Missing People: The Chilling True Stories Of Strange And Unusual Disappearances, Unexplained Missing People And Missing Persons Cases 586j58

Missing People

The Chilling True Stories Of Strange And Unusual Disappearances, Unexplained Missing People And Missing Persons Cases

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Indiana Dunes Women

Chapter 2: Louis Le Prince

Chapter 3: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Chapter 4: The Flannan Isles Lighthouse Keepers

Chapter 5: The Lindbergh Baby

Chapter 6: Jimmy Hoffa

Chapter 7: Zebb Quinn

Conclusion

Introduction

I want to thank you and congratulate you for ing the book, “Missing People: The Chilling True Stories Of Strange And Unusual Disappearances, Unexplained Missing People And Missing Persons Cases”.

Most of us just skip over the info about missing person cases on the news because our reality doesn’t involve losing anyone we like or love. But for those people whose day starts and ends with a prayer of safe homecoming, the reality is cruel, sad and dark.

Not that your reality will be affected if you listen to the missing persons updates, but in an era when no child is left behind, it’s shameful to leave behind someone who somebody cares about.

Thanks again for ing this book, I hope you enjoy it.

Copyright 2015 by Seth Balfour - All rights reserved.

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Cover image courtesy of Nathan O'Nions – Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanoliverphotography/7897255678/

Chapter 1 -Indiana Dunes Women

Some days, a leisurely trip down to the park could turn out to be dangerous. For Renee Bruhl, Patricia Blough, and Ann Miller that day was July 2, 1966 and the unfortunate setting was Indiana Dunes State Park.

21 year-old, Ann wore a blue, two-piece bathing suit, with a red belt. She drove off her family's house driveway, in west suburban Lombard, and headed to her friend’s house, in suburban Westchester.

Patricia had a yellow two-piece swimsuit with ruffles on. She called over to her mother that she wouldn’t be staying long, because their third friend, Renee, had to come back to prepare dinner for her husband. At Chicago’s West Fulton Street, 19 year-old Renee was waiting for them to pick her up. She was wearing a brown bathing suit with golden leaves and green flowers.

The three women bought suntan lotion on their way to the park, where they arrived at around 10 in the morning. Ann’s 1955 Buick was among more than 2000 vehicles that crowded the park that scorching summer afternoon and more than 9000 people frequented the dunes the day when the three girls disappeared in the middle of the day.

They hiked to a spot under the trees, roughly 100 yards away from the shore of Lake Michigan. There was a couple near them who was guarding their belongings, while there were families who walked to the shore. According to this couple, the three ladies left at around 12:00 in the afternoon.

When they didn’t come back by the end of the day, the couple told the park ranger that the blanket, along with the other unattended items, belonged to three girls who went swimming.

They told him that they had talked to a young, tanned guy with wavy hair in a boat, got on board with him and never came back. The boat they described was white on the outside, blue on the inside, with an outboard motor, not very big, around 14-16 feet long. The ranger was familiar with young, suntanned sailors with wavy hair and shiny teeth, persuading young girls to come on board, so he thought that the girls must have gone on a cruise with the young man.

He took their belongings from the blanket and brought them to the Park Superintendent’s Office, thinking they would be glad to see no one took off with them. After the 4th of July holiday fever, the ranger got a call from Patricia’s father, worried that his daughter hadn’t been home for two days.

The things they left behind were quickly surveyed, where the superintendent found a key-chain with a tiny license plate on it. When he checked the park, he found the 1955, four-door Buick with the same license plates. Reports indicated that the car stayed on the same spot where the girls left it on July 2, with all the personal items intact inside.

The Chicago State Police along with the United States Coast Guard took over the case. They found out that there was already a missing person’s report on the car’s owner, Ann Miller. The coast guard was swiftly sent to investigate the shore line between Chicago and Indiana Dunes National Park. Scuba teams, horseback groups and on foot search parties were arranged to examine the woods and shore of the park.

A lot of people were called in for an interview and many gave conflicting reports-- for this reason, the police said that the most reliable statement was that provided by the couple, who reported seeing the girls leave and board a boat at around 12:00 noon.

One airplane, a helicopter, and 10 cutters were sent by the Coast Guard to examine the wider area. From the state park, the authorities extended their investigation westward, to the area near Ogden Dunes. In the coming weeks, the police would receive various reports that the girls TRULY boarded a boat which bore the same description as provided by the couple.

At first, the families of the missing, as well as the authorities became ecstatic about this progress because it seemed like they were heading in the right direction, but when days ed and the progress stopped, they started losing hope.

At least until they came across a holidaymaker who was making home videos of his vacation on July 2 at the state park. The man offered the footage of the beach that day and the footage showed that two boats might fit the description of the boat that took the girls.

The girls were seen on board in both of them, first in the smaller Tri-hull boat (which measured 16-18 feet long and was made of fiberglass), then, three hours later, at around 3:00 pm, on a Trojan Cabin Cruiser (26-28 feet long), in the company of three men.

From these, the authorities verified that the driver of the Tri-hull where the girls first boarded matched the description given by the witnesses: young man in his twenties with wavy blond hair.

The police believed they were picked up by the small boat, then got on the bigger boat to continue the party (assuming there was one). The names of the boats were not seen on the videotape, nor were their owners found, since there were around 5000-6000 boats on the shoreline.

Surprisingly, some witnesses reported that the girls were seen walking and eating on the shore of Lake Michigan AFTER they were seen boarding the Tri-hull; if this was true, then it was possible that the first driver dropped them off to the beach to retrieve his two other friends and the cabin cruiser.

After a while, it could have been one of his friends who approached the girls to board the bigger boat. Witnesses also added that the cabin cruiser had a telephone antenna, but it bore no name. It is also worth mentioning that the sighting of the girls after boarding the tri-hull was never confirmed. The only verified last sighting was that reported by the couple.

Although the girl’s parents said all their daughters were excellent swimmers (Patty and Ann could both swim 20 to 30 miles without a problem and Renee had “fair” swimming abilities), according to the police, all evidence pointed to either drowning or foul play.

According to Dick Wylie, the first reporter and photographer on the scene, their disappearance was planned. Wylie was a newsman first, but when he quit, he continued his career in law enforcement in Florida.

He currently owns a 120,000-word manuscript-- a chronicle of information he gathered over the years from informants and witnesses, both about the girl’s private lives and leads revolving around the case. Patricia for example, had a

boyfriend who was an ex-convict.

Her friends told the FBI that they saw injuries on her face, several months before the incident. After questioning him (the boyfriend), the police ruled him out as a possible suspect.

Wylie still believes that the girl’s disappearance was staged. In his , the single girls-- Patricia and Ann, had got involved with married men and they had both got pregnant. In 1966, abortion was illegal in Illinois, so the girls had to find a way to cover-up the scandal.

