Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

You have to admit that “I was a crocodile at the time” isn’t an alibi you hear in every murder trial.  The “Greenville News,” March 23, 1963:

BLANTYRE, Nyasaland (UPI) A man accused of killing a child by dragging her into a river while disguised as a crocodile testified Friday he had changed himself into a crocodile through magic taught him by a witch doctor's ghost. Elard David Chipandale, 35, said, however, he could not change into a crocodile before the court because he "threw away my magic powers when arrested" on the murder charge. He said he could not testify in "crocodile language" for the same reason. Chipandale is charged with murdering 8-year-old Mponde Lyton. Also on trial is the girl's grandfather, Odreck Kasoci.

Chipandale told the court his witch doctor uncle's ghost taught him to tie certain "magic twigs and bark" to his body, transforming him into a crocodile. He said the change into a crocodile was gradual. He said "my teeth became as large as index fingers, my mouth and nose became huge, and my fingers became as sharp as knives." He testified Kasoci offered him money to kill the girl but at first he refused because "I was a friendly crocodile who ate only fish." But after persistent requests, Chipandale said he agreed to murder the girl for $12.60. But he testified Kasoci paid him only $1.40 for the job. Several witnesses testified Thursday they believed Chipandale could turn himself into a crocodile by magic, although no one had seen him do it.

The case came to notice in August 1960, 16 months after the girl died, when Chipandale sued Kasoci in a native court for the blood money. At that hearing Kasoci admitted hiring Chipandale to kill the girl, but said the price was only $7. Chipandale won the case and got his money for the job. A native policeman who attended the hearing reported the case to authorities and both men were arrested. The state charged that Chipandale, dressed in the bark of a tree to make himself look like a crocodile, waited by a river for the child.

Then he dragged the girl, slid into the river, stabbed her and broke her left arm. When nearby villagers, attracted by her screams, approached, the "crocodile man" swam off down the river. However, Kasoci denied to the murder court that he paid Chipandale to kill his granddaughter. He said the native court "intimidated" him into paying Chipandale the money. Kasoci testified that police beat him into signing a confession and that he did not pay Chipandale any money.

You probably will not be surprised to learn that both men were sentenced to death.

A Fake Death and a Real One; Or, At Home With the Banish Family

"South Bend Tribune," August 23, 1965, via Newspapers.com

All families have their little mysteries.  Thankfully, however, few are as bizarre and apparently senseless as the one inflicted on a seemingly quite normal household in South Bend, Indiana.

Things began getting weird on the morning of June 3, 1965, when 18-year-old Scott Banish casually told his parents, Edward and Loretta Banish, that he was going with a group of friends to Warren Dunes State Park, to do some swimming in Lake Michigan.  When by the end of the day Scott had failed to return home, his parents went looking for him.

Edward and Loretta found Scott’s car in the lake’s parking lot, with his wallet and clothing inside.  On the beach was Scott’s towel and blanket.  When they failed to find Scott himself, his parents called police.

Investigators learned that the friends Scott was supposedly going to swim with had all called off their plans because the lake was too cold.  Police divers failed to find Scott’s body in the lake, but it was presumed he had drowned.  The young man was pronounced dead of a tragic, but hardly unusual accident.  Little did the Banish family know that their tragedies were just beginning.

On the night of August 22, just over two months after their son’s disappearance, Edward and Loretta were playing cards in their family’s basement game room with their thirteen-year-old daughter Kathy and two visiting relatives.  After a while, Edward announced that he was tired, and would go upstairs to bed.  Soon after he left, Loretta heard loud thuds from above.

When she went to see what was going on, she found her husband standing in the living room, near the front door.  He was covered in blood.  Before Loretta could go to him, Edward collapsed, dead from seven savage stab wounds.  Police assumed that he had confronted a burglar, who then attacked him.

Nine days after Edward’s murder, Loretta received what may have been the biggest shock of all, when police informed her that Scott was alive, if not exactly well, as he had just been arrested in Fort Wayne, Indiana after submitting a forged ID to an army recruitment office.  The recruiter had read newspaper items about Scott’s “drowning,” and immediately recognized him.

When questioned by police, Scott readily admitted to deliberately faking his own death.  His motive was an honorable one, even if his methods were slightly cracked: he wanted to join the army.  The Banish family had a long history of serving in the military, and Scott longed to carry on that tradition.  However, when he had tried to enlist before, he was rejected on medical grounds.  (He had Hodgkin's Disease.)  Scott thought that if he tried again under a new identity, he might be more successful.

