Eerie News with M.P. Pellicer | STORIES: The Jockey's Ghost and MORE - Eerie News

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. This is Marlene with Eerie News. And today
is July sixth, twenty twenty five, Sunday, July sixth, twenty
twenty five. I hope everybody had a good Fourth of July,
Happy Independence Day. Let's get off to our first story
out a stranger than fiction stories. And this is titled

(00:23):
the Jockeys Ghost. And it's eighteen eighty five, all right.
And this is a ghost story that's rooted in Long
Island history. It made all the newspapers, and it started
a few years before and back in eighteen sixty six.
And this is when a horse trainer was mysteriously killed
at Centerville Course. And the Centerville Course was a well

(00:45):
known race horse racetrack. On October first, eighteen sixty six,
a celebrated trainer was shot at the Centerville Course. His
name was Robert Walker, and he'd gone out to exercise
his horse. He was also the owner of a who
seund the stable close to the racecourse. The horse returned
with an empty sulky, and Walker's servant went to look

(01:06):
for him. There he met Leonard Brown, who told him
he just found Walker's body lying on the track. He
was still warm and blood spurted from a wound to
his left temple. Doctor Beldon from Jamaica examined the body
and found a small pistol ball inside the dead man's cranium.
A man working at the track told a coroner that
about the time of the murder he saw two men

(01:28):
dressed in dark clothes running from where the body was found.
Walker's death came soon after the murders of two horse
people in Chicago. First, the owner of a race horse
was shot dead by his mistress. A few days later,
at the same place, a driver by the name of
McKeever was found dead, supposedly murdered. One of the theories
for Walker's murder was a business the old gone bad.

(01:52):
He lent a large sum of money to a friend
in New York as the security of certain oil stocks,
which were found to be worthless. They had a violent quarrel,
and Walker threatened to expose him. The man said, you
shall rue this as long as you live, and that
won't be long. A second suspect was a man named Alfred,
recently employed on Walker's stable to look after a horse

(02:13):
belonging to mister Bulls from New York. Mister Boles fired
the man after Walker told him about his ilicit affairs
with the servant girls around the hotel. Another theory for
the motive was connected to Walker's skill as a driver.
Perhaps he was killed to prevent him from participating in
recently announced races on the Union Course. Robbery seemed not

(02:35):
to be the aim of the crime, since one hundred
and two dollars in green bags were found in Robert
Walker's vest pocket along with his gold watch. There were
no footprints around the soft earth where the body had fallen.
On October ninth, eighteen sixty six, Robert Martin was arrested
on suspicion of being the murderer of Robert Walker. He

(02:57):
was formerly a hostler and Walker's stable. Martin, who was
supposed to be somewhere else, within a few minutes of
Walker's death, came to the hotel, ordered breakfast, which he
didn't need, and left to deliver a horse to Newton,
New Jersey. He acted very nervously. He stopped at johnsonek.
Johnsonique Sneddeeker's and said Walker was dead after being kicked

(03:20):
by a horse. At this moment, he had not seen
the body or known of the man's death, which intrigued
the detectives who eventually arrested him. Martin had a very
bad reputation and everyone appeared to be afraid of him.
In a strange twist corner, Curtis thought to let him
go on a five hundred dollars bond for his appearance

(03:41):
on October fifteenth. The inquest held into the murder concluded
that evidence was deemed insufficient to justify the detention of
suspected parties. The murder was never solved. Could this be
the reason the ghost haunted the race course? This was
the ghost story told quote after arrest of five years.
On the Centerville racecourse, just south of Woodhaven, men and

(04:03):
women congregate every night to witness the same the strange site.
His ghost appears promptly at a quarter to ten o'clock
and departs at twelve minutes after eleven. There is a
good deal of speculation as to whose ghosts this is.
Two murders on the racetrack from bloody chapters in its history,
and public opinion argues that this spectral visitor is a

(04:23):
troubled ghost of the murderer of one or the other
of the slain. It is also a belief that when
the ghost was in the flesh, its avocation was that
of a horse jockey, and as the man last murdered
on the racecourse was thought to have been killed by
a rival jockey, some persons who lived in the neighborhood
at the time think they can solve the mystery, in

(04:45):
which the crime remains shrouded. The ghost is the first
visible in the vicinity of the stables of the old
Centerville hotel. It is recalled that the rival jockeys courted
their stock and adjacent stables on this property. From the stable,
specter proceeds by the highway to the southward point where
a hotel formerly stood in front of the entrance to

(05:07):
the racetrack. Here he halts for some minutes, just as
the jockeys used to do, for they always took a
drink before exercising. There's a dispute whether the ghost wears
a robe of white or a garment more the color
of sheep's wool, but on one point there is no disagreement.
The ghost spits fire like a foundry chimney and leaves

(05:28):
a sulfurous odor behind it. On this fact is based
almost animated discussion as to whether the origin of the
ghosts is in bliss of a state of torment. The
majority holds the latter theory, and if you think it
may be a spirit sent to earth to do pennance,
the ghost never touches terra firma. It moves along through

(05:48):
space like a feather in the wind, going on a
zig zag course. At regular intervals it spits fire. Scores
of persons have followed in its wake, without getting close
enough for personal contact, and all declare that when the
ghost comes to a stop, it invariably says whah. From
the drinking place. The spirit moves and on the racecourse,
apparently waiting for the word to dart away from where

(06:11):
the wire used to be, going round the mild track
at so terrific a gait that some persons argue it
must be the ghost of Florida Attempt of Flora Temple,
raced in the eighteen fifties, or Lady Suffolk, rased in
the eighteen forties. But those who hold to the theory
that it is the ghost of one of the departed
jockeys affirm that they can distinctly hear the hallooing and

(06:32):
whistling of the whips so familiar to old track habitues.
After every heat comes the scoring exercise, and three heats
are invariably run. After this, the ghost waltzes out into
the highway, stops again at the old familiar barroom, and
goes zig zagging along to the stables, into which it
disappears seemingly. But there are those who claim that the

(06:54):
ghost passes on to the Bay Side cemetery and into
its grave. The key Pep at this Hebrew burial ground
laughs at the credudley of the people. Nobody's ever buried
there near enough to the surface to enable a ghost
to rise up, The keeper says, but he has a
suspicion that at sometime near or remote, some person has

(07:15):
been murdered and buried in the old stable. He thinks
it's a spirit of some woman who takes to the
racetrack in pursuit of her slayer. Some of the Catholic
residents believe. Firmline goes to declare that they often converse
with spirits in Ireland are quite alarmed at this apparition
because it is in no particular like the friendly Irish ghosts.