According to Wylie, they ed Frank and Helen Largo, a couple who owned an abortion mill, at the time, operating on a boat in Lake Michigan. The young sailor that welcomed the girls on board was a relative of the Largos team. Wylie believes that one of the operations went wrong, so all three girls were murdered by the Largos, in order to conceal the incident.

Their third, married friend on the other hand, had problems of her own. According to a letter found in her purse, she wrote to her husband that she wanted a divorce because he spent more time working than being with her. This letter led the police and many others involved in the case to believe that the girls may have staged their own disappearance in order to run away from their personal problems.

But when Renee’s husband was interviewed, he said that he wasn’t aware of a major marital problem. Joseph Slunecko, Renee’s father believed that the girls were frightened of the mess their disappearance caused and were too embarrassed to come back.

They also backed Renee’s husband, telling the police that the note seemed to be written in a moment of anger and the reason why she didn’t give it to her husband was because Renee changed her mind.

Another angle looked at was criminal activity: the three girls had one strong connection-- their fondness of horses. Patricia and Ann met while they were boarding their horses in the same stable at Illinois, and later, Patty introduced Renee (her high school classmate from Proviso West in Maywood) to Ann.

Since then, the girls became inseparable-- even in their illicit affairs. From reports, it was assumed that both Ann and Patricia were connected to criminal men who were involved in the horse market; Patty was even reported to have problems with “horse syndicate people” in the summer of 1966.

Upon further investigation, it was later revealed that the stable used by the girls in Palatine, Illinois had a shady background. The owners of the stable, brothers George and Silas Jayne, got involved in a bitter argument with each other in 1965.

In the middle of the fight, one woman, Cheryl Ann Rude (involved in the horse market) was killed right in the stables when a car bomb exploded-- police reports suggested that the intended victim was truly George.

Apparently, on June of 1965, George asked Cheryl to move his car, a Cadillac, away from the stable entrance, and as she did so, the bomb went off. Authorities once said that perhaps, one (or all) of the girls witnessed the bomb being planted, hence, they could be targets. Their suspicion grew even more when in 1970, George died from a gunshot wound and Silas was proven guilty for it.

In a frightening twist of events, Silas itted to the sheriff that he had three bodies buried at his residence. The sheriff took this confession seriously, but before the search happened, he was killed in a farming incident and the lead was left cold.

In 1977, Silas also became a primary suspect in the disappearance of Helen Bach, but 10 years later, he too, died.

Whichever the case is, the investigation was long over, all the possible evidence was washed away or destroyed and most witnesses are either dead or have feint memories. The three girls were never seen again, against the efforts of the case investigators. Even a psychic was hired to help find a lead to solve the case.

The psychic told the police that the bodies of the girls were in an old cabin on the beach, visible only from the lake. Although she was correct that an old lawn chair was sitting broken inside the cabin, the police didn’t find any body or any sign of violence.

As of now, the case of the Indiana Dunes Women is still open, but is inactive and unsolved.

Chapter 2 - Louis Le Prince

The last two decades of the 19th century were a desperate race to glory. Thomas Edison, aside from inventing many devices, was also accredited for inventing the first motion picture camera or kinetograph in 1891. Across the world, and especially in , Louis and Auguste Lumière were acknowledged because they designed the first cinematograph in 1894. But way before these inventors even gathered the scrap to build their gizmos, one man already filmed the first motion picture in the history of cinematography.

The man’s name was Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, and he had been recognized as the first man to shoot the motion picture with a single lens camera, on paper.

Le Prince was born on August 28, 1841, in Saint George Street in Metz, , and even as a child, he showed a great interest in pictures. One of the contributing factors, perhaps, was the amount of time he spent with his father’s friend, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, who was also a photography pioneer.

Le Prince also studied painting in Paris, and in Leipzig University, he took up chemistry. With his knowledge in photographs and chemistry, he would soon invent the world’s first motion picture.

In 1866, Le Prince moved to Leeds, West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom after his friend from college, John Whitley, invited him to take a job in Whitley Partners of Hunslet (a company renowned for making valves and components). Three years later, Le Prince married John’s sister, Elizabeth, and the two built a

school named Leeds Technical School of Art.

Soon enough, their school became renowned in fixing colored pictures into metals and potteries. In fact, their reputation was so good that they were commissioned for the portrait of Queen Victoria and one of her prime ministers.

From , Le Prince moved to America in 1881. At first, he was just there as an agent for the Whitleys and was planning to leave once his contract ended, but after a while, he started managing a group of artists who made panoramas of famous war battles. At some point, he began and continued his experiments with moving pictures, film stock materials and other things related to cinematography.

It was then that he also invented a camera using 16 lenses-- this became the first invention he patented. The camera, however, was a miss. Although it captured motion, the projected images leaped about, because of the many lenses photographing images from different viewpoints.

In 1887, he returned to Leeds, Yorkshire, where he invented the single lens camera that recorded the first two videos. They were known as Traffic on Leeds Bridge and Roundhay Garden Scene. It was confirmed that the scene on the Leeds Bridge was filmed October of the same year, a few months after his invention was completed. The people in the garden scene turned out to be Louis’ son named Adolphe, Louis’ mother-in-law, Joseph Whitley, Sarah Robinson Whitley, and Harriet Hartley.

He planned to go back to England in September 1890 to patent his camera, then travel to America to promote it. Before he left, he paid a visit to his family and friends. Traveling from Bourges to Dijon to visit his brother, Le Prince was expected to come back to his friends before leaving.

They waited for him to arrive with the 16th September train, but when the train arrived in Paris, he was not on it. No one has ever seen him or heard of him since. His body was not found along the Dijon-Paris railway, or on board the express. His luggage was also missing. Le Prince was last seen leaving the platform at the train station in Dijon.

There were four theories revolving in his case.

The first theory about his disappearance was suicide. According to his brother’s grandson, Le Prince was poor and was on the verge of bankruptcy at that time. They figured maybe he planned his own suicide and took care that his body and belongings weren’t found. Historian Georges Potonniée believed on the other hand, that this theory couldn’t be true because Le Prince knew that his inventions might make him a fortune.

Assassination over the patent was the suspicion of his wife, Lizzie and his family. They thought Thomas Edison might have sent agents of his own to take away Le Prince’s invention before he could apply for a patent in England.

Evidence to this claim never came forward. However, his son Adolphe, who was involved in many of his father’s experiments, was called upon as a witness in the litigation with Edison about the “Equity 6928”, which should have finally given his father the recognition he deserved and still deserves.

Unfortunately, Adolphe was found dead on Fire Island, New York, while duck shooting, two years after the litigation process started. A cloud of suspicion was raised over Edison once again.

