If you could solve just one mystery....

[Ed Bass]

If you alone could find the definitive answer to one of the Golden Era's high profile mysteries which one would it be?

(To keep this simpler I'll confine this to the 20's, 30's and 40's so we don't get into the JFK and Marylin eras)

Would you choose:

Thomas Ince's suspicious death?
William Desmond Taylor's murder?
Thelma Todd's suspicious death?
The Black Dahlia murder?
Virginia Rappe's suspicious death?
Doheny murder/suicide at Greystone manor?
Paul Berne's cryptic suicide note?
George Reeves' suspicious death?

...the list goes on and on. I'm certain you will add more.

What would you choose to truly know if you could choose only one?

Best, Toots

 

[Mike in Seattle]

What about, who stole the Maltese Falcon from John's Grill in SF earlier this year?

 

[Quigley Brown]

What happened to Amelia Earhart???

 

[Starius]

The Lindbergh baby kidnapping!

 

[dhermann1]

Thelma Todd

Thelma Todd, definitely. What a terrific talent she was. She'd be as well known today as Carole Lombard if she'd lived longer. She owned a very popular nightclub in Hollywood that the mob wanted to move in on. She refused to play ball. She was found dead in her car, in the garage with the motor running, an "apparent suicide". The LA police were as dirty as they come in those days. A lousy rotten murder of a fabulous lady.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The fate of Judge Joseph F. Crater, a New York Supreme Court justice who got into a taxicab one summer night in 1930, and was never seen or heard from again. Done in by the mob? Ducked off to start a new life under a false name? Abducted by aliens? Nobody knows for sure.

The fate -- and for that matter, the true identity of -- Wallace D. Fard, founder of the Nation Of Islam, who was last seen alive in Detroit in 1934. No trace of him was ever found.

 

[ScionPI2005]

Well, from your list I would have to say the Black Dahlia murder; that case has actually been a minor obsession of mine since I started training as an investigator, and actually for a short while before that. I would also like to truly be there and investigate the Torso Killings in Cleveland; would be interesting to see Elliott Ness in person. Not to get too far into metaphysical things here, but I really do sometimes wonder if I was a gumshoe back in the 30's and 40's in my last life; that whole era and detective work from back then just seems to strike a chord in my heart somewhere.

Course, this isn't a specific criminally related topic, but I would also like to see how organized crime worked with my own eyes back in the depression. Though not enough to get me killed, mind you...

 

[Twitch]

OK during that time the Giza pyramids were the targets of continuing explorarion and conjecture on their construction-

With a lull after the 1890s UFO sightings increased exponentially in the 1940s-

I'd like to know the skinny on either mystery.

 

[carter]

I have to vote with QB on the fate of Amelia Earhart as.

How about this one in Alaska in 1930:
In November, 1930, a fur trapper named Joe Labelle made his way on snow shoes to an Eskimo village on the shores of Lake Anjikuni in northern Canada. Labelle was familiar with the village, which he knew as a thriving fishing community of about 2,000 residents. When he arrived, however, the village was deserted. All of the huts and storehouses were vacant. He found one smoldering fire on which there was a pot of blackened stew. Labelle notified the authorities and an investigation was begun, and which turned up some bizarre findings: no footprints of any of the residents were found, if they had vacated the village; all of the Eskimos’ sled dogs were found buried under a 12-foot-high snow drift - they had all starved to death; all of the Eskimos’ food and provisions were found undisturbed in their huts. And there was one last unnerving discovery: the Eskimos’ ancestral graves had been emptied.

Or this in 1915 (5 years outside the parameters but...)
Three soldiers claimed to be witnesses to the bizarre disappearance of an entire battalion in 1915. They finally came forward with the strange story 50 years after the infamous Gallipoli campaign of WWI. The three members of a New Zealand field company said they watched from a clear vantage point as a battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment marched up a hillside in Suvla Bay, Turkey. The hill was shrouded in a low-lying cloud that the English soldiers marched straight into without hesitation. They never came out. After the last of the battalion had entered the cloud, it slowly lifted off the hillside to join other clouds in the sky. When the war was over, figuring the battalion had been captured and held prisoner, the British government demanded that Turkey return them. The Turks insisted, however, that it had neither captured not made contact with these English soldiers.

There is one that involves the unsolved murder of a high school classmate of mine but it occurred in 1967. Her twin brother is haunted by it to this day.