(07:36):
Nearly fifty persons watched the Fiery Tongue Visitor for more
than an hour last night. Let me tell you something,
This is a great ghost story because I've never heard
of one. Or it spits out fire. That's that's a
great story. Or you know, I get the part where

(07:57):
it's re enacting it's regular whatever it would do in life.
But the thing of it's then going and spits out fire,
that's fantastic. And apparently this was witnessed by a bunch
of people. So there you go, next door. Also out
of strangers in fiction stories is titled The Mother of
All Liars. In January nineteen fifty nine, Larry Lord Motherwell,

(08:21):
aged forty two, former felon and construction worker, went on
a ten days spending spring in Las Vegas. Perhaps a
promonition tickled this spine that the proverbial ton of bricks
was about to descend on him. It started with an
arrest by Las Vegas police for failure to register as
a former felon and being a fugitive from Maryland in
connection to a homicide investigation. They wanted to question him

(08:44):
about the death of an infant girl buried in a Frederick,
Maryland pet cemetery. The warrant dated back to June nineteen
fifty four. When apprehended, Motherwell was driving a new station wagon,
had eighteen hundred dollars cash in his pocket, and used
the name of Art Rivers. He told any one that
would listen that he just returned from Cuba, where he

(09:04):
had been an assignment as a foreign correspondent. Once interrogated,
he admitted the child was his fourteen month fourteen month
old daughter, Heather, but he had not killed her. She
had a tongue abnormality, and he placed her on her
back after eating. She suffocated accidentally. Later it was determined
she had some type of retardation or down syndrome. He

(09:26):
interred her, pretending it was a pet dog. It was
only Marylynd authorities who questioned him, but California and Nevada
awaited their turn to ask him about certain cases. One
involved disappearance of Pearl Leda Putney seventy two, a wealthy
widow who dropped from sight after she was last seen
with Motherwell and Las Vegas the summer before she drove

(09:48):
out there with him from Washington, d c. On which
she called a last fling. He told police they parted
ways in Las Vegas and he left her there to
marry another man. According to him, he acted only as
her chauffeur. Police had no proof to dispute this claim.
In February nineteen fifty nine, Motherwell was freed by the
grand jury because there was insufficient evidence to indict him

(10:11):
on the charge of murdering his daughter. The cause of
her death could not be as certain. However, the police
bided their time and continued their investigation. In August of
the same year, Alma Freeman, who was hunting pine cones
with her granddaughter, stumbled upon Parched Bones and Turner Canyon
at the foothills of the Sierras. They were identified through
dental work as belonging to Pearl Putney. This is Pearl

(10:35):
Putney's story. Pearl didn't randomly pick across country trip as
her last fling. She frequently crossed the country on extended
trips for many years, accompanied by her husband, doctor Albert Putney,
who died in nineteen twenty nine. He was a member
of the State Department, and the couple were well known
in Washington diplomatic circles. She lived for many years in

(10:56):
an apartment on Porter Street with her mother, Ida meet Ruha.
Her only other relative was a half brother, Castro Meek
de Bruja, who lived in Illinois. Motherwell and Pearl met
in nineteen forty nine when he moved into the same
apartment building. Missus Putney vanished on August fifteenth, nineteen fifty eight,
when she was staying at the Townhouse Motel in Maryville, California.

(11:20):
This was ninety miles from where her skeletal remains were found.
The widow was reported to be carrying fifty thousand dollars
at the time, most of it from the sale of
several of her properties. In mid September, the Washington Metropolitan
Police opened a missing persons report on Missus Putney. It
was almost a year later that the skeletal remains were
found in the forest. This was what police had been

(11:42):
waiting for at that point. The police at know where
Motherwell was, and California issued a warrant for his arrest.
Within a few days, the FBI joined the search, and
on August fifth, nineteen fifty nine, they caught up to him.
He was in Atlanta and about to board a plan
for Cleveland. He was using the name Craig dub He
went to jail under a fifty thousand dollars bond. His

(12:04):
wife engaged attorneys for him. However, by mid September, he
was extradited to California to face charges of murdering Pearl Putney.
Once there, he pled innocent to the charge. A grand
jury deliberated only five minutes and turned in a unanimous
vote to prosecute him. The travels held in Downeyville, California,
a Sierra gold mining town. The jails stood in the

(12:26):
shadow of the old gallows whe vigilantes used to hang
horse thieves. The jury consisted of nine women and three men.
Now this is the story of Dorothy Summers, the first wife.
In nineteen forty Motherwell married his first wife, Dorothy, and
in the next five years they had three children, Gail, Janis,
and Richard. By the time his divorced from Dorothy in

(12:49):
nineteen forty five, he was already using the alias of Motherwell,
which was his mother's maiden name. During the hearing, Dorothy
sobbed on the witness stand, describing that he had tried
to kill her and their two daughters by dosing her
unconscious with sleeping pills and turning on the gas jets
in their Washington, DC apartment. Later that year, she claimed
he tried to drown her and the girls at Lake