It was also an interesting fact that Le Prince’s two friends, Clarence Seward and William Guthrie, who were also his patent lawyers, seemed to have betrayed him for Edison.

According to reports, after Le Prince’s disappearance, Clarence and William began working for Edison, and when Le Prince’s family asked for legal help, they were turned down. The two lawyers even made it a point that the family would find no lawyer to help them with their case.

Around the time of her husband’s disappearance, Lizzie said that a man named Mr. Rose went to their home in New York and was nervously asking for the inventor. When Lizzie confided that Le Prince still wasn’t home, the man left.

After some time, the same man returned in the guise of a milk man, and again, asked for Le Prince. When Lizzie said that she could see through his disguise and would call the police if he did anything wrong, the man anxiously fled.

The third theory was that his own family ordered the disappearance of Le Prince. The director of the Dijon municipal library, Pierre Gras showed a note to the journalist Léo Sauvage, which suggested that Le Prince died in 1898, in Chicago. The family was told he disappeared because he was a homosexual, a claim to which there was no evidence.

But this, according to a lot of people, didn’t make sense-- for an instance, the homosexuality claim was never verified and second, the family would gain nothing from the disappearance.

The same could not be told for Edison, though, because he gained everything. With no way of getting legal help, the family wasn’t able to do anything as Edison took the credit for Le Prince’s invention.

The initial proceeding for the accreditation would only happen AFTER death, but since there was no body to serve as proof, the family had to wait 7 years. In those 7 years, Le Prince’s family lost everything Edison gained.

Fratricide was the last theory. Since his brother saw Le Prince last, logic suggested he could be held responsible for Le Prince’s disappearance. If he noticed that his brother was suicidal and weak, he would have alarmed another family member or a doctor or a police officer.

After visiting his brother, Le Prince was never seen again, although some witnesses said they saw him waiting for a train in Dijon.

No new leads or investigation was concluded after his disappearance. In 2003, a police photo archive revealed a picture of a drowning man dating back to 1890, where the victim strongly resembled Le Prince. David Wilkinson, an actor and a movie director, had been creating a lengthy documentary called The First Film, about Le Prince, his invention, and life.

He offered the story to the BBC, Channel 4, and Yorkshire Television in the 90’s of the last century, but they all refused it. The general public might not be familiar with his story, due to indifference by the media about his case. However, film historians, movie directors and irers of the art recognize Le Prince as the father of motion pictures.

Was Thomas Edison truly capable of such a heinous approach? In Christopher Rawlence’s Book, The Missing Reel, Edison was described as “ruthlessly corrupt... resorting to lying, intimidation and dubious business practices when it came to asserting his power.”

For example, when Thomas Armat, another inventor, created a better kinetoscope, Edison bought the patent and presented the invention as his own-saying that they would give credit to the true inventor only after “the respective rewards” had been reaped.

Chapter 3 - Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Image Courtesy: Laurent ERRERA from L'Union,

100 years, ago, it was easier to hide a crime, what with the lack of technology present. But today it’s as if technology is not only used to look for the missing, but also maybe to cover up crimes in front of everyone’s eyes.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, its crews and engers had that fate: they disappeared and up to now, no one knows where they are. Worse, theories have it that their disappearance was staged.

On March 8, 2014 the plane lifted off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia with 239 engers and 12 crew , and took a course to Beijing Capital International Airport in China. Less than one hour after takeoff, the flight made voice with the air traffic control, just as it crossed the South China Sea.

A few minutes later, the plane disappeared from the air traffic radar. The Malaysian military radar was still able to track the aircraft, where it was ed that it changed its planned course and crossed over the Malay Peninsula.

An hour later, just as Flight 370 flew over the Andaman Sea the military radar lost it from its detecting range. According to the satellite communications analysis, the aircraft continued for another 7-8 hours, until it reached the Indian Ocean.

On March 20, the Malaysian government stated that the plane had ended its tragic course on the southern side of the Indian Ocean. Aside from that, no further information was presented. Families of the engers and critics alike, found those scarce official announcements debatable and the investigation about the missing plane remained open.

Friends and relatives of the missing engers and crew organized a protest in front of the Malaysian Embassy, in an attempt to force the Malaysian government to expose any withheld facts about the plane. Several theories were taken into consideration, although most of them are considered conspiracy theories.

The theory that the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean was rejected as soon as it was suggested. The plane was a Boeing 777, an aircraft that didn’t have the structural integrity to survive such a crash. According to the theorists, if the plane did crash into the ocean, it would be like crushing into a cemented surface at high velocity.

The plane would have crashed into millions of pieces, and light items like cushions and personal belongings would be found floating around in the ocean. Search teams would have found at least one piece of evidence of the crash, or some part of the plane would’ve been washed ashore.

On top of that, the pilot did not leave any distress signal at any point, although it should have been the case if the aircraft really experienced problems during the flight. The absence of evidence and theories suggested by the investigation and governments responsible for the flight made much room for speculation.

A cockpit fire was one of the most plausible theories. If the cockpit was set on fire, that would force the pilot to turn the plane to the west to get to a nearby

airstrip in Palau Langkawi. The situation would have been alarming for the crew, so they may have focused on flying the airplane, rather than sending distress signals. On their way to the airstrip, the pilots may have succumbed to smoke inhalation or ed out, after which the plain flew for a couple of hours until it crashed. This theory too was rejected for the lack of evidence.

Electronic hijacking was another credible concept. Flight 370 had the famous Boeing Honeywell Uninterruptible Autopilot, which could’ve removed electrical power from the Boeing 777 and irrevocably ed the authority of the pilot to a navigational computer.

This was invented so that in case of hijacking, the hijackers would not be able to takeover the plane. Once the pilot was incapacitated, the computer could land the plane at a safe airfield. This theory was suggested by Mahathir Mohamad, a former prime minister of Malaysia.

Another hijacking theory was suggested by Jeff Wise, a technology writer. He proposed that while hijackers may have taken control over the aircraft from the equipment and electronic bay (assuming they knew where it was), the Inmarsat satellite was fed with false data about the plane’s whereabouts.

In that case, the satellite’s pings were spotting the plane flying in one direction, when it could’ve been trudging the opposite. This theory led the investigators to believe that the plane flew north, instead of south, and maybe landed in Kazakhstan.

A cyber-attack was one possible hypothesis. Although the possibility was ruled out, Boeing theorists still believed that the flight’s speed, altitude and direction might have been changed by a hacker, by using the radio signals of the management system of the flight.

that Boeing have installed the anti-hijack technology Uninterruptable Autopilot, a fact they itted in a lawsuit from McConnell in 2007.

A terrorist attack was the third option, but it also faded away after some time. According to a few sources, the plane’s disappearance was a jihad attack and that the plane landed in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The aim of the jihadists, according to this theory, was to make troubles in China or America.