The young man immediately became the police’s number one suspect for Edward’s murder, apparently on the theory that anyone capable of faking a death was also capable of creating a real one.  Scott professed to be shocked when he learned his father had been murdered.  He stated that for the past two months he had been working on a tuna fishing vessel, the “Joanne,” operating in the waters off Oregon, under the name of “Danny McFarland,” and he had the paycheck stubs to prove it.  This failed to convince the police of his innocence.  They reasoned that Scott could have sneaked away from the boat long enough to kill his father.  However, when investigators contacted the “Joanne” captain, Paul Vines, he confirmed that a boy matching Scott’s description who called himself “Danny McFarland” had been working for him as a deckhand for the past two months.  Vines added that on the night Edward Banish was murdered, his boat, with “Danny” on it, was one hundred miles off the coast.

This would seem to be about as cast-iron as alibis get, but the police were stubbornly determined to prove that Scott was their elusive killer, especially after the youth failed a lie detector test.  They argued that “McFarland” must have been another young man who happened to resemble Scott, and that their suspect had somehow obtained the pay stubs from him.  The local sheriff, William Locks, hauled the teenager in for interrogation.  Locks bluntly told Scott that there was enough evidence to convict him of his father’s murder--blood had been found on Scott’s pants that was “the same general type” as Edward’s.  After twelve straight hours of what was probably fairly brutal questioning, Scott finally confessed to the slaying.  He told Locks that the killing was accidental--that he had panicked and attacked his father as he was caught trying to find his birth certificate so he could enlist in the army.

Scott was, of course, immediately arrested.  He then repudiated his confession, stating that the sheriff had pressured him into it by threatening to put him in jail for the rest of his life, whether he was “innocent or not.”  Locks told him that the only way to escape a lifetime sentence was if he confessed, after which he would be given probation for involuntary manslaughter.

At the preliminary hearing, the captain and crew of the “Joanne” testified that on the night of the murder, Scott was on the ship, as he had been every night for the two months of his employment.  Two more witnesses who had helped repair the boat on the night Edward died also swore they had seen Scott on the boat.  They were able to provide a log proving they had indeed done this maintenance on the night of August 22.  After this eight-day hearing, the case was sent to a grand jury, which ruled there was not enough evidence against Scott to justify an indictment.

In 1968, Scott sued the sheriff and six of his deputies, claiming false arrest, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution.  However, the court ruled against him on the grounds that the blood on Scott’s pants, the lie detector results, and his confession all were probable cause for his arrest.

Soon after this, the Banish family moved to Illinois, where Scott led a quiet, respectable life until his death in 2015.  As for his father, this was one of those cases where once the police lost their pet suspect, they simply threw up their hands and moved on to other crimes.  Edward’s unnervingly strange murder remains unsolved.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to the first Link Dump of May 2024!

We're still wondering:  "What the hell was Oumuamua?"

We're still wondering: "What the hell was the Dover Demon?"

We're still wondering: "Where the hell is the Mongolian Death Worm?"

Watch out for those blood-sucking Capelobos!

The days when you could take a hippie bus from London to Calcutta.

The grave of an unhappy civil servant.  (It veers into "libelous tombstone" territory.)

The end of Royal Navy muzzle-loaders.

Victorian "strawberry parties."

The children who remember past lives.

A newly-recovered account of Plato's final hours.

Orangutan, heal thyself.

The Persian king who humiliated ancient Rome.

54 years of Eurovision headlines.

The Baron who gave his name to Munchausen's Syndrome.

Murders at a health care facility.

The man who excelled at pushing peanuts with his nose.  Which just goes to show that we all have hidden talents.

Telephone girls and their shocking hairstyles.

How a ring helped identify a murder victim.

Contemporary reports of the Lusitania sinking.

The "underbelly" of Victorian Paris.

The first seeing eye dog.

The Dark Watchers of the Santa Lucia Mountains.

Crowning a dead May Queen.

The WWII spy who used leprosy to her advantage.

The gardeners of the British Parliament.

The Spring dance of German witches.

The letters of a British military wife in India.

The power of the pun.

Headline of the week:  Was Amelia Earhart eaten by giant crabs?

The birth of Pop-Tarts.

The birth of Penguin Books.

Common legal knowledge in 15th and 16th century England.

In praise of the history of words.

A prisoner of war in the House of Lords.

The first murderer to be caught using fingerprint evidence.

From doorstop to Stone of Destiny.