(13:11):
Milton near Washington. While rowing on the lake, he hit
her on the head with a pipe and tipped over
the boat in an attempt to do away with them.
They were rescued by three teenage boy scouts. She implied
mother well strangled or suffocated their infant son, Richard, who
was only a month old when he died in nineteen
forty five. They divorced shortly afterward. During that time he

(13:32):
was married to Dorothy. He was going to be arrested
several times for different crimes. First, he was arraigned before
the United States Commissioner in Minneapolis on a charge of
illegally wearing a military discharge button. He posed as a
Navy commander and an industrial relations adviser to Chang Kai Check.
He was arrested by the FBI after he offered a
Minneapolis man a job in China as a public speaking

(13:55):
instructor for the Chinese government in exchange for a twenty
seven dollars bill for fixing a typewriter. It was during
these years he made the acquaintance of his neighbor, Pearl Putney.
By nineteen forty nine, a divorced, remarried, and moved away
from Washington Sea. His new wife, Sarah mc clerkan, was
a librarian, and nineteen fifty three, their daughter, Heather was born,

(14:18):
and she had Down syndrome. The couple placed a child
in a Maryland home for retarded children. Less than a
year after Heather's birth, Sarah was found floating face up
in the baths of ether Clysdale Place apartment in Washington
on November eighth, nineteen fifty three. Her death was ruled accidental.
By nineteen fifty five, mother Will added the title of

(14:39):
captain to his alias. His arrested and bled guilty to
twelve counts of a fourteen count indictment. His plea included
falsely assumed and pretended to be an officer wearing the
uniform of a captain in the United States Navy, wearing
the Navy Cross, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion
of Merit Award, among other military medals. For this, was

(15:00):
placed on a two year probation. Part of his sentence
mandated submit himself for psychiatric treatment. Motherwell passed himself off
as a Scottish lord and became a member and elder
of his church, where President Eisenhower attended. In nineteen fifty six,
he married Josephine Smiroldo. He explained his long absisceence from
home by saying he worked as a spy for the

(15:20):
government on secret missions. During this time, he renewed his
friendship with Pearl Putney. It was at this point that
Motherwell's web of life started to unravel and the full
depth of his crimes came to light, and it turned
out he was much worse than a lined con man
who impersonated military personnel. Following its Marie Colleague story, Marie
Colly testified in October nineteen fifty seven. Motherwell had told

(15:44):
her he was divorcing his wife, Josephine, and planned to
marry her. They went on a trip to Florida and
rented an apartment there. He told her that because of
his secret government work, he needed bodyguards, one of who
was named the Dagger. Oh this is great. Shortly after
arriving in Florida, he disappeared, and then she received a
telegram signed by the Dagger saying that mother Well was

(16:06):
killed and his cremated ashes were scattered in the Everglades.
She returned to her home in Roanoke, Virginia, and two
weeks later, Motherwell paid her a visit, saying the telegram
was a mistake. The person killed was his twin brother.
Mal Plants had changed and they had to go out
west for the divorce since the laws in Florida could
not accommodate his plans. Their ultimate destination was Reno so

(16:28):
he could secure the divorce. They took Highway forty to
Donner's Summit, but had to turn back because of snow.
They tried another route through Marysville, California, and took the
Feather River Canyon route. They stopped the automobile near a
large cliff so they could look over the side of
the canyon. She didn't go near the edge and notice
the ground was slippery and wet. Motherwell told her it

(16:50):
was no danger, but she refused. The promised divorce from
his wife or his marriage to Marie Cawley never took place,
and she never saw him again after they returned to Virginia.
This is Evelynd Doherty's story. One of those brought in
to testify was Evelyn Doherty. She met mother Well on
board a flight from Miami to Cleveland on October ninth,

(17:11):
nineteen fifty eight. He told her his name was Arthur
Rivers and he was a correspondent for the United Press
en route to cover a big news story. He embellished
the lie by claiming he had served in the military
and had been a prisoner of war in Korea. In November,
he returned to Cleveland and proposed marriage. He told her
he had no wife or children. As an engagement present,

(17:33):
he gave her a garnet necklace say he belonged to
his deceased grandmother. He then took a cross country trip
with his fiancee, ending up in Laguna Beach, California. He
then gave her another gift of three cameos. He told
her he was leaving for the Orient on a mission
and would marry her as soon as he returned. He
borrowed two thousand dollars from her, supposedly to pay his
income tax. He left her in Laguna Beach and this

(17:56):
was the last time she saw him. All the pieces
of jewelry were later found to belong to Pearl Putney.
The prosecutor told the jurists that during those days, when
Mother Well reacquainted himself with Pearl Putney among her friends,
she introduced him as doctor Mother Well, a retired naval
officer who was involved in some highly secret work for

(18:16):
the government. In early nineteen fifty eight, she was taking
lessons at Arthur Murray Studio and told her instructor she
was quote contemplating marrying a man who was a doctor
and a very brilliant man, but who was considerably younger
than she end quote. Unbeknownst to Pearl Putney, they had
been married to Josephine, his third wife, for two years,

(18:38):
and June nineteen fifty eight, Missus Putney met her brother
in New York. She told her sister in law that
Josephine was being unfaithful and that Mother Weall was divorcing her,
and that the FBI was getting the information on the
wife to assist in the divorce. Missus de bruha Or
her sister in law, told her it was ridiculous to
think the FBI would involve themselves in marital trouble. Missus

(19:01):
Putney clammed up, and she made no further mention of Motherwell.
Then the prosecutor introduced items found in Motherwell's possession. There
were social security cards, driver's license, and other documents using
the alias of Alan Dunbar foster or Alan Michael Dunbar.
It was not only ideas, but resumes that were part

(19:22):
of the cash. Dunbar reflected as the owner of a
large steel mill in Cuba that had been taken over
by Fidel Castro. Motherwell was the last to testify, and
in his closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury, we
know she believed he was going to divorce his wife,
Josephine and marry her. Missus Putney belonged to a large
sororior woman who were taken in by this psychopath, and