Some still reject this theory, believing that if the jihadists wanted to make troubles, they would’ve landed the plane in Diego Garcia, where the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was detained.

Acquisition of patents was also a suggested theory. According to many media posts, the flight carried four of the five inventors of the patent US 8671381 B1 (a system for optimizing the number of dies on a wafer), all of whom shared 20% of the patent, so the 4 people in the plane shared 80% altogether.

However, this theory was rejected because it was believed that even if they died, their ownership wouldn’t fall into the hands of Freescale Semiconductor, which was the fifth owner.

Field McConnell, a retired captain of the Delta Air Lines, suggested that 22 Chinese employees of Freescale were on that flight, carrying classified patents. He believed that the plane was seized in order to obtain the new developments.

The military base in Diego Garcia was mentioned again in one of the theories,

this time in the context of the American government being responsible for the hijacking. Conspiracy theorists said that the plane was either hijacked and forced to land there, or the pilot landed the plane in the base directly.

The main reason why this theory was considered probable was the fact that the pilot, with the help of a flight simulator on his home computer, trained on a short runway in the Indian Ocean. This theory was disputed by the FBI, saying that the information presented to the public was un-sourced.

But then, a retired French airline captain claimed that it’s possible that the government shot down the Malaysian Airlines Flight near their base in Diego Garcia. Even eye witnesses saw the plane flying too low that 8th of March.

Maybe the most possible theory is that of the captain hijacking the flight himself. The pilot of the plane, captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was acting strangely before the incident. He made no professional or social plans after March 8.

His marriage was in shambles and the relationship he had with another woman was also walking on ice. The investigation found out later that his family (three children and wife) moved to another home the day before the flight disappeared.

And finally, the most suspicious detail of this concept was the fact that the captain received a phone call just a few minutes before the plane disappeared. The phone call was from a woman, calling from a phone number acquired using a false identity.

And finally, when the FBI reconstructed the deleted data of the captain’s flight simulation program, they found out that he really did practice landing on a short

runway.

Other plane crashes later that year raised the suspicion that the plane still roars the skies up to now. The Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed over Ukraine-- the reporters and photographers on the scene said it may be the same Boeing 777 that disappeared. The experts dismissed this hypothesis, believing it’s strictly coincidental that the airline has two of the same planes.

When December 28 came and the Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed, many theorists believed that there was a real conspiracy behind the plane crashes. One Chinese on the internet even warned people not to fly with Malaysian based or owned airlines on December 15, 16, and 17.

It was believed that he was either a hacker who came across some secret information, or a Chinese government/intelligence official.

Cases like this one always draw a lot of public attention. All involved governments are quiet when it comes to bringing the case to a conclusion, so the public is left with the freedom to estimate the facts on their own.

Some theories even suggested that a black hole sucked the plane in, while another tried to convince us that Shakira and Pitbull knew everything and tried to tell us through the lyrics of their song Get It Started ("two ports, three cities, two countries, one day" talking about the two engers with stolen ports and there was even a part that says "now it's off to Malaysia").

Some terrorist organizations even claimed to be responsible for the flight disappearance. According to a letter addressed to the Chinese government, the

leader of Martyrs Brigade stated that the flight disappearance was a retaliatory response to the Kunming Attack on March 1, 2014.

His claim was not taken seriously since the Chinese Martyrs Brigade turned out to be an Islamic, East Turkestan group.

Chapter 4 - The Flannan Isles Lighthouse Keepers

Image Courtesy: Cartoon Peril 2011

The Atlantic Ocean is a wild and hostile bundle of water that has taken many victims throughout history. Thomas Marshall, Donald MacArthur and James Ducat were three victims of the restless ocean-- but their tragic end will never be revealed.

The three men were keepers of the lighthouse on the deserted islands of Flannan, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The Flannan Isles or Seven Hunters were named after a priest from the 7th century, St. Flannan. Between 1895 and 1899, the lighthouse was built close to the highest point on Eilean Mòr.

It was designed by David Allan Stevenson for the Northern Lighthouse Board; the construction was headed by George Lawson with a budget of more than 6,000 pounds, inclusive of everything-- from land space to the building materials.

In 1925, this lighthouse was the first to be upgraded with wireless telegraphy, but during its first years of functioning, the only form of communication with the outside world was through a series of light posts, visible from Hebrides during fair weather.

On December 15, 1900, a windstorm broke out on the island. Many sailors were seeking shelter during the dangerous weather, but they found themselves angry at the keepers for not running the lighthouse properly.

According to the sailors, on December 15th, they needed the guidance of the lighthouse very much, but to their astonishment, it wasn’t lit. The authorities didn’t do much about it. Everyone was waiting for the Hesperus relief ship to check the breakdown of the perfect, new lighthouse, but unfortunately, it didn’t arrive on the assigned date which was December 20th due to the bad weather-- it only arrived a little less than a week later, on December 26th.

The said ship would also apparently bring the keepers home from the Flannan Islands. Joseph Moore (keeper of the relief ship) was supposed to release one of the guards on watch duty but his nervousness grew as they approached the islands.

When they arrived, there was no greeting committee to welcome them which was supposed to be the case and regulation in that situation. The provision boxes that were usually placed outside to be restocked were not in their places. Moore noticed that the flag wasn’t on the flagpole too.

The atmosphere on the island became edgy as Moore approached the lighthouse. Still unable to believe that something bad could happen to a newly built lighthouse, the captain of Hesperus, Jim Harvie, honked the ship’s whistle, anxiously waiting for any response-- when he didn’t get any, he sent Joseph Moore to inspect-- alone.

Inside the lighthouse though, Joseph found that everything seemed fine. The beds were undone, lamps trimmed down and the ashes were lying cold in the grate. The only thing amiss was the single chair knocked over in the kitchen. Returning back to the ship, Joseph told Jim about his findings, or the lack there of. It was then that Jim decided to send two more men to help him search and investigate.

Together, the three found out that the lamps had been cleaned and refilled, and only one oilskin of the three outdoor gears was left behind, which meant that one of the guards left the lighthouse poorly protected from the vicious weather.

He must have been in a hurry to run outside without his gear, but somehow still had the time to lock the gate and the front door. But another detail poked Moore’s brain; all three keepers left the lighthouse- there was no sign of them inside the building, or outside in the island.

This was a highly unethical practice and outlawed if you were a light keeper. It was a rule imposed by the Northern Lighthouse Board. That was why they were working in teams, so that one of them was always present to keep the lights in the right direction.

Moore and three others were left to supervise the lighthouse while Captain Harvie navigated the relief ship back to Breasclete. He also warned the Northern Lighthouse Board with a telegram, describing a terrible accident that happened on the Flannan Isles.

