.

“People who work on the surface just don’t know what it’s like down there,” one said. “It’s a whole different world. Who would have thought a few years ago that people would live in sewers, and yet that’s what they found in New York a few years back. Even in Toronto, we’ve occasionally had to pull mattresses from the chambers beneath the manhole covers where the winos have been sleeping.”

Another worker said he’d heard of animals like beavers and raccoons occasionally getting into the system, but never anything like that described by Ernest.

“I don’t know what he saw down there,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. If we could get in there, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go down alone.”

Whatever you may think about this story, I think we can all agree with that last statement.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to the Link Dump!

This week's post will be followed by a concert from the Strange Company HQ choir.

The first college football game.

18th century "latrinalia."

How farming helped humans evolve.

Once again, our universe leaves astronomers very very confused.

Further proof that scientists seem to have way too much free time on their hands.

Viking encrypted messages.

A teenage fiend.

Bone-eating, blood-red vultures.  So.

An ancient Roman military camp has just been uncovered.

The man who is rescuing forgotten songs.

Shaving the dead, 1890.

Do animals go to heaven?  (A side note: Some years ago, I was talking to a security guard I knew at Santa Anita.  He was a thoroughly admirable fellow: smart, honorable, and kind.  He was also devoutly religious--I suppose you would classify him as a fundamentalist Christian.  Anyway, we were talking about our pets, when he happened to mention--I forget how this came up--that he did not believe animals had souls.  He said something like, "I'll defend my dog with my life, but I know I won't see him in heaven."  This surprised me, because I just assumed that if you accept that people have immortal souls--and I do, although some souls clearly need a lot more work than others--you'd think that animals would, too.  Well, I suppose it's pointless to debate the matter.  Eventually, we'll all learn the truth about that.)

A bunch of naked Quakers.

The escape of "the human fly."

The discovery of 900 year old buried treasure.

The goofier moments of Arctic research.

The tragic Collyer brothers.

The similarities--and differences--between near-death experiences and psychedelic trips.

A heroic stray cat.

The planet Mercury, up close and personal.

Some mythical places may not have been all that mythical.

Yes, we're still analyzing the Voynich Manuscript.

How to live the Habsburg way.

The Oldham Hermit.

A poisonous Tudor-era family.

The mysterious Stonehenge "altar stone."

A horrific event for Japanese Catholics: the Great Genna Martyrdom.

The life of a political radical.

A 1,000 year old ring from the Painted People.

A video tour of an ancient Thracian tomb.

The "world's ugliest woman."

How to hide an entire army with this one easy trick!

The oldest known map of the world.

Recipes from ancient Mesopotamia.

The 19th century "floating laboratories."

In search of "lost" ancient texts.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a very strange encounter in the tunnels of Toronto.  In the meantime, here's some harp music with a surprise cameo appearance.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

When someone dies in mysterious and sinister circumstances, you often see a ghost story in its wake.  For example, I present this story from the “Brooklyn Eagle,” September 3, 1878:

The usually placid town of Gravesend is in a foment of excitement in consequence of an apparition to horrify the boldest and hardiest of men.

The mysterious and sensational occurrence has for several days been the subject of much discussion and speculation. On the night of Friday last, shortly after 10 o'clock, Bartlett McGettrick, a flagman employed by the Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad Company at the crossing near the Gravesend Town Hall, was startled by bearing his name called by a female voice. He started in the direction whence the sound proceeded. It led him toward the residence of the late Mrs. Maria L. Hubbard, who was mysteriously poisoned with strychnine several months ago. Only the stars were visible in the dark sky at the time; the place was lonely and deserted, and the flagman made his way cautiously over the railroad track. The house where Mrs. Hubbard lived and died is a neat frame cottage, two stories in height, with a deep porch and broad piazza, Tree embowered and surrounded by clinging vines, shooting creepers and rustic flower beds, it is altogether a pleasant place. 

As the watchman approached the house he discovered in the dim starlight a female form on the piazza.  Glancing closely at the woman, the horrified watchman discovered that the face and figure were those of Mrs. Maria L. Hubbard. Form and feature were both familiar to the trembling McGettrick; he had known her in life and had followed her body to the grave in the little village churchyard. The house of the deceased woman being near the crossing where McGettrick is stationed, he had frequent opportunities to converse with her, and it is supposed that she in some measure confided to him the story of her domestic troubles. 

