Throughout The 18th And 19th Century, Grave-robbing Was Quite Prevalent. Due To This, Many Cemeteries

The Magdeburg Unicorn is an alleged Unicorn fossil that is on display at the Museum of Natural History in Magdeburg Germany. The Magdeburg Unicorn is described as bipedal horse-like fossil with little to no body, a horse-like head, a long tail, and a very long horn on its head. The fossil was first discovered in 1663 in Germany and the people that discovered the fossil thought they found a Unicorn however after the reconstruction, they realized that something seemed off. Later, testing was dine on the fossil and it was determined to be the fossil of a Wooly Rhinoceros and not a Unicorn. The Magdeburg Unicorn has been deemed as one of the worst fossil reconstructions of all time but, it still sparks the imagination that Unicorns and other creatures may exist and be out there.

In December of 1927, 12-year-old Marion Parker, who was the young daughter of banker, Perry Parker, was abducted from her school by William Edward Hickman. Over the next few days, Hickman contacted Parker and sent multiple ransom notes. Parker agreed to pay the $1,500 and met the man in a parked car. When Parker paid to ransom, he was allowed to see his daughter who was sitting on the passenger seat. She appeared to be wrapped up in a blanket up to her neck, rendering her unable to walk. Or so Parker thought.. Hickman threw the little girl out of the car and sped off with the money. It was immediately discovered that the little girl was already dead. When she was unwrapped from the blanket, he was horrified to see that her arms and legs had been cut off and she had been disembowelled. Her eyes had also been wired open. Hickman later admitted to strangling and slitting the throat of Marion and confessed that she was still alive while he disembowelled her. Hickman was quickly apprehended and hanged in 1928.

The Disappearance of Mary Agnes Moroney

February 15, 2023

Mary Agnes Moroney was born on May 9, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois to parents Catherine and Michael Moroney. Catherine had married Michael when she was only 13 years old, and they had two daughters together, Mary and Anastasia. 

The Moroney’s lived at 5200 Wentworth Avenue and were extremely poor. Due to this, one of Catherines relatives had wrote to what was known as a needy-family service which was printed publicly. Usually this service did not print out the addresses of the families, however through this a woman had found the Moroney’s address. 

On May 14, 1930, Catherine was scrubbing the floor of the house when she heard a knock at the door. A woman stated that her name was Julia Otis and she had been sent by a social worker to deal with the Moroney’s case from the needy family service. The woman was described as being well-dressed, around 22 years old, with protruding teeth and a “cultured voice.” 

After listening to the Moroney’s problems, Julia asked Catherine if she could take then 2 year old Mary Agnes to California with her, adding that she would be “fat as a butterball.” Catherine said no, and the woman promised she would return and gave Catherine $2 before leaving. 

On May 15, 1930, Julia came back with baby clothes, as Catherine was actually pregnant with her third child at this time. Julia also claimed to have arranged for Michael to have a better job and offered to take Mary to the store to buy her new clothes and shoes. Catherine was reluctant to allow this but eventually gave her permission. 

Catherine later said that Mary Agnes was extremely upset to go off with the woman, and refused to do so through tears. The woman known as Julia took Mary with her and the two were never seen again. 

On May 16, 1930, Julia wrote a letter to the Moroney’s which read: 

“Please don’t be alarmed, I have taken your little girl to California with me. I have hired a special nurse to care for her. We’ll be back in two months. By that time you will be on your feet again and will be able to care for her. She didn’t even cry a bit. She is outfitted like a princess. In the meantime, I’ll help all I can to get you on your feet. Don’t worry about her or anything else. When you get this letter we’ll be on our way already. As ever, Julia Otis.”

This was the last time the Moroney’s ever heard from the woman claiming to be Julia Otis again. 

Two weeks after Mary’s kidnapping, a woman claiming to be called Alice Henderson, sent the Moroney’s a letter saying that Julia was her cousin and was “love hungry” as her own husband and baby had died the year before in 1929. 

However, Alice Henderson was never heard from again after this note and police determined that the letter written by Julia and the letter written by Alice were from the same person as the handwriting was the same. 

Over a year later, in July 1931, an elder Native woman named Martha Thompson was pushing a cart to join a circus. In the cart was a blonde, blue eyed 3 year old girl that looked similar to Mary Agnes Moroney. Martha claimed that the little girl had been abandoned by her mother, a woman named Florence Fuller and begged to be able to keep the girl. The Moroney’s did not identify the girl as being Mary Agnes. 

In 1952, 22 years after Mary was last seen, a 24 year old woman named Mary McClelland saw some photos of Mary Agnes’ siblings (Catherine and Michael had 6 more children after Mary disappeared) and believed she was Mary Agnes herself. 

Mary McClelland claimed she had been adopted within a year of Mary Agnes’ disappearance by a man and woman named Charles and Nora Beck. Her dental casts were compared and through that, plus her skull and blood showed she was a Moroney. 

However, a physician named Dr. E.W. Merrithew stated that he had delivered Mary McClelland to an unknown mother on November 17, 1927, and the mother had provided a baby picture of her from 1928. This proved that she had been adopted 2 years before Mary Agnes had been abducted. 

More evidence was discovered when McClelland did not have the same scar Mary Agnes had from a previous surgery. Further DNA testing proved she was not Mary Agnes. Mary McClelland died in 2005 and the abduction of Mary Agnes Moroney remains unsolved. 

 Further more, Mary Agnes underwent an operation for a ruptured navel, but McClelland did not have the scar Mary Agnes had at the time of her disappearance.[5] Further DNA testing proved she was not Mary Agnes. She died in 2005.[1] The Moroney kidnapping remains unsolved after almost 93 years. 

Laurie Dann’s upbringing in an affluent Chicago suburb appeared unremarkable at first glance. However, beneath her seemingly normal exterior lay a complex and troubled individual. 

Known for her insecurities, Laurie resorted to plastic surgery at a young age in an attempt to alter her appearance. Although she attended the University of Arizona for some time, she never completed her degree. It was during her stint as a cocktail waitress at Green Acres Country Club that she crossed paths with Russell Dann, scion of a wealthy family. The pair became inseparable, eventually marrying in September 1982 and fulfilling Laurie’s lifelong dream of residing in a grand mansion.

Yet, as their relationship progressed, Russell began to notice increasingly odd behaviors from his wife. Laurie’s idiosyncrasies included storing makeup in the microwave, randomly tossing money into her car’s backseat, and putting away wet clothes. Her eccentricities gradually worsened, leading to her complete withdrawal from the outside world. She refused to leave the house and neglected basic household chores. 

The once-promising marriage reached a calamitous climax in September 1986 when Russell awoke to the searing pain of an ice pick stabbing him. Convinced Laurie was his assailant, he promptly alerted