The Mystery of "Mary Anderson"

"Kitsap Sun," February 18, 1997, via Newspapers.com

Every suicide is a tragedy, of course.  However, among the most poignant ones are where the person remains unidentified.  Did they leave behind loved ones who suffered the agony of never knowing what happened to them?  Or--possibly even sadder--did this person have no one in the world who cared if they lived or died?  The following case could fall into either category.

On October 9, 1996, a neatly-dressed, well-groomed woman took a cab to the posh Hotel Vintage Park in Seattle, Washington.  She had phoned earlier in the day to reserve a room.  She paid $350 in cash for a two-night stay, and signed the register, “Mary A. Anderson.”

Her stay in Room 214 was eerily quiet.  She made no phone calls, ordered nothing from room service.  She merely put out a “Do Not Disturb” sign, and made her very private plans.  At some point, the woman reapplied her lipstick, tidied her hair, wrote a brief note on hotel stationary, took up a Bible, and in a glass, mixed together Metamucil, water, and cyanide.  She drank the liquid down, and lay down on the bed to die.  She obviously researched her method of death very carefully.  Although cyanide on its own is a very nasty way to go, mixed with Metamucil, potassium cyanide turns into hydrogen cyanide, which ensures an equally quick, but fairly painless end.

When the guest in Room 214 failed to check out by noon on October 11th, the front-desk manager sent the bellman to speak to her.  There was no answer to his knock on the door, and a deadbolt prevented him from entering the room.  A passkey was used to open the door.  When they finally were able to enter the room, they found “Mary Anderson” lying on her back on her bed, with the Bible clasped to her chest, open to the 23rd Psalm.  At first glance, she appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but a quick check of her pulse confirmed that she was very dead.  The note she had written was on the desk.  It read, “To whom it may concern:  I have decided to end my life and no one is responsible for my death.”  She added, “I have no relatives.  You can use my body as you choose.”

At first, police felt they had little to investigate.  The room was in perfect order.  The dead woman’s expensive clothes were hanging neatly in the closet.  Her purse contained $36.78 in cash, but no ID, credit cards, or anything else to identify her.  There were no signs of foul play.  A remarkable number of people choose to commit suicide in hotel rooms--if you live alone, it’s a way of insuring that your body is quickly found--and this seemed to be just another in that grim list.  Sad, but hardly unusual.

Then things began to get weird.  The New York address she gave the hotel did not exist.  Neither did the phone number.  Later analysis of her signature on the hotel register found signs of hesitation which strongly suggested that “Mary Anderson” was a name she made up on the spot.  Investigators ran her fingerprints through the FBI’s identification system.  They checked missing-person records in the U.S. and Canada.  They checked with Interpol.  They checked with manufacturers of cyanide.  They spread the story to the media, hoping that someone would come forward to identify her.  And they wound up with absolutely nothing.  In short, the dead woman wanted to ensure that she could not be identified, and she did a damned good job of it.  

This unusual suicide gave investigators a few clues into her personality: she was clearly an intelligent and meticulous woman.  She appeared to have been prosperous.  Her ability to procure cyanide--not something you can just pick up at a local drugstore--and her expertise about mixing it with Metamucil suggested she might have had a background in the mining or chemical industries.  Her ability to erase any clues to her identity made some wonder if she had been connected to intelligence services.

The dead woman’s body provided a bit more information about her.  She had a copper IUD in her uterus, but the serial number on the device was too worn away to allow it to be traced.  At some point, she had cosmetic surgery done on her breasts.  She was 5’8” and weighed 240 pounds.  She had short auburn hair and brown eyes.  Her age was estimated at between 35 and 45.  She had never given birth.  She had been in good health.  Her plucked eyebrows, expensive Estee Lauder makeup, perfect teeth, and manicured nails suggested that she had been in the habit of taking care of herself.  Many years later, DNA testing determined that “Mary” likely had genealogical roots in Eastern Iran or Afghanistan, with Persian heritage.  Unfortunately, none of this explained who she was, and why she had taken her own life in such a mysterious manner.  M. Arly of the King County Medical Examiner’s Office sighed, "She did one of the most thorough jobs of obliterating her ID that I have ever seen in my career.  She could have taught the FBI tricks."  Arly’s comments highlight the question that has kept this case alive:  Why was this woman so determined not to be identified?