When the flagman saw Mrs. Hubbard's apparition he was frightened almost out of his wits. He is a devout member of the Roman Catholic Church and he fell upon his knees, crossed himself and uttered a hasty prayer. According to his own story, Mrs. Hubbard called him again when he arose from the sidewalk, and with a sweeping gesture, beckoned him toward her. With ashen lips and trembling knees, he obeyed the ghostly summons.

Getting nearer the ghost, he saw that she wore the calico wrapper that Mrs. Hubbard was in the habit of using every morning. There was no doubt in the mind of the flagman that the poisoned woman's spirit was before him. She accosted him in a hollow but kindly voice.  McGetttrick was so smitten with fear that he hardly dared look at the ghost.

He says that supernatural light gleamed from her eyes and that her face was as pale as death, while the habiliments of the grave were near her on the piazza, as though had just escaped from the sepulture. McGettrick says that Mrs. Hubbard inquired about his health and asked him some questions concerning the death of a dog a few weeks ago. She is believed to have intimated that the dog was poisoned. She had some further conversation with the flagman, the details of which he absolutely refuses to divulge.  He says that he will tell the story at the proper time, and that when he does divulge the secrets of the conversation some startling revelations may be expected. 

While McGettrick was conversing with Mrs. Hubbard, ex-Justice of the Sessions Andrew McKibben, and a barber named Bauer, who lives nearby, were passing the house. They saw the ghost of Mrs. Hubbard and heard part of the conversation. Suddenly, as they drew nearer, the apparition seemed alarmed, resumed the grave clothes, and vanished in a cloud of blue smoke. This is the story told by McGettrick, and is corroborated by the testimony of McKibben and Bauer.

Some of the Gravesend people are inclined to believe that there was something supernatural and portentous in the apparition of Mrs. Hubbard, and that new developments may possibly occur in the case. McGettrick, as might be expected, was greatly alarmed. He has not the least doubt that the ghost was that of Mrs. Hubbard. Early yesterday morning he arose and went to church. He heard mass, confessed his sins, and obtained some holy water. He is in great trepidation lest the spectre return any night and carry him off.

Although there was a great deal of justified suspicion directed against Mrs. Hubbard’s husband, her murder was never officially solved.  I’ve been unable to learn if McGettrick ever revealed the “secrets of the conversation” he had with the obviously restless spirit.

The Zip Gun Bomber

"New York Daily News, May 9, 1982, via Newspapers.com

Cases of murder-by-poison have a particularly eerie quality, due to the often phantom nature of the killer.  Another example of the unseen murder is the following mystery, where death was delivered by unsuspecting mail carriers.

Joan Kipp led a quiet suburban life in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York.  Her husband Howard owned a marine engineering business, while Joan worked as a guidance counselor at a local high school.  She was also the treasurer of the Bay Ridge Community Council, and was expected to soon become its vice-president.  The Kipps had two children who went on to have families of their own--Doreen, who lived in Connecticut, and Craig, who lived just a few blocks away from his parents.  The family was well-off, contented, and appeared to be blissfully free of any enemies or serious problems in life.

On the evening of May 7, 1982, fifty-four year old Joan arrived at her home after a typical day at work.  When she checked the mail, she found a package addressed to her.  Howard came home as she was unwrapping the package.  They saw it contained a book titled “The Quick and Delicious Gourmet Cookbook.”  Although Joan had not been expecting to receive the cookbook, she was not surprised.  She loved to cook, and assumed it was an early Mother’s Day present.  Joan opened the book.  However, what lurked between the covers was not pages of delicious recipes, but a crude homemade explosive, which immediately detonated, shooting out three bullets, two of which hit Joan in the abdomen.  She also suffered burns to her chest and hands.

When Howard dashed into the room, he found his wife collapsed on the floor, and he instantly called an ambulance.  As he knelt over Joan, she moaned, “Look at what they did to me…there may be others.”  Although she was brought to a nearby hospital and rushed into surgery, it was not enough.  Joan died on the operating table.

The explosive was a six-volt battery wired to metal tubes containing gunpowder and .22 caliber rifle shells.  When the book cover was opened, it activated the battery, which sent out an electric current which fired the shells.  The device was as simple as it was lethal.  Police figured that whoever put the explosive together had to have some knowledge of electrical wiring, but no special training was necessary.

Detectives learned that the package had been mailed from Staten Island.  Fragments of a note was found in the remains of the bomb, which read “Dear Joan, you’re dead.”  It also threatened the lives of Howard and their children.

