The Plum Tree Hanging

I’ve noticed that in recent years, Halloween decorations have grown increasingly macabre.  In my neighborhood, at least, grinning Jack o’lanterns and innocuous ghosts are being replaced by ghoulish skeletons (both human and animal,) gravestones, knife-wielding devils, and various other ugly monstrosities.  Last year, a house near me put in their yard such a revolting handmade display of chopped-up doll parts covered in unsettlingly realistic-looking fake blood that some neighbors complained vigorously enough to get the DIY abattoir removed.  However, as ghastly as it all is, at least nobody around here has hung a genuine dead body outside anyone’s house.  To date, at least.  For an example of such real-life Halloween horror, you would have to look back to Evansville, Indiana in 1925.

While returning from a party on October 31, a couple named George and Helen Erhard saw something large dangling from a plum tree in their front yard.  At first, they assumed it was a mannequin someone had left as a holiday prank.  However, when they went closer to the object, they realized that hanging in their property was no dummy, but a very real, and very dead, man.

The man was wearing a fairly pricey serge suit, a cap, a sweater coat, and a shirt.  His necktie had been used as a noose attaching him to the tree branch.  The body carried no identification, money, or jewelry.  His most notable features were a missing finger on the right hand, and an anchor and heart tattoo on one arm.

Despite the way the body was found, it was soon determined that this was no simple suicide.  The dead man had suffered two skull fractures, a deep laceration to the head, as well and other cuts and bruises to the body.  He had evidently been badly beaten with a blunt object before being dragged to the tree.  He had died about an hour before the Erhards discovered him.  George’s mother, who lived with the Erhards, told police that at 10:30 pm--about an hour before George and Helen arrived home--she had been awakened by her dog barking.  She then heard a woman’s scream, and the sound of a car screeching swiftly away.

A man named John Zakrzewsky heard of the gruesome find.  He thought the body’s description matched that of his brother Seraphine, a punch press operator from Toledo, Ohio, who had disappeared from his home on October 25th.  On November 3, John was able to identify the corpse as that of Seraphine.  John told the police that he could not explain his brother’s disappearance or his subsequent murder.  According to John, Seraphine was a law-abiding sort with no enemies.  However, he did admit that Seraphine may have become “mixed up with bootleggers.”  (Although becoming “mixed-up” with such characters was an excellent way to get into serious trouble, this intriguing clue went nowhere.)

"Evansville Courier," November 4, 1925, via Newspapers.com

John also informed police that he did not believe Seraphine owned the clothes he was wearing when he died--they were too good a quality to belong to someone of his modest means.  (It was later learned that Seraphine had been given most of his clothing from a worker at an Evansville Salvation Army.)  Seraphine had spent a few days in Evansville before his death--he had been seen eating alone several times in a local restaurant--but it was never determined what he was doing in the city, where he had no known friends or other ties.

Witnesses claimed that between the hours of 10:30 and 11 on the night of the crime, а “dilapidated touring car” was parked near the Erhard farm.  Three men who looked like “underworld characters,” were seen on the road nearby.  These men were never identified, leaving it as anyone’s guess if they had anything to do with the tragedy.

And, with that, the murder investigation quickly came to a sputtering end.  Although the police duly interrogated all possible witnesses/suspects (including the Erhards,) no one had any information about who might have committed this odd, seemingly motiveless murder.  Sadly, the crime known as the “Plum Tree Hanging” soon disappeared from the newspapers, the police file was sent to the “cold case” bin, and life went on.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

The Strange Company HQ staffers wish you pleasant reading!

A handy reminder that bees are weird.

A look at medieval executioners.

The world's oldest dated printed book.

A stupid theory about the Salem Witch Trials that refuses to die.

The 11th century abbot and the recycled sarcophagus.

The duel between W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley.

The man who made a living from being a conjoined twin.

The death of Pretty Boy Floyd.

Remembering the Cat Lady of Spitalfields.

A pattern has been found in cases of alleged reincarnation.

