Lover's Lane Murders

Lover's Lanes, those back roads and out the way places where young lovers for generations have retreated to have some alone time.  "Billing and Cooing", "Parking", "Sparking", "Making Out" were terms that emerged from these isolated trysting places along railroad tracks, off country roads,  in or near cemeteries, old factories, under leafy trees, under bridges, and by bodies of water.  They were places were lovers could talk, kiss, share a forbidden drink and other activities un-named.  Lonely, isolated, and a place where others would tend to pay less attention to anyone else, these dark secretive places were a magnet that apparently called out to those with a date with death.

 

The term "Lover's Lane" was one not always used but generally understood to exist. The term was not always used in local news accounts of events occurring in these places of a less than loving nature.  In the later half of the 20th century it be used more often and more salaciously than in previous years; some of the innocence had rubbed off of society by that time.

 

In the 1920's and 1930's society was almost totally mobile and so they saw a lot of social barriers fall: short hair and skirts on women, drinking and partying by both sexes, and a flaunting of sexual mores in general.  In 1933, 16 year old John Henkel killed 27 year old Oliver Bailey in a "Lover's Lane" in Ohio after the older man made "advances".

In Pennsylvania in late spring of 1940, a young match factor worker, Fay Gates, was raped, savagely bludgeoned and her body left along a lonely road known locally as "Spook Hollow."   This stretch of road was called by some locals a place where young people went to park.
 

In 1942 in Woodbury, NJ a 39 year old widow Mrs. Emma Evans, was raped and slain in a Lover's Lane and a 22 year old soldier from L.A., Wilburn Rogers was charged.

In June of 1943 in Dallas, Oregon 17 year old Ruth Hildebrand was raped and slain and her body dumped in the Williamite River.   The Monmouth Police Chief, Richard Layton, was charged in her death and later executed.

Around Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1944 several young women were similarly attacked and there was hint of a lover's lane connection. Phyllis Irine Conine, 17, Wilhema Hayes, 37, and Ann Kuseff, 22 were all killed from February through May.

In 1945 in Pontiac, Michigan, Mrs. Lydia Thompson was slain Oct. 11. She was bludgeoned, stabbed and struck with an axe or hatchet in a crude attempt to remove her head. By 1947, her husband was being called in for more questions after a man claimed he had been hired to kill Mrs. Thompson.

 

The Phantom Killer, also known at the time as the "Moonlight Murderer", of Texarkana struck in 1946 wounding in February Jimmy Hollis and Mary Larey on a Lover's Lane and then in March killing another couple on another Lover's Lane. Dead were Richard Griffin and Polly Moore.

 

 

Also in 1948, along a local lover's lane in Oregon, Illinois were the deaths of 17 year old Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla.  Suspicions emerged of police cover-ups and allegations of the involvement of a local deputy sheriff.

 

In 1948, a young woman, Theresa Foster, was killed in Boulder, Colorado and her body dumped in a ravine near a river. A year later, a young man and his  blind date on a local Lover's Lane stretch of road were attacked by a man. The young man, Roy Spore was killed and his body left not far from where the Foster woman's body had been found. His date was injured but unharmed.

Mary Roberts, 17, was abducted and killed near Marion, Illinois by 33 Joseph Milani alias William Winningham.  He wounded her boyfriend and took her as the couple parked in a local lover's lane.

 

In 1970, west of Norman, Oklahoma, two college students were murdered by person or persons unknown.  Amarillo native David Sloan, a student at the University of Oklahoma and his date, Sheryl Benham were found stuffed into the trunk of Sloan's vehicle. Sheryl was nude from had a blanket wrapped around her waist. She and David had been shot repeatedly in the torso and face.  A local police officer was suspected, but quickly left the force and the community. In 1990, the case was reopened due to the discovery of a weapon allegedly owned by the officer and stored in an attic. The case went to trial with testimony of missing files, misplaced or lost evidence, and other accusations.  The officer, now living in Texas, was acquitted by a jury in 1992 after only four hours.  The case is unsolved but closed. 

 

Oddly, enough, this same area (Norman's Lover's Lane) was searched in 1959 when women's clothing were found in the area by a squirrel hunter from south Oklahoma City.  Although, a minimum of three women were missing from the South Oklahoma City area at the time, as searchers canvassed the region and looked for shallow graves or bodies, the local sheriff said he could not understand what all the fuss was about.

 

--Marilyn A. Hudson, c2014

 

Note: I will update this list as more such crimes are uncovered.

Into Oblivion: The Dark Spring Killer, Part 7

This is a slightly revised version of an earlier story...

Spring times are supposed to be about life and renewal and second chances. Once upon time in central Oklahoma City the spring was dark and filled with visions to cause nightmares.

The first body parts showed up in April 1, 1976, in an abandoned house at 325 NE 8th in Oklahoma City, utility workers exploring an abandoned house found the head and body parts of a 18 year old Cathy Lyn Shackelford. At the time, however, she was unidentified and was labeled a 'Jane Dow'.

Fast forward to April 19, 1979 when several grisly discoveries are made between mid-April and the first of May. All around the 300 block NE 10th and 200 block NE 7th in Oklahoma City. The second known victim was named Arley Bell Killian.

A strange gap of seven years followed before another find was made. On March 6, 1986, the body of 23 year old Tina Sanders was located at 507 N. Lindsay. A fourth, found during excavations in the mid 1990's, has been suggested but unverified.

 

There are interesting similarities which might provide links to similar crimes and bring closure to this cold case. All the women were Native American, they either lived on the streets and/or worked as prostitutes, and were all probably killed within the same one mile radius where their bodies were found. The killings were in the spring, they were not rushed, and due to the ease with which the body parts were created and discarded, the killer had to have been familiar with his surroundings (the Stiles Circle - Lincoln Terrace neighborhood; now generally covered by the Centennial Expressway and the OU Health Science buildings and related structures).  Each body had an incision in the lower lip, massive body mutilation and dismemberment, and certain parts of the bodies were never found.

The chronology of the murders -1976, 1979 and 1986 - indicate there may have been a pattern at work.  Another killing (5) might have occurred in 1982-1983.  Just as possible, however,  the killer could have been in jail, in the military, or out of state on some job during the seven year break.  It is likely other killings, as of yet to be found,  may be fit that pattern.(Oklahoma Cold Cases) It would be atypical for such a killer to have such a long 'cooling off' period but not impossible.

