THE VANISHED HOUSEWIFE

On January 25, 1949, a tragic disappearance occurred in the city of Philadelphia. Although I had no connections to the event, other than a sad interest in it, the story that I wrote about it went on to become one of the most controversial of my writing career. 

As some readers know, I’ve always had an interest in unsolved disappearances. But the case of Dorothy Forstein is among the saddest of these stories and is also one of the most unusual in the annals of American crime. To this day, her disappearance has never been solved and strangely, the case was dropped from newspapers within a week after she vanished. Numerous attempts have been made to remove this case from the history books in recent years, but weird, tantalizing details still remain. 

Dorothy Forstein

Dorothy Forstein vanished from her Philadelphia home in 1949, having been married nine years to her childhood sweetheart, Jules Forstein, who was a clerk for the Philadelphia City Council at the time of the wedding. Dorothy was a happy, outgoing young woman and she became the devoted mother of two children, Marcy, an infant, and Merna, age ten, who were children from Jules’ first marriage. His wife had died in childbirth not long before he and Dorothy had become reacquainted. Their marriage was a happy one and Forstein’s professional life began to prosper when he was made a magistrate in 1943. Another child, Edward, was born a short time later.

The Forsteins’ idyllic life was shattered on January 25, 1945. Dorothy left the children with neighbors and went out to do some shopping. She reportedly joked with the butcher and chatted with friends as she went about her errands. Later, her neighbor saw her return home and thought that someone was with her, or walking behind her, as she made her way through the late evening shadows to her front door. It was getting dark and the neighbor, Maria Townley, admitted that she didn’t look closely at the man who was behind her. It was a safe neighborhood and she never imagined that Dorothy was in trouble.

Just as Dorothy was entering her three-story brick home, the stranger-- or whomever it might have been that Mrs. Townley saw-- jumped out of the darkness at her. He began beating her with his fists and some sort of blunt instrument. Dorothy fell to the ground and was pounded into unconsciousness. As she tumbled into the house, her arm dislodged the hall telephone. In those days of live operators, the voice on the other end of the line heard the commotion and quickly summoned the police. The attacker fled at the sound of approaching sirens.

Police officers arrived moments later and found a battered Dorothy on the floor of the hallway. She had suffered a broken jaw, a shattered nose, a fractured shoulder and a brain concussion. She was rushed to the hospital and when she awakened, she could only weakly explain that “someone jumped out at me. I couldn’t see who it was. He just hit me and hit me.”

Investigators labeled the attack an attempted murder and Captain James A. Kelly of the Philadelphia Homicide Division began trying to put the pieces together. He concluded that it could only have been someone trying to kill Dorothy since no money, jewelry or anything else had been taken from the Forstein home. Jules Forstein himself was investigated but he had an unimpeachable alibi and the children were too young to have been involved. The case was complicated by the fact that Dorothy had no known enemies and in fact, was one of the most well-liked residents in the neighborhood. The most prevalent theory for the police investigators was that the attacker might have been someone who had appeared in court before Forstein and had assaulted Dorothy for revenge. Every possible lead was investigated but no arrests were ever made.

Dorothy recovered from her injuries but was so shaken by the incident that she was never the same again. Her happy and carefree personality was gone, replaced by an anxious woman who was nervous and upset, jumping at every noise in the house and checking and rechecking the locks on the doors and windows. She was sure that someone was out to get her - but who?

Jules Forstein was perplexed. He was sure that no one with whom he had come into contact as a magistrate would bear him enough of a grudge to hurt his wife or his family, and yet he could not explain Dorothy’s attack. He seldom left his wife and children alone but on the night of October 18, 1949, he made plans to attend a political banquet. As he was leaving the office, he called his wife to check on her, explaining that he didn’t plan to be home too late.

Dorothy replied that everything was fine at home and she joked with him for a moment, finally seeming more like her old self. “Be sure to miss me!” she reportedly said just as she was hanging up. Tragically, her words would turn out to be prophetic ones.

Around 11:30 p.m., Forstein came home to be greeted by the wails of his two youngest children, Edward and Marcy. They were huddled on the floor, crying and shrieking. Their sister, Merna, was staying at a friend’s house and Dorothy was nowhere to be found. Forstein quickly discovered that the children were crying because their mother was gone!

While surprised that she would have left the children at home by themselves, Forstein assumed that Dorothy was visiting with friends or neighbors. He telephoned for several hours and no one had seen her. Finally, he called Captain Kelly again and the detective soon started his men checking hospitals, morgues and hotels all over Philadelphia. They worked frantically but no clues were discovered. Kelly went door-to-door in the neighborhood but no one had seen anything unusual. Wherever she was, Dorothy had left her purse, money and keys at home. The front door to the house had been locked.

The only lead came from nine-year-old Marcy Forstein, but her story was so wild that detectives at first dismissed it as nothing more than a child’s frightened and overactive imagination. She told Captain Kelly that she had been awakened and had left her room to see a man coming up the stairs. He went into her mother’s room. The door was cracked open and Marcy stated that she could see Dorothy lying face down on the rug. “She looked sick,” the little girl offered.

Then, the man, who she described as wearing a brown hat and brown jacket with something sticking out of the pocket, picked up her mother and put her over his shoulder. Dorothy was wearing red silk pajamas and red slippers at the time. Marcy asked the man what he was doing. He patted her on the head and replied: “Go back to sleep, little one, your mommy has been sick, but she will be all right now.”

The man carried Dorothy downstairs and out the front door. He locked the door behind him and vanished. Marcy awakened her brother and they waited together for their father, who arrived home about fifteen minutes later. The little girl told the detectives that she had never seen the man before and had no idea who he was.

As bizarre as the story sounded, it was the only possible explanation the police had for Dorothy’s disappearance. Nothing was disturbed in the house. There was no sign of a struggle and also no indication that anyone else had been there. There was not a single fingerprint in the house that did not belong and the investigators wondered how a man could have walked down the street with a woman in pajamas over his shoulder without someone noticing. And how had he gotten into the locked house anyway? It seemed impossible that the girl’s story could be true and yet it had to be. If no one had spirited the young woman away, then where had she gone? If she had walked away on her own, why had she not taken her purse or keys with her?

Dorothy Forstein was never seen again. There were no leads, no suspects and no explanations as to who might have taken her or why. Newspapers all over the country, especially in Pennsylvania, carried stories about her disappearance and possible kidnapping and then, by the end of October, the story largely disappeared, just as Dorothy had done. She simply vanished - gone without a trace.