(19:45):
this is Heather's story. Once the warrant was issued from
Motherwell's arrest in January nineteen fifty nine, the police started
to investigate what happened to Heather. They contacted Sarah's family
in Alabama. Her aunt and uncle A. R. Taylor, and
his wife had he answered her inquiries. The tailors said
Heather was placed in a home run by Ella Hins

(20:07):
Hinkson in Tacoma Park, Maryland. Detectives found Missus Hinkson an
intervieweder She said mister Motherwell came and picked up his
daughter on June nineteenth, nineteen fifty four. He told he
was moving to Tallahassee, where his parents lived, and would
find a place for her there. Because of the secret
missions he undertook for the government, he traveled quite a bit. This,

(20:27):
of course, was all lies. Missus Hinkson gave him special
instructions when feeding Heather and precautions to be taken so
she would not choke on her food and strangle. She
saw neither of them again. The detectives then went to
where Mother Weell was living at the time. A former
tenant said that mother Well talked about the combat dog
which saved his life during the Korean War. Co Workers

(20:48):
at a construction company recalled where he would brag about
knowing Eatwhite McCain, a renowned estate owner. Authorities in interviewed
mister McCain, who told him he knew Mother Well from church,
but they actually met the first time when he came
to his farm. But Caine was a dog breeder and
loved animals. Motherwell told him his beloved dog had died
and that he wanted to bury it in the small

(21:09):
cemetery he had on the grounds. He granted Motherwell permission
and watched when he carried a small wooden box, which
he buried in the cemetery. According to McCain, he returned
a number of times, sometimes with a woman, to visit
the grave. That day mother Well buried the small coffin
was June twentieth, nineteen fifty four, the day after he
took his daughter from the care of Missus Hinkson. Those

(21:32):
hunting him knew he had no military background. They obtained
permission to dig up the grave, and with deep regret
but little surprised, they found the badly decomposed remains of
a baby girl inside. All the items Missus Hinkson had
sent with the child were there as well. The tailors
told detectives that shortly after taking Heather, he told him
he needed three hundred dollars to place her in an
institution in Tallahassee. They gave him the money, but unbeknownst

(21:55):
to them, Heather was dead and buried in a pet cemetery.
The prosecuting attorney subpoena Janice Hampton, a clerk in the
Western Union office in San Francisco. She testified that on
August sixth, nineteen fifty eight, she sent a telegram to
Missus Putney's half brother, Castro de Bruja at Winnetka, Illinois.

(22:15):
The telegram said that she Pearl Putney, was flying to
Mexico to get married. The one place in the telegram
was Motherwell. She asked him if he was the groom
and he said no, he was sending it on behalf
of his aunt. During their proceedings, Motherwall said he knew
Pero Putney for about ten years, that she became a
tippler who got into auto accidents and used a great

(22:36):
deal of medicine. He called her quote a little old
lady with sex on her mind. End After leaving Washington,
d c. They went to Florida. At Sarasota, she would
do thirteen thousand dollars cash more bank account. From there,
they headed to Georgia and North Carolina before heading westward.
They are registered using different names, including doctor and Missus

(22:56):
Putney or doctor and Missus Motherwell. Along the way, Pearl
sent postcards out. However, she failed to tell her network
of friends that she traveled only with mother Well. She
referred to her journey as being with a group of friends.
They arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August fourth, nineteen
fifty eight. During the trial, authorities found the woman in

(23:17):
Sarasota Floridaho testified. Pearl introduced Motherwell as her fiancee. Mother
Well told the story about what happened when they arrived
at Marysville. He went to dinner alone, and when he
returned to the room, he found she was tipsy. He stated, quote,
she wanted me to kiss her. She distrobed, partially, made
a few vulgar statements, told me I was being pain
enough to know she was a woman, a woman alive,

(23:39):
that I wasn't such an angel that I didn't know
she was a woman end quote, according to him, After this,
he drove her back to Las Vegas and they parted ways.
She told him she was marrying a South American diplomat.
During cross examination, the prosecutor took pains to show how
callless mother Well truly was. He told the jury that
less than two weeks after the death of a second wife,

(24:01):
he applied for a new apartment with his wife, Sally.
Mother Well denied this and asked for proof. Elise was produced,
filled out in his handwriting. Then the attorney asked him
about an affid David he signed, stating that he changed
his name because he was raised by an aunt. This
contradicted testimony Motherwell had already given, where he described growing

(24:21):
up in Ohio with both of his parents. He was
born Frank Eugene Caventer and legally changed his name to
Larry Lord mother Well on July tenth, nineteen fifty two.
On March fifteenth, nineteen sixty the jury convicted mother Well
of murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a

(24:41):
shadow of Gay's Chamber looming, prosecutors were now going to
try to prove he murdered his second wife, Sarah and
their daughter Heather. He was kept on suicide watch at
the county jail until being transferred to San Quentin. His wife, Josephine,
divorced him in nineteen sixty two. Eventually, Motherwell's charge was
changed for a first degree murdered to second degree murder,
and in December nineteen sixty one, he was resentenced to

(25:05):
an indeterminate five year term to life term determinate five
year term to life term. Well in prison, he became
a cabinet maker and behaved well. However, he was denied
parole three times. On February twenty eighth, nineteen sixty six,
he dropped dead from a heart attack while he served
as sentence at San Quentin. He was forty nine years old.

(25:26):
Neither his parents nor any other relatives came to take
custody the body, and he was cremated at Mount tama
Pay's cemetery. One has to wonder how many women Motherwell
victimized beyond telling outlandish stories and promising the marriage. In
the book Call of Duty, My Life Before, During, and
After the Band of Brothers, written by Lynn Compton, who

(25:48):
prosecuted Motherwell a passage read quote. Although the crimes could
not be proved, Maryland police have stated that mother Well
confessed to them that he killed seven women altogether, including
his infant daughter, Heather. Mother Well was particularly remorseful about
his daughter because he had buried her alive end quote.
The police never recovered any of the cash or securities
Motherwell stole from missus Putney before and after her murder.