The letter, dated on December 26th, mentioned that a dreadful accident had happened to the Flannan, and that the three keepers, Macarthur, Ducat, and Marshal had disappeared. It also said something about the “Occasional” being not in the scene-- apparently, aside from the three main keepers, a 4th man was assigned to patrol the seas, but his assignment wasn’t permanent; at times he was there, and on others, he wasn’t, hence, an “occasional”.

In the letter, Captain Harvie reported that all the clocks had stopped and many evidences suggested that whatever transpired, it must have happened a week ago.

It continued: “the poor fellows” must have been “blown over the cliff or drowned while trying to rescue a crane or something like that.” The captain also assured the boards that Moore and the others were at the lighthouse, making it as operational as possible and securing all possible leads that would enlighten them about the fates of the three keepers.

When Moore and his crew continued to examine the island, they noticed that the storm must have been bigger than they thought. The storm bent the iron railings out of shape and ripped the iron railway out of its concrete bed.

At first, Moore and his team thought that the keepers must have perished with the rough squall they experienced over the last week, which was why they failed to operate the lighthouse. But when they found the lighthouse logbook, they learned that the keepers made logs long after the storm had ed.

On December 12, Thomas Marshal noted that the waves were very high and they were crashing at the lighthouse. He wrote that he had never seen such a storm. Later that day he wrote in the logbook that the storm was subsiding slowly.

The wind was steady but the storm was still raging. He was storm-bound and couldn’t leave the lighthouse. The next day, on December 14, there were no entries made in the logbook. And finally, on December 15 the entry said that the storm had ed, the sea was calm again and that there was a God after all.

The investigation ended concluding that the men died during the storm while trying to secure something on the island. Their colleagues and superiors found their logbook to be a sham. First and foremost, there were entries of a personal nature in the book, which was not a routine of the keepers.

The logbook was a black and white type of record that showed the daily running of the lighthouse, not a diary of the keepers. Marshal wrote that Ducat was being irritable. Ducat was Marshal’s superior, so it seemed illogical that an employee would write such remark about his boss in the log.

Another entry read that MacArthur was crying. MacArthur was an old sea-dog, with many years of experience behind him, and to top that, he was known as quite a brawler, so to be seen crying sounded contradictory to his nature.

In the last entry, the keeper wrote about God. Superintendent Muirhead knew all three men in person and he was included in the official investigation of their disappearance. He stated that the last log was particularly odd, because none of them was prone to prayer or particularly God fearing.

So, if the log was that untrue, who would dare write in it? And why would they go through the effort?

Maybe life-threatening conditions change the character of a man. It was noted that Ducat did not want to be assigned in the lighthouse on the Flannan Isles. Maybe that was why he was irritable. From some point of view, their job may seem idyllic, but being isolated on a deserted island with limited amounts of food and with the mainland could sometimes make compatible personalities clash and turn dangerous.

The results of the NLB’s investigation, which they did on December 29th, headed by Superintendent Muirhead involved neither sea monsters nor paranormal activities.

According to him, as he examined the clothes (oilskin) left behind by the keepers, he realized that Ducat and Marshall left the lighthouse first and went to the west landing stage, Macarthur was left to man the operation, but he too left.

He added that whoever left the lighthouse unattended committed a breach to the rules of NLB. In the end, he concluded that as Ducat and Marshall tried to secure the area, a giant wave came upon them and swept them off to the seas.

Why did Macarthur leave his post, then?

Another man, Nicholson, suggested that from his position in the lighthouse, Macarthur must have seen the huge waves and knowing the danger it could bring, rushed to warn his colleagues. However, he too succumbed to the wrath of the sea.

This theory would explain why he didn’t wear his oilskin and the single chair knocked over in the kitchen, but it was still a wonder why he took the time to close the gates and front door.

In 2014, Scottish Sunday Express published an online article which attempted to explain what happened on that fateful day. 43 year old Dr. Graham, a Fellow of Royal Meteorological Society and a lecturer at the University of Highlands and Islands was ed by Discovery Channel to look at what the weather was like when the three keepers vanished.

This was in connection to the theory that the three men disappeared due to the

massive waves brought about by stormy weather. If the weather was calm on that day, then they needed to look at other angles.

Dr. Graham accomplished the task by looking though the records in the Met Office archives and the re-analysis data model invented in America. In his findings, he said that “the weather on that month was typically wet and windy stormy”, however, it wasn’t the worst.

Keith McCloskey, the presenter of the show, explained that on the day the keepers disappeared, the weather was just before “storm force”-- the real ordeal happened 2 days later.

If this was the case, then Muirhead’s theory wouldn’t make sense. There would probably be no gigantic waves to take two keepers, so where did they go? Why did the last man, assuming it was Macarthur, leave his post?

Discovery Channel’s discovery certainly was an eye-opener, but it also brought more questions.

We will never know what happened to the men on the Flannan Isles. Did they kill each other or did the ocean take their bodies forever? Some say a ghost ship was seen approaching the isles, others believed that aliens invaded the abandoned isles. The mysterious disappearance of the three men on Flannan Isles was turned into a legend. Their unfortunate fate was an inspiration for many poems, songs and stories.

Chapter 5 - The Lindbergh Baby

One crime in the 20th century caught the attention of an entire nation. It is one of the few cases where the FBI ed the police, in an effort to capture (or hide) a notorious criminal.

On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr. was kidnapped from his room. The 20month old toddler was the only son of the aviation hero Charles Lindbergh-- the man who, in 1927, successfully flew The Spirit of St. Louis from New York to with no companion.

Ultimately known as “The Lone Eagle”, Charles Sr. helped improve the entire system of aviation before he married Anne Morrow, the daughter of the then diplomat Dwight Morrow. Soon enough, Mrs. Lindbergh too, learned how to fly and the couple began journeying together from one continent to the next.

In 1930, their firstborn, Charles Jr., came into this world and was dubbed by the media as “the Eaglet”. The Eaglet would be the first of their 6 children, but he wouldn’t grow up-- for in the first day of March year 1932, he vanished.

The boy was put to sleep in the nursery in the family’s mansion in Hopewell, New Jersey. His parents were both home when the kidnapper arrived but none of them noticed when the cradle robbing happened.

The family nurse, Betty Gow, put Charles Jr. in his crib at 8 pm, tucked him in his blanket and fastened the blanket with pins. Two hours later she discovered an empty crib. She found Mrs. Lindbergh in the bathroom, so she asked her if maybe she took their son earlier.

When Betty discovered Charles's mother did not take him, she rushed to ask Mr. Lindbergh. When he heard that the baby was gone, he went searching the house, starting with the nursery.

The search stopped there, because they found a ransom note on the window sill, just above the radiator. The Hopewell Borough police was notified first, which soon ed forces with the New Jersey State Police.