Lacking any clues as to who may have sent the deadly device, police began their investigation with the people closest to Joan, and all her family members were questioned.  (Doreen was interrogated on the same day as Joan’s funeral.  This insensitivity caused her to feel increasingly hostile towards the investigators.)  Although detectives failed to find any incriminating information about any of Joan’s relatives, they soon settled on twenty-eight year old Craig Kipp as their prime suspect.  Craig had briefly been employed at his father’s business, where he worked on ships and boats, which gave him some knowledge of electrical wiring.  Police reasoned that when he lost this job, it may well have caused him to feel some anger towards his parents.

But enough anger to blow them into smithereens?

Once police settle on a suspect, they usually have little trouble building a case against them, however tenuous it may be.  A tracking dog appeared to find Craig’s scent on the bomb’s packaging.  A graphologist thought the writing on the package resembled Craig’s, although other handwriting analysts disagreed, pointing out that Joan’s name and address were written in block lettering, which is virtually impossible to identify.  Police found evidence that Craig and his mother frequently quarreled, and that he may have had problems with drugs.  Finally, Craig’s refusal to take a polygraph test was interpreted as further evidence of his guilt.  He was arrested on August 9 on the charge of “mailing injurious articles.”

Craig’s father and sister strongly asserted his innocence.  Howard told prosecutors that while Craig and Joan occasionally argued, their relationship was still an affectionate one.  He also said that there was no bitterness associated with Craig leaving his company--his son left because he was having a hard time learning the electrical work his job required.  And while Craig sometimes smoked pot, he was not into any harder drugs.  Despite their best efforts, police were unable to make a convincing case that Craig murdered his mother, leading to the charges against him being dropped in June 1983.

Slowly, things returned to something approaching normal for the surviving Kipps.  Craig and Doreen got on with their lives.  Howard moved to Massachusetts, where he eventually remarried.  And the murder of Joan Kipp disappeared into the “cold case” file, probably, it was assumed, permanently.

However, eleven years later, the Kipp mystery was revived with a literal bang.  On October 15, 1993, 68 year old Anthony Lenza and his wife Connie were vacation in Pennsylvania.  They were joined by various relatives, some of whom brought mail they had retrieved from the Lenza home in Staten Island.  Among this mail was a package wrapped in brown paper, which was addressed to Anthony.  When he unwrapped the parcel, he found a blue velvet coin box.  He accidentally opened the coin box upside-down, a mistake for which he would soon be eternally grateful.  Like Joan’s “cookbook,” the box contained an explosive which detonated, sending out three bullets.  Anthony, Connie, and their young granddaughter Liza were hit with flying debris, but thanks to Anthony opening his little surprise package the wrong way, nobody was seriously hurt.

Investigators noted that the explosive was very similar to the one which had killed Joan Kipp.  The address on the parcel was written in a style similar to the one Joan had received.  It appeared that the same psychopath had sent both packages, but detectives could find no connection between the two victims.  And, if the explosives were the work of just one person, why did he/she wait eleven years to strike again?

On April 5, 1994, a 75 year old widow named Alice Caswell had a package wrapped in brown paper delivered to her Brooklyn home.  However, the parcel was addressed to her brother, Richard MacGarrell.  He had lived with her for a while before moving into a retirement home, so she still occasionally got his mail.  When this happened, Alice always opened the mail before bringing it to her brother.  In this case, that was a very unfortunate decision for her.  When she unwrapped the parcel, it exploded, causing serious abdominal injuries.  Alice was able to stagger to a neighbor’s house, where an ambulance was summoned.  Remarkably, she was able to survive her injuries.

After this, it was clear to everyone that there was a serial mad bomber on the loose.  The improvised nature of the explosive devices caused the media to dub the maniac “The Zip Gun Bomber.”

Just a couple of weeks later, a New Yorker named Harold Ormsby received an unexpected package in the mail.  Very fortunately, he had read news reports about the bombings, which left him understandably wary about opening his mail unless he was damn sure what it was.  He contacted police, who found that Harold’s paranoia had been entirely justified.  The parcel contained another explosive device.

On June 27, 1995, an eight-months-pregnant teenager named Stephanie Gaffney was staying at her grandparents’ home in Queens, New York.  While at home alone, the mail carrier arrived, delivering a package addressed to “Gilmore or occupant.”  “Gilmore” was the surname of her grandfather and uncle.  Unfortunately, Stephanie obviously didn’t follow the news as closely as Harold Ormsby had, because she opened the parcel.  It contained a book that, when she opened the cover, exploded.  She had opened the book at an angle away from her, so that even though she suffered burns to her abdomen and legs, the bullets missed her.  Both she and her baby survived.

