Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

It’s time for some Mystery Blood!  The “Sacramento Bee,” August 16, 1870:

At the Juapa, at the residence of Mr. John Baldwin, one of those phenomena occurred for which it is so difficult to account. On the 15th instant, a shower of blood fell at the dwelling of Mr. B., spattering the doorstep and the surrounding grounds. There had been only an instant before a perfect calm, without a cloud in the horizon, when suddenly a whirlwind arose, scattering everything in all directions, and leaving as the result, large clots of blood in the immediate vicinity of the house. The question arises, where did this blood come from. The circumstances are altogether different from that which occurred a few months ago at Los Nietos, where it was finally agreed that it was made by vultures who had been preying upon dead carcasses upon the plains, and from the ratification of the air, in passing over that place, gave up their gorged repast.

The First Mrs. Bennett

William Bell Scott, Woman Startled by the Ghost of a Girl by a Mirror

Second marriages can be awkward, especially when the ex-spouse has issues with their former partner entering into a new union.  If said ex-spouse happens to be dead, you know your domestic life has well and truly entered Strange Company territory.

In her 1974 book “Haunted East Anglia,” Joan Forman described an unsettling episode in the life of an acquaintance of hers to whom she gave the pseudonym “Mrs. June Bennett.”  At the time our story opens, June had recently married a widower, after which the couple settled into the Wroxam home Mr. Bennett had shared with his first wife.  The late Mrs. Bennett had greatly loved the home and had been very possessive of it--as it happened, she had even died there.  June knew of all this, but felt no superstitious unease at becoming the house’s new mistress.

However, as soon as June took up residence, she noticed odd things going on around her.  She would hear phantom footsteps walking up and down the stairs, and she began noticing strange odors in some of the rooms.  The smells were like nothing she had ever noticed before--she could only describe them to Forman as “like incense, and yet unlike.”

The Bennetts employed a cleaning woman, who had also worked for the first Mrs. B.  She too heard the mysterious footsteps and smelled the strange odors.  However, what really frightened her was that she began hearing an invisible figure calling her name.  It was the voice of the first Mrs. Bennett.  The woman was so unnerved by this that she visited the grave of her late employer and begged to be left alone.  Unfortunately, this had no effect.  Oddly, Mr. Bennett heard and saw nothing unusual.

As unpleasant as all this was, June did not start to become seriously alarmed until she had been living in the house for about a year.  The Bennetts had just arrived back home from a holiday, when June heard both doorbells ring simultaneously.  By this point, she was not particularly surprised to find no one at either door.  A few nights later, June woke up to feel some substance clinging to her face.  She tried brushing it off, to no avail.  She told Forman “It was unlike material, but resembled cobwebs, and was certainly sticky.”  June got up to get something to drink, and by the time she went back to bed, the strange sensation had gone.

The most frightening incident of all came a short time later.  June was putting on makeup in front of the mirror on her dressing table.  Then, the mirror began to mist over.  When she tried to wipe it clean, she saw a reflection of a woman…that was not her.  It was the face of a stranger.  When she later described the woman to her husband, he said it must have been the face of his first wife.  June never used that mirror again.  Soon after this incident, she persuaded her husband to sell the home, and they moved to Norwich.  The home’s new owners reported no unusual occurrences, which seems logical.  The late Mrs. Bennett had no reason to feel jealous of them.

Even after moving away, June was not completely free of her predecessor.  One room in the new house contained furniture that had belonged to the first Mrs. Bennett.  The new cleaner who worked for June told her that this room often smelled strangely:  “Not quite like baking bread, but very near it.”

Pro tip:  If you plan to marry a widow/widower, always clear things with the ghost of the previous spouse first.  It could prevent a lot of uncomfortable situations.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where the Strange Company staff is off on an early summer road trip!

Daniel Webster prosecutes an "extraordinary case."

Is there a planet hidden behind Neptune?

A woman's unsolved disappearance.

A medieval domestic violence case.

"London characters" of the early 20th century.

Exploring some fairy caves.

The actor and the crisis apparition.

A bride returns from the grave.