For decades, no further word of Dorothy Forstein appeared in print. Then, in 2003, I featured the story of Dorothy Forstein on my website and soon after, I received a letter from an attorney from the Forstein family asking if the story could be removed. The letter was not threatening. It merely made an appeal for the privacy of the family members and asked if I would consider removing it from the internet out of consideration for their grief. I agreed to do so and I later learned that several sites that had also featured my article on the disappearance had received a similar letter.

Why the secrecy about a fifty-year-old disappearance? No one could say and to this day, no one is talking. I have never heard anything else about this mysterious case and there has been no further contact with anyone about it. After all of those years, the 2003 attention to the case of the missing housewife is almost as mysterious as the original vanishing – and neither is likely to ever be solved.

Read more about unsolved vanishings in my book Without a Trace, available as a Kindle edition or in print on the Whitechapel Press website. 

THE MAD BOMBER

On this date in 1957, suspected “Mad Bomber” George Metesky, accused of planting more than 30 explosive devices in the New York City area since 1940, was arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut. The arrest ended a 16-year campaign of terror with bombs being left in train stations, libraries, offices, phone booths, storage lockers, public restrooms and even the New York City subway. Most notably, Metesky bomber theaters, where he cut into seat upholstery and left explosive devices inside. Angry and resentful after a workplace injury that he’s suffered years earlier, the strange little man began making bombs that ended up injuring 15 people – and terrorizing the city. What drove him to his bizarre and bitter acts? And why did he end up in an insane asylum when it was all over?

"Mad Bomber" George Metesky

Shortly after World War I, Metesky joined the U.S. Marines, serving as a specialist electrician at the United States Consulate in Shanghai. Returning home, he went to work as a mechanic for Consolidated Edison utility company and lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, with his two unmarried sisters. In 1931, a boiler backfired and produced a blast of hot gases. Metesky was knocked down and fumes filled his lungs. The accident left him disabled and, after collecting 26 weeks of sick pay, he lost his job. The fumes caused him to contract pneumonia, which developed into tuberculosis. A claim for workers' compensation was denied because he waited too long to file it. Three appeals of the denial were also rejected, the last in 1936. He developed a hatred for the company's attorneys and for the three co-workers whose testimony in his compensation case he believed was perjured in favor of the company. Out of revenge, he planted his first bomb on November 16, 1940, leaving it on a window sill at the Consolidated Edison power plant on West 64th Street in Manhattan.

Metesky's first bomb was crude, a short length of brass pipe filled with gunpowder, with an ignition mechanism made of sugar and flashlight batteries. Enclosed in a wooden toolbox and left on the window sill, it was found before it could go off. It was wrapped in a note written in distinctive block letters and signed "F.P.", stating CON EDISON CROOKS – THIS IS FOR YOU.

In September 1941, a bomb with a similar ignition mechanism was found lying in the street about five blocks away from the Consolidated Edison headquarters building at 4 Irving Place. This one had no note, and was also a dud. Police theorized that the bomber might have spotted a police officer and dropped the bomb without setting its fuse.

Shortly after the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the police received a letter in block capital letters:

I WILL MAKE NO MORE BOMB UNITS FOR THE DURATION OF THE WAR – MY PATRIOTIC FEELINGS HAVE MADE ME DECIDE THIS – LATER I WILL BRING THE CON EDISON TO JUSTICE – THEY WILL PAY FOR THEIR DASTARDLY DEEDS... F.P.

True to his word, Metesky planted no bombs between 1941 and 1951, choosing instead to send crank letters and postcards to police stations, newspapers, private citizens and Con Edison. Investigators studying the penciled, block-lettered messages noted that the letters G and Y had an odd shape, possibly indicating a European education. The long hiatus since the last bomb and the improved construction techniques of the first new bomb led investigators to believe that the bomber had served in the military.

The first two bombs had drawn little attention, but the string of random bombings that began in 1951 frayed the city's nerves and taxed the resources of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Metesky often placed warning calls to the buildings where he had planted bombs, but would not specify the bomb's exact location; he wrote to newspapers warning that he planned to plant more. Some bombs came with notes, but the note never revealed a motive, or a reason for choosing that particular location. Metesky's bombs were gunpowder-filled pipe bombs, ranging in size from four to ten inches long and from one-half inch to two inches in diameter. Most used timers constructed from flashlight batteries and cheap pocket watches. Investigators at bomb sites learned to look for a wool sock – Metesky used these to transport the bombs and sometimes to hang them from a rail or projection.

For his new wave of bombings, Metesky mainly chose public buildings as targets, bombing several of them multiple times. Bombs were left in phone booths, storage lockers and restrooms in public buildings including Grand Central Terminal (five times), Pennsylvania Station (five times), Radio City Music Hall (three times), the New York Public Library (twice), the Port Authority Bus Terminal (twice) and the RCA Building, as well as in the New York City Subway. Perhaps most notably, Metesky bombed movie theaters, where he cut into seat upholstery and slipped his explosive devices inside.

On March 29, 1951 was the first Metesky bomb of the new wave, and also the first Metesky bomb to explode, startling commuters in Grand Central Terminal but injuring no one. It had been dropped into a sand urn near the Oyster Bar on the terminal's lower level. In April, Metesky's next bomb exploded without injury in a telephone booth in the New York Public Library; in August a phone-booth bomb exploded without injury at Grand Central. Metesky next planted a bomb that exploded without injury in a phone booth at the Consolidated Edison headquarters building at 4 Irving Place. He also mailed one bomb, which did not explode, to Consolidated Edison from White Plains, New York.

On October 22, the New York Herald Tribune received a letter in penciled block letters, stating

BOMBS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE CONSOLIDATED EDISON COMPANY IS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE FOR THEIR DASTARDLY ACTS AGAINST ME. I HAVE EXHAUSTED ALL OTHER MEANS. I INTEND WITH BOMBS TO CAUSE OTHERS TO CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE FOR ME.

The letter directed police to the Paramount Theater in Times Square, where a bomb was discovered and disabled, and to a telephone booth at Pennsylvania Station where nothing was found.