The time a man flew a B-47 under the Mackinaw Bridge.  Maybe.

In search of Hetty Green's heirs.

The first guidebook for American tourists.

A fake lawyer who won a real case.

The areas where WWI never ended.

The long-time mistress of Wilkie Collins.

An eccentric entrepreneur.

Why do we stop finding new music?  (Although I think most pop music made nowadays is unbearable, I do now listen to a lot of classical and Early Music, which I never did in my younger days. So I'm not sure if this article's premise is correct.)

A woman's mysterious death.

The New York City Army Cats.

A husband's revenge.

Science explains the "Pharaoh's curse."

The murder of a young woman.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a bizarre case of a missing person and a murder.  In the meantime, here's some early Nilsson.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This is another of what I call “mini-mysteries”--murder or missing-persons cases where there just isn’t enough information for a regular blog post.  This account of a “Missing 411”-style disappearance appeared in the Glens Falls “Post-Star,” November 15, 2017:

HORICON — Two years ago Wednesday, Thomas Messick Sr. vanished in the woods of Horicon while deer hunting with friends and relatives. And despite the thousands of hours dedicated to the search, it remains unclear what happened to Messick, whether he got lost in the woods, had a medical problem or was the victim of foul play. His son, Thomas Messick Jr. of Troy, said loved ones are hoping for some closure and remain as “perplexed” about what hap- pened as the professional and volunteer searchers who scoured the woods south of Brant Lake for weeks in November and December 2015.

“We’re still praying for answers,” he said. Messick Sr. was 82 when he disappeared Nov. 15, 2015 near Lily Pond in an area of state land that is part of the Lake George Wild Forest. Messick was supposed to remain in a stationary post while others in his party moved into the woods to push deer toward him and another hunter. When the group reassembled late that afternoon, Messick was not among them. The state Department of Environmental Conservation oversaw a massive search that went on for weeks, using dogs, helicopters and divers to check ponds in the remote area, to no avail. The DEC scaled back the effort to a “limited continuous search” after two months, in which local forest rangers and search-and-rescue teams will conduct spot searches and training exercises in the search area and nearby areas not previously searched. State Police Aviation helicopters and forest rangers also periodically checked the lands and waters in and around the search area, but no one has reported finding any sign of him or any of his belongings, including the rifle he carried.

The area is also popular with hunters, anglers and hikers, but no one who has been there in years since has reported finding anything that could be linked to Messick. 

“The search for Thomas Messick remains in limited continuous status since Jan. 20, 2016 after DEC forest rangers and others spent two months and more than 10,000 searcher hours seeking him to no avail,” DEC spokesman David Winchell wrote in an email. “Since that time, DEC forest rangers and others have periodically searched and conducted search training in and around the area where Mr. Messick went missing but have not found any sign of him.

“DEC asks hunters and others in the woods to report any possible signs of Mr. Messick or his belongings to the DEC Ray Brook dispatch at 518-897-1300.” 

Messick Jr., who was not among the family members hunting with Messick Sr. that day, said the family theorized that his father walked off and either had a medical problem (he had a history of heart issues) or got lost and settled in a spot behind a tree or rock where he couldn’t be found. The forest area also has some caves and crevices. 

“They had over 300 people a day in the woods for over two weeks,” Messick Jr. said. “They covered a lot of ground.” 

He said his father was an avid woodsman and hunter. 

“He was a hunter instructor for a lot of years, so he knew what to do,” his son said. 

The State Police continue to investigate an active missing persons case for Messick Sr., but the agency reported no new developments in its investigation as of this week. The disappearance was one of two unexplained missing persons cases in the region involving outdoorsmen in a matter of days in November 2015.

On Nov. 24, Fred “Fritzie” Drumm, 68, disappeared from his property on Burgoyne Road in the town of Saratoga. Police theorized he went for a walk on his 170-acre piece of land along Fish Creek, but no trace of him was found, either. Police do not believe the two cases were related.

To date, no trace of Messick has been found.  As far as I can tell, Drumm remains missing, as well.

The Return of Pavlova

Lady Eleanor Smith (1902-1945) was one of the “Bright Young Things,” the name given to the group of aristocrats and socialites who enlivened 1920s London society.  The Bohemian, eccentric Lady Eleanor had a short, but busy career as a society journalist, novelist, and circus publicist.

Lady Eleanor was a great admirer of the prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, who stars--sort of--in this passage from Smith’s 1939 memoir, “Life’s a Circus.”  If Smith’s story is to be believed, the legendary dancer made a brief, posthumous return to the stage, during a 1933 rehearsal of “Ballerina,” a play based on one of Smith’s novels.