The earliest known domesticated dogs.

Percy Fawcett and the "lost city of Z."

The landscapes of John Constable.

Why we toss coins in fountains.

The busboy who witnessed RFK's assassination.

Bees are mighty darn smart.

A very ancient whale graveyard.

The efforts to reconcile Britain and the American colonies.

A mysterious castle in Wyoming.

Some facts about the Black Death.

The "strangers burial ground."

Ancient humans may have used fire a lot earlier than we thought.

Instructions for medieval monks.

The "Wizard of Oz" curse.

A "most hateful decision" during WWII.

The many alter egos of Benjamin Franklin.

A "coal cracker" makes good.

A Galileo forgery.

A betting tip from the past.

A terrifying UFO in Costa Rica.

Some medieval warrior women.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a dead wife stirring up trouble.  In the meantime, here's Merle.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This tale of strange goings-on in a seemingly unremarkable apartment was told in the “Western Mail,” March 10, 1927:

An extraordinary story of queer happenings in an unoccupied Fulham (England) flat was told recently by a foreman and two workmen who have been decorating it (declares the "London Daily News").

One of the men mentioned to the foreman some days ago that when working in the flat he received a severe blow on the head, seemingly from nowhere. On the foreman's going to investigate he, too, so he says, heard mysterious thuds, saw a cup wobble along the floor, matches vanish, candles appear from nowhere, and so on.

The climax came when one of the workmen also vanished, and was found lying unconscious on the floor of another room.

The three men all tell the same story, but unfortunately no one else has been inconvenienced in the same way in the flat. Tenants in the neighbouring flats have heard nothing.

Most unfortunately, I was unable to find out any more about this intriguing bit of weirdness.

The Bizarre Murder of Pauline Amsel

"Indian Citizen," November 12. 1914, via Newspapers.com

A frightening and inexplicable tragedy hit the normally peaceful town of Durant, Oklahoma in 1914.  According to Jake and Celia Amsel, a well-to-do, respectable couple, at about one-thirty a.m. on the night of November 11, they were awakened by screams emanating from their home’s outdoor sleeping porch.  They were horrified to recognize the voice as that of their only child, fourteen year old Pauline.  Jake Amsel leaped out of bed, only to be confronted with an intruder.  The man took out a pistol and fired it into the floor, while pleading with Amsel to let him go.  After his gun jammed, the stranger pulled out a small knife, and began to stab at the father.  The two men struggled for several minutes before the stranger broke away and escaped.

While this fight was going on, Pauline walked into the bedroom and announced that she was sick.  While the mother called for help, the girl walked into her own room, and fell onto the floor.

As it happened, Pauline had good reason to be ill.  The entire right side of her throat had been deeply slashed.  She died half an hour later.

What followed was the usual depressing pattern seen in all hopelessly perplexing murders:  Searches were made for the killer, rewards were offered, private detectives hired, the usual suspects hauled in for questioning and quickly released, with no one left any closer to obtaining justice for the victim.  It probably did not help the inquiry that Pauline was buried before an autopsy could be performed.  (Her family was Jewish, compelling them to bury her before sundown.)

Pauline was buried in Corsicana, Texas, where her mother had family ties, and soon afterwards, her parents left Durant for good.

It is rare that such a violent murder provides so little information, or even speculation, to work with.  No valuables in the house appeared touched, so robbery was ruled out as a motive.  It was as if a phantom had picked a house at random, attacked the first person he saw, and disappeared into a permanent fog.  No one could guess who would have wished to harm the girl.

Well, no one guessed in public, at least.  In private, it was evidently a very different matter.  As is always the case with mysterious crimes, the local rumor mill went into overdrive.  Residents of Durant had little difficulty solving Pauline’s murder.  Chillingly, the top suspects were the only witnesses to the crime, the dead girl’s parents.  Melody Amsel-Arieli, an indirect descendant of Pauline's, began to research the case during the 1980s.  She contacted many locals who still had memories of the shocking crime.  According to some, Pauline had fallen in love with a certain boy, and this youthful romance horrified her parents.  The suggestion is that this family conflict somehow inspired her murder.