On November 28, a coin-operated locker at the IRT 14th Street subway station was bombed, without injury. Near the end of the year, the Herald Tribune received another letter, warning:

HAVE YOU NOTICED THE BOMBS IN YOUR CITY – IF YOU ARE WORRIED, I AM SORRY – AND ALSO IF ANYONE IS INJURED. BUT IT CANNOT BE HELPED – FOR JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED. I AM NOT WELL, AND FOR THIS I WILL MAKE THE CON EDISON SORRY – YES, THEY WILL REGRET THEIR DASTARDLY DEEDS – I WILL BRING THEM BEFORE THE BAR OF JUSTICE – PUBLIC OPINION WILL CONDEMN THEM – FOR BEWARE, I WILL PLACE MORE UNITS UNDER THEATER SEATS IN THE NEAR FUTURE. F.P.

On March 1952, a bomb exploded in a phone booth at the Port Authority Bus Terminal without causing injury. In June and again in December bombs exploded in seats at the Lexington Avenue Loew's theater. The December bombing injured one person, and was the first Metesky bomb to cause injury. Police had asked the newspapers not to print any of the bomber's letters and to play down earlier bombings, but by now the public was becoming aware that a "Mad Bomber" was on the loose.

In 1953, Bombs exploded in seats at Radio City Music Hall and at the Capitol Theater, with no injuries. A bomb again exploded near the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal, this time in a coin-operated rental locker, again with no injuries. Police described this bomb as the homemade product of a "publicity-seeking jerk.” An unexploded bomb was found in a rental locker at Pennsylvania Station.

A bomb wedged behind a sink in a Grand Central Terminal men's room exploded in March 1954, slightly injuring three men. A bomb planted in a phone booth at the Port Authority Bus Terminal exploded with no injuries. Another bomb was discovered in a phone booth that was removed from Pennsylvania Station for repair. As a capacity Radio City Music Hall audience of 6,200 watched Bing Crosby's White Christmas on November 7, a bomb stuffed into the bottom cushion of a seat in the 15th row exploded, injuring four patrons. The explosion was muffled by the heavy upholstery, and only those nearby heard it. While the film continued, the injured were escorted to the facility's first-aid room and about 50 people in the immediate area were moved to the back of the theater. After the film and the following stage show concluded an hour-and-a-half later, the police roped off 150 seats in the area of the explosion and began the search for evidence.

In 1955, a bomb exploded without injuries on the platform at the IRT Sutter Avenue subway station in Brooklyn. A bomb hung beneath a phone booth shelf exploded on the main floor of Macy's department store, with no injuries. Two bombs exploded without injuries at Pennsylvania Station, one in a rental locker and one in a phone booth. A bomb was found at Radio City Music Hall after a warning phone call.

At the Roxy Theater, a bomb dropped out of a slashed seat onto an upholsterer's workbench without exploding.  A seat bomb exploded at the Paramount Theater; one patron was struck on the shoe by bomb fragments but disclaimed injury. Investigators discovered a small penknife pushed inside the seat, one of several found at theater seat bombings. They theorized that the bomber left his knives behind in case he was stopped and questioned. In December, a bomb exploded without injuries in a Grand Central men's-room stall.

The bombings continued in 1956. A 74-year-old men's-room attendant at Pennsylvania Station was seriously injured when a bomb in a toilet bowl exploded. A young man had reported an obstruction and the attendant tried to clear it using a plunger. Among the porcelain fragments, investigators found a watch frame and a wool sock. A guard at the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center discovered a piece of pipe about five inches long in a telephone booth. A second guard thought it might be useful in a plumbing project and took it home on the bus to New Jersey, where it exploded on his kitchen table early the next morning. No one was injured. A December 2 bombing at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn left six of the theater's 1,500 occupants injured, one seriously, and drew tremendous news coverage and editorial attention. The next day, Police Commissioner Stephen P. Kennedy ordered what he called the "greatest manhunt in the history of the Police Department."

On December 24, a clerk at the New York Public Library discovered a maroon-colored sock held to the underside of the shelf by a magnet. The sock contained an iron pipe with a threaded cap on each end. After consulting with other employees, he threw the device out a window into Bryant Park, bringing the bomb squad and more than 60 NYPD police officers and detectives to the scene. In a letter to the New York Journal American the next month, Metesky said that the Public Library bomb, as well as one discovered later the same week inside a seat at the Times Square Paramount, had been planted months before

Metesky was arrested in January 1957, but his bombs continued to be found. Eight months later, a explosive device was discovered at the Lexington Avenue Loew's Theater by an upholsterer repairing a recently vandalized seat. It was the last of the three bombs Metesky said he had planted there. The first two had exploded, one in June 1952 and one in December 1952, with the December explosion resulting in one injury.

Tracking down Metesky had required some pretty amazing police work. Throughout the investigation, detectives were convinced that the bomber was a former Con Edison employee with a grudge against the company. Con Edison employment records were reviewed, but there were hundreds of other leads, tips and crank letters to be followed up on. Detectives ranged far and wide, checking lawsuit records, mental hospital admissions, vocational schools where bomb parts might be made. Citizens turned in neighbors who behaved oddly, and co-workers who seemed to know too much about bombs. Everything had to be checked. A new group, the Bomb Investigation Unit, was formed to work on nothing but bomber leads.

It was one of the first American cases that leaned heavily on a criminal profile. Fingerprint experts, handwriting experts, the bomb investigation unit and other NYPD groups worked with dedication but made little progress. With traditional police methods seemingly useless against Metesky's erratic bombing campaign, police captain John Cronin approached his friend Dr. James Brussel, a criminologist, psychiatrist, and assistant commissioner of the New York State Commission for Mental Hygiene. Captain Cronin asked Brussel to meet with Inspector Howard E. Finney, head of the NYPD's Crime Laboratory.

In his office with Finney and two detectives, Brussel examined the crime-scene photos and letters and discussed the bomber's metal-working and electrical skills. As he talked with the police, Brussel developed what he called a kind of "portrait" of the bomber, what would now be called an offender profile. The bomber's belief that he had been wronged by Consolidated Edison and by others acting in concert with Consolidated Edison seemed to dominate his thoughts, leading Brussel to conclude that the bomber was suffering from paranoia, a condition he describes as "a chronic disorder of insidious development, characterized by persistent, unalterable, systematized, logically constructed delusions." Based on the evidence and his own experience dealing with psychotic criminals, Brussel put forth a number of theories beyond the obvious grudge against Consolidated Edison:

1. The bomber was male (fit historically)

2. Well-proportioned and average build (based on studies of hospitalized mental patients)

3. 40-50 years old (paranoia develops slowly)

4. Precise, neat and tidy (based on handwriting and bomb building)

5. Good employee, on time and well-behaved

6. A Slav, since bombs were favored in Middle Europe and also Catholic

7. Well-educated, but no college

8. Foreign-born or living in ethnic community (phrasing of letters)

9. Sex issues (likely with older female relative)

10. Loner, no friends, little interest in women, likely a virgin

11. Because of where letters were posted, lived between New York City and Connecticut

Brussel additionally predicted to his visitors that when the bomber was caught, he would be wearing a double-breasted suit, buttoned.