(26:12):
It seemed that Motherwell's parents were not destined to receive
joy from their children, and outlived all three of them.
Their second child, a daughter born in nineteen twenty, was
premature and died at birth. Motherwell's younger brother, Jack died
in nineteen thirty nine at the age of fifteen. He
lived at the Poke State School since he was feeble minded,
which was the term used in those days. So this

(26:35):
guy was lying just for the sake of lying in
what he did with his daughter. And I think that
they weren't able to prove it, but they're pretty sure
that his wife, Sarah, which was the mother of Heather,
he probably killed her, you know, and that story that

(26:59):
she was found bathtub. Let me tell you he dropped dead.
But yeah, he then psychopath with a capital p. Okay.
Next story out of Strangers in Fiction Stories is titled
The Murder That Never Happened. It was once a showplay's
home in Laurel Canyon, but only ashes were left of
the fourteen roomhouse before its destruction on July thirty first,

(27:22):
nineteen twenty eight. It was the scene of wild parties,
a gun battle, and explosion, and ultimately a fire. In
the early morning hours of August first, nineteen twenty eight,
hungry orange flames licked the starlit sky as firemen in
an amateur bucket brigade fought to put out a fire
that engulfed in an occupied mansion on Lookout Mountain near
Laurel Canyon. The house located two three zero North Canyon Road,

(27:47):
set about a mile off Horseshoe Drive, and was considered
one of the finest homes in the area. There, explosions
were heard before the blaze erupted, and fire investigators entertained
the theory that arson gutted the home. The last on
ron record was Henry W. White, once a wealthy real
estate dealer in Hollywood promoter. He built the fourteen bedroom

(28:08):
house only four years before. No expense had been spared,
including a large pool in the middle. Henry White moved
to twenty one thirty three Stanley Drive after he lost
the house in foreclosure. At that time, he was running
the film fam Photo Company on Sunset Boulevard. Two weeks
before the fire, he visited the mansion, the only time
he had done this in several months. When I asked

(28:30):
about his whereabouts on the night of the fire, he
said he met a fellow real estate investor and that
he didn't return to his home until four am on
August first. Once the fire was extinguished, firemen searched the
ruins of what the newspaper called the Mystery House for
any signs of body, since neighbors told them there had
been a party going on before flames and smoke filled
the canyon. Later, two boy scouts recounted how they visited

(28:53):
the property some weeks before, as how sticks of dynamite
and caps stored in the garage located under the structure.
Henry White confirmed this information, saying he bought it for
the purpose of blasting out a new road leading from
the main highway to his home, since the gas and
electricy had been cut off. It was believed the revelers
had brought candles with them and one of them turned

(29:15):
over and caused the blaze. This would explain why neighbors
heard what they thought were gunshots. There was also a
report of two men fighting high on a cliff, where
one wrong step would plunge them down eighty feet. Many
of the neighbors were convinced the murder had been committed. However,
nothing came of it, neither the reason for the fire,
whether accidental or arson, or who ran from the house

(29:37):
before it erupted in flames. What was left of the
mystery house sat forgotten for months until June eighth, nineteen
twenty nine, when Frank Ryder, alignment for the Southern California
Edison Company, arrived at two thirty North Canyon Road. He
found only a charred ruin. He was stringing a power
line when he saw animals poking around what he thought

(29:57):
was a large bone. He pulled it from the ground
and dug further, only to find an axe battered skull.
The size of the skull and a number of hairpins
found by the bones indicated it possibly belonged to a woman.
It was theorized she was killed with an axe. The
head was which was found close by. There was also
depression in the skull that fit the blunt end of

(30:19):
the instrument. A supervisial examination indicated she was not more
than twenty years old. The lower jaw bone was missing,
as well as the teeth in the upper part of
the mouth. This ten police went around and interviewed the neighbors.
They all described, in one form or another, the same thing, orgies,
all night parties, and women occasionally screaming. The all night

(30:40):
parties had been playing up for weeks inside the deserted house.
The night of the fire, a fusillade of shots boomed
through the hills. Police found bullet holes on the walls
still standing. When asked, Henry White denied that anyone would
hold drinking orgies in the property since it had been
vandalized after he vacated it. He also explained the bullet holes,
saying he fired some shots in the house one night

(31:02):
and Jest, a neighbor, described how from her bedroom window
she had a good view of the house and the
moon was bright. That night of the fire. She saw
two men run from the house after the sound of
gun fire. It was strange because they appeared to be fighting,
and they took separate routes down the canyon trails when
she heard the roar of a crash. Then she heard

(31:23):
the roar of a car as the motor was gone
and it barreled down Laurel Canyon Road as a departed
flames shot into the air from the garage of the house.
Police reenacted her story and found she could have plainly
seen all she said she did. Two weeks before the
discovery of the skull, a Hollywood policeman looking for vagrants
found the house unlocked. It was empty of furniture, except

(31:44):
in one room, where he thought the parties were held,
because there was a bed and several chairs. Fire investigators
later suspected that gastlying was poured throughout the house which
is why it incinerated so quickly. Another neighbor who lived
fifty yards over the hill in Horseshoe Canyon and said
that many knights Laaucus parties woke up his family. He
corroborated reports of hearing women's screen. The police now faced

(32:08):
reviewing a list of more than one hundred and eighty
missing girls to find out if the skull belonged to
one of them. Sifting through the ashes, police found bones,
charred clothing, and other evidence to support a murder investigation. However,
medical report was issued that opined that the upper portion
of the skull was planted and appeared to be defleshed,

(32:28):
no part of it had been charred by the fire.
But despite these findings, more bones were found, as well
as women's underwear, jewelry, and clothing. High above the ruins
of the house, a laborer started working on a natural
stone fireplace and found several bones, a diamond ring set
with two emeralds, two discharge thirty two caliber shells, and
some vials believed of contained narcotics. There was also a