Once, at a dress rehearsal at the Scala Theatre, something happened that made a profound impression upon my mind.  If I had been the only person to see what I saw, I should be willing to dismiss the whole matter as an illusion.  But I was not alone; Pat was with me and saw it too; Charles Landstone, our levelheaded business manager, was another witness; so was Hank; so was Hank’s manager, Ralph Glover.

It was about three o’clock in the morning, and the auditorium was dark and empty.  The five of us sat together in the dress circle watching the final rehearsal of the “Snowbird” ballet.  Pat had purposely put on his understudy, Freddy Franklin, because he wanted to watch, in complete concentration, Frances’ [actress Frances Doble] efforts as a dancer.

 

I have explained before that watching Pavlova from the side of the stage had inspired me to write “Ballerina.”  Had I not watched Pavlova so closely that day at Golders Green, the book would never have been written, although my heroine’s private life was, of course, pure fiction, borrowing nothing at all from the greatest ballerina of all.  At the same time, I think that Pavlova had either directly or indirectly inspired us all, and Pavlova was dead.  She had certainly inspired Pat, Frances, and myself.

The stage revolved to show a woodland glade with nymphs in white tartalan grouped in a traditional entrance.  Previously we had see Varsovina haggard and dejected in her dressing room, wrapped, shivering, in her shabby grey dressing gown.  Now, as we watched, a slight figure walked onto the stage.  A figure snow white in a fluffy tutu, its head bound with swans’ plumage.  The figure paused, crossing itself.  It seemed to me that Frances had grown much smaller.

Then, as it glided into the spotlight, I caught my breath.

For the figure was not that of Frances.  It had assumed the form of Anna Pavlova.

Pat gripped my hand until I thought he would break it.  I looked at him; he was ice pale, and there was sweat on his face.

He muttered:

“This is uncanny…it’s awful…What have we done?  Oh, God--why did we ever bring up the past?”

The white form on the stage stood effortlessly upon one pointe; it pirouetted three times--a thing Frances could not do--and drifted like swansdown into Borek’s arms as the curtain fell.  I looked again at my companions.  They were white and dazed.

Somebody mumbled:

“We’re all very tired…Don’t let’s imagine things…”

Somebody else said:

“We can’t all have seen--what we saw…”

Pat and I ran to the pass door.

We were afraid.

Frances stood there on the stage and said to Pat in a perplexed, mechanical voice:

“Pat, I’m sorry…Let’s take it again.”

“Take it again?  Why?”

“I couldn’t dance.  I must be awfully tired.  My mind suddenly seemed to go blank.  Will someone get me a glass of water?”

Pat gave me a warning look, and we said nothing at the time.

Later he affirmed:

“We can’t deny it.  For a moment, that particular spirit from the past took possession of Frances’ mind and body.”

I was silent, for at the time it occurred to me that what we had seen was an unfavorable omen.

Later on I mentioned this to Lydia Kyasht, who was playing with great charm in the prologue of our play.

Lydia grew white and said:

“I saw what you all saw.  I was in front--hidden away in the pit.  I saw it too…”

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Our host for this week's Link Dump is Edwin!

I know nothing more about him, but he was obviously quite a charmer.

What the hell is the Baltic Sea Anomaly?

Where the hell is Mata Hari's head?

Why you wouldn't want to encounter ancient Indian snakes.

I admit, I like this guy's flair for self-promotion.

The hoax that got Franklin Pierce accused of treason.

So, kids, don't mess with ancient mummies.  Or elephants.

Uncovering an ancient city in Tonga.

Some lost, stolen, and unreleased music.

A haunted Louisiana courthouse.

The horror at Hillcrest School.

Prisons that have unusual rules.

The death of the publishing industry.

The King and the Vasa Knife Incident.

That time when over 29,000 pizzas were buried alive.

Getting the obituary right.

A look at 16th century "Spittle Fields."

A look at England's 1604 Witchcraft Act.

One of the odder "lost civilization" theories.

The origins of "flash in the pan."

Celebrating Passover during the American Civil War.

The sort of items that were unclaimed in the Bombay Custom House in the mid 19th century.

The oldest curse word in the English language.

Related: The oldest writing in the English language.

Quaker women gone wild.

Why the U.S. was unprepared for the Battle of the Atlantic.

The belief that animals have consciousness.  I'd actually be shocked if they didn't.