The kidnapper demanded 50,000 dollars in small, diverse bills, in exchange for the Lindbergh’s baby. The letter was written with bad spelling and grammar, and had two interconnected blue and red circles with holes punched outside the circles and one through the red one. The letter said:

“Dear Sir! Have 50.000$ redy {sic} 25,000 in 20s bills, 15,000 in 10s bills, and 10,000 in 5s bills. After 2 to 4 days, we will inform you were {sic} to deliver the money. We warn you for making anyding {sic} public, or for notify {sic} the police. The child is in gut {sic} care.”

Image Courtesy: SGT141

On their property, the police discovered a ladder that the kidnapper used to climb up to the baby’s room on the second-floor window. The ladder was broken, which suggested that the kidnapper must have broken it on his way up or down. Charles heard a slat cracking earlier that morning, but he thought that the orange crate just broke because it was full.

Muddy footprints were found in the room of the baby and a tire print outside the house. Because of the bad weather conditions, the police was not able to inspect the print in detail. Interestingly, other than the baby’s fingerprints, the nursery was clean of adult fingerprints. Even the places the nurse categorically stated she touched that morning were clean of prints.

The word of the kidnapping spread out quickly and the entire nation was willing to help. Among those who first arrived at the mansion were Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, the New Jersey State Police Superintendent, Wall Street Lawyer, Henry Skillman Breckinridge, and the hero from the First World War who would also later lead the OSS, William “Wild Bill” Donovan.

These men, together with Charles Sr., believed that the kidnapping was caused by organized crime, and that the letter was written by someone who used German as his native language. With Charles Lindbergh Sr.’s connections, he tried to manipulate the direction of the investigation.

It would later prove to be a wrong move.

Thousands of letters arrived at the Lindbergh residence, most offered help and consolation, while some were “angry” in tone. When those ill-toned letters were inspected, the police noted that like the ransom note, these angry letters too, bore the signature red and blue circles.

Apparently, the kidnappers were upset that the Lindberghs involved the law authorities. From here, on, Charles, his wife, and the rest of those he trusted with the case, became even more careful.

The Lindberghs were also swamped with false clues and offers of assistance. Big time criminals, like Willie Moretti, Longy Zwillman, Joe Adonis, and the famous Al Capone offered their help in exchange for legal favors or money.

Al Capone, for instance, offered his assistance, but in return, he should be freed because he would be of better help outside the prison. These criminals, of course, were not entertained by the Lindberghs and the police. At the time, kidnapping was not a federal crime, but a local one, so the FBI shouldn’t have been involved in the case, but president Hoover stated that heaven and earth would be moved to find the kidnapped child.

The U.S. Customs Service, United States Coast Guard, Washington, D.C. and U.S. Immigration Service were told to be alert. 25,000 dollars was offered for information about the kidnappers, and the Lindberghs offered another 50,000.

A total of $75,000 was a big deal, not only because of the huge sum, but also because at that time, the country was in the early days of the Great Depression. After three days, the investigation hit a dead-end and there was no further demand from the kidnappers.

Then, a few new letters showed up, with a Brooklyn postmark, with their recognizable red and blue circles. The final letter said the kidnappers wanted 70,000 dollars now, because the family involved the police and FBI.

John F. Condon – also known as Jafsie, was a retired teacher and a well-known personality in the Bronx. In a letter he wrote for the Bronx Home News, he offered 1,000 dollars for the kidnapper if he gave the toddler to a catholic priest.

The kidnappers ed him with a letter, proposing him to be the intermediary with the Lindbergh family. With a New York American ad, saying “Money Is Ready. Jafsie.” He told the kidnappers, they were ready to bring the case to its end.

A meeting was finally scheduled at the Woodlawn Cemetery, one night-between Condon and a representative of the kidnappers. The kidnapper never walked out of the shadow, and according to Condon he sounded foreign. He told him his name was John, a Scandinavian sailor, working with a group of two women and three men.

The baby was at a safe distance, being cared for by the women. He tried to convince Condon that the baby was unharmed, although at one point he asked if he would be executed if the baby was dead; the exact words were: “Would I burn if the package were dead?” Alarmed by this, Condon asked for a proof of the baby’s well-being, so they agreed to schedule another meeting AFTER the kidnapper brought the baby’s sleeping suit.

On March 16, 1932, Condon received the baby’s sleeping attire and Charles Sr., upon seeing the clothes, verified that it truly belonged to his son.

Condon responded with an ad again, saying that the money was ready and he would come alone, without police or secret service agents, just like the last time. On April 1st, Condon and the kidnappers finally made a deal to meet and exchange “packages”.

The ransom was cleverly packaged in a custom-made wooden box that could be traced back to the kidnappers. The money was made up with gold certificates, so the kidnappers could draw attention to themselves when they use a large amount of the gold notes.

The bill’s serial number was recorded, so they could be tracked down immediately. The next day, a cab driver handed Condon a note sent by the kidnapper.

They met and Condon told him they raised only 50,000 dollars. The kidnapper accepted and told him that the baby was close to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts on a boat called Nellie, being taken care of by two women who were not involved in the kidnapping.

After a thorough search, however, it turned out that there was no sign of either the child or the boat. Soon after, on May 12, William Allen, a delivery truck driver, found the baby’s body near the Lindbergh mansion. In the morgue it was decided that the baby’s body was severely decomposed.

There were indications that someone tried to bury the body but failed, and there were signs of various attacks by animals. Charles Jr. was killed the same night of the kidnapping, and according to his fractured skull, with a blow to the head.

His body was found less than a mile from their mansion. After cremating the body, the heartbroken Lindberghs donated their home to charity organizations and moved away.

The police and the Lindbergh family received letters of confessions as well as false clues from demented publicity seekers, prisoners and frauds. One such person was Gaston B. Means, a famous conman. He took 100,000 dollars as ransom money to help bring the child back.

According to his story, a friend of his invited him to partake in the kidnapping. He lied and postponed until April 17, while presenting information to the authorities that he was in with the leader of the kidnappers, a man he called The Fox.

After he failed to bring back the child, the FBI took over the case, arrested Means and his associate The Fox, who turned out to be a disbarred lawyer from Washington. Under the charges of embezzlement and larceny after trust, Means was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

It looked like the kidnapping would go unresolved until September 1934, when a marked dollar bill turned up. The police were watching the marked bills closely: they sent out pamphlets which contained the serial numbers of the ransom money to major business establishments in the hope that the kidnappers would make the wrong move.

While some notes were tracked in certain places, the police was not able to capture the persons who used them until they confirmed that many bills were spent on the Lexington Avenue subway, particularly a route between east side Manhattan and east Bronx, as well as Yorkville, a German-Austrian neighborhood. It was there that they traced a 10 dollar gold certificate bill.