Although the police policy had been to keep the bomber investigation low-key, Brussel convinced them to heavily publicize the profile, predicting that any wrong assumption made in it would prod the bomber to respond. Under the headline "16-Year Search for a Madman", the New York Times version of the profile summarized the major predictions:

Single man, between 40 and 50 years old, introvert. Unsocial but not anti-social. Skilled mechanic. Cunning. Neat with tools. Egotistical of mechanical skill. Contemptuous of other people. Resentful of criticism of his work but probably conceals resentment. Moral. Honest. Not interested in women. High school graduate. Expert in civil or military ordnance. Religious. Might flare up violently at work when criticized. Possible motive: discharge or reprimand. Feels superior to critics. Resentment keeps growing. Present or former Consolidated Edison worker. Probably case of progressive paranoia.

Newspapers published the profile on December 25, 1956, alongside the story of the so-called "Christmas Eve" bomb discovered in the Public Library. By the end of the month, bomb hoaxes and false confessions had risen to epidemic proportions. At the peak of the hysteria on December 28, police received over 50 false bomb alarms, over 20 the next day.

The day after the profile was published, the New York Journal American published an open letter, prepared in cooperation with the police, urging the bomber to give himself up. The newspaper promised a "fair trial" and offered to publish his grievances. Metesky wrote back the next day, signing his letter "F.P.". He said that he would not be giving himself up, and revealed a wish to "bring the Con. Edison to justice". He listed all the locations where he had placed bombs that year, and seemed concerned that perhaps not all had been discovered. Later in the letter he said that his days were numbered, but that he would continue to strike “even from my grave.”

After some editing by the police, the newspaper published Metesky's letter on January 10, along with another open letter asking him for more information about his grievances. Metesky's second letter provided some details about the materials used in the bombs (he favored pistol powder, as "shotgun powder has very little power"), promised a bombing "truce" until at least March 1, and wrote "I was injured on job at Consolidated Edison plant – as a result I am adjudged – totally and permanently disabled", going on to say that he had had to pay his own medical bills and that Consolidated Edison had blocked his workers' compensation case. After police editing, the newspaper published his letter on January 15 and asked the bomber for "further details and dates" about his compensation case so that a new and fair hearing could be held.

Metesky's third letter was received by the newspaper on Saturday, January 19. The letter complained of lying unnoticed for hours on "cold concrete" after his injury without any first aid being rendered, then developing pneumonia and later tuberculosis. The letter added details about his lost compensation case and the "perjury" of his co-workers, and gave the date of his injury, September 5, 1931. The letter suggested that if he did not have a family that would be "branded" by his giving himself up, he might consider doing so to get his compensation case reopened.

Con Edison clerk Alice Kelly had read the Christmas Day profile and for days had been scouring company workers' compensation files for employees with a serious health problem. On Friday, January 18, 1957, while searching the final batch of "troublesome" worker's compensation case files – those where threats were made or implied – she found a file marked in red with the words "injustice" and "permanent disability", words that had been printed in the Journal American. The file indicated that one George Metesky, an employee from 1929 to 1931, had been injured in a plant accident on September 5, 1931. Several letters from Metesky in the file used wording similar to the letters in the Journal American, including the phrase "dastardly deeds".

The police were notified that evening, but initially, it was treated as just “one of a number” of leads. But the Waterbury police were asked to do a discreet check of Metesky’s house. Further investigation was carried out with the Con Edison files and when the injury date given in the bomber's third letter matched George Metesky's accident date, police knew they had their man. Accompanied by Waterbury police, four NYPD detectives arrived at Metesky's home with a search warrant shortly before midnight on Monday, January 21, 1957. They asked him for a handwriting sample, and to make a letter G. He made the G, looked up and said, "I know why you fellows are here. You think I'm the Mad Bomber." The detectives asked what "F.P." stood for, and he responded, "F.P. stands for Fair Play."

He led them to the garage workshop, where they found his lathe. Back in the house they found pipes and connectors suitable for bombs hidden in the pantry, as well as three cheap pocket watches, flashlight batteries, brass terminal knobs, and unmatched wool socks of the type used to transport the bombs. Metesky had answered the door in pajamas; after he was ordered to get dressed for the trip to Waterbury Police Headquarters, he reappeared wearing a double-breasted suit, buttoned – just as Dr. Brussel had predicted.

During his interrogation, Metesky admitted to everything. He told detectives that he had placed 32 bombs. He was indicted by a grand jury on 47 charges – of attempted murder, damaging a building by explosion, maliciously endangering life, and violation of New York State's Sullivan Law by carrying concealed weapons, the bombs. Seven counts of attempted murder were charged, based on the seven persons injured in the preceding five years, the statute of limitations in the case. Metesky was brought to the courtroom to hear the charges from Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, where he had been undergoing psychiatric examination.

After hearing from psychiatric experts, Judge Samuel S. Liebowitz declared Metesky a paranoid schizophrenic, "hopeless and incurable both mentally and physically," and found him legally insane and incompetent to stand trial. On April 18, 1957, Judge Liebowitz committed Metesky to the Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Beacon, New York.

Expected to live only a few weeks due to his advanced tuberculosis, Metesky had to be carried into the hospital. After a year and a half of treatment, his health had improved, and a newspaper article written fourteen years later described the 68-year-old Metesky as "vigorous and healthy looking.”

While he was at Matteawan, the Journal American hired a leading workers' compensation attorney to appeal his disallowed claim for the 1931 injury, on the grounds that Metesky was mentally incompetent at the time and did not know his rights. The appeal was denied.

Metesky was unresponsive to psychiatric therapy, but was a model inmate and caused no trouble. He was visited regularly by his sisters and occasionally by Dr. Brussel, to whom he would point out that he had deliberately built his bombs not to kill anyone.