A famed 18th century opera singer.

The oldest known example of Neanderthal culture.

What makes a castle?

Yet another marriage that ends in murder.

Portraits of 1920s Londoners.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a legendary ballerina's Fortean encore.  In the meantime, here's some Handel.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This curious little tale of a haunted park appeared in the “Atlanta Georgian,” May 25, 1912:

So many witches and ghosts flit and moan about and generally haunt Springvale park that T.L. Bond, of the Atlanta park commission, has today seriously advised his colleagues to drain the lake, plow up that stretch of land and sow it with salt to drive away the evil spirits, while W.L. Percy and J.H. Porter head petitioners who want the lake made over into a sunken garden. Perhaps the board will adopt Mr. Bond's suggestion. Anyway, its members are investigating his emphatic claim that hobgoblins can’t abide a salted field and if their probe shows that ghosts do really cavort o’ nights about that park, as many folk thereabouts avow, nobody need wonder at seeing a plowman plodding his way through one of the fairest strips of land in all Atlanta, nor marvel if, suddenly, the saline trust increases its prices.

Up to that time some years ago when a very good looking young woman hung herself to a tree that overhung its mirroring lake, Springvale park was one of the most loved recreation spots in Georgia. Nestling in the heart of Inman Park, it smiled up at the lording terraces at its sides and flowers laughed out from the grass that mantled its bosom. Down in the vale a clear, cool lakelet rippled in the sunbeams between the weeping willows that fringe its banks, and it was all so beautiful that bevies of little children played there all day along with squirrels and the birds of many brilliant hues. By daylight Springvale park seemed veritably the haunt of all the good fairies.

Then the girl came there, despondent, and killed herself above the lake, and after her came the ghosts and ghouls. It is still quite well remembered that she was a poor girl who had journeyed to Atlanta from some outlying town in a desperate hope that she would find work here and a chance to earn the honorable living that she craved. She found no work, and after many days when the last of her money was gone she made her way one evening to the dark pond of water in the heart of Springvale and took the life that she thought hopeless.

Next day, when they found her swinging from the tree limb, quite dead, frightened children who hovered fearfully about cried out that they saw her phantom floating in the lakelet beneath the tree.

Of course, that was the shadow of the girl's body cast upon the water, but it was terrible enough for little ones, and for weeks after that no children went to play in the park. Then residents of the Inman Park district caught the morbid infection. Many said they heard the whippoorwill singing in the park at dusk and that its cry sounded like the wail of a spirit damned. One or two, more timorous, began to tell about that those cries were not the whippoorwill's calls at all, but the plaints of ghosts that might be seen flitting dimly about above the shrubbery through the late hours on all dark nights.

The more practical residents thereabout laughed these tales to scorn, but they also had their complaint, and they took it to the park commission with a demand that the Springvale lake be drained to rid it of its suddenly acquired pest of frogs. The park board didn't drain it. They took the word of Joel Hurt, who built Inman Park, that there weren’t enough frogs to speak of. When Hurt, backed by Major Guinn, offered $1 for every wiggletail found in the lake the commissioners declined to investigate further any claim that Springvale reeks with pests. The board also accepted Mr. Hurt’s denial of another claim that mosquitoes had appeared. The sanitary commission did take action. It put oil on the lake surface to drive away the frogs, and for a time things were a bit more quiet. But a little later Inman Park residents began to see strange men lurking in the shadows. A burglary epidemic happened around there about that time, and those who weren't superstitious joined the police in the belief that that park had become a rendezvous for tramps.

But the ghost stories would not down. They have gained such credence among certain folk in that vicinity that children do not play as much in Springvale, even by day, as they used to before the despondent girl hanged herself to the tree there. The residents' disagree about the visitations, but complaints recur, and they have forced the matter up to the park board again, with the renewed demand that something strenuous be done to rid the place of the nuisances—whether they are ghostly or things in nature. Sorely puzzled, the commissioners have been casting about for a solution of the problem for weeks.

While they consider Mr. Bond's plan for a salt sowing they are also giving heed to a petition headed by W.L. Percy and J.H. Porter urging that the lake be drained and made over into a sunken garden. But Mr. Bond insists that the complaints of the superstitious will never be stopped until the saline sesame is employed, and more than one of the commissioners think the scheme, however silly, might not be a bad plan by way of winning the board some peace of mind.

Springvale Park still exists, but, thankfully, any ghosts it may once have had seem to be long gone. Maybe it was the salt.