Some suggest that another body was found April 22, 1995 and pulled from missing head, hands and feet, from a shallow grave 50 miles west of the city.   Authorities were said to note 'similarities' in the manner of the dismemberment. (Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, 2009,p. 291) The time period is shortly after the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City and that story was the major news for several days and no report was found to confirm that suggestion.

In 1993, the combined efforts of Andra Medina, Sgt. Norma Adams, Norman forensic sculpture Betty Pat Gatliff, and well known Oklahoma based anthropologist , Dr. Clyde Snow brought closure to the first Jane Doe.  DNA identified her as Shackleford ("DNA Tests Identify '76 Slaying Victim". Steve Lackmeyer, Oklahoman, Nov. 30, 1993, pg.1).

There were also some 'interesting' bodies in eastern Oklahoma, not for from the I-40 corridor in Shamrock 1975, Wellston 1985 and Broken Arrow 1989. Also possibly other locations in 1985 and the early 90's.    Body parts or dismembered bodies of young women who apparently went missing unnoticed and unidentified.  The 1960's through the 1990's were especially violent with serial killers springing out of their dank worlds to grab headlines through gory acts: Kemper, Bundy, Rader and so many others.

The killer may have been influenced by the famous "Black Dahlia" case related to the 1946 murder of Elizabeth Short, one of the thousands of young women who fled to the sunny warmth of California with dreams of modeling and maybe stardom.  When her dissected body was found displayed in an empty lot in a quiet Los Angles neighborhood, few had ever seen in such a sight beneath those sunny skies.  She had been cut in half, sections had been removed, and strange cuts marked both halves of her body.  Her lovely face had been disfigured by slitting the mouth so that it appeared to be ear-to-ear. She had been killed elsewhere, her body drained of blood and washed before she was staged in such a manner where she would be found.  Police at the time viewed her as perhaps the latest kill in a long string of murders plaguing the area from the late 1930's. They asked themselves if she was actually #8 in a line of victims.  Later, after her death there would be another murder police said had "Black Dahlia" aspects to it. All of this or some of it may have been known to the OKC killer because on the severed heads police found strange slits and cuts that served to widen the mouth, and remained explained.

 

Psychologists of the time providing profiles and suggestions to law enforcement produced the common description that inferred that the killer was probably also Native American or African American since it was believed that serial killers would only hunt among their peer racial and social group.  The presence of such serial killers as Jake Bird, an African American man, who confessed to killing numerous wife women in the 1920-1940's may indicate that theory may not be as iron clad as it was once thought. The fact that serial killers often hunted amid their own race in a time of racial segregation may have been less a matter of choice than necessity.  Once racial barriers fell, the victims of serial killers was extremely varied as to race.

 

What happened to the killer? Where did he go?  One notorious killer confessed to some of these deaths but the confessions are considered by most as suspect, the last minute greedy attempt by a sociopath to get attention.  

 

If that is true, then chilling questions remain. When the region was razed by bulldozers and new building rose over the bloody grounds, what secrets were lost?  Are there other victims  out there - somewhere? Victims of this monster who stalked the streets to prey- at leisure -  on women struggling just to survive?

---Marilyn A. Hudson, 2014 (Revised and updated from earlier post)

Into Oblivion: Do You Have a Story?

Do you have a suggestion for a story of disappearance, unsolved murder, or other crime without solution,  to be included in this new work?

Send your suggestions (and any information you may have) about missing persons, murders, and lingering mysteries from before 1960, to the author at this email address. 

This work will be different in many ways from similar true crime works.  It involves input from the families of some victims and seeks to identify some common trends that might lead to understanding more about who may have been responsible in these cases.  All done with dignity and respect for the victims.

I am especially interested in cases from Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Texas, and Missouri.

Email me and let's talk about your story. 

Into Oblivion: The Mad Man, Part 6

THE MAD MAN. Cleveland, Ohio

Sept. 1936, Kingsbury Run (Pubic Domain)

In 1926 the body of young woman was found cut to pieces just north of Medea, Pennsylvania.  It was part of a rash of bodies discovered ranging from 1923 to 1939, with an interesting pause during the early 1930’s.  These western Pennsylvania crimes were often around an area dubbed “Murder Swamp” in Lawrence County near Pittsburgh.  Victims included men, women, and children.



During the early 1930’s , however, the papers across the country were filled with the recent discoveries of the work of someone killing in a gory fashion in Ohio.  Called the “Cleveland Torso Killer”, “The Bloody Butcher” or “The Mad Killer of Kingsrun” this individual operated from 1935 to 1938.  In that, nearly two dozen body parts were found in Ohio bearing a surprising similarity to those found earlier in Pennsylvania. The connection was not well recognized at the time.  In this time, law officers often suffered from tunnel vision and failed to make “big picture” connections to crimes beyond their jurisdictions. Those Pennsylvania deaths seemed, in retrospect, almost prototypes for the Ohio killings.

The terms used by various newspapers differed radically based on the sensibilities of the community and the tension between the fervor to sell papers and the need to maintain the community’s confidence in its safety.  Sure to sell issues terminology included “mangled”, “butchered”, and similar fear instilling terms.  As a result of the Cleveland cases, the more scientific term “torso” would be able send chills down the spines of most people and provided an added term to the newspaper vocabulary.

Several of the Ohio murders featured decapitations (as cause or post death action), many were missing arms and legs and unlike what was then known about so called “sex fiends”, the victims were male and female.  It was generally believed that taking the head and the hands was a means of hiding identification and thus delaying capture. The action may have had other, more ritualistic, meanings for the killer. Some bodies were bisected or cut through between the hips and the rib cage where there is only the spinal column to provide significant resistance. 

The list of the victims of such a killer, or set of killers, as the one roaming Ohio may never be able to be complete.  There may be victims buried in isolated areas that will never be found, their mortal remains may have been so destroyed as to make them unidentifiable, or taken to a place a great distance from the place where other victims had been taken.  That being said, the list of most of his accepted victims is long and sadly filled with little beyond the tale of their last and violent moments.

There is the nameless, “Lady of the Lake”, a title given to a body found along Lake Eerie in September of 1934.

Edward Andrassy’s decapitated and emasculated body was found Sept. 23, 1935 on Jackass Hill in the Kings run area of Cleveland.