The legend of "Mountain Charley."

The only prison with its own zoo.

In search of the Woman in Black.

A meeting with Bigfoot.

The oldest known dwelling in the Western Hemisphere.

The mystery of the Dancing Plague.

Remembering the Aberfan disaster.

Not to worry, just empty space sending out mysterious signals.

The War of Jenkins' Ear.

The cat who missed out on being the hero of Rikers Island.

If a ghost wants his widow to get the funeral money, you should probably oblige.

A notorious 19th century swindler.

New York's "house of many mysteries."

The woman who could sew with her tongue.  And no improper jokes, please.  I know what the internet is like.

When the Royal Society went ghost-hunting.

The mystery of the "Tully monster."

Some very disturbing deaths.

George III visits Oxford.

A really bad 18th century job.

A murderous medical student.

The real-life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.

A cave of dragon bones.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at an unsolved Halloween murder.  In the meantime, here's something a bit different.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

I guess you could say that this is one of those UFO stories that has everything, including satanic fungus.  The “Jacksonville Journal,” January 28, 1974:

After sighting an Unidentified Flying Object and being felled by a ray apparently from an occupant of the craft, a strange "devil's head" was found growing in his yard, a Jacksonville man has reported to the UFO Research Institute.

Norman R. Chastain, 62, of 2507 Kershaw Drive W., said he delayed reporting the strange incident after it occurred for fear he would be ridiculed as "some kind of a nut."

Chastain's photograph with the "devil's head" appeared in the Journal nearly two years ago after he brought the plant to the newspaper and reported finding it in his yard.

At that time, however, he did not mention the earlier incident. He said he is telling the story now because of the investigation being made by the research institute.

Chastain is an electrician with the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Co. He was out in the St. Johns River fishing late at night Jan. 26, 1972, near the eastern tip of Blount Island.  At 3 a.m., he was sitting at anchor in a slack tide about 50 feet from shore when he noticed "several orange and blue lights from over St. Johns Bluff Monument," he said.  At first he thought it was a mosquito control or police helicopter.

Chastain said his boat lights were on and a Coleman lantern was burning.  He said the object made no noise.

"After a few minutes, the lights came directly towards my boat and I could make out the outline of something like a half of a ball with lights flashing and changing colors about every minute," he said.

He said the object was about 150 feet in the air directly over his boat. He snapped off the lights on his boats and turned out the lantern and the object moved slowly back to the bluff.  His boat had run aground by this time and he went ashore, he said.

Chastain said he went looking for a lever to pry his boat free, found a piece of 2-by-6 wood and was carrying it back when he stopped to rest, 75 feet from his boat.

"I raised my spotlight to see if my boat was still in the muck and, in the edges of the bushes, I saw the darndest-looking human-like creature one could ever imagine," he said.

He said he dropped the timber and immediately was hit by a "brilliant white light." It made him dizzy and he lay down on the grass.

His arms and legs became numb and tingled, but he stayed on the ground, praying, until daybreak, he said.  He then crawled farther inland and stayed until about noon, when his strength returned.

He swam out to his boat, which had drifted about 50 feet from shore. He noticed an "overpowering stench" in his clothes and hair that was not present until he met the "devil-looking creature."  He said he washed and threw away his old clothes before going home. Still his wife commented that he didn't look right and asked if he were all right. Chastain said he told her he got seasick.

Three nights later, Chastain said, he found himself dreaming that he was on a strange planet. Suddenly, he was awakened by a clap of thunder and saw that it was raining outside.  He also noticed the same overpowering smell he experienced three days before, he said.  Chastain remained awake the rest of the night, holding a gun.  When morning came, he went outside.

"There in the grass directly behind my boat at the same distance the creature was positioned on Blount Island was a cluster of several flesh-colored heads looking at me and they looked so much like that devil looking creature I saw on the island that my first thought was the UFO was over my house that night looking for me."

He went to his neighbors' homes looking for witnesses but they were all away. He dug up the plants and brought one to the Journal, he said.