(32:52):
woman's glove and a thermometer with Ottawa tubercular colony three
eight six five one printed on it on a pencil
was printed the name Carol H. Dunning. A picture of
a popular actress which the newspapers did not name, was
found ripped across the center with the name of the
person to whom she dedicated it. Torn away fifteen yards

(33:13):
from the house in a little ravine, police found a
blood stained yellow couch cover. The spot appeared to be
a dumb sight used by those who frequent in the
house during the time, was allegedly empty. Hundreds of empty
whiskey and gin bottles littered the area. The discovery bore
out the neighbor's story about the wild parties. The police

(33:35):
believed those who used the house as a rendezvous point
were instructed where to find it, since it was hidden
by shrubbery on an isolated canyon trail. Then, from one
day to the next police changed their mind and branded
the findings of the skull a hoax placed there by
neighbors and the bones belonged to animals. They explained the
decision to end the investigation based on their theory that
Henry White, who entertained extensively, had gained the enmity of

(33:58):
his neighbors, and they planted the skull the house to
scare him away. He recently tried to purchase another house
in the area, and owners of the surrounding properties banded
together and refused to sell to him. However, from the beginning,
the police seemed to have bungled any type of effort
to discover if indeed someone had been killed. The newspapers
noted that the night of the fire, police were called

(34:20):
to the scene, especially after the sound of gunfire. However,
they only sent two officers that didn't even turn over
a spade full of ashes. If this had been done,
authorities could come from if the skull had been in
the ruins on that date, or perhaps even stumbled across
a body. No further inquiries were made, despite the discovery
of the trash heap with a bloody couch cover and

(34:43):
hundreds of empty liquor bottles. But indeed the skull was planted,
how could anyone guarantee it would be found since it
was buried. However, this was not the last time Henry
White found himself involved in a fire related incident. Only
a month later, in July nineteen twenty nine, a fire
of undetermined origin burned fire acres menacing homes in the

(35:04):
vicinity of Laurel Canyon. According to neighbors, laborers working on
Henry White's house on Stanley Drive were seen smoking around
a rubbish pile accumulated from the renovations they were working on.
Two months later, on August nineteen twenty nine, two hundred
cases of contraband, scotch and bourbon, valued at twenty thousand
dollars were captured by police when a truck was stopped

(35:25):
in Laurel Canyon. No doubts called doggery was a foot
in this area. If a woman was killed on the
night of July thirty first, nineteen twenty eight, who she
was and what happened to her remained unknown. Her killer
might have been one of those men who draw off
into the night as flames erupted behind him. Perhaps somebody
owed Henry White a big favor and he called it in,

(35:46):
and the mystery mentioned on North Canyon Road kept its secret.
The Laurel Canyon Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles, California
is where a lot of strange depths of occur and
extremely violent murders took place. There was the Wonderland Murders
of nineteen eighty one. I'm sorry of nineteen eighty one.

(36:07):
In nineteen twenty four, will Rothschild, eighty seven died from
hard complications and smoke inhalation. It was presumed he burned
alive in his own home and Laurel Canyon, and one
has to wonder what really happened there. It turned out
the man who died in the fire was named William Kaufman,

(36:28):
and he changed his name to William de Rothschild in
nineteen eighty five. To add to the mystery. When the
press contacted Richard Kaufman about his strange brother, he commented,
I thought he had passed away forty years ago. Last
contact I had with him was a telephone call. It
was kind of odd. It seemed like he had something
to tell me. He didn't, and when I never heard

(36:48):
from him again, I kind of presumed that maybe he
had an illness, didn't want to talk about it, and
just quietly passed away. I don't know how he made
his money despite not belonging to the Famously, none could
understand where well ross Child's money came from. He owned
multiple properties and dozens of luxury vehicles and elevators in
his garage. He bought the house in Laurel Canyon in

(37:11):
nineteen seventy two, and public records reflect that in nineteen
ninety nine he married Margot Murkin, whose father established budget
rent a car. In the intervening years between nineteen twenty
eight and present day, many strange, unexplained events have taken
place there. Having noticed the prior story, this guy changed

(37:32):
his name from Caventer to Motherwell, this gentleman, and it's
never explained. He just chooses to call himself a derotion
and nobody knows where he got his money from. Very weird,
very weird. And by the way, I read a little
bit more into it. You know, everybody thinks, you know,

(37:53):
was this Maybe he was really the roths child legitimate
of fling and his the remaining brother, the one that
was still alive, said no, he's In other words, there's
no question here about our parentage. He's not a de
roth child. Very weird. But that thing about you know,

(38:15):
what is it arose by any another names smelled just
as sweet. Well, apparently these people don't think that all right.
This story is out of the Guardian is titled Is
He Still Alive? The mister of D. B. Cooper, the
hijacker who disappeared. On the evening of November twenty fourth,
nineteen seventy one, Florence Schaffner, a flight attendant a Northwest
orient flight heading to Seattle, Washington from Portland, Oregon, was

(38:39):
handing a note by a male passenger seated at the
back of the plane. Schaffner assumed the note was a
phone number. This was the first time a passenger had
hit on her, so she stood in her purse without
reading it. The man leaned toward her and whispered, miss
you'd better look at that note. I have a bomb.
Shaefner read it, Miss I have a bomb in my briefcase,

(39:00):
and wanted to sit by me. She complied. The man
was wearing a suit and had a dark complexion. His
eyes were hidden by sunglasses. Shaffner believed, I'm sorry. Schafter
watched as he opened his suit cakese revealing four cylindrical
sticks connected to a wire and battery. It certainly looked
like a bomb. He then told Shafner his demands the