The “Zip Gun Bomber” made the news again on June 20, 1996, when a retired couple named Richard and Marietta Basile received a package at their Brooklyn home.  It was addressed to Marietta, but Richard was the one who opened it.  The parcel contained a videotape which promptly exploded.  The device shattered a window and damaged a nearby wall, but miraculously, both Richard and Marietta were not seriously hurt.  The Basiles proved to be the mysterious fiend’s final victims.  

"New York Daily News," June 21, 1996

All the explosive devices seemed to be the work of the same person, but police were unable to find clues for why any of the victims were targeted, or anything connecting these people.  The bombings appeared to be completely random, leaving the investigation hopelessly stymied.

Over the years, only one plausible suspect emerged.  In 1983, police working on an unrelated case searched the home occupied by their suspect and another man named Steven Wavra.  They found bomb-making equipment and a hollowed-out book.  Wavra claimed he was going to use these items to target a nearby military base.  However, police naturally wondered if he had been responsible for the bombing of Joan Kipp the year before.

Wavra was, to say the least, a very troubled man.  In the early 1970s, he briefly served in the U.S. Navy, but was discharged after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.  After this, he turned to a life of crime, centered around various bomb threats.  On several occasions, he was caught with explosive devices similar to the ones utilized by the Zip Gun Bomber.  And Wavra had links to at least one of “Zip Gun’s” victims--when he was in high school, Joan Kipp had been his guidance counselor.  All this would seem to add up to one very pretty circumstantial case against Wavra, except for one inconvenient detail--he was in prison at the time Joan Kipp was killed.  Although the theory was floated that Wavra had had outside help with the bombing, no evidence for that could be found.  (Wavra denied having anything to do with the bombings, insisting that he had been caught in "a web of circumstantial evidence.")

In 1995 Wavra’s name came up again in the “Zip Gun” case, when he mailed a long, threatening manifesto to some federal courthouses.  When Wavra was arrested, he was carrying a hollowed-out book containing some knives, as well as four .22 caliber rifle shells.  As all of this violated his parole conditions, Wavra found himself back in prison.  Investigators again tried to connect him to the mail bombings, without success.  However, they did uncover one curious detail--when police looked at records of pharmacies visited by the Zip Gun targets, the name of Wavra’s roommate was in all of them.  This seemed a bit too interesting to be coincidental, but it did absolutely nothing to solve the mystery.  Although, thankfully, the “Zip Gun Bomber” has yet to be heard from again, this person’s identity--not to mention motive--remains unknown.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

While you read, enjoy some music from the Strange Company HQ orchestra.

The Clan-na-Gael murder trial.

St Jadwiga of Anjou, who also happened to be King of Poland.

Some vintage student confessions.

If you like fart jokes, boy, have I got the post for you.

This week in Russian Weird looks at the mystery of an alleged spy whale.

Examples of people who were buried with their pets.

Four examples of devotion to duty.

Eight historic doors.

When "bookworm" was an insult.

That time when Voltaire drank bull's blood.  For science!

Tom Thumb in Tattershall.

The oldest known reference to an eclipse.

The agricultural guide that landed its author in prison.

The 1957 eruption of the Capelinhos volcano.

The first domestication of horses.

A tale of buried treasure in India.

A housewife with a deadly secret.

A tour of the orchards of Kent.

The significance of a 6,000 year old bridge.

The fashions of September 1824.

The mystery of the Fawn Hoof Mummy.

A look at the Little Gaelic People.

The fake armies of WWII.

A nouveau riche duke.

A tribute to reference books.

A strange rock in Saudi Arabia.

Crows are pretty darn smart.

A hermit mathematician.

The first recreational drugs.

A brief history of yerba mate.

A brief history of air guitar.

War and nationalism.

Scotland Yard vs. the body snatchers.

A community of medieval cave-dwellers.

Medieval England's female blacksmiths.

Please do not let your cow eat mattresses.

How Paris took over the fashion world.

The roots of trick-or-treating.

Why "X" represents a kiss.

One of the world's great dollhouses.

Was it mercy killing or murder?

That wraps it up for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a mysterious Mad Bomber.  In the meantime, here's music from a guy that I'm pretty sure didn't murder Mozart.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This Australian tale of a strange--and possibly deadly--light appeared in the "Kingston Whig-Standard," April 12, 1966:

MELBOURNE (Reuters) Police are studying a motorist's claim that a mysterious "magnetic" column of light in the sky may have led a driver to his death. 