"Blood" was coming from the plant, he said. it also had teeth, big eyes, a wide mouth and pointed ears, Chastain said.

Chastain said each of the plants shriveled up into a ball about six hours after they came out. No morе have grown since then, he said.

 

Since the sighting, Chastain has been back to the same spot on Blount island several times, he said. In fact, he was fishing in the same spot recently and caught a 40-pound red bass, good enough for a third place in a fishing tournament.

He says the reaction from persons he tells his story to is "peculiar."  

"The educated person is very, very interested," he said. "Those who are uneducated--the reaction is nil."

"Railroad men are the hardest to convince," he said. That is the reason he took one of the plants to show his fellow workers, some of whom advised him to move out of the house, he said.

When the Journal contacted the University of Florida's botany department, a mycologist there appeared to recognize the plant immediately from a verbal description.

He said it is a stinkhorn, very common in Florida, especially during cold weather after a drizzly rain. It is not poisonous, but generally is not considered edible because of the smell, he said.  It is a form of mushroom.

It was not until he attended a lecture at Florida Junior College by Stanton Friedman, director of the UFO Research Institute, that Chastain decided to report the incident.  He had letters from the institute, which is located in California, indicating his report is being investigated.

Friedman told the Journal by telephone that he is a nuclear physicist who spends all of his spare time investigating UFOS.

Chastain said that he submitted his story to the Journal now "to let the public try and decide whether or not the saucers are from Planet Earth or some other planet."

The Bootleg Boyer Baby

If you are at all familiar with my blog, you know that I delight in sharing moral tales that provide both spiritual uplift and valuable practical advice at navigating this thing called Life.  For instance, if you are going to fake a pregnancy in order to gain a claim to your husband’s inheritance, make sure you have all your paperwork in order.  Acquiring bogus heirs is not a job for amateurs.

Read on.

In 1902, Joseph Boyer, the owner of a machine shop in St. Louis, Missouri, took over as company president of what became the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, which he subsequently relocated to Detroit.  The company soon became a huge global success, which, naturally, made Boyer an extremely wealthy man.

However, in 1913, dark clouds hovered over the horizon for Boyer and other rich Americans, in the form of the Revenue Act, which brought in a federal income tax.  The ominous prospect of turning a substantial amount of his income over to Uncle Sam--and, one would like to think, fatherly affection--inspired Boyer to prudently shelter most of his wealth in the form of lavish trust funds for his seven children.  One of these trust funds--the one in the name of Joseph’s son Myron--was to lead to some unexpected complications.

In 1921, Myron married one Laura Lucille Miller.  In one important sense, Laura was an unlikely choice for his bride.  The childless Myron was anxious to have an heir to his substantial fortune, but as Laura was forty years old at the time of their wedding, it seemed unlikely she would ever have children.

However miracles do happen.  Just as the Biblical Elizabeth became pregnant with John the Baptist at an advanced age, in mid-1923 Laura was able to announce the joyous news that she was pregnant.  One day in November, as her due date approached, Laura sent Myron off on some errand which kept him away from home for a few hours.  As at the time he left, his bride was showing no signs of imminent labor, one can understand Myron’s astonishment when he returned to find that in his absence, he had become the father of a fine baby boy.  They named the child “Joseph Andrew Boyer III.”

As far as we know, all went well for the little family until about a year later, when Myron, for reasons lost to history, began to doubt the baby’s paternity.  He quietly hired private investigators to see if his sudden doubts about Laura’s fidelity had any basis in fact.  He wound up getting much more than he bargained for.  The PIs soon informed Myron that sadly, yes, the baby was not his biological son.  And guess what?  Little Joseph was not Laura’s biological son, either.

When confronted with the investigator’s findings, Laura realized the game was up and she had no choice but to tell all.  She had paid a handsome sum to a Detroit doctor for him to find her a baby--any baby would do.  The doctor found a pregnant, unmarried 19-year-old in Windsor, Ontario, who was very anxious to find a home for her baby.  He arranged for Laura to adopt the child, who was then brought to Detroit.  And then Laura--after presumably divesting herself of a very large pillow--staged her little tableau of new motherhood.