(39:21):
passengers were to remain seated while the plane refilled in Seattle.
When he was handed two hundred thousand dollars equivalent to
about one point six million to day and four parachutes
they would be released. When the passengers alighted in Seattle,
they had no idea they had just flown on a
hijacked plane. The ground crew obeyed the hijacker's wishes and

(39:42):
refilled the plane or the authorities gave the cash and
parachutes the air crew. The man then ordered the pilots
to take off, flying low and slow with the flaps
down towards Mexico. At some point over Washington, the crew
felt their ears pop when the pressure in the cabin dropped.
Some one had lowered the air stair at the rear
of the plane. The man had leapt into the night

(40:05):
and vanished, never to be found. The only trace he
left behind was a clip on tie, a tie clip
and the name written on his ticket, Dan Cooper, which
was misprinted in contemporaneous news reports as D. B. Cooper.
The name stuck and a legend was born. No one
knows who Cooper was or is not. Three letter spooks

(40:27):
or an army of amateur sluts. The cases on ice,
but the tair remains captivating. Leaving uside the audacity of
the stunt, Several questions persist. Was Cooper never found because
he didn't survive the jump. The authorities recorded the serial
numbers of the bills handed to Cooper, but they never
showed up, except for about fifty eight hundred dollars discovered

(40:48):
in a state of disintegration on the banks of the
Columbia River near Vancouver, Washington, in February nineteen eighty. Who
was Cooper a former para trooper or a chance? Where
was he from? The answers to these questions seem manly
out of reach. I understand how greyhounds feel about mechanical rabbits.

(41:10):
Fly too close to this mystery and it sucks you
into its orbit. Jeffrey Gray, who wrote the twenty eleven
book Skyjack to Hunt for D. B. Cooper, refers to
this as the Cooper Curse. The podcaster Darren Shaeffer has
the curse too. He got it after reading Skyjack and
fought compelled to start a podcast dedicated to the mystery
with Russell Cober in twenty eighteen. Shaeffer was originally going

(41:35):
to call it the D. B. Cooper Podcast, but ultimately
landed on the Cooper Vortex after learning how fellow Cooper
Anoraks described the case. Shaeffer explains that He has promised
a few times over the years to abandon Cooper, but
like Michaels, Corleone and The Godfather, just when he thinks
he is out, he gets pulled back. In the D. B.

(41:56):
Cooper story is like the best book I've ever read
in my whole life. But I miss the first and
last chapters of the book. I only have the middle.
There is no DP Cooper story before the hijacking, and
there really isn't none after. He only exists for about
five hours. There are many theories about Cooper's identity. The
name itself is intriguing. Dan Cooper is a protagonist in

(42:18):
the long running Franco Belgian comic book series There's Adventures
the Dan Cooper, the comic star heroic test pilot in
the Canadian Air Force, Think Tintin meets Buck Rogers. Some
of the plots share similarities with the hijacking, including parachuting
from a plane and delivering a ransom and a knapsack.
Coincidences or something more. If you robbed the train and

(42:43):
then escaped on a skateboard and your ticket was under
the name Tony Hawk, is that a coincidence? Asked Schaeffer,
was a hijacker inspired by the comics the series was
not well known outside the Francophone world. Perhaps he was Canadian.
If so, that would now the search to fewer than
two point nine million people, roughly the number of French

(43:04):
Canadian males in nineteen seventy one. What about the money,
O's follow the money, they say, Only the money leads nowhere,
And more than fifty years, not a single bill from
the ransom as appeared in circulation, despite the notes serial
numbers being shared with banks across the US, the money
found in nineteen eighty brought investigators no closer to the truth.

(43:25):
The simplest explanation for what became of Coopers that he
failed to land safely, His body and loot were lost
to the elements and the passage of time. This was
a prevailing wisdom among the original FBI investigators. Cooper was
wearing a suit and dressed shoes and jumped into thick
clouds and heavy rain on a freezing night above the

(43:47):
Washington Wilderness, not the best attire for parachuting or the
hike he would have to make upon landing. Cooper instructed
the pilots to fly towards Mexico, but he had no
way of knowing the exact flight path they were taking
due to the dense cloud cover. The landscape of the
Pacific Northwest is wildly diverse. Cooper could have plummeted into

(44:07):
a craig or a mountain, plunged into a lake, or
crashed into a ravine just as easily as allies softly
on flat agricultural land. But Marty Andratti is not convinced
Cooper is dead. The Minnesota author has been following the
Cooper mystery for more than a decade. In his book
about the case, he argues that the statistics on parachuting

(44:28):
survival rates favored Cooper. Importantly, he doesn't believe Cooper jumped
over wilderness. He probably jumped much closer to a town
called Battle's Ground, Washington, Androtte says, now, there are a
lot of trees and stuff, but it is well developed
agricultural land, fairly flat compared with the Cascades, the Mountain
range that runs from southern British Columbia in Canada to

(44:51):
northern California in the US. If you look at the
timing of where the aircraft was, he may have landed
within a mile or two of this town. Karen Humes,
a professor at the University of Idaho's Department of Earth
and Spatial Sciences, agrees. With the help of her students,
Humes created an interactive map of Cooper's probable flight path
and determined that he most likely parachuted over farmland. It's

(45:15):
a complete myth that it was a wilderness, she says.
We know well enough to be confident. And he jumps
somewhere between Battleground, which is a very small town just
north of Vancouver, Washington, and just barely south of the
Columbia River, so we're talking the suburbs of Vancouver, and
the terrain is pretty flat. Whether or not he survived
the jump is probably moot. At this point, Cooper was

(45:37):
thought to be about forty. If his behavior on the
flight provides a window into his lifestyle, then he was
a heavy smoker and prone to taking absurd risks. As
much he is unlikely still to be alive. I accept
the fact that we probably will never know. That's fine
with me, says Andrade. The joy it takes from this
mystery is a community around it. It's nice to be