To date, all efforts to discover the true name of “Mary Anderson” have continued to hit a brick wall.  The county paid $479 for her “Jane Doe” burial in Crown Hill Cemetery, where she rests in the anonymity she so obviously craved.  One almost wants to congratulate her for outwitting us all.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

IS EVERYBODY HAPPY???

What the hell was the Whitechapel Mount?

Fair play for cannibals.

The "wonderful year" 1759.

The mysterious Great Serpent Mound.

Why the number 17 was not popular in ancient Rome.

BREAKING:  Scientists have just discovered dogs.  (Note: Cats can tell if you're sad, too.  They just usually don't care.)

The lady who was eulogized as "phosphate of lime."

Five notable female writers of fairy tales.

It's a bedsheet!  It's a wartime diary!

The days of deadly hatpins.

The mystery of the disappearing town.

A look at medieval pets.

The records of a medieval inquisitor.

A congressman commits a scandalous murder.

Herbert Hoover's unexpected road to the White House.

Love letters from a WWII soldier turn up in an unexpected place.

It wasn't always easy to be an Assyrian king.  Especially if you wanted to die in your bed.

Alchemy has always been a strange line of work.

The MP who may have invented lawn tennis.

Two cases of families going missing.

The DNA on the Shroud of Turin.

That's a wrap for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a mysterious suicide.  In the meantime, here's Randy Newman and friends:

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This odd case of a man and his apparent doppelganger appeared in the “Vancouver World,” July 21, 1894:

"There is a mystery now of five years standing in the lumber regions of Northern Pennsylvania," said George W. Culp of the Upper Susquehanna Valley, “the clearing up of which would give a great deal of satisfaction to the people in that region. Five years ago John Shehan came to work as a logger in the west branch. He was from Canada--a very giant of a fellow, with a red scar on his left cheek, the result of an accident in the lumber woods of the Dominion, and one eyetooth missing, He was a surly sort of a person and got into frequent disputes with his fellow workers, as well as with his employer.  After a very heated dispute with the foreman of his camp one day, the foreman discharged the man and he went away, telling one of the loggers that he was going back to Canada.  The next day somе of the men went to town and the postmaster said to one of them, 

‘That man Shehan of yours is a little off ain't he? He came in here yesterday and asked if there was any mail for him. There was a letter. I gave it to him. Hе opened the letter and read it, seemed satisfied with its contents and put it in his pocket and walked out. In less than 20 minutes afterward he came in again and asked me if there was any mail for him. I was considerably surprised, and told him I had given him all there was for him.

‘When?’ said he.

‘Why, a few minutes ago,’ I replied.

‘I haven't been in here for a month!’ he exclaimed.

‘In spite of all my efforts to convince him of his error, he insisted that he had not been in the store and had received no letter, and he went out furious.’

“The day after that the men on the creek were collecting the logs as they came down into the boom, when suddenly a driver startled all of his companions by exclaiming, ‘Here's the dead body of a man!’

"In a moment a half dozen men were at the spot and the body was dragged ashore. As it rolled over on its back the men recognized it as that of John Shehan. Subsequent investigation showed that there must have been some ground for the postmaster's belief as to Shehan's sanity, for the letter was found on the body.  If there had been any doubt as to the identity of the body, the scar on the cheek and a missing eyetooth would have them all at rest. Some were of the opinion that he had committed suicide, while deranged, but the coroner's verdict was that the drowning was accidental. The men gave the body a decent burial and a letter was sent to Shehan's mother in Canada notifying her of her son's sad death. A week later a letter came from her which contained the incredible information that there had to be a mistake about her son's death.  He had arrived home the day before the receipt of the letter announcing his death, and was even then there, alive and well.  This letter was followed by another from Shehan himself to a friend in the camp wanting to know what the report of his drowning meant.  There wasn't a man in the camp but what would have sworn he had seen John Shehan's body buried, and the grave was even opened to see if the body was still there, and it was.  On the strength of this the camp could not be satisfied until someone went to Canada and investigated the alleged living John Shehan there. Shehan's friend, who had known him from a boy, and another man at the camp went to Canada. They returned in a few days and reported that there was no mistake about the man in Canada. He was John Shehan beyond any kind of doubt, alive and in the flesh, as quarrelsome as ever. Then who was John Shehan’s double, whose name must have been John Shehan too, for it was he who inquired for the letter under that name and got it. Neither John Shehan in Canada nor his mother had ever known such a person.  The letter the Shehan double took from the post office was intended for the Canada Shehan, as it was identified by him as from bis mother: but the Shehan double must have expected a letter, too, of similar import, for it had seemed to satisfy him when he read it in the post office. Then who was the drowned man? And where did he come from?  That was an unsolved mystery then, and it is an unsolved mystery yet.”