Discovering that your wife had faked a pregnancy and brought in a ringer admittedly would be a hard thing for any husband to accept.  What made it still worse for Myron and the other Boyers was that this child stood to inherit a fortune that they felt he was completely unentitled to possess.  On March 1, 1928, Myron--who had separated from his wife--filed a suit to have the birth certificate of his erstwhile son deleted from official records.  He literally wanted the boy erased from Boyer family history, thus, he hoped, making little Joseph ineligible for any inheritance.  Laura outwardly accepted Myron’s actions, telling reporters that what mattered to her was that she still had her legally adopted son, whom she loved “more than anything else in the world.”

This brought up a new complication:  Was Joseph legally her son?  The necessarily secretive nature of her adoption put that question in doubt.  She had no paperwork proving her claim to the child, the doctor who had arranged the whole business was dead, and the courts had no record of any formal adoption.

But wait, there’s more!  Edith Howarth, the mother of the baby Laura had acquired, was convinced that she had given birth to a girl.  Although the records of the hospital where the birth took place stated that she had had a son, the birth certificate listed the baby as a girl.  In short, nobody could say who Joseph Andrew Boyer III really was at all.

If you’re starting to get a headache at this point in our story, my apologies.

Laura’s legal troubles were just beginning.  As little Joseph had (as far as anyone could tell) been born in Canada, it was highly possible that he was technically an illegal alien facing deportation.  She was summoned to appear before the Federal Immigration Commission in Detroit on March 5, 1928, in order to determine the boy’s legal status in the U.S.  As Laura was unable to find any record to show that she had formally adopted the boy, his fate was looking grim.  However, one of Laura’s attorneys was able to find a last-minute solution.  Edith Howarth signed the necessary papers relinquishing the child, and Laura, at long last, was able to legally establish herself as the boy’s mother.  When she adopted the child, she changed his name to “Dode Alfred Boyer.”  All of this satisfied the immigration officials, and Dode was safe from deportation.

"Bangor News," March 1, 1928, via Newspapers.com

Myron was making it clear that he couldn’t care less what Laura and Dode did, as long as they were unable to get their hands on the Boyer fortune.  Just to make sure, he filed a second lawsuit asking the court to legally bar the boy from any access to the trust fund.  In retaliation, Laura--who was still Myron’s legal wife--filed suit asking that his two lawsuits be dismissed.  Myron’s response was to file a third suit asking that the $800 a month payments the trust fund had been making to Joseph/Dode be cancelled.

The court’s decision on all this wrangling was made on November 22, 1928.  The judge ruled that Dode was not only disinherited from the Boyer estate, the payments from the trust fund were to be immediately stopped, and Dode’s initial birth records, now known to be fraudulent, were ordered to be erased from public records.  Both Laura and Myron told reporters that they were satisfied with the judge’s decision and were prepared to move on with their separate lives.

The end of the story?  Oh, surely you jest.

As Fate would have it, Myron did not enjoy his legal victory for long.  Just one month later, on December 29, he suddenly collapsed from a heart attack and died.  He had never thought to update his will, dated April 26, 1923, which left “all of my earthly possessions” to “my beloved wife, Laura Miller Boyer.”

This will wound up making a great deal of happy lawyers very wealthy.  Myron’s siblings wasted no time filing lawsuits addressing the question of what, exactly, Myron’s “earthly possessions” were.  The battle centered around his trust fund, which, by then, was a cool $2.5 million.  In brief, Laura’s lawyers said it had belonged to Myron, while Boyer attorneys asserted that after Myron died, the fund reverted to the estate of his father.

The argument dragged on for years, until on July 9, 1937, the court ruled that the Boyers were to give Laura $1.2 million.  This was appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.  That body reversed the decision.  The United States Supreme Court denied Laura’s appeal, leaving her and Dode without a penny more of Boyer money.