Two in 1937 are also interesting in view of other cases to be seen elsewhere.  On June 6, 1937, part of the skeleton of “Victim 8” was discovered. It was in a burlap bag and contained parts of the body of a woman wrapped in a newspaper from the previous year. Then, in July of 1937, parts of a man’s body floated down stream and, for the first time, internal organs and heart had been removed. These were never found. 



There would be at least 13 murders credited to this mysterious individual (although some did suggest it might have been two men) but most are considered to be copycats past 1938.  There is one 1950 murder of a male in Cleveland bearing the hallmarks of the killer that has not been totally ruled out. 

A killer as vicious as the one roaming Cleveland, in most cases, does not simply stop. So what happened to him? Some suggest a local doctor was responsible but others do not agree and so the subject remains open for debate.  There are also always ‘copycats’ – these are deaths caused as the result of someone reading about a crime and hoping to cover their own crime using similar methods.  Several stories from this era fit the profile of getting an idea from a newspaper story.  These ranging from husbands getting rid of tiresome wives to victims of botched abortions being discarded in a manner hoping to conceal the true cause of their death.  

If the killer was in his 20’s or 30’s during these murders he could easily have continued to roam the countryside seeking those whom he could destroy to meet his bizarre and twisted need to kill.  If that was the case, it would be plausible he would not become elderly until as late as the 1960’s or early 1970’s.  This leaves a possible twenty to thirty years of murder.

This work in no way suggests that the mad killer of Cleveland was responsible for all the missing women, murdered people and dismembered victims spread across the country in that ensuing time, but it does encourage the consideration of looking at some clusters of crimes for similarities. Finally, could so many murders have occurred using such a messy means and leave both killer and victim anonymous all these years?

Interestingly, in April 1939 in Baltimore, a brutally ‘dissected’ body of a woman was found in the East Baltimore sewers. Her head and parts of her upper torso were found later.  It was believed the killer might have buried the head at one time.

In October 1939, the bodies of several men, dead for some time, where found in some boxcars in an area of Pennsylvania known as “Murder Swamp”. They had been dismembered and on the chest of one was carved the word “Nazi.”

It is possible the killer left Ohio when too much attention was being paid to his capture.  He could have easily have drifted somewhere and killed repeatedly.  The dogged detective of the killer, Merylo, believed he might have been active in at least three other locations.  If he was, would there be evidence of where he might have gone and what might that evidence look like?

---Marilyn A. Hudson, 2014

Into Oblivion: A Pillow(case) for My Head , part 5

In December 1948,  along US 277 northeast of Lawton and southwest of Chickasha a head was found in a pillowcase. The spot was near the Comanche-Caddo County line. 

Local authorities determined it had been intentionally placed in the spot off the road.  The distance was too far and the undergrowth too thick for it to have haphazardly ended up in that area.  It had been there a few weeks or months, the bottom of the case was just beginning to show signs of decay when the head was found. 

The FBI were called in to determine what they could but, to date, no follow up story has been found.

Who was  the individual whose head was tossed away like that?  Was he, or she, ever identified? Were the killers ever found? 

It was not the first time, or the last, that heads would be found in the state.  Many of them would remain mysteries from the pages of history.

 

Into Oblivion: And Then She Was Gone, Part 4

Moore, Oklahoma



Permission granted to ues Photo

The Crown Motel, 9501 S. Shields in Moore (OK), was owned by the Blasdell family and managed by son Jim Blasdell in May of 1958.  It was on a busy thoroughfare in the south Oklahoma City suburb and linked drivers to the south route linking US 77 and the new Interstate on I-35.

A future thinking manager Blasdell was adding and upgrading his holdings. Seeing the growing need for living space he added apartments. All around Oklahoma City was booming and expanding and the future looked bright.  The Naval training facility in Norman was once more drawing people for training and the University there was growing as well. 

The motel was in a prime location. It was a short jog to US 77 to take one south to Norman and north to Oklahoma City.  This military facility was located in the area of the present “South Campus” of the University of Oklahoma and just north of HWY 9.

Author Hudson in front of area where the hotel once stood

A young couple, married barely two weeks, took a room there.  The young husband was reporting for duty to the Navy Air Training Center in Norman and the bride would search for their first real home. Carol Ann Hlavac Batterman was an attractive young woman with a friendly disposition making and keeping friends easily. She had a savings account back in Illinois and wrote her parent’s long letters regularly.  She had married just two weeks prior to her disappearance; she and her husband were originally from the Chicago, Illinois area.

She had long brown hair, usually worn loose to nearly her shoulders. Her olive complexion was tanned and dotted with freckles on her nose and forehead. Over her clear eyes arched two bold eyebrows.  On that morning her husband took their car to work, and the plan was that she would follow by bus and they would later go house hunting in Norman. 

That day, no doubt eager to make a good impression on her new husband and prospective landlords, she dressed with special care for the expedition.  She slipped into a beige suit, high-heeled shoes, and proudly slipped on her yellow Provo Township High School class of 1956 ring with a black stone worn on her right hand, and a wedding band with 13 engraved stars (it was engraved on the inside with their initials  and wedding date ( "DB to CH - 5/17/58"). She put approximately $35 in a small white purse (6" x 3-4") and the couple’s only room key.  As the motel door closed behind her, the room held all her clothing, makeup, jewelry, and $100 in cash.

She was last seen waiting for a bus outside of the Crown Motel in Oklahoma City at 3:35 p.m. on May 31, 1958. She never got on the bus and was never seen or heard from again.

Witness reports varied.  One story from June recounted someone seeing her voluntarily enter a white ’55 or ’56 Chrysler station wagon with an OK auto tag.  Another reported a witness seeing a gray pickup truck, possibly a 1953 Ford, stop at the curb near Batterman shortly before she vanished. The witness could not be sure if the vehicle was connected because something interrupted the line of sight and when it was cleared the vehicle, and the young woman, were both gone. It's unclear if the driver of the truck (reported wearing a large cowboy style hat) had anything to do with her disappearance.

In early June, a room key was returned via the mail to manager Blasdell of the Crown Motel and it was thought it was the room key last seen with the missing bride.  The lead was an intriguing mystery but ultimately a dead end.