In 1973, the “Mad Bomber” case took a strange turn when the United States Supreme Court ruled that a mentally ill defendant cannot be committed to a hospital operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services unless a jury finds him dangerous. Since Metesky had been committed to Matteawan without a jury trial, he was transferred to the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, a state hospital outside the correctional system. Doctors determined that he was harmless, and because he had already served two-thirds of the 25-year maximum sentence he would have received at trial, Metesky was released on December 13, 1973. The single condition was that he make regular visits to a Connecticut Department of Mental Hygiene clinic near his home.

Interviewed by a reporter upon his release, he said that he had forsworn violence, but reaffirmed his anger and resentment toward Consolidated Edison. He also stated that before he began planting his bombs, “I wrote 900 letters to the Mayor, to the Police Commissioner, to the newspapers, and I never even got a penny postcard back. Then I went to the newspapers to try to buy advertising space, but all of them turned me down. I was compelled to bring my story to the public.”

And he certainly did that…

Metesky returned to his home in Waterbury, where he died 20 years later at the age of 90.

POE’S BIRTHDAY TOASTER

This date marks not only the birthday of American macabre writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe but it also marks the tradition of what was known for many years as the “Poe Toaster.” It was an unofficial nickname given to a mysterious person (or more probably two persons in succession, possibly father and son) who, for over seventy years, paid an annual tribute to Poe by vising his grave in the early morning hours of Poe’s January 19 birthday. The shadowy figure, dressed in black with a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf, would pour himself a glass of cognac and raise a toast to Poe's memory, then vanish into the night, leaving three roses in a distinctive arrangement and the unfinished bottle of cognac. Poe fans gathered every year in hopes of getting a glimpse of the Toaster, who never sought publicity and was rarely seen or photographed.

According to accounts, and notes that accompanied later tributes, the original Toaster began making the original visitations in the 1930s and they continued until his death in 1998. After that, the tradition was passed on – but to who? Some said that it was the original toasters son, others called him a clever imitator. Controversial statements were left in some notes by the post-1998 Toaster and in 2006, attempts were made to detain and identify him. But then in 2009, the visits stopped on the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth and has not returned since.

Who was this mysterious character? Why did he begin his strange, annual ritual? And will he ever return? Answers to those questions may be as puzzling as some of the mystery stories that were penned by the man who gravesite was honored for seven decades…

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, who lived a troubled life and never achieved the fame that he would in death, died under mysterious circumstances on October 7, 1849. The Poe Toaster tradition began in the 1930s. Each year, in the early morning hours of January 19, a black-clad figure, face obscured by a scarf or hood, carrying a silver-tipped cane, entered the Westminster Burying Ground in Baltimore. Poe had been buried in what was the Western Burial Ground at the time of his death, but his body was later moved from the back of the cemetery to a more prominent location near the cemetery gates. The Toaster, however, always visited the stone that marked the original site of Poe’s burial. When he reached the stone, he would raise a cognac toast and place three red roses on the monument in a distinctive configuration, along with the unfinished bottle of cognac. The roses were believed to represent Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, all three of whom were originally interred at the site.

On several occasions, the Toaster left a note along with the roses and cognac. Some notes were simple expressions of devotion, such as "Edgar, I haven't forgotten you." In 1993, a cryptic message stated, "The torch will be passed." In 1999, a note announced that the original Toaster had died the previous year and had passed the tradition to "a son." Subsequent eyewitnesses noted that the post-1998 Toaster appeared to be a younger individual.

The identity of the man was an intriguing mystery for years. Many people, including Jeff Jerome, the curator of the nearby Edgar Allan Poe house, did his best to protect the identity of the Toaster. He was quoted as saying that if he had his way, the man’s identity would never be known.  

For some time, rumors persisted that Jerome was the mysterious man in black, so in 1983, he invited 70 people to gather at the graveyard at midnight on January 19. They had a celebration in honor of the author's birthday with a glass of amontillado, a Spanish sherry featured in one of Poe’s horror tales, and readings from the author’s works. At about an hour past midnight, the celebrants were startled to see a man run through the cemetery in a black frock coat. He was fair-haired and carrying a walking stick and quickly disappeared around the cemetery’s east wall. The roses and cognac were found on Poe's grave as usual.

The infrared photograph of the Poe Toaster taken in 1980

Not in an effort to solve the mystery, but merely to enhance it, Jerome allowed a photographer to try and capture the elusive man on film. The photographer was backed by LIFE Magazine and was equipped with rented infrared night-vision photo equipment. A radio signal triggered the camera so that the photographer could remain out of sight. The picture appeared in the July 1990 issue of LIFE and showed the back of a heavyset man kneeling at Poe's grave. His face cannot really be seen and as it was shadowed by his black hat. The Toaster was never photographed again.

The tradition continued after the 1999, but was never the same again. Subsequent notes predicted a win for the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl and, in 2004, was critical of France’s opposition to the war in Iraq. Jeff Jerome suggested that the later notes reflected an unwillingness of the son (or sons) to take the tradition as seriously as had the father. A final note—left sometime between 2005 and 2008—was so dismaying, Jerome said, that he decided to fib and announce that no note had been left. He declined to reveal its contents, other than that it was a hint, in hindsight, that an end to the tradition was imminent.

Meanwhile, a group of onlookers unsuccessfully attempted to intercept the Poe Toaster in 2006, breaking a long-standing tradition in Baltimore to never interfere with the Toaster's entry, tribute ritual, or departure. It was the only time that it ever happened. Then, in 2007, a man came forward who claimed to be the Toaster. The man, 92-year-old named Sam Porpora, claimed that he had started the Poe Toaster tradition. A former historian for Baltimore's Westminster Church, Porpora claimed that he invented the Toaster in the 1960s as a "publicity stunt", to reinvigorate the church and its congregation, and had falsely told a reporter at the time that it had begun in 1949. However, Porpora’s claims turned out to be more fanciful than many of Poe’s stories. Reports of the annual visits dated from well before the 1960s. For example, a 1950 article in the Baltimore Evening Sun mentions "an anonymous citizen who creeps in annually to place an empty bottle (of excellent label) against the gravestone." After the many errors were pointed out in his stories (which changed with each telling), Popora never retracted his claim, but acknowledged that he was not the man who made the annual visits.

In 2009, the Poe Toaster returned to mark the bicentennial of Poe’s birth, but he didn’t leave a note behind. In 2010, he did not return and has not been seen since. Although some believe that another Poe admirer should take up the cause, perhaps it’s best to let it come to an end. The Poe Toaster, it’s said, will return to the master’s grave, “nevermore.”