(45:59):
able to sit down and then just randomly start talking
about why Cooper chose a felt tip pen for his
ransom note, he says. Androtta recalls the rabbit hole he
went down when he learned that forensic analysts have found
traces of metal particles on Cooper's discarded tie. Andrada said
the particles are found in makeup, which he discovered while

(46:20):
pouring over piles of research paper. I'm reading all these
papers and I'm like, what am I doing? Andrada. Humes
and Schaeffer have made many friends in this space, but
things can get intense online with people wrapping up their
self esteem in pet theories. Also, the community is a
bit of a boy's club. I'm almost unique, says Pat

(46:40):
Boland over the frone from a cruise liner heading to
the Portuguese coast. Along with Humes, Boland is one of
the few women investigating D. B. Cooper. At sixty four,
she is old enough to remember the hijacking being reported,
but she says she got drawn into the vortex by
the rumors swirling around the denoument of the TV series Madmen.
As a finalite swirl approached in twenty fifteen, it was

(47:04):
positive that the series protagonist Don Draper would turn out
to be Cooper, which, of course had not happened. It
was possibly a publicity stunt. But I started thinking about
it again and I just fell in head first. Bolan
has put together groups of researchers and scientists to try
to convince the FBI to let them test Cooper's parachute

(47:25):
for DNA. Cooper tore up one of the parachutes who
was given to create a makeshift back for the ransom
and left parts of it behind. This would be at
no expense to the taxpayer, as we have volunteers who
are quite used to handling this type of evidence. Back
in nineteen seventy one, this type of testing didn't even exist,
she says. The FBI is refused, but Bolan remains hopeful

(47:47):
that may change. The Cooper case fits neatly into the
true crime genre, which is most popular among women. So
why is Boland an outlier? I think women tend to
want to explain, for instance, as a Zodiac killer or
some horrible case, because they put themselves in the place
of the victims, she says. Men, on the other hand,
identify with Cooper because his heights could have been written

(48:11):
by Ian Fleming. I think a lot of men would
love to get an aeroplane and jump out with why
or a million and disappear to Mexico with a margerita
in their hand. The first sip from my drink makes
the hair my neck stand up, a shiver, snake's down
my spine. It's a bourbon and soda, the same cocktail
Cooper sip midflight, but here it's called a skyjack. I

(48:34):
mean D B. Cooper's Manhattan dive bar dedicated to the hijacking.
The bar was opened six months ago by the irishman
Sharon Williams and two of his friends. Now wanting to
be just another batal Irish pub Celtic surnames Green Snakes
and Shamrocks, they came up with a name that would
stand out as well as serving themed cocktails. The Flight

(48:55):
three oh five mixes pair vodka with pear, nectar, BlackBerry
and lemon juice. The pub is decorated with Cooper inspired photos, drawings,
newspaper clippings, and T shirts or running on stuff at
the minute. Willis says as he gives me a tour,
these are the ones we did for Saint Patrick's Day.
He continues, showing me a stack of green T shirts.
He leads me to the bar's piece to resistance, a

(49:17):
giant framed poster illustrating the story of the hijacking. A
Cooper convention takes place every year in Portland, Oregon. Willis
is in touch with the organizers and says he hopes
to host an event. Do you see him as a hero?
I asked Willis as he pours me another skyjack. I
don't really know how to answer that. Willis says he

(49:37):
didn't hurt anyone. I guess, but I wouldn't advocate for
any kind of air p piracy. I suppose it took
bolts to do what he did, but I wouldn't be
advocating for any copycats. Andrette is more emphatic. Here's definitely
a crook, he says, I don't make him a Robinhood character.
He definitely deserved to get caught. He got people killed.

(49:58):
Andrada's referring to the copycat to hijacked planes in the aftermath,
some of who died in their attempts, and and he
destroyed lives, not intentionally, but that was the end result.
There were consequences to this that were serious and meaningful.
It's not a victimless crime. Poland ardgrees All the women

(50:20):
are spoken to about it. They also thinks he's a criminal,
because I think they tend to really sympathize with the
air Stewardess Cooper drew to flight attendants into his orbit
on flight three oh five. After Schaefner took his note
and instructions to the cockpit, Tina Mucklow sat with Cooper
for the remainder of the flight and acted as a
liaison between him and the rest of the crew. It

(50:40):
was Mucklow who received the ransom. She was the only
flat attendant on board when the flight left for Mexico.
Mucklow probably didn't need anyone's sympathy. I just moved on.
Maybe that's part of being young and resilient, but it
was also part of what we trained for. That was
part of what our job was. She told Rolling Stones
in twenty twenty one. The only trouble she has its

(51:02):
vowing is batting away the hordes of amateur Columbos who
pursue for interviews. Shaeffer has a different view. I want
to know the answers so badly. I would do anything
if somebody came to me and said, hey, I have
all the secrets and I'll tell you, but you can
never tell anyone else. I would one thousand percent say yes,
absolutely tell me what happened so I can know. We

(51:25):
live in an air of information overload. Facts flow like
water and are just as difficult to control. It's encouraging
that there are still some mysteries left in the world
where all the maps are charted. If Shaeffer found Cooper,
there will be no need for his podcasts, no need
for Andrata to discuss the finer details of Felt de

(51:45):
Pens with his friends, no more conventions to attend, no
more novelty bars. Not knowing seems the whole point of
this mystery. Who is d B. Cooper? Whomever you want
him to be. Let me tell you. I think it's
very interesting, and again I don't see why the why

(52:08):
the FBI doesn't allow them to test the DNA might
as well. I mean, let's face at this point, that
guy's probably dead. I mean, if he didn't die, then
he's probably dead. Ah, they should do that. But again,
like what they stated, then all these people that in
the orbit of this dB Cooper mystery, that's it. The
mystery is done. But I'm sure something else would sprout

(52:31):
in the wake of that so anyway, I hope you
like this set of stories from Eerie News, and I
will be back very very soon with more information about
the world of the weird. Till next time,

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