The driver, who paid with the bill seemed suspicious to the gas station attendant, so he wrote down his car’s license plate number on the bill. The police tracked the bill to Bruno Hauptmann, a German carpenter.

He was an immigrant with a criminal record back in his homeland. A 20 dollar certificate was found on him, but after the police searched his home, they found more than 14,000 dollars of ransom money.

The trial against Hauptmann was a national sensation. He claimed he had no connection to the kidnapping, and told the jury that the money was given to him by a friend named Isidor Fisch, who died in the year 1934 after returning to .

Hauptman also insisted that it was only after Isidor’s death, did he knew that the shoebox he was given, was filled with money and that he took it only because Isidor owed him money for a failed business deal.

Besides the marked money, the prosecution’s main evidence was a testimony from handwriting experts, who stated that the kidnapper’s note was written by Hauptmann. He had written down Condon’s number and address on a closet door in his home, but when questioned, he stated that he read the story in the newspaper and wrote down the address just in case.

He couldn’t explain how he knew Condon’s telephone number. Another evidence against Hauptmann was the type of wood used for the ladder discovered in the Lindbergh’s home. An exact match of the wood was found in Hauptmann’s attic.

Charles Lindbergh Sr. and Jafsie Condon both testified that Bruno Hauptman was the “John” in the cemetery, and another witness came forward indicating that she saw Hauptman near the crime scene. Due to all these, Bruno Richard Hauptman was found guilty of murder in the 1st degree and sentenced to death, by electrocution. The state executed him on an electric chair, on April 3, 1936 at the New Jersey State Prison. It is also worth mentioning that Hauptman rejected the offer to confess in exchange of life imprisonment as well as a large sum of money from a news paper company.

After the case, a new legislation was made, making kidnapping a federal offense. Years later, to this day, the case and investigation raised a lot of questions. Why the police allowed civilians to arrive at the crime scene? Why Lindbergh and his influential associates were let to interfere in the case?

He was frequently criticized for holding on to evidence and clues about the case. He constantly interfered with the police investigation, and seemed calm and collected the entire time. Spitale and Bitz were his connection to the mob, which led the police to believe that the kidnapping was an act of organized crime.

Officials then, as now, still believe that the kidnapping may have been an inside job. Someone had to know the exact house plan of the Lindbergh’s mansion, to know where to sneak in in order to make the least amount of noise.

He also had to know the daily routine of the Lindbergh family, so he could act at the right time.

Their housekeeper, Violet Sharp was the first among the suspects. She did provide an alibi, but her statements varied every time she was questioned. She

was nervous and suspicious every time she talked to the police and committed suicide right before her final questioning.

However, after a thorough investigation, Violet’s alibi was proven and it was later concluded that the fear of losing her job and the pressure from the hard questioning urged her to take her own life. Due to this, the police were shunned by the public for the way they handled things with the innocent housekeeper.

Another suspicious character in the case was John Condon. His willingness to help and give his best in the investigation, even though he didn’t previously know the Lindbergh family was taken with reserve by the police.

He never showed the sleeping suit to the police, where many leads may have been lying dormant. And finally, he stated that the kidnapper’s name was the same as his – John.

His actions AFTER the baby corpse had been recovered also seemed to be a little strange.

According to reports, he kept being unofficially connected to the case, visiting different police departments to gather information all the while claiming that he would find the Scandinavian John he met with at the Cemetery. At one point, while riding a bus, he “saw” the suspect and ordered the bus driver to stop and let him down to chase the man-- the suspect in question, however, eluded him.

Was Bruno Richard Hauptman truly guilty? One fingerprint expert didn’t think so. Erastus Mead Hudson found out the Hauptman’s fingerprints were not in the wooden ladder found in the Lindbergh residence so he went to the police to

request further investigation, but the officer whom he talked to only said: “Good God, don’t tell us that, Doctor!”.

Since then, Schwarzkopf made it his mission not to publicize Hudson’s findings and the ladder had been washed off. It was also a little suspicious how Charles Sr. and Jafsie Condon testified that Hauptman was the Cemetery John when in his previous statement, Condon said the suspect never went out from the shadows-- it wasn’t even clear if Charles Sr. went anywhere near the place where Condon and John talked.

The kidnapped Lindberg baby remained to be an unsolved puzzle for many, even though one man, maybe innocent, took the blame. The case was featured in many movies, books, songs, even the opera. There’s even an expression in Spanish which translates into: you are more lost than the Lindbergh’s baby, meaning – you are clueless.

Chapter 6 - Jimmy Hoffa

Image Courtesy: Ninian Reid

Today, only one special agent of the FBI in Detroit is assigned to the disappearing case of Jimmy Hoffa. Back in the days when he disappeared, more than 200 agents were working on the case, interviewing friends, family and associates, collecting evidence and connecting dots. Regardless, no one found out what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa, who kidnapped him and where his body was taken. His disappearance baffled many generations, for many years.

As a union leader, Hoffa was seen as a God and a hero by many working Americans. Even during his 20’s he became a significant figure in the IBT (International Brotherhood of Teamsters). Working on the growth and development of the union, it soon became the largest union (by hip) in America, counting more than 1.5 million while he was a leader.

Although he had the working class on his side, the mafia was not on his friends list. Hoffa was involved in criminal activities since he became a leader of the union. Making many enemies throughout the years, some believe the mafia itself was responsible for his disappearance.

Allegedly immune to persecution during the 50’s, president Kennedy’s brother, Bobby, dedicated several years of his career trying to pin him down. In the 60’s, Bobby Kennedy was on the Senate Select Committee of Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field as a chief counsel. Later, he became the attorney general and grilled Hoffa in the courtroom.

In 1962, Kennedy finally had a case against Hoffa, extortion of illegal payments, but the case proceedings resulted in a hung jury. However, Hoffa was arrested

later for bribing one of the jury , so he was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

In 1964, he was found guilty of embezzling 1.7 million dollars from the union pension funds. His connections helped him stay out of jail until 1967, but ended up serving 58 months anyway. The rest of the sentence was abolished by President Nixon, with one condition, which was Hoffa staying out of the union and politics until the 80’s, when his sentence would’ve ended.

But the condition was not taken seriously, so Hoffa continued chasing his goals, to regain his authority in the union politics. Frank Fitzsimmons was his right hand when he was the union boss, but by that time, he had taken over the leadership position. The mob did not like Hoffa’s maneuvers to take back his former position, and was warned several times. Hoffa was known to be stubborn, while Fitzsimmons was easy to manipulate, and easy to force to look the other way.