THE MURDER MANSION

On the night of December 6, 1959, Dr. Harold Perelson, from Los Feliz, California, beat his wife to death with a hammer, severely beat his 18-year-old daughter and then committed suicide by drinking a glass of acid. The murders became a twisted puzzle to the neighbors in Los Feliz. It was not bafflement about the murder themselves; they were easily solved. The real mystery was why the mansion sat empty and untouched – left exactly as it was on the night of violence – for the next fifty years.

No one knows why Dr. Perelson committed his dark deeds. But on the night of December 6, 1959, the wealthy Inglewood heart specialist bludgeoned his wife, Lillian, to death with a hammer and then seriously injured his daughter, Judye, while two other children slept soundly in the house. Judye survived her beating and, although bleeding badly, ran down the hillside to a neighbor’s home at 2471 Glendower Place to ask for help. In the meantime, the two younger children woke up and asked their father about the screaming. Dr. Perelson told them that had only been having a nightmare and should go back to sleep. A few moments later, he drank a glass of acid and died in agony. The police arrived a short time later and all of the Perelson children were removed from the house and eventually, went to live with relatives back east. The motive behind the brutal murder/ suicide was never revealed, although some have speculated that Perelson was in financial trouble.

But that bloody night was not the strangest part of the story…

About a year later, in December 1960, the Perelson’s Spanish-Revival mansion was purchased by Julian and Emily Enriquez through a probate auction. And while the couple, who lived in Lincoln Heights at the time, visited the mansion on occasion and even stored some things in the house, they never moved out – and they never removed any of the Peterson’s belongings. In fact, it was left exactly as it had been on the night when Perelson killed his wife and committed suicide. Curiosity-seekers, and even some reporters, who peered through the dusty windows stated that not only was the Perelson’s furniture, dishes, books and clothing still in the same place where it had been left, even the Christmas tree and unopened gifts were still in the living room.   

The mansion, which was built in 1925 and was quite beautiful in the days before its slow decline, boasts four large bedroom, three bathrooms, a conservatory, maid’s quarters, a large ballroom and a sweeping view of Los Angeles. Over time, though, the house has fallen into disrepair. Neighbors do what they can to keep the grounds in order and a burglar alarm has been installed to keep away intruders, but other than that, the house remains frozen in time.

But the lingering question remains with many – is it truly empty?

It’s no surprise that rumors have spread about the house being haunted. Trespassers who have attempted to enter the house have left, muttering about “ghosts.” A friend of some neighbors who lived nearby was bitten by a black widow spider when she broke into the house on a “Nancy Drew moment.” Two nights later, the alarm on the back door at the neighbor’s kept going off without explanation. There was no one there. “It was like the ghost was following us,” the neighbor later remarked.

 A few years ago, the city required current owner Rudy Enriquez to replace stucco that had peeled from the sides of the house and front walkway walls and repaint the place. Enriquez inherited the mansion when his mother died in 1994. Since then, he has been approached many times by potential buyers but has steadfastly refused to sell. He tells everyone he hasn't decided what he wants to do with the property.

Enriquez, a 77-year-old retired music store manager who lives in the Mount Washington area, said he remains uncertain about his plans. He told a newspaper that he has no interest in staying or living in the house – although that lack of interest has nothing to do with the mansion’s violent past, he said.

So, why does the once beautiful home remain a time capsule to the rampage that took place there in 1959? No one knows. But it is a haunted place. If not haunted by ghosts, then haunted by the tragedy that occurred within its walls.

When the police found Dr. Perelson lying dead next to his wife’s blood-soaked bed, he was still clutching the hammer that he had beaten her with. On a nightstand next to his bed, detectives found an open copy of Dante's "Divine Comedy” with a passage clearly marked...

"Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost . . .” it read, perhaps defining the dark struggle that had taken place within the mind of the man who killed murder.

TRAGIC DEATH OF STEPHEN FOSTER

On this date in 1864, American songwriter Stephen Foster, who'd written such classics as "Swanee River," "Oh Susanna!," "Camptown Races" and "My Old Kentucky Home," died in poverty in a New York Hospital. He was only 37 years old -- and barely made any money at all from the songs that have endured for generations.

 

Foster grew up in Pennsylvania and received an education in English grammar, diction, the classics, penmanship, Latin and Greek and mathematics. In 1839, his elder brother William was serving his apprenticeship as an engineer at nearby Towanda and thought Stephen would benefit from being under his supervision. The site immortalized as the Camptown Races was just 15 miles from Towanda. Stephen attended Athens Academy from 1839 to 1841. He wrote his first composition, Tioga Waltz, while attending Athens Academy, and performed it during the 1841 commencement exercises; he was 14. His education continued for a brief time at Canonsburg College and while his education was paid, he had little money. Sources conflict on whether he left willingly or was dismissed, but, either way, he left Canonsburg to visit Pittsburgh with another student and never returned.

 In 1846, Foster moved to Cincinnati and became a bookkeeper with his brother's steamship company. While in Cincinnati, Foster penned his first successful songs—among them "Oh! Susanna," which became an anthem of the California Gold Rush. In 1849, he published Foster's Ethiopian Melodies, which included the successful song "Nelly Was a Lady", made famous by the Christy Minstrels.

 Then he returned to Pennsylvania and signed a contract with the Christy Minstrels. It was during this period that Foster would write most of his best-known songs: "Camptown Races" (1850), "Nelly Bly" (1850), "Old Folks at Home" (known also as Swanee River, 1851), "My Old Kentucky Home" (1853), "Old Dog Tray" (1853), and "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" (1854), written for his wife, Jane Denny McDowell.

 Many of Foster's songs had Southern themes, yet Foster never lived in the South and visited it only once in 1852 by river-boat voyage on his honeymoon on his brother Dunning's steam boat, which took him down the Mississippi to New Orleans.

 Foster tried to earn a living as a songwriter -- a job that really did not exist at the time -- and thanks to this, plus the fact that copyrights and composer royalties didn't really exist either, Foster made very little money from his work.  Multiple publishers often printed their own competing editions of Foster's tunes, paying Foster nothing. His largest payment? He received $100 for "Oh, Susanna!"

 Foster moved to New York City in 1860. About a year later, his wife and daughter left him and returned to Pittsburgh. Beginning in 1862, his fortunes decreased, and as they did, so did the quality of his new songs. Early in 1863, he began working with George Cooper, whose lyrics were often humorous and designed to appeal to musical theater audiences. The Civil War created a flurry of newly written music with patriotic war themes, but this did not benefit Foster. During this time he composed a series of Sunday School hymns, including "Give Us This Day" in 1863.