Ronald Sullivan, 38, a steel constructor, claimed he was driving one night when his headlights suddenly swerved right, as though drawn by a magnet. 

"I braked as hard as I could and glanced over to the right," he said. 

"There in the middle of the field was a column of colored light about 25 feet high and shaped like an ice cream cone." 

The column rose from the ground without a sound but at tremendous speed and the car's headlights returned to normal, focusing back on the road, he said. 

Three days later, last Thursday, Gary Taylor, 19, died when his car swerved sharply at the same spot and crashed into a tree.

As far as I can tell, this was the last word about the story.  I assume the police's "studying" of the mystery amounted to them shrugging and saying "We dunno."

America's First Madam; Or, Maybe the Puritans Weren't So Puritanical After All

I try to keep this site as family-friendly as possible (granted, the family is usually named “Addams,”) but when I hear the words, “Puritan brothel-keeper,” I can only leap to my feet and yell, “Blog post!!”

We know very little about Alice Thomas’ early life.  She was a perfectly ordinary Massachusetts Bay Colony woman until her husband died, leaving her penniless.  She opened a shop, but after that venture failed, she felt she had no options but to turn to prostitution.  In this unlikely profession, Alice seems to have found her groove, with hitherto unsuspected talents for organization and enterprise.  She soon banded together the other local prostitutes, (largely maidservants looking to supplement their incomes,) providing them with a fixed place to bring their customers and generally coordinating their activities.  In short, Alice set herself up as the American colonies’ first madam.  The fact that she soon had a thriving business on her hands hints at a side to early American life that you probably won’t find in school history textbooks.  In case you are wondering why the local authorities seemed to have a blind eye to Alice’s little empire, I can only say that a few greased palms in the right places was as effective in those days as it is now.

Alice’s troubles began in late 1671, when Katherine Naylor sued her husband Edward for divorce.  Divorce was rare in colonial times, but it was permitted when the offended spouse was judged to have just cause for such an extreme action.  And, boy howdy, did Katherine have cause.  Katherine told the Massachusetts general court that Edward was repeatedly physically abusive to her and their children.  He was a flagrant and serial adulterer who had recently impregnated their maidservant.  (Katherine accused this servant of trying to poison her.)  Furthermore, John Anibal, a Puritan elder whom Katherine had recruited as a spy, was able to testify that Edward was a frequent visitor to Alice Thomas’ establishment, where Anibal managed to catch him in flagrante delicto with one Mary More.  (Anibal emphasized to the court that he was never a customer of Alice’s--merely a peeping Tom in the cause of righteousness.)

Katherine obtained her divorce, and Edward was banished from Boston.  However, Katherine and her rich and influential family, the Wheelwrights, did not think that was enough.  They wanted revenge for their public humiliation.  And unfortunately for Alice Thomas, she was an ideal target for their wrath.  In January 1672, the now-notorious madam found herself arrested and facing trial as a “common Baud.”  She was charged with “aiding and abetting theft by buying and concealing stolen goods; frequent secret and unreasonable entertainment in her house to lewd, lascivious and notorious persons of both sexes, giving them opportunity to commit carnal wickedness; selling wine and strong waters without a license; entertaining servants and children; and selling drink on the Sabbath.”

It was, as we would say, an open-and-shut case.  There was no question that Alice had been having way too much fun.  At the close of the trial, the judge ordered her to pay “threefold restitution” for the items she had fenced, as well as fifty pounds sterling for her other offenses.  Her physical punishment was even worse than her large monetary fine.  She was forced to stand blindfolded on the town gallows for an hour with a noose around her neck, left in suspense about whether or not she was about to be hanged.  Afterwards, she was stripped to the waist in the icy New England weather, tied to the back of an ox-drawn cart, and, in front of a jeering crowd, lashed thirty-nine times with a whip.  Then, she was thrown back into her fetid prison cell until October 1672, when the court ordered that she be permanently banished from Boston.

A 19th century engraving depicting Puritan punishment in the 1670s

Alice subsequently disappeared from the historical record until July 1676, when the general court of Boston approved her petition to have her exile repealed.  Alice, you see, had retained enough of her ill-gotten gains to pay for a new harbor sea wall in Boston, as well as several other public buildings.  This act of municipal bribery was sufficient to convince city leaders to forgive and forget.  The formerly infamous “Baud” quietly lived out the rest of her days as an esteemed civic benefactor.

Alice Thomas, pioneering American entrepreneur.