In Which Mary Grimes Wallace Makes Life Difficult For Everyone

"Dayton Daily News," October 6, 1966, via Newspapers.com

Investigating a violent death can be difficult enough if it is uncertain whether it is a case of suicide, or murder.  When even trying to establish the identity of the victim leads everyone down various rabbit holes, and the unfortunate corpse gets permanently misplaced…well, have some pity for the police detectives involved.

32-year-old Mary Grimes Wallace of Xenia, Ohio, did not have an easy life.  After her husband deserted her, she found that her job as a cook at a supper club left her unable to adequately provide for their two young sons, forcing her to put them into state-run orphanages.  She eventually moved in with a man named William Byrd, but he soon proved to be yet another source of misery.  Byrd was an abusive bully who, during his frequent fits of rage, would threaten to kill Mary.  She told friends that she wanted to break things off with William, but feared what he might do if she left him.

At 7:38 a.m. on the morning of January 10, 1954, the engineer of a Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive phoned the Xenia Police Department.  He said that as the train neared the crossing at Jasper Street, he saw a man walking hurriedly away from the east side of the tracks.  Immediately after that, he saw the body of a woman lying in his train’s path.

When police arrived at the scene, they noted that the woman’s gruesome head injuries (the body was undamaged) were consistent with being hit by a train, although they found it curious that there was little blood at the site.  The coroner was unable to say if the woman was a suicide, or a murder victim who had been placed on the tracks.

For reasons not given publicly, police immediately identified the woman found on the tracks as Mary Wallace.  However, the woman’s face had been so disfigured as to render her unrecognizable.  Mary’s father Oliver believed that the corpse probably was his daughter, but he could not say for certain.

The assumption that the dead woman was Mary Wallace made things a bit easier for investigators, because it gave them an obvious suspect in her death:  William Byrd.  When interviewed by police, William insisted he was innocent.  He stated that last saw Mary when she returned home from work at about 3 am on the morning of the 10th.  After that, he fell asleep on the sofa, and knew nothing more until the detectives arrived to put him into custody.  His lack of an alibi earned William a visit to the county jail, under investigation for possible homicide.  However, after a month went by without police finding anything connecting him to the murder--if it was indeed a murder--they were forced to release him.

Investigators had one more lead to pursue:  Nine days before the woman’s body was found on the tracks, Mary was a witness to a murder.  She had been a bystander when someone had fatally shot their domestic partner during a “lovers’ quarrel.”  No further details about the incident were given to the public, as apparently police wound up concluding that it had no discernable connection to Mary’s death.

Just two days after the body was discovered, the dead woman was buried in Silvercreek Cemetery.  Despite the highly ambiguous nature of her death, no autopsy was done, and no blood or fingerprint samples were kept.  Everyone seemed content to shrug off the whole strange business and move on.

The case was considered closed until five years later, when none other than William Byrd insisted on reopening it.  He told the local sheriff, Russell Bradley, that rumors were rampant in Xenia that Mary was still alive, and he  begged police to investigate.  He hoped to finally remove the cloud of suspicion that had hung over him for so long.  Mary’s relatives also visited Sheriff Bradley saying that they too had heard the rumors.  In fact, they had been contacted by an old friend of Mary’s who was now living in Cincinnati.  This friend told them that she had run into Mary at a Cincinnati bar.  She said that Mary had remarried, started a new life, and most definitely did not want to be found.  When shown photographs of the corpse found on the railroad tracks, Mary’s family now said that the dead woman was definitely not their missing relative.

Sheriff Bradley felt there was nothing for it but to go to Cincinnati.  He interviewed Mary’s friend, who confirmed that Mary was living in the city, but had begged her friend to not tell anyone where she was.  Bradley found several other people who claimed to have seen Mary around Cincinnati, but his efforts to find the elusive Mary herself were unsuccessful.

Bradley was still determined to learn if Mary Wallace was alive or dead.  He obtained a set of her fingerprints from when Mary had worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and obtained a court order that the body buried under her name in Silvercreek Cemetery be exhumed in order to compare prints.