East of Norman, was Reynolds Lake, a reservoir and dam, east of Lake Thunderbird . It was just north of HWY 9 and close to present SE 224. The caretaker, Mrs. E.F. Kelly, of the fishing resort reported in June having seen a woman struggling with two men in a white station wagon. It appeared she was attempting to jump from the vehicle but the men restrained her.    Several days later the caretaker reported she loaned a shovel to two men who claimed they had to dig worms.  She did note they did not appear to have any fishing equipment with them.  As a result, the lake became epicenter to searches for the missing woman.

Three years later, her young husband was living in Tennessee, seeking a divorce so he could marry another woman and start a new life.  Of Carol Ann there was no word.  The savings account remained untouched and her parents, to whom she had written so often and at length, never heard from her again. They retained hope, however, that she was somewhere well and safe.

A retiring police officer in 1973 looked back at the case of Carol Ann Batterman as one that still baffled him with its apparent insolvability. To this day, she is listed as missing, because although she was declared dead to accommodate the remarriage of her husband, a body was never found.

The time period was riff with undercurrents of crime beneath the "Leave It to Beaver" domestic bliss projected in the era.  Silken webs stretch out from that same Naval Base in Norman to touch - briefly and perhaps inconsequentially - an earlier crime in the far northern parts of the U.S.

Carol Batterman is still listed as a missing person.  She joined, that May day, a select group of unfortunate travelers whose journey was into oblivion in a vehicle fashioned of mystery and unanswered questions.

--Marilyn A. Hudson, c2014

Into Oblivion: Everything You Know is Wrong

As the 20th century dwindled down, law enforcement forged into new territory to crime fighting by creating a "profile".  Various psychologically trained, experienced investigators in the FBI and other law agencies began applying new ways of thinking in trying to identify and out think predatory killers, termed in the 1970's as "serial killers."

 

As a result some truisms emerged.  These stereotypical statements were taken as gospel: most serial killers are white, of a certain age, certain socio-economic level and will prey on one gender or another, and always within their own racial or social comfort zones.

 

Thus, for the past forty years the strong belief that there were no women serial killers or ethnic serial killers.   If found, they must be an anomaly.  Yet, statistics about the personalities that can evolve into these types of killers indicate there are a lot of them in society. Thus, few possibilities of anomalies but rather a pattern undetected or under recognized.

 

Then, however, was Jake Bird arrested in 1947 for killing two women in Tacoma, Washington.  Various newspaper accounts of the time reflect an intelligent, even savvy, man in his 40's.  He implied and claimed connection to over 40 murders in a half-dozen states.  He favored using an axe but a knife worked as well.  His favorite target were white women usually in their 30's to 50's.

 

So - - one major prop is shuttled aside in this one case.  Rather than being an exception that proves the rule, it may be the exception that indicates the basic rule is flawed and too restrictive.  One of the guiding principles for early serial killers was a limited field of operation. Society was not as mobile and options were limited for them to act out their dark desires to kill.  As a result there would tend to be a similarity in selections of victims; the killer would tend to be in places where he felt invisible, safe or easily accepted without questions.   As society became more mobile, there tended to be a shift in the selection of victims and they were not as cookie cutter as mystery novels might imply. Issues of opportunity were enlarged with the ability to get away swiftly.  Most importantly, a killer who did not feel he fit into society anyway, who had developed skills to help him, or her, retain a low profile and move with ease through various realms of society, began to prey on a wider variety of victims.

 

So many states have long, long lists of missing persons or unidentified bodies going back decades.  In researching some of these, it is often clear that working under assumptions of motivation, victim selection and methodology, police were often hampered in connecting victims to a predator. 

 

Is it time to go back to the criminal investigation drawing board and start fresh with an assumption, "everything you know is wrong?"

BEFORE IT WAS 'THE STOCKYARDS' IT WAS 'PACKINGTOWN'

http://www.oklahomacounty.org/assessor/Projects/Stockyards/Stockyards.jpg

According to first hand reports, nearly every block around the center of meat selling, packing and shipping had at one or two saloons, brothels, and gaming sites.  It was a wild, and often lawless, center that cleverly maintained a position as a non-district for tax purposes in the early days.  This, no doubt, invited in a certain shady clientele that gave it the wild, west patina long after the cowboys had nestled into study Ford trucks and Model T's.

Some links to view images and learn more:

OKC Net  http://okc.net/2013/10/31/butchers/#comment-380798

Agnew Theater http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/17693

Redskin Theater http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/7830

THE TULSA NORTHSIDE KILLER

In the late 1940's families in one area of Tulsa, Oklahoma were frightened and nervous.  Over a six year period several women had been slaughtered by person or persons unknown.  This killer seemed to follow a strict protocol of seeking victims in a limited area, removing a screen from the back of the house and silently slipping inside.  More than once he stayed around long enough to make a sandwich or otherwise enjoy the hospitality of his victim's abode before slipping out once more into the unknown. On more than one occasion, he slipped past sleeping family members and never woke them. All attacks occurred in a narrow box of neighborhoods bordered by a railroad and the business district.

 

Victims:

• Mrs. Helen (Hellen) Brown, beaten to death in her apartment, on July 16, 1942
• Mrs. Clara Stewart and Mrs. Jack Green in 14 January 1943
• Mrs. Pat Campbell also listed as Panta Lou Liles,  a red-haired Navy wife, 15 May 1945.
• Mrs. J. B. Cole, age 38, along with  her 13 yr. old daughter Doris Cole and a 14 year old friend, Levon Gabbard,  where all attacked, but survived, receiving severe injuries on July 1, 1948.
• Mrs. Ruth Norton, killed in her apartment, that same night in July of 1948.

Plus other women who were beaten and survived.  There may be other deaths unattributed and unknown, as is so often, unfortunately, the case in such matters as serial killers.

All of these were women who died in the time, place and parameters of the other killings.  In addition, several murders in Texas also featured redheads.

According to the book Necrophilia: Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects  by Anil Aggrawal, the killer was identified as Charles Floyd.  The indication was that he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Texas and actually died in a mental institution. This source identifies only a Mrs. Brown (1942),  Stewart and Green (1943), a Niles (a corruption of Panta Lou Liles) (1945), the wounded mother and daughter (1948) and Ruth Norton (1948) as his victims.

According to this source he had a penchant for redheads and was a voyeur until it no longer satisfied his dark hungers and then he killed and abused the victims post death.