July 30, 1975 was the day when Hoffa disappeared. He received a call to meet an important local mobster, a Detroit labor boss and a powerful person in the Teamsters politics. They were supposed to meet outside Detroit, at the Red Fox Restaurant. Hoffa arrived first and sat at a table.

After half an hour, nobody came in, so he found a pay-phone and called his wife. He told her that no one had appeared yet and that he was going to wait a few minutes and then come home. He left the restaurant and was never seen again.

Witnesses saw him walking to a car with three other men inside. According to the investigation, he didn’t leave the car alive. The FBI thought that two of the men Hoffa was supposed to meet at the restaurant were Anthony Tony Jack Giacalone and Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano.

The meeting could have been a peace conference, but when Hoffa didn’t agree to their demands, they may have executed him. Tony had an alibi, a convenient story that he was showing around Noboken to union officials the day Hoffa disappeared.

The list of suspects was long. The FBI didn’t have a real lead or break because everyone wanted to stay away from the case and the evidence was limited. After several months they were able to track the car Hoffa was taken with, where they found his hair and blood. There was no sign of the body and nobody wanted to discuss it. They even had to hypnotize the witnesses and informants in order to find out the truth. Nothing uncovered the truth about the kidnapping, so the FBI was left with only theories.

Many convicts ed the police with hints, clues and theories. Ralph Picardo for instance, claimed that Hoffa was put in a 55 gallon drum made of steel and loaded on a truck. He said he didn’t know where they took him, but rumor has it he was buried on the grounds of a toxic waste location, the Brother’s Moscato junkyard.

According to another theory, Hoffa’s Body lies underneath the new New York Giant’s football stadium in East Rutherford. His body was apparently mixed in the concrete at the construction of the stadium. Other burial grounds were suggested too, such as the helideck of Sheraton Savannah Resort Hotel or the public garage at Cadillac, Michigan.

This theory received back up in 2006, when Richard Kuklinski claimed he killed Hoffa himself with a knife and buried his body in a drum, in a junkyard. According to his confession, the drum was dug out once the police started to check facts about this theory. It was later shipped to Japan, where it was used as scrap metal for manufacturing vehicles.

Much false information led the police to countless digs, but none of them revealed the body of Hoffa. Some say he wasn’t even murdered, but fled to Brazil. The case file containing more than 16,000 pages is still open and new leads are welcome, even though Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982.

Chapter 7 - Zebb Quinn

No one saw anything that can help solve the case of Zebb Quinn. A typical nice American guy who deserved the fog around his disappearance to clear up. Unfortunately, the police know today as much as it did 15 years ago.

Zebb worked at Wal-Mart on Hendersonville Road, Ashevile, North Carolina. After finishing his late shift on January 2, 2000, Zebb and his friend Robert Owens met at the parking lot of the store. Zebb laid his eyes on a car he wanted to buy; a Mitsubishi Eclipse, so they both headed in that direction, each in his own car.

The friends stopped at a gas station to buy sodas, where they were caught on security camera at 9:15. After a couple of minutes, both cars were seen driving towards Long Shoals Road.

When they approached the TC Robertson High School, Zebb flashed the headlights to Robert, which was a signal to pull over. He told him that he received a page and needed to use a phone. When he came back 10 minutes later, he seemed upset, apologized and told Robert he couldn’t look for cars at the time they planned and he drove away. After this, he disappeared.

A few hours later, Robert was itted to the hospital and treated for a head injury and broken ribs. He said he was in a car accident, although no accident report was filled by the police with reference to Robert Owens. He called WalMart, two days after Zebb disappeared, to tell them that he (while pretending to be Zebb) was taking sick leave.

The employee who took the call was a friend of Zebb, so Robert was soon exposed. When questioned, Robert stated that Zebb asked him to call the store and ask for a sick day in his name. When questioned later about the disappearance, he would only say that he had nothing to do with it and refused to cooperate further. Zebb’s mother reported him missing the next day he disappeared.

The case became even more difficult when other people were questioned. The girl Zebb was seeing, Misty, also had a violent boyfriend at that time-- even the details were told by Zebb to his friends and family. When questioned, Misty and her boyfriend denied having anything to do with the disappearance.

When the police checked the page call that left Zebb in distress, it was discovered that the call was made from his aunt’s house. His aunt, Ina Ustich denied making the call, listing her friend, her friend’s daughter and her boyfriend as witnesses. In actuality, her witnesses were Misty, her violent boyfriend and Misty’s mother, Ina’s friend Tamra.

After two weeks of Zebb’s disappearance, his car was located in front of the hospital where his mother worked. Inside was a Labrador puppy, and a pair of lips were drawn on his car’s back windshield. The police also found a key card from a hotel, but was not able to trace the hotel that it belonged to. Several bottles, some hair and a jacket not belonging to Zebb were found inside, none of which brought new leads or suspects. His mother believed the car was left there on purpose by someone who knew where she worked.

The police, as well as Zebb’s family suspected Misty, her boyfriend and Zebb’s aunt to be involved in his disappearance together. However, no evidence was found to those claims, so the case lies open without arrests. Zebb’s friend, Robert was never charged, not for this case anyway. He did however

spend 23 months in prison, for various cases.

In 2015, he was arrested for multiple murders, and was believed he was responsible for the disappearance of a couple that hired him to do construction work on their home.

Conclusion

Thank you again for ing this book!

Most missing people cases usually end up as murders. A large number of them are just people who are trying to escape their life and forge a new identity. But the most interesting cases are those with few clues and evidence to never be completely solved-- the cases remain as mysteries forever.

One thing's for sure: even though they say that the truth always wins, cases like these prove that with enough planning, money and power you can make anybody disappear and get away with it.

I hope you enjoyed this book, thank you and good luck!

Check Out My Other Books

Below you’ll find some of my other popular books that are popular on Amazon and Kindle as well. You can visit my author page on Amazon to see other work done by me. (Seth Balfour).

True Ghost Stories

UFOs And Aliens

Conspiracy Theories

Missing People

Serial Killers

Cannibal Killers

Missing People – Volume 2

Unexplained Disappearances

Cold Cases True Crime

Haunted Asylums

Haunted Asylums – Volume 2

True Ghost Stories – Volume 2

Women Who Kill

If the links do not work, for whatever reason, you can simply search for these titles on the Amazon website with my name to find them.

Links to Pictures

Lindbergh Kidnapping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping#/media/File:Lindbergh_Kidnapping_Not

Lindbergh Kidnapping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping#/media/File:Lindbergh_baby_poster.jpg

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#/media/File:Boeing_777200ER_Malaysia_AL_

Flannan Isles Lighthouse https://www.flickr.com/photos/66542060@N08/6968532875/in/photolistbBMy3x-bBMFrP-boSeBb

Jimmy Hoffa - https://www.flickr.com/photos/ninian_reid/13229811065/