There was, unfortunately, an unexpected complication:  When the grave presumed to be Mary’s was opened, it was found to hold a different female corpse.  After re-reading the cemetery’s burial records, they tried again.  This time, they exhumed the corpse of a man.

Perhaps third time would be the charm?  After a careful probe, an unmarked coffin was found, in the location where Mary’s family believed she had been buried.  However, this coffin was found to hold another man.  After this, one cannot really blame the authorities for throwing up their hands and giving up on Mary Wallace.

Was Mary murdered?  Did she commit suicide?  Or--as seems very possible--did she escape the unhappiness of her life and start anew?  In which case…who was the woman on the railroad tracks?

What a fine mess this world can be.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to "Weekend Link Dump:  The Musical!"

The bombing of LaGuardia Airport.

When dead bodies were asked to pick out their murderer.

The amulet that could rewrite the history of Christianity.

The world's most haunted museum.  That's the boast, at any rate.

It may be time to stop insulting the dodo bird.

The U.S. Navy and the Soviets compete to find a crashed F-14 jet.

15th century breach-of-promise cases.

The mystery of "shared death experiences."

Why we surrender with white flags.

WWII's largest prison break.

An island and its explosions.

A father commits an inexplicable murder.

A visit to the Paris catacombs.

The teenagers who found Roman ruins under their school.

A skeptic fought reincarnation, and reincarnation won, sorta.

Michigan boasts a Moist Towelette Museum.  You're welcome.

Did medieval castles have dungeons?  Inquiring minds want to know!

The Sun is just a mess of whirling vortices.

The days when your undies could go into mourning.

The invention that ruined Mark Twain.

A look at medieval parenting.

The 1.4 million year old footprints that have scientists all in a lather.

Be advised that there may be a nuclear mutant shark off the coast of New York.

If you love books, you might not want to read this.

Some mysterious ancient inscriptions.

A fortune-teller's mysterious death.

Some tiny figurines from the Ice Age.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a woman's very odd death.  In the meantime, let's visit New Orleans!

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This eerie little tale appeared in the “Shamokin News Dispatch,” November 26, 1929:

To have been haunted day and night by the apparition of his wife who passed away just a month ago with the result that he could not sleep and then went into a state of nervous collapse, is believed to have been the cause of the sudden death yesterday of William Waslouksas, 55, of Minersville. 

Since the death of his wife the man repeatedly told members of the family that a ghost was constantly about him and he dreaded to be left alone. He sought companionship of his children all the time and during the past weeks had been unable to sleep except at brief intervals. A daughter, residing with relatives at New. Minersville, called yesterday to visit her father and was apprised by other members of the family that he was still in bed, having failed to get up at his usual hour.

Going to his bedroom the girl was horrified to find him lifeless. Death is believed to have occurred during the night and attributed to fright resultant from the man's hallucination concerning the ghost of his departed wife.

One has to wonder if Mr. Waslouksas had a very uneasy conscience regarding his late wife.

Mr. Earp and the Boggart

In 1981, the journal of the Northern Earth Mysteries Group (now known simply as “Northern Earth,”) published an article by Frank E. Earp where he described a fairly indescribable “close encounter” he and some friends had years before.  It is a notable story, as it is one that blurs the lines between standard UFO sightings and traditional fairy lore.

In the mid 1960’s Britain was in the grip of UFO fever. Up and down the country there were reports of lights in the sky and other unidentified objects. For several weeks the media reported strange goings-on in the town of Warminster, in Wiltshire. Nottingham too had its fair share of UFO activity. This was a fascination to a boy in his early teens and together with a group of around 10 school friends, we started a UFO Club. Well, at least it kept us out of mischief--but it led to many a strange adventure. The adventure related here happened with two of my fellow club members--whom I will call W. and M.

On a fine autumn afternoon my friend W. and I walked the mile or so up Chalbury Road to meet with fellow club member M. It was our intention to carry out what is known as a "sky watch"--looking for UFOs. From M’s house, the three of us crossed Woodyard Lane walk along the north bank of the disused Wollaton canal to the site of the Wollaton Colliery. Here the old “slag-heaps” line the canal bank and we thought it would be a good vantage point for our activity.