An inmate from the asylum at Vinita, Oklahoma was closely examined by police. He had been institutionalized after an earlier slaying but had recently been released.  There may be a gap between the murders that might fit such a scenario: 1942-1945.  Then, the murders/assaults in 1948.  This assumes the killer remained in Oklahoma for those years. It has been suggested this individual and Floyd are one and the same.

There are still gaps in this story as validation for the Charles Floyd suspect is still lacking.  Searching through newspapers in Texas and Oklahoma has yet to prove this name in association with the crimes or any crimes of murder. It is possible if he were a mental patient he might have fallen under privacy restrictions and his absence might be explained.

It is very strange, however, that a death of serial killer might go so unremarked. Is it surprising because we are so familiar with a constant deluge of data - significant and meaningless - about every event that happens in society?  Perhaps it is just an example of putting the emphasis where it should be in such cases; the killer fades into the background and the focus is on the loss of the person they killed...the person taken from the world by evil.

--Marilyn A. Hudson, c2014


See more here

Into Oblivion: Women Found Dead, Part 3

They were often found in hard-to-reach pastures or deserted areas.  Often, there was no clear cause of death. Many of them had been driving home or going shopping.  Many times their cars were found far from where they were known to have been, abandoned with no sign of purses or purchases.  Usually, they were left in slips or underwear.

 

In 1953, a rancher riding in the Osage Hills of Northeast Oklahoma came across the body of a white female, 21-25 years of age, 110-125 lbs. and about 5'2".  She was unknown and unidentified.

 

A Texas woman visiting in Louisiana spoke of a "mysterious trooper" who called her and with whom she may have gone off on a date one evening in 1957. Ruth Tilotta was 31 when her body, clad only in red underwear, was found in Louisiana.  No clues as to who the trooper was or what she did that last day.

 

A 17 year old Yolanda Gomez's skeletal remains were found near Anapra, new Mexico in 1960. She had been missing a year when discovered.  For awhile it was assumed she might be the missing Andrea Lopez Phares. She had a bracelet with initials not her own engraved on them.

 

In Potter Co., Texas in 1971 the mystery of where store clerk Elizabeth Perryman had gone was finally answered.  Her body was one of three discovered that year in the Amarillo area.  The others were Linda Simmons and Kathryn Louise Sands.

 

In 1988, east of the metropolitan area of Oklahoma City, 27 year old Savona Lynn Kidd's body was discovered ending a search for her whereabouts.

---Marilyn A. Hudson, c2014

Into Oblivion: All The Missing Wives, part 2

They were all young, attractive, and most were dark haired...

In 1955, Andrea Lopez Phares, 20, left a town in Texas to return to her home and never was  seen again. Her car was found with a key still in it, her purse and wallet in place (but missing a large amount of money according to her husband) and the trunk mat and a blanket were gone. Her husband and his brother would both go to court charged in relation to the disappearance but neither convicted.  Her husband finally moved to Oklahoma.
 

In 1958, Carol Ann Batterman,19, left the motel where she and her brand new husband were staying to meet him and look at apartments and was never seen again. Reports of a woman struggling with two men by a local lake and strangers asking for a shovel to dig worms, yet lacking normal fishing gear, was under investigated.  Local deputies shrugged wondering what the fuss was all about when reports of clothes found just northwest of the same area a year or two later. It was a known "lover's lane" after all; apparently making it safe from murder. Despite searches, digging, and lack of activity on a savings account, the woman was never seen. Her case is still considered open by local police.
 

In 1959, Billie Schaffer, 37, drove to town to do some shopping and meet with friends and several weeks later her body is found far from home in a lonely field. Her Air Force Captain husband was in Greenland when she died but rushed back to join the search.  Her car had been found abandoned far from where she had been driving and no sign of the purchases or her purse where found. [She may also be one of string of murders where the victims were placed in hard to reach fields One was in 1953, a rancher riding in the Osage Hills of Northeast Oklahoma came across the body of a white female, 21-25 years of age, 110-125 lbs. and about 5'2".  She was unknown and unidentified. The place where she was found was not easy to get to according to locals].
 

In 1959, a young bride Virginia Moore, 19, leaves El Paso, Texas to visit relatives and apparently disappeared.
 

In 1963, a young and expectant woman disappears on a short trip in the Kansas City, Missouri area and is last seen at the side of the road.  Weeks later her slip clad body is found in a corn field, her hands severed and part of her head missing. She is six miles from where  her car was found. Patricia Willoughby,22, had been seen, possibly, being "led" or "steered" toward another vehicle, along a stretch of road.

--Marilyn A. Hudson, c2014
 

Into Oblivion: Some Interesting and Haunting Disappearances, Part 1

In this new series, author and researcher, Marilyn A. Hudson explores some missing persons cases.

Early May of 1955 in the south plains area of Hale Center, Texas, a charming bride of 19 took the family Lincoln into town to complete some errands.   A Mexican national whose family made the annual migration circuit had caught the eye of the farmer and now, a year later, she was a happy wife and a soon to be mother. Her life, however, was soon to take very different direction. Andrea Lopez Phares never returned to her home with her 43 year old husband and local farmer.

 

Her car was found abandoned, the key still in the ignition but the wires yanked under the hood.  The speedometer showed it had exceed 100 miles an hour in its last journey.  A huge posse crisscrossed the countryside looking for the woman.   Her jewelry was found buried far from the car.  Over the months and years both her husband and her brother-in-law would be charged in the case but both times juries failed to find enough evidence.  After a time her husband moved to Arizona citing the need to get a fresh start as the search for his wife had ruined his farm. The truth was he moved back to family in Oklahoma.

 

Oddly, an anonymous letter arrived at the police at one time claiming having seen the woman in a Laundromat in Guymon, Oklahoma. This is an area jut north of the panhandle area where Phares had lived.  Texas Rangers and an Oklahoma private investigator could find nothing to prove any link.

 

For 21 months ...for 17 years....for decades...the mystery of where she was and what had happened to her lingered like a fragile scent on a summer evening.  Skeletons were found several times in the desert and hope sprang up but always it was some other poor soul.

 

Is there a lonely road out there where in the mystical hours of dusk, a solemn parade of lost people continues their last...and endless...journey home?  Keep the lights burning on the front porch; maybe some will make it home ...at last.