 Broke, alone and depressed, Foster took up residence at the North American Hotel in the Bowery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He was confined to his bed for days by a fever. Foster tried to call a chambermaid, but collapsed, falling against the washbasin next to his bed and shattering it, which gouged his head. It took three hours to get him to Bellevue Hospital. He died from his injuries, which became infected, three days later.

 His worn leather wallet contained a scrap of paper that simply said, "Dear friends and gentle hearts," along with 38 cents in Civil War scrip and three pennies. Foster was buried in the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh.

 Sadly, one of his most beloved works, "Beautiful Dreamer," was published shortly after his death.

Stephen Foster went on to become a musical legend and a household name, but like so many other artists in American history, the true scope of his brilliance was not realized until long after his death.

ELIOT NESS HONOR

U.S. Senators from Illinois proposed on Friday (January 10) that a major federal law enforcement building in Washington, D.C. be named in honor of "Untouchable" Eliot Ness, the Prohibition-era G-Man who helped bring down Chicago gangster Al Capone.

Eliot Ness

The headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, dedicated in 2008, would be called the Eliot Ness ATF Building under the senator's resolution. 

The Chicago-born Ness, immortalized in print, film and television, helped put away Capone, who was convicted and imprisoned on tax violations after Ness and his team of federal agents raided the gangster's breweries and arrested dozens of his men. 

Senators Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk were joined by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio (where Ness worked later in his career). Durbin noted: "Chicago gangster Al Capone believed that every man had his price. But for Eliot Ness and his legendary law enforcement team, the Untouchables, no amount of money could sway their loyalty or sway their dedication to Chicago's safety."

THE MAN WHO NEVER DIED

On this date in 1914, Utah grocer John G. Morrison, 47, and his son, Arling, 17, were shot to death in their Salt Lake City, Utah store. The police arrested Joe Hill, a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, also known as the “Wobblies”). Hill, had become a popular song writer and cartoonist for the radical union, writing about the hard life of itinerant workers and the need for improved conditions for working people.

Hill’s was arrested and quickly convicted, accused of trying to rob the store. Despite appeals, the conviction stood, even though the bullets were not from Hill’s revolver and no one had identified him as the murderer. The only evidence against him was that he himself had been shot in the chest on the same evening as the Morrison murders. He refused to explain the circumstances – it had to do with a woman, he said.

Hill's love relationship, though frequently speculated upon, remained mostly conjecture for nearly a century. Apparently, though, Hill and his friend and countryman, Otto Appelquist, were rivals for the attention of 20-year-old Hilda Erickson, a member of the family with whom the two men were lodging. The two men quarreled and Hill was shot. Tragically, though, this alibi was never presented at his trial.

Following Hill’s death sentence, the governor of Utah turned down thousands of demands for clemency and a request from President Woodrow Wilson for a stay of execution. Hill, who had chosen to be shot rather than hanged, reportedly refused a blindfold. After declaring his innocence, he shouted to the squad of five men poised with their guns, “Fire – go on and fire!” And they did.

After his death, he was memorialized by several folk songs. His life and death have inspired books and poetry, including a 1930 poem by Alfred Hayes called "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night", sometimes referred to simply as "Joe Hill".

* Hayes's lyrics were turned into a song in 1936 by Earl Robinson. Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger often performed this song and are associated with it, along with Irish folk group The Dubliners. Joan Baez's Woodstock performance of "Joe Hill" in 1969 is one of the best-known recordings.

* Phil Ochs wrote and recorded a different, original song called "Joe Hill", which tells a much more detailed story of Joe Hill's life and death, and Chumbawamba did a song aboul Hill called “By and By” in 2005, using the first stanza of Alfred Hayes’ poem.

* Wallace Stegner published a fictional biography called Joe Hill in 1950.

* Authors Stephen and Tabitha King named their second child Joseph Hillstrom King, after Joe Hill and he later adopted the pseudonym when he published his first novel, “Heart-Shaped Box.”

* Gibbs M. Smith wrote a biography Joe Hill, which was later turned into the 1971 movie Joe Hill (also known as The Ballad of Joe Hill) directed by Bo Widerberg.

* In 1980 Posten AB, the Swedish postal service, issued a Joe Hill postage stamp. Red on a white background with the lyrics in English "We'll have freedom, love and health/When the grand red flag is flying, In the Workers' Commonwealth."

Hill’s unjust death made him a labor legend and a martyr to the cause. But he was game to the end. Just prior to his execution, Hill wrote to Bill Haywood, an IWW leader, and said, "Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize... Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY -- A "KILLER" SONG

You might not recognize the song by name, but you've heard it. In fact, it's been recorded 256 times by artists like Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, Sam Cooke, Lena Horne, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Van Morrison, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Jack Johnson.  It tells the story of a woman, Frankie, who finds that her man Johnny was "making love to" another woman and shoots him dead. Frankie is then arrested; in some versions of the song she is also executed. It was originally penned by a St. Louis songwriter named Jim Dooley and while he took some liberties with the tale, he was inspired by a real-life murder. But how close did he stick to the story? Not close at all, declared Frances Baker, reputed to be the "Frankie" of the song.

France Baker of St. Louis -- "Frankie" of the popular song

In fact, there was nothing that made Baker angrier than hearing "Frankie and Johnny," especially since her St. Louis neighbors knew that she was the woman immortalized in the ballad. Baker never denied that, as an emotional 22-year-old in 1899, she shot her 17-year-old boyfriend (name Allen, called Albert and not Johnny) but what made her angry is the song's description of her as a loose woman.

Even after she was acquitted of murder on the grounds of self-defense, there was no escaping from the song's claim that she was of "easy virtue." She felt publicly humiliated and tried to escape her shame by moving to Omaha and then Portland, but the song followed her. And the embarrassment did not end there. A play, and then a movie in 1936, dramatized the song's love triangle. In 1942, Baker decided that she had put up with enough and sued Republic Pictures for defamation of character. More than 42 years after the shooting, "Frankie" was able to tell her side of the story. 

She was nothing like the character in the song, she said. She did not wear diamonds of fancy clothes and her income was not derived from loose morals, but from "washing and ironing and scrubbing steps." She even claimed that she was not upset when she found out her boyfriend was seeing Alice Pryor. She was asleep when Albert came to her house -- intent on killing her, she told the court. He threatened her, first with a lamp and then a knife. Luckily, Frances kept a silver-plated pistol at her bedside and she shot him -- not three times like in the song, but just once as he was standing next to her bed. 