Laura and her son disappeared from the newspaper headlines, leading anonymous, but, let us hope, not unhappy lives.  Laura found work as a saleslady until her death in 1940.  Dode died in Long Beach, California, in 1995.  When people would casually ask him about his family background, I wonder what he told them?

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where our host will be Little Tim!

Although I don't think he approves of us one bit.

Watch out for the Skunk River Monster!

The Los Angeles novelist who is forgotten at home, but loved in Italy.

From "miracle vine" to invasive species: yes, yet another instance of government and unexpected consequences.

A ramming disaster at sea.

Europe's "hunger stones."

Japan's Roswell.

How King John blew it.

The hidden history of paper.

A mother's death kicks off a weird saga.

The real Christopher Robin was no fan of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Grave stories from a grave digger.

That time when people wanted a silver-plated Grandma.

A reminder to please leave the Sun alone.

Life in the 1860s Royal Navy.

The oldest known spear attack.

Will o'the wisps and William Blake.

Authors are easy marks.

A case of mysterious stone throwing in India.

Beer comes to medieval England.

The days of werewolf trials.

Nicolas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone.

So, maybe some things on the bottom of the sea should be left there.

The disappearances of two sets of sisters.

A ghost visits a morgue.

A brief history of English vampires.

More evidence that we've been underestimating Neanderthals.

The bad, bad Bender family.

That time when the police recorded ghost activity.

Why ancient Romans drank gladiator blood.

The mystery of ancient mounds in Louisiana.

An 1875 balloon tragedy.

Peru's "Band of Holes."

The mystery of kissing.

In Elizabethan England, there was such a thing as bad publicity.

A love affair that ended with a bullet.

The many H.L. Menckens.

A very haunted school.

Some very haunted cemeteries.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a family gone very, very weird.  In the meantime, this seems appropriate for your Friday reading:

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Treasure hunting and ghosts seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly.  As an example, peruse this story from the “Bartlesville Examiner,” February 13, 1927:

OKMULGEE, Okla. - (AP) -Snake Creek, in Okmulgee county, still believes in her six lively ghosts and sets back to laugh at outsiders when they invade the playground of the spirits.  Investigation has failed to disprove fantastic stories of phantom hailstones, eerie lights and wailing cries about a wooded section where gold is supposed to be buried and guarded by the shades of five Indians and a white man.

No explanation was offered for the tales told by a number of reputable men of the community, in the northeast part of the county.  They, and a number of others, declare they have been terrified a number of times by the ghostly manifestations, while digging for the hidden treasure, located two and a quarter miles south of the county line and a mile and a half south of Snake Creek school on the farm of Arthur Straughan.  Parties from nearby cities have been organized to probe the mystery, but they too have been frightened away, Snake Creek residents say. Now that the story has leaked out, Snake Creek expects to have a lot of fun. Ghost hunters are planning to find out just what is going on.

The six spirits have been at work for several weeks chasing away invaders of their home.  There are six, a spiritualist declares, and they are sad, sad boys, wishing to be let alone and asking mortals to stay away. In defense of their home the Indian ghosts have offered their best in screaming war whoops, while their white comrade flits about the tree tops lighting dim ghost lights. When that fails to dislodge the visitors, the sextet resorts to a thundering storm of invisible hail, which can be felt but cannot be seen, according to the Snake Creek residents.  Several residents of the community, in the northeast corner of Okmulgee county, will testify to the existence of unseen things that utter blood-curdling howls, flash lights and throw hailstones.

One of the men is suffering from nervous prostration. His companions swear they never again will approach the haunted place where the spirits hold forth and defy men to molest them.  Four of the farmers of the Snake Creek district, who have made several trips to the place and claim to have heard and seen the weird signs, are Hayworth Baker, who located the place, James Lee, Bob Benson and Earl Douglas.