---Marilyn A. Hudson , c2014

MURDEROUS COINCIDENCE

What are the odds of two murderers having the same name? Strangely that is what happened in the case of a couple found in the Mohave Desert in 1948 and a series of women killed in Alaska in more recent years.  The criminal in both cases was named Robert Hansen but no relation to each other apparently.

 

In May of 1948 the headless and handless bodies of an east Los Angeles radio store owner and his wife were discovered in an isolate area of the Mojave Desert (AP "Bodies of Decapitated Pair Discovered in Desert Grave", May 17, 1948).
They were each wrapped in a blanket and were trussed in wire.  They had been shot to death as the result of an altercation with Hansen.  He had attempted to incinerate the hands leading to his actions being discovered.  He was given a life sentence on July 27, 1948.

 

The "other" Robert Hansen was a serial killer who murdered dozens of women in Alaska in the 1970's and 1980's.  He used his bush plane to ferry women into his remote cabin and then to bury their bodies in the harsh and hard to access terrain of the area. He died in 2014 while in prison.

A NEW RESEARCH PROJECT: Missing People 1950's

Writing and researching for some of the books I write involves a lot of background digging and sometimes all the information is not found in archives, old newspapers, or on library shelves.  I am looking for information on some people who went missing in the 1950's in Oklahoma.  They appeared - briefly - in local papers but then were pushed off the pages as new hot stories emerged.   I am working on an upcoming writing project dealing with some missing, and sadly found, victims in this time period. Your help is appreciated.

I am  looking for anyone with information about the following:

1951:

Shirley Ann Cuica, Capitol Hill student?, walked to a store in OKC and never returned [disappeared in April; family had moved from Chicago in January and owned property in Missouri]

Charlene Wright, Capitol Hill student?, walked to a store in OKC and never returned

1952:

Mrs. Ruth Elizabeth Gee, June; Dorothy Moss, OKC reported missing July 23 (Fri); Tillie Mae Pennington (reported missing Monday July 26 (Mon).\; Sept. two unnamed teenage girls reported missing; were they ever found?

1958:

Denise Barry, Missing Sept. 3, 1958, left school early and never returned

1959:

Dorothy Jean Collinsworth, April 14, 1959





(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons--public domain)

Please email me here, if you have information.

A Ghost Named "Effie"

A revisit to an article I originally published in 2008...

SKIRVIN HOTEL, THE "EFFIE,' GHOST, AND A THEORY

Local historian and author Marilyn A. Hudson presents an intriguing theory concerning the alleged "Effie" ghost of the old Skirvin Hotel. Having researched stories and interviewed several people who had worked in the old hotel, Hudson suggests that several "ghosts" of the Skirvin were based on incidences occurring much earlier in OKC history.

Failing to find many deaths reported in the famous hotel, she was able to find numerous deaths in hotels that once graced the downtown area: The Grand, The Lee, and others. In 1904 there was a "keeper of a bowdy house" on West 2nd Street who was killed by her husband by the name of "Effie Fisher".

Knowing from other research how easy it is for memory to get tangled and distanced from the facts, Hudson suggests that many of the exciting deaths, suicides, strange visitors, and shootings from the other hotels and "houses" (which may not always have survived) may have been assigned later to the more Gothic and imposing Skirvin. After all, she notes, when a place "looks haunted" people expect to be haunted. An article in the Oklahoman (May 1, 1910) pointed out the construction of the new hotel (then called the "Skirvin House") at First and Broadway was a landmark from the earliest days of the city. On that location had stood the Richardson Real Estate office.

Just in case, if you have first hand experience from someone who worked in the pre-renovation Skirvin use the comments to add your tales.

Some facts:

• The original name of the hotel, according to newspaper accounts, was "The Skirvin House" (1910).
• In 1911 - the manager committed suicide and it was investigated as suspicious.
• Later, (1902's?) a workman fell to his death.
• Several people committed suicide - as they did in all the local hotels- most by poison and a few by pistol.
• The legend that "Effie" was a mistress kept imprisoned in the hotel is also strikingly similar to a tale told about the "Gold Hotel" in Nevada - making it more the urban legend than real tale. In that time period, it was more likely he would have sent away - with a payoff - a pregnant mistress or simply paid for an illegal abortion. If an "Effie" did die - perhaps it was a botched abortion rather than some convoluted prisoner in the hotel scenario.

All of which led to another article on the subject exploring the urban myth and folkloric aspects of the story.

In Oklahoma City she is known as 'Effie'.   A poor woman who loved not wise but too well and found herself pregnant with a married man's child.  She a) either killed herself , b) was imprisoned by the married man, or c) was murdered.   She has been said to haunt the Skirvin Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City since the 1920's.

In Goldfield, Nevada there is the story of "Elizabeth" associated with the historic Goldfield Hotel, who was a poor woman who loved not wise but too well and found herself pregnant with a married man's child.  She a) either killed herself , b) was imprisoned by the married man, or c) was murdered. 

It should be remembered that in Oklahoma City when it was opened as the result of the Land run of 1889, there were 'working girls' on the very next train into town.  "Big Annie" Wynn Bailey was a strapping girl in her mid-twenties fresh from the lucrative mining towns of Colorado. She saw opportunity and bought land, opened businesses in the heart of "Hell's Half Acre".  Soon she controlled much of downtown Oklahoma City through real estate and a system of well placed bribes.  

These "girls" as the prostitutes were sometimes called were a social subgroup with their own status, traditions, and behaviors.   Did they also share a common 'folklore' of cautionary or fear tales to warn each other, and potential customers?

So who came first, "Emma" or "Elizabeth," or perhaps some yet to be discovered woman?  It would be interesting to see how many of these tales of 'fallen' women with names beginning with an "E" might exist, identify when they first emerged, and discover if their movement could be tracked.

Other famous 'soiled doves' include Jerome, AZ's 'Julia' and 'Maggie' in Cripple Creek, CO.  Over all the motif is similar to the cautionary tale of the 'Cry Baby Bridge', which I feel is a transference of the  old Irish song, "Mary of the Moors" into the newly liberated and mobile early 20th century.  Like the "Vanishing Hitchhiker" both serve as morality tales about the dangers of youthful independence in the face of new mobility and social mores. Did the earlier tale of the "E" women have a similar purpose to warn prostitutes of mixing business with pleasure? Perhaps to convey the subtle inference that even a man in business suit might not be trustworthy?