We spent the next couple of hours scaling and sliding down the heaps and swinging out over the canal on a rope tied to the branch of a tree--always with an eye on the sky. At about 4 o’clock as daylight gave way to twilight, we decided--as we had seen no “flying saucers”--to head back to M’s house and perhaps play some records.

At this site, the canal opens into a wide oval basin--a former passing place for the coal barges. Although the canal had been drained the old bed was still marshy with a small channel of water running down the centre. As we crossed the basin to the opposite south bank, we were aware of a slight ground mist starting to rise within the basin.

Climbing up the wall and bank onto the tow-path, we stood watching the mist as it began to thicken. As we watched a “cloud” of mist--doughnut shaped, around the size of a fair ground dodgem car--formed and rose above the bed to the height of around 4 feet. The remaining body of mist, which now covered most of the basin, stayed within inches of the ground.

The cloud began to sparkle with a myriad of tiny pearl coloured lights which blinked on and off with an incandescent glow. At this point I suggested this was the natural phenomenon known as “corpse candles” or “will o’ the wisp”--the spontaneous combustion of methane gas.

Suddenly, the cloud began to slowly move towards the bank and two balls of light--the size of water melons and around two and 3 feet apart--formed at its centre. In a controlled way, the cloud came to a halt on the tow-path around 30 feet away.

All around, afternoon was giving-way to evening. In the growing darkness the spheres became more obvious, seeming to “bob” up and down like corks on water. No malevolence appeared to emanate from the cloud, just curiosity. It seemed that we, as observers, were in-turn being observed. However, discretion got the better of valour and turning in unison we walked away. After a few paces curiosity got the better of us and we stopped to look back. To our horror, the cloud had followed us and was now just 20 feet away. Panic now set in and we retreated, this time at a jogging pace.

The canal now took a gentle turn and then a straight course to a point where Old Coach Road once crossed via a stone bridge. The bridge had long since disappeared and the road was now carried over the canal on a high bank, which the tow-path climbed over on either side.

I had the sudden feeling that the “thing” would not follow us across the road and voiced this fact to my friends. Frequent glances over our shoulders told us that the cloud was keeping pace behind--in fact it was gaining with every step.

Reaching the bank, we turned to see our pursuer was now just a few feet behind us. Seconds later, we mounted the bank and found ourselves looking down on the cloud, which had moved to the foot of the bank.

It seemed that the cloud would not follow us further. With relief, we crossed the road and descended onto the path. Now, with the bank between us, we felt safe to stand and look back. For a few seconds the road above was clear and then slowly the cloud came into view. Now hovering over the road at the top of the bank, “it” was looking down at us!

We took-off in full retreat, running in terror, the cloud still gliding effortlessly behind. At the pace we were travelling, it was not long before we reached Wood Yard Lane and the end of this part of the canal.

Here we turned to face our pursuer—now only 6 feet away—safe in the knowledge that just across the lane was M’s house. With me in the middle, we stood in silence, like gunfighters waiting for the next move. I broke the spell, as tacking a step forward I said, “If you are a friend come forward”.

A few seconds silence followed as I paused for a response. With my eyes fixed on the swaying orbs I began to say “If you are an enemy ….”My words were cut short as B. tapped me on the shoulder and saying in my ear, “When I say run, run!!” My eyes followed his pointing finger to the hedge on my left.

There only feet in front of M.—silhouetted by the light from the orbs—was the black shape of a hairy figure. Around 6ft. tall, its head appeared to be directly on its shoulders, whilst its arms—which seemed to be long—tapered to a single finger. Each of these “fingers” curved inward around a glowing red rod the size of a pencil. The legs seemed to disappear from around the mid calve and something of the mist from the cloud swirled around where the feet should have been.

I had absorbed all of this information in seconds, for in an instant B. had shouted the word “run” and like an Olympic athlete taken off. I followed with the same turn of speed, leaving M. alone calling out repeatedly, “Can you see it lads? Can you see it?”

M. must have quickly realised he was alone and soon caught us up. The other two began to blurt-out their experience. I silenced them saying that we should independently draw what we had seen. It turned out that the three of us drew identical pictures of the cloud, whilst B. and I drew almost identical pictures of the figure. Because his attention had been entirely on the cloud M. hadn’t seen the figure.

Years later I was to discover that our encounter had not been with some alien being. The "hairy creature” fitted the classic description of a class of “fairy” known as a “Boggart.”

Pro tip:  Never go looking for The Weird.  You just might find it.