 

[Gideon Ashe]

I have to admit that I do get bored lately. A non-occupational habit of old men who "usta be" on the playing field.

I would happily accept any officially sanctioned investigation to play with, but given my druthers, I would much prefer to joust against the procurment and domestic infrastructure networks (here in the USA) of AlQ or Iran, or WAIT,...better than that; conduct a "complete" and "unedited" investigation of the death of Vincent Foster.

Would THAT not place the old and hungry Fox in the Coop.lol lol lol lol lol

 

[Haversack]

My vote would be for uncovering and publicizing the names of the industrialists who tried to recruit retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler to lead a military coup against President Roosevelt in 1934.

Haversack.

 

[Ed Bass]

carter,
This Alaska story has all the elements of of a terrific mystery! I have not heard of this before but you've peaked my curiosity and I will seek out more info on this one. Thanks!

ScionPI2005,
I have to agree. The Dahlia murder would probably top everyone's list. Just too many weird things going on there to ever forget it once you've heard the sordid details. Any investigator worth his oats must have pondered endless hours over that one. Who knows?....maybe you'll be the one.

dhermann1,
I have a close affinity with you on the loss of Thelma Todd. I have studied this case at length. Because of my relatively close proximity to the area, I have been able to visit the notorious sites involved. You'd be surprised how little the places have changed in 72 years. It's unusual for the greater Los Angeles area to let anying stand undisturbed for this many years. Remarkably, the building that housed Ms. Todd's nightclub (Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe) and apartments still stands today on Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Pallisades, as well as the mansion on the hill behind and the actual garage where her body was found in her Lincoln. The garage is in almost identical condition to that period in time. I have pictures of the places involved. I will dig through my cache to locate them and post them here if you like. If you're ever out this way I'd be glad to take you out to the places for a personal visit.
I've always thought it would be great to have a group of interested (sympathetic?) people meet there in the wee hours of the morning every December 16th. Interested?

Best, Toots

 

[Teekay44]

Amelia Earhart definitely.

Here's what the RCMP says about Lake Anjkuni
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/history/anjikuni_e.htm

Also some on the 1/5 Norfolk
http://www.thecryptmag.com/Online/38/VanishedBattalion.html
http://user.online.be/~snelders/sand.htm

 

[Ed Bass]

Well then.....

There's two mysteries accounted for. lol

Thanks for the update.

Best, Toots

 

[Big Man]

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart would get my vote.

 

[dhermann1]

On one of those hokey shows that purport to relate "true" stories of the unexplained, they told a story of a pioneer in the west whose wagon had gotten lost, his family were dying of thirst. He walked over a hill into 1959, and right into a gas station. He got water and went back to his family and they continued on their trek west. Where did they come up with this allegedly "true" story? It was a Twilight Zone episode (starring Cliff Robertson, as I recall). A lot of these urban legends, when run to ground, turn out to be absolute fabrications, i.e., lies. Like the story of Charles Darwin renouncing the theory of evolution on his deathbed. To put it simply, a made up lie.
BTW, I think the theme of his thread was "VINTAGE" mysteries, so maybe we could drop the current events. That's a story for a different web site.

 

[HadleyH]

If you alone could find the definitive answer to one of the Golden Era's high profile mysteries which one would it be?





Thomas Ince's suspicious death?

That one!!!!!! without any doubt in my mind that's the one I'd love to know. Who kill Thomas Ince. Was it really WR??? If not,then how did he die?

btw, they even made a movie out of this mystery, it's called 'The Cat's Meow'(2001) directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

 

[The Wingnut]

10 years ago, the Earhart mystery would have been at the top of the list on this category, but it seems the case is drawing to a close. The next logical step in solving her disappearance will likely be to scour the depths past the drop-off of the volcanic shelf at Gardner Island for the wreckage of the Electra...even small parts of the customized Electra will confirm the now common belief that Earhart and Noonan crash landed on the reef at Gardner Island at low tide and were able to transmit when the plane was out of the water by running one engine to generate power.

 

[Miss Brill]

The Black Dahlia. That is legend, up there with Lizzie Borden & Jack the Ripper, the other cases lack that kind of appeal. Elizabeth Short's looks, and seedy/mysterious life made that case famous, had she been more mundane, like Jean Spangler, she would have been forgotten.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

The William Desmond Taylor murder.

http://silent-movies.com/Taylorology/

Was it about Mabel & drug dealers?

Or Mary & her evil mother?