NOTE: Anyone with knowledge of a story about a 'fallen women', 'scorned woman,' or 'compromised maiden' associated with a  hotel or other town site, please contact me for an upcoming work.

A Sister's Vision

Just in time for Halloween... 

 

Once upon time there were two sisters Mamie Durieux and Mrs. Dan Patton.  Mamie had wondered off from the nursing home where she resided in her flannel night gown days before in the Chula Vista, California area.  Mrs. Dan Patton had discussed the disappearance with a friend, Mrs. Harry Craige, also of Tulsa.

 

In the night, a vision of canyon came to Mrs. Patton as to the location of her missing sister. S

he was convinced her sister would be found there. She called the sister's daughter (Mrs. Eva Fridlund of Otay Ranch near Chula Vista). 

 

A search was made and the woman was found, still wearing her robe and slippers, safely in the canyon has her sister had said.  She had survived by eating bamboo shoots and water from a jug.  

 

Although the story occurred in August of 1957, it is a suitable tale of the strange and the bizarre and perfect for Halloween.  It leaves one to wonder just how the information was communicated. Telepathy? Some strange sisterly bond? Who can say for sure?

Stephen Shannon: Poet

1910 Man Writing

He was born in Tennessee about 1870 to parents born in Tennessee.  In 1910, he published a long narrative poem with a Davis, Oklahoma publishing enterprise called "Pascagoula".   He also authored "Golden Thoughts" but little has been uncovered so far on that work.  On the front page of the Nov. 25, 1909 Daily Oklahoman was his poem "Thanksgiving Thoughts".

 

On the 1910 census he is listed as a "cousin" residing in the home of Albert B. Wainscott in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He listed his occupation as "poet" and "writer".

 

All in all, however, he is a mystery outside of perhaps old reference works or newspaper articles not yet found.  No grave has been found either that identifies itself as belonging to a poet.  A mystery indeed.

 

His works can be downloaded at these locations.

 

"Pascagoula", J.W. Williams, Davis, Ok 1910 , 62 pages long. From the author's preface to the original:"  Introduction On the Southern boundary of Jackson County, Mississippi, is Pas-ca-gou-la Bay, which name is of origin, meaning Winning Maiden. Ancient Indian legend has it, that back in the dim, almost forgotten past, long before the invasion of white settlers in that country, a weaker tribe of Indians were being suppressed by a stronger one. After being practically annihilated, the remaining few assembled on the banks of the beautiful Pas-ca-gou-la and made one more stand for life and liberty; but rather than submit to capture and torture, drowned themselves in this bay. From this incident the legendary story Pas-ca-gou-la is woven and dedicated to all lovers of nature. The Author." It appears to have been republished by Forgotten Books in London.

 

He is mentioned on these sites:

 

"Celebrating the poetry of South Mississippi", SunHerald article by Tammy Leytham

April 8, 2013

 

"Historia", William Parker Campbell, volumes 1-46, indicates the title meant "Winning Maiden".

 

An Outline of American State Literature

 

Catalog of Copyright Entries, 1910

 

Anyone with information on this man, or his writing, is invited to leave a comment.

MISSING PEOPLE

The numbers are staggering.  Nearly 700,000 people reported missing in 2013. Men, women, and children.  The worst part is not that they are missing but that because of race many never receive the media attention they deserve.  A social bias exists that seems to suggest we feel that "some people" are not worth a news story because they are poor, people of color or are employed in socially unacceptable fields. 

 

Yet, the news is not all bad. An FBI report indicates missing persons reports related to endangerment went down from 2011 and "During 2012, 661,593 missing person records were entered into NCIC, a decrease of 2.5 % from the 678,860 records entered in 2011.  Missing Person records cleared or canceled during the same period totaled 659,514.  Reasons for these removals include:  a law enforcement agency located the subject, the individual returned home, or the record had to be removed by the entering agency due to a determination that the record is invalid."

 

Yet, even that lower reconciled  number is high. Too high. 

 

When people go missing and there is cause to believe they are endangered, nothing should stand in the way of getting those who wait and hope all the help they can to find their lost family member. 

 

"The shocking reason you've probably never heard  of these missing Americans" at http://news.yahoo.com/shocking-reason-ve-probably-never-heard-265-000-195421951.html

 

The National Crime Center and the FBI 

 

The Black and Missing Foundation

Osage Murders of the 1920's

Looking at a crime over cultural or economic divides can be challenging. Secrets, in-crowd status, outsider vantage points become mixed up with things like facts and understanding. They can hinder quick solutions and prosecutions of the guilty.

In the 1920's in Oklahoma a widespread series of crimes occurred targeting members of the Osage Tribe. The cases would result in the first involvement of the new FBI in a murder case.  The cases would highlight the depths to which greed can drive some people and the way that members of Native American society were too often viewed.   Young women were murdered by husbands, strangers and friends to acquire control of their land (headrights).   Others were targeted as well in this mad, greed infused time.

To this day people will recall, in hushed voices, the crimes committed in those days. Small town memories are both long and selective. 

One book on this 'reign of terror' period of history is The Osage Indian Murders.   Another book is The Death of Sybil Bolton, where the author explores the real cause of his grandmother's death.  A follow-up title was Bloodland.  The FBI has digitized files of the investigation available in their 'vault'. 

SKIRVIN HOTEL, THE "EFFIE,' GHOST, AND A THEORY

From Oklahoma Paranormal (2008):

"Local historian Marilyn A. Hudson presents an intriguing theory concerning the alleged "Effie" ghost of the
old Skirvin Hotel. Having researched stories and interviewed several people who had worked in the old hotel, Hudson suggests that several "ghosts" of the Skirvin were based on incidences occurring much earlier in OKC history. Failing to find many deaths reported in the famous hotel, she was able to find numerous deaths in hotels that once graced the downtown area: The Grand, The Lee, and others. In 1904, there was a "keeper of a bowdy house" on West 2nd Street who was killed by her husband by the name of "Effie Fisher".

Knowing from other research how easy it is for memory to get tangled and distanced from the facts, Hudson suggests that many of the exciting deaths, suicides, strange visitors, and shootings from the other hotels and "houses" (which may not always have survived) may have been assigned later to the more Gothic and imposing Skirvin. After all, she notes, when a place "looks haunted" people expect to be haunted. An article in the Oklahoman (May 1, 1910) pointed out the construction of the new hotel (then called the "Skirvin House") at First and Broadway was a landmark from the earliest days of the city. On that location had stood the Richardson Real Estate office.

