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| "Newark Advocate," March 7, 1975, via Newspapers.com |
Some missing-person cases are baffling because they feature a number of strange and contradictory clues. On the other hand, some disappearances are unique puzzles due to their utter lack of any clues at all. One outstanding example is the now little-known vanishing of Charles Albert Ulrich.
Ulrich led a stable, unremarkable life. The 62-year-old Uhrichsville, Ohio resident had worked for many years as a small claims examiner at the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services. He was a good employee who had no noticeable problems with his job. He was an intelligent, devoutly religious man who didn’t smoke or drink, served as an elder at his local Moravian Church, and was happily married for over forty years. By all appearances, his health and spirits were both excellent, and while he was not rich, he had no financial problems.
On the night of January 27, 1975, Ulrich’s wife Dorothy woke up thinking that she heard their front door close. Ulrich got his shotgun and went to investigate, but he found nothing to suggest someone had been there. It is unknown if this was simply a case of Mrs. Ulrich mishearing something, or a hint of worse things to come.
The following evening, Ulrich got a phone call. After the conversation was over, he commented to his wife, “You know, if it was a year later, I would retire.” Unfortunately, Mrs. Ulrich does not appear to have asked him to clarify this remark. It’s also unknown who he talked to. Like the suspected prowler, no one can say if this was an innocuous, meaningless incident, or…something else.
On the night of the 28th, there was a severe thunderstorm. It was still raining heavily when Mrs. Ulrich woke up at 7 a.m. the following morning. It was Charles’ invariable habit to wake his wife at 6:55 a.m. every morning so they could have coffee and watch a 5-minute religious program on television together before he went to work, but she found him nowhere in the house. Mrs. Ulrich saw his pajamas were left tossed across the bed, which was very uncharacteristic of him--after he dressed for the day, he would always put the pajamas neatly away. The front door was ajar. Charles had left his keys and wallet behind. Their car was still in the garage.
The perplexed Mrs. Ulrich called neighbors, asking if anyone had seen him. No one had. When her search of the area around their house proved futile, she phoned the police. Law enforcement and volunteer search parties explored the vicinity for some days, without finding any answers why Ulrich had vanished, or where he might have gone. The Tuscarawas River, which paralleled the street leading to Ulrich’s home, was dragged. There was nothing to indicate Ulrich had accidentally drowned there. A neighbor reported that at 6:30 on the morning of the 29th, he had seen car lights in the Ulrich driveway, and another witness saw on that same morning an unidentified man standing alongside Route 36, as if he was waiting for someone. What, if anything, did these two reports indicate? No one could say. “It’s a mystery how he disappeared in thin air,” Ulrich’s brother-in-law, Walter Whitis, commented to a reporter. “The more you talk about it, the more it seems you run up against a blank wall.”
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| "Daily Reporter," February 11, 1975 |
The police, while admitting that they could not rule out foul play, settled on the theory that Ulrich had experienced an amnesia attack. Five years before his disappearance, Ulrich had suffered a fall which severed some nerves leading to his brain. A doctor claimed that thunderstorms have been known to trigger "hysterical amnesia" in people who had similar injuries. However, even if this rather exotic explanation for Ulrich’s disappearance is accurate, it doesn’t explain the inability to find him.
Ulrich’s younger brother George had a far darker theory. Eight months after Charles vanished, George Ulrich told a reporter, “I believe he walked out of the house and found something he shouldn’t have. I see nothing but foul play.” But what could Ulrich have possibly “found” just outside his home that would compel someone to (presumably) kidnap and murder him?
To date, the mystery of Ulrich’s disappearance remains unsolved.