The haunted treasure is located two and a quarter miles south of the county line, and a mile and a half south of the Snake Creek school. It is on the farm of Arthur Straughan.  Some of Snake Creek is skeptical, but the majority is not. Those men are well known and the stories they tell hang together well.  The ghostly manifestations are supposed to have begun several weeks ago when the men decided to dig for buried treasure they had heard could be found in a wooded section north of Snake Creek school.

The party had dug a few feet when a frightful Indian war whoop brought them to attention.  It was not repeated, and they began again to dig. The screaming challenge was heard again, this time from several different directions. The men dropped their tools and fled in horror.

A few nights later, the same men regained courage and again started to hunt for the treasure. They just had touched their tools to the earth when the Indian yell was uttered in their very ears, from the tree-tops, from all sides, and some said from the hole where they were digging. They fled.

The original party decided to get in more direct communication with the spirits. They consulted a spiritualist. He told them that the bodies of five Indians and one white man had been buried near the place many years before, The ghosts rather liked the place and were hanging around. They did not wish to be disturbed and were using the only defense a poor ghost has to keep marauders away.

The treasure story was too much of a lure, however, and the men did not stay away long. This time the band of dead men went deeper into their bag of tricks and decided to show the boys just what a ghost really can do. The voices started the show, coming from every direction, above and below. Lights were seen hanging all about. The tree tops were alive with them. The woods looked like phosphorus in the moonlight. The weird lights shone on the ground, in the treasure hole and under the men's feet.

A strange noise began overhead, gathering force until it resembled a heavy thunderstorm.  Something rained down upon the men. The objects fell like hailstones, but when they were caught, the men opened their hands to find they held nothing. The invisible hail fell with more intensity. It was too much for the treasure hunters. They thought they heard ghostly laughter as they sped homeward. Ghost hunters are going to investigate again.

The stories told by the men are terrifying, but Snake Creek has her skeptical ones. They must be satisfied.

The treasure seekers, hunting for the gold that legend has placed there and which spiritual messages are said to have confirmed, have hunted only at night because they wished to hide any possible discoveries from other residents of the Snake Creek district. The search now is expected to be continued by daylight, due to the publicity given the treasure ghosts.

Unsurprisingly, there is no record of anyone finding the reputed gold.  The ghosts obviously did their work well.

The Undeciphered Death of Paul Rubin

The Rubin ciphertext

Eighteen-year-old Paul Emanuel Rubin was a sophomore at New York University, where he studied chemistry.  We have contradictory reports about his scholastic success:  His father Samuel said that Paul was an excellent student, while a police detective later told reporters that the teenager was doing so poorly at the University that he was in danger of flunking out.  (This is one of those cases that is full of contradictory details.)  

On the morning of Monday, January 19, 1953, Paul left his home in Brooklyn.  His mother Bessie assumed he was going off to his classes.  She claimed that he seemed in good spirits, showing absolutely no sign that things were about to become very, very weird.

Just before 10 am on the following morning, one Reverend Robert Anderson was walking through Philadelphia International Airport when his attention was arrested by a “wild-eyed” “stocky man” walking on the ramp between the terminal building and the air express office.  Anderson wished the stranger a “good morning.”  The man did not reply, but simply paced up and down.  He stared straight ahead, and appeared very nervous.

About twenty minutes later, U.S. Army Private Madrid King was walking to the airport, when he saw a man’s body at the bottom of a steep ditch.  (Note:  Some newspaper reports stated that the body was found by a taxi driver.)  This was the same man Rev. Anderson had seen pacing in the airport, but as the corpse had no identification on him, immediate identification was impossible.  However, the body was wearing a sports jacket with a label reading “Witte Brothers, 5th Avenue,” which made police suspect he was a New Yorker.

Police had more immediate success finding out how the man died.  According to the coroner, his body contained enough cyanide “to kill ten men.”  The coroner hesitated in calling the death a suicide.  To his mind, the body was so “immaculately arranged”--the dead man’s thick-lensed glasses had not even been dislodged--that it seemed possible that the corpse had been placed where it was found.