Just in case, if you have first hand experience from someone who worked in the pre-renovation Skirvin use the comments to add your tales.

Some facts:
The original name of the hotel, according to newspaper accounts ,was "The Skirvin House" (1910).
In 1911 - the manager committed suicide and it was investigated as suspicious
Later, (1920's?) a workman fell to his death.
Several people committed suicide - as they did in all the local hotels- most by poison and a few by pistol.
The legend that "Effie" was a mistress kept imprisoned in the hotel is also similar to a tale told about the "Gold Hotel" in Nevada - making it more the urban legend than real tale. In that time period, it was more likely he would have sent away - with a payoff - a pregnant mistress or simply paid for an illegal abortion. If an "Effie" did die - perhaps it was a botched abortion rather than some convoluted prisoner in the hotel scenerio.

The Ghost of the Skirvin Strikes Again?

Recent news coverage has brought new noterity to the story of female spirit inhabiting the now renovated Skirvin Hotel.  

The legend:  A maid, aka "Effie", worked at the hotel and became pregant by someone in management.  She was confined in the hotel and was so depressed after the birth she is said to have both her child and herself out a a tenth floor window.   Stories of her appear to always involve men (I do not think I have ever heard a story involving a woman but may be wrong...), fondling in bed or in the shower and the cries of a child.

Cons: (a) No evidence of such a death has been found despite numerous researchers (myself included) combing through at least one major newspaper of the city. (b) Police I spoke with said they had no records of such a suicide related to the hotel. (c) The rather earthy conduct of the spirit seems in conflict with the innocent maid taken advantage of by a black hearted lover. (d) The story is eerily similar to a tale told in Gold, Nevada at an old hotel there.

Pros: (a) A researcher, many years ago, was approached by a woman who said that the maid was her aunt (or other relative) and that researcher is once more trying to track that line of evidence. (b) Records are often tossed out despite the requirements to keep them. Ask any records management officer.   Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.  If the maid was African-American there is ample historical evidence that news about or involving African-Americans was often swept under the rug unless it served some purpose of stirring up racism or criminal activity (during the 1920's-1930's in OK the KKK was VERY dominant in communities and government).  In unrelated research, I have encountered crimes that were conducted against African-Americans that were under reported or ignored.  Given the combination of power and money it is entirely possible a crime or a suicide might have been unreported or reported in a different manner. An example might be a woman who killed herself by jumping from her lover's office.  She might find her body moved to a railroad crossing or a bridge thus removing her from the neighborhood of her lover and his public image. Searches into newspapers and diaries of local African Americans might be a better means of identifying the woman. (c) The consistency of the reportings may hint at several spirits rather than a single entity. We like to combine things for our convenience.  Given the hotel's long history and the many known suicides that DID occur there, it would be a wonder something did not negatively imprinted on the hotel. (d) The similarity of the tale with others may indicate a common folklore motif or a urban legend used to teach a warning to women "in the business."

Previously on this blog I suggested that Effie might be a confusion with an earlier unsolved murder of a prosititute/madam named Effie Fisher.  She was killed no more than two blocks away from the area of the hotel in 1904.  To my thinking the teasing and provovacative actions of the Skirvin ghost seem better to reflect an Edwardian prostitute than a chamber maid in a hotel.  If there is a ghost at all....

WELLINGTON IS A LITTLE STRANGE - KANSAS TOWN HAS STORIES

As Rod Serling said, there is a signpost up ahead...or in this case, along Highway 81 in southern Kansas in a small town begun in the cattle wealth of the late 1800's.   Here, for your enjoyment and thrills are several tales from this community.  Others exist but they remain tucked away in corners, memories, and local legend.

In 1960 or 61 (date is approximate at present based on directory information as to when the family resided at the home near east 7th and Douglas). "I was coming home and found myself being followed by small gray "things" - I cannot explain more. They were very nebulous and indistinct. I could see through them and I know I was afraid. I had been playing in an old rail yard behind our block (lots of sand hills). I was headed home ...the memory of the heavy sense of anxiety, the turning to look over my shoulder at the 'men' and the sense they were following are accompanied by a sense of moving in very slow motion...of a strange caste to the air and the sky...a strange amber bubble that encased the episode... Soon after this, I discovered a small healed scar on the back of my thigh - yet I had not been hurt there (it was about 1-1.2 inches long). It showed a strange "weaving" pattern of skin growth between the two smooth edges with tiny pinpoints around the edges. It remained faintly white for many years but is faded now. This was nearly 50 years ago and the memory has remained clear and insistent - like a tooth ache that has refused to go away. I am sharing this now - in the hope that it may help someone else who may have also encountered "something" strange during that time in this location." 

Wellington Lake Story

About this same time, around the area of Wellington Lake, came a report of a strange experience along a sandy road among a thick cover of foliage.

 "I was a small girl and we  had gone out to the Lake for a drive. I remember the sun as we drove through the trees, seeing the sparkle of the lake...my next memory is walking, alone, down that same stretch of road with everything absolutely silent.

I remember how tall the trees seemed walking alone down that road. It felt as if a clear bowl had been upended over the area and no sounds or winds were heard. It also gave a gray caste to everything, as  if it had suddenly clouded over.  I remember walking down the middle of the road in that thick sand wondering where did everybody go? .. I remember seeing our car, but at least one other car also, stopped at the side of the road. I remember seeing everybody just staring, blank looking, and then we get back in the car and drive away...everybody is silent until we move away from the gray area....and then it was as if nothing happened."

In about 1963 (thought to be no later than 1964) a resident in a house on North Jefferson street in Wellington, Kansas, reported "my brothers and mother and myself observed a red light bathe the backyard, there was no sound, no wind, nothing but the light." Later interviews with this witness indicated the red light covered the entire sky above the area just out the back door. She remembers seeing the mother and a brother go out and look up wondering what the thing was. The witnessed reported "Its appearance was similar to the "safelight" used in darkroom photography. Then it was gone, like a light being switched off. Details of the source were not visible; you could only see the red-orange round source of the light itself. I remember looking out the screen door, walking outside, looking up and then the next thing I remember is looking back into the house with the light gone. "

[