One hesitates to take such a theory seriously—if it is false, such claims are a cruel disservice to a couple who had surely suffered enough.  However, there is no getting away from it that the story they gave is decidedly odd.  First of all, why would Pauline be outdoors, in the middle of a frigid Oklahoma winter night?  If her throat was slashed so deeply that—according to some accounts—she was nearly decapitated, how could she walk upstairs, announce that she was “sick,” and then go off to her own room to die?  Didn’t the parents notice she was covered in blood?  And if this intruder had a gun, as well as a knife, why didn’t he use the more efficient weapon on the girl?  And why did it take thirty minutes for help to be summoned?  And would a man who had just fatally wounded a girl and was waving around a gun, ask her father to just let him go?  Why, after attacking Pauline, did the intruder go upstairs and do this pointless and ineffectual wrestling with her father, rather than immediately flee?

According to a doctor who examined Pauline’s corpse, her injuries were made with a razor.  So, this intruder came equipped with a gun, a knife, and a razor?  How could it be that blood was found on the sleeping porch and Pauline’s bedroom, but nowhere in between, assuming that she had actually summoned the superhuman strength to walk upstairs with a fatally slashed throat?

I give the Ansels the benefit of the doubt and assume they were incapable of murdering their own daughter.  But there is no question that what we are told about Pauline’s death is disturbingly illogical…which is undoubtedly why it haunts the town of Durant to this day.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

I'm sure our host this week needs no further introduction.  The caption says it all.

A medieval anti-war satire.

Mysterious meat shower?  Or vulture vomit?

The paranormal side of the Cold War.

Ernest Hemingway, boxing, and, uh, salad dressing.

The man who blew up a nuclear power station.

Mystery in a medieval tomb.

More proof that scientists have way too much spare time on their hands.  (Note to self:  When any scientist offers me bread, check the recipe very very carefully.)

An "impossible" sword from the Bronze Age.

A bizarre medical scandal.

The first viral crop circle.

A disappearance in Pennsylvania.

A brief history of Wonder Bread.

A brief history of "hand mnemonics."

George Washington's beer recipe.

A disgrace at sea.

The women of the American Revolution.

WWII's Operation Sea Lion.

Was there a Jack the Strangler?

The 19th century Grand Prix de Paris.

The ship that conquered the Northwest Passage.

Some fatal weddings.

A 12th century liturgical comb.

Mysterious airborne saboteurs in WWI.

One heck of a medieval barn.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at the bizarre murder of a teenage girl.  In the meantime, let's dance!

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

 

Proof of reincarnation--sort of--appeared in the “Ottawa Citizen," December 16, 1933:

LONDON (by mail).-Here is the man who has "died" three times in three years. He is Mr. Tim Sandell, of Templar street, Camberwell.

On the first occasion the report spread among his friends that he had met with a sudden and mysterious death, and that a post-mortem was to be made. His wife's friends called to console her.

A few months ago he was in hospital. Again the report went round that he had died.  Again the friends called to sympathize.

At five o'clock on a recent Monday morning a policeman knocked at the door to tell Mrs. Sandell that her husband had been knocked down by a motor car at Wandsworth and was dead.

Mr. Sandell answered the knock, and protested that he hadn't and wasn't.  The cause of the mistake was that the dead man had with him a pair of boxing gloves bearing Mr. Sandell's name and one-time address.

Mr. Sandell told the story of his latest "death" to a press representative.

"The police, in their efforts to trace me," he said, "first went to the address in Brixton marked on the gloves, and subsequently to every address at which we have lived since.

"All along the trail the news spread like wildfire that I had been killed.  A friend at Smithfield disgustedly informed me last night that they had whipped round for a wreath for me!

"A man I met that night turned deathly pale when he saw me. He took some time to recover.

"Then I attended the inquest on the still unidentified body.  I shall always think of it as my own inquest."

When Mr. Sandell finally did shuffle off this mortal coil for good and earnest, I assume everyone--including Mr. Sandell--was a bit surprised.