It was never determined how the cyanide had been administered.  It was not believed that the poison was taken in capsule form.  An empty test tube was found a few feet from the body, but no traces of cyanide were found in the tube.  

The strangest clue was a small piece of paper taped to the man’s abdomen.  It was a cipher message that, to date, has yet to be decoded, although over the years, many cryptologists have tried.  The man’s wallet contained nothing but a photo of an airplane with a Nazi swastika on its tail and a picture of Rodin’s sculpture “The Thinker.”  The other items the man had carried with him were equally bizarre: a plastic cylinder containing a signal fuse, the casing of a spent .38 caliber bullet, a “fountain pen gun,” (whatever that may have been,) forty-seven cents, four keys on a chain, and the February issue of “Galaxy Science Fiction.”

The body was finally identified when Bessie Rubin phoned the Philadelphia police.  She had read a newspaper report about the dead man found near the airport, and thought his description matched that of her son, who had not been heard from since the morning of the 19th.  Paul Rubin’s parents, as well as Bessie’s brother Max Gerstman, flew to Philadelphia, where Samuel was able to identify the mystery corpse as that of his son Paul.

Although the body now had a name, it failed to help solve how or why he had died.  Paul had the habit of sending coded messages to his friends, although no one who knew him could make any sense of the cipher found on his body.  As a chemistry student, Paul would have had access to cyanide, but he had no known reason to kill himself.  No one could explain what he was doing in Philadelphia, or how he got there.  According to Bessie Rubin, Paul had $15 on him when he last left home, but only 47 cents were left by the time of his death.  Where was the rest of the money spent?

Paul’s parents were at least able to explain some of the other unusual items found with him.  Paul was fond of doing magic tricks, and the cylinder with a fuse was probably used for one of them.  The four keys belonged to an old car the family had once owned.  The empty shell cartridge probably came from a friend who did target-shooting.  Paul may have planned to reload it with gunpowder he had created as part of his chemistry experiments.  Bessie added that her son “frequently brought home jars filled with strange liquids.”  She had no idea what they may have contained.

Detectives questioned Paul’s friends, relatives, and classmates, as well as NYU faculty members, but they were unable to find any solid leads pointing to either suicide or murder as the cause of the young man’s death.  An inquest was held on February 23, which produced the unsatisfactory verdict that Paul had died under “circumstances presently unknown.”  It remained a mystery how--or why--the dead youth had traveled to Philadelphia, or how he came to ingest cyanide.  And that, as far as law enforcement was concerned, seemed to be that.

There is one footnote to this extremely odd story:  While researching the Rubin case for his book, “Unsolved!: The History and Mystery of the World's Greatest Ciphers from Ancient Egypt to Online Secret Societies,” Craig P. Bauer obtained a copy of the FBI file on Paul’s death.  The file held no “smoking guns,” (other than the curious information that Paul had used the alias of “Galen Templar,”) but Bauer found it notable that the FBI had quietly devoted three months to investigating the teen’s death, suggesting that the Bureau felt this was more than a simple suicide.  Even more tantalizingly, the FBI had classified the Rubin case under “Espionage.”

Assuming the cipher found on Paul’s body is ever decoded, will it finally explain what led to his utterly inexplicable death?  Or will it be just another brick wall?

[Note: For what very little it’s worth, here is my take on this case:  The little we know about Paul gives the impression of a bright, eccentric youth who may well have been going through typical teenage angst--a sort of Brooklyn Holden Caulfield.  Paul was interested in spycraft, politics, and ciphers. My personal hunch--and that’s all it is, a hunch--is that he decided to commit suicide, but in a way that he could playact the role of an espionage agent, leaving a trail of baffling clues behind him.  I suspect that the reason no one has yet been able to decode the message found on his body is that it was no real cipher at all--just a stream of gibberish to add to his self-created mystery.

If I am right about this, Paul Rubin deserves a lot of credit.  If he wanted to leave this world confusing people, he did an excellent job of it.]