Baker was so convincing with her story that the court ruled against her -- the jury wasn't even sure that the song was about her at all. It turned out that there were other versions of the song, with female characters with names like Annie and Lilly. In the end, Baker lost the suit.

But she went to her grave believing that she had been humiliated. She returned to Portland and in 1950, was committed to a mental institution. She died there two years later, at the age of 75.
  

GHOSTS OF FLIGHT 401

On this night (December 29) in 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401, a Lockheed L-1011 aircraft, crashed into the Florida Everglades near Miami International Airport, killing 101 of the 175 people on board -- and has since become one of the most famous aircraft flights in the annals of the supernatural.

Due to malfunctioning lights and displays, the airplane crashed northwest of Miami, almost nineteen miles from the end of runway Nine Left, in the heart of the Everglades, a vast swamp region of water, saw-grass, marshland and alligators. Flight 401 was traveling 227 miles an hour when it hit the ground. The left wingtip hit first, then the left engine and the left landing gear. Together, they slashed three long trails through the heavy saw-grass. Each trail was five feet wide and more than one hundred feet long.

When the main part of the fuselage hit the ground, it continued to move through the grass and water, coming apart as it went. It hit once, lifted into the air and then slammed back down again with a hard, grinding sound. About halfway along its path, the nose of the plane spun clockwise and careened around until it was sliding backwards. As the plane was skidding through the swamp, a fireball rushed through the cabin, from front to rear. Passengers felt a blast of cold air and then a wet wave of fuel as the plane broke apart. The huge white fuselage crumpled and tore into five large sections and countless smaller pieces. From the first impact to the point that it came to a shuddering halt, the plane traveled more than one-third of a mile.

Passengers drowned in the murky water. Others were thrown from the plane, suffering broken bones, paralyzing injuries and death. Rescue workers converged on the scene, saving many lives -- and recovering many more of the dead than the living. 

As it happened, the crash of Flight 401 was not the end of the story.

Captain Bob Loft and flight engineer Dan Repo were among the one hundred and three people who lost their lives when Flight 401 crashed. Both of the men would be found to be at fault by the NTSB investigation, although most of the blame fell on Loft’s shoulders. They were accused of being preoccupied with finding a source for an indicator light problem and ignoring the fact that the plane was steadily losing altitude. When they discovered what was wrong it was too late – a fact that apparently haunted both men after their deaths, for their ghosts soon began to be encountered aboard other Eastern L-1011 jets.

 

(Left) Captain Bob Loft (Right) Flight Engineer Dan Repo

Apparently, to save costs, Eastern ordered the salvageable parts of the aircraft to be removed and incorporated into other Eastern planes. Soon after, reports of the ghosts of Repo, Lofts and even some unidentified flight attendants were encountered on various Eastern flights. For the next year or so, they were most often seen on Eastern flights that contained the salvaged parts. Eastern crew members and passengers saw the ghosts or heard them speak on the plane’s intercom systems or received verbal messages and warnings from them. Witnesses also experienced cold sensations and sensed invisible presences, aircraft power turning on by its own volition and a tool inexplicably appearing in a mechanics hand when no one was in the area.

Substantiation of the sightings was difficult, however. Eyewitness reports made to Eastern’s management were met with skepticism and a fear of further damaging the airline’s reputation and causing a further loss of business. The crash had done enough damage and for the public to hear that the ghosts of some of the lost plane’s crew were visiting other flights could make for a public relations disaster. For the most part, eyewitness crew members were told that perhaps seeing a psychiatrist would be in order, which most took as a precursor to being fired. After that, most were reluctant to talk to anyone investigating the hauntings and the sightings that did occur were often covered up. Log sheets that contained the sighting reports, as well as the names of witnesses, mysteriously disappeared from the planes where they occurred. Normally, a logbook would contain entries for several months, but these pages vanished. To this day, many hotly deny the stories of the ghosts from Flight 401, despite the scores of credible witnesses that eventually came forward.

Eventually, once the parts from Flight 401 were removed from the various planes, the hauntings came to an end. Eastern Airlines ceased operations in January 1991, leaving behind a mystery of what actually happened in the planes that were said to have been visited by ghosts.

You can read the whole story of Flight 401 -- and the salvaged parts -- in Troy Taylor's recent book CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, available in Kindle, Nook and print editions at https://www.prairieghosts.com/cabinet.html 

"LIPS THAT TOUCH LIQUOR WILL NEVER TOUCH OURS.."

On this date in 1900, radical prohibitionist Carrie Nation carried out her first public smashing of a bar at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kansas. She was, as they say, "on a mission from God."

Carrie (or Carry, both spellings are correct) was a large woman, almost 6 feet tall and weighing 175 pounds, with a stern face and sour demeanor. She described herself as "a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like," and claimed a divine ordination to promote the temperance movement by destroying bars. Originally married to a raging alcoholic in 1865 (he died just four years later), she became violently opposed to liquor. She remarried in 1874 and while running a successful hotel, received her divine calling in a dream. Following "orders from God," she broke out the windows of a saloon in Kiowa, Kansas and when a tornado hit the area a short time later, she saw it as divine approval of her actions.

Carrie continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita her husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Carrie replied, "That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you." The couple divorced in 1901, not having had any children.

Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women she would march into a bar, and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times for "hatchetations," as she came to call them. She paid her jail fines with lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets.

Carrie's anti-alcohol activities became widely known, with the slogan "All Nations Welcome But Carrie" becoming a bar-room staple. She continued to sell souvenir hatchets, as well as photographs of herself and a copies of her newsletter. The press followed her activities, both good and bad. Suspicious that President William McKinley was a secret drinker, Nation applauded his 1901 assassination because drinkers "got what they deserved."

Near the end of her life Carrie moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where she founded the home known as Hatchet Hall. Her health failing, she collapsed during a speech in a Eureka Springs park. She was taken to a "nervous and mental trouble" hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas and died there on June 9, 1911. Carrie was buried in an unmarked grave in Belton City Cemetery in Belton, Missouri. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union later erected a stone inscribed "Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could" and the name "Carry A. Nation".

If Carrie had lived just nine years longer, she would have seen Prohibition become the law of the land -- and when criminal empires were built because of it, she might have realized the folly of her radical beliefs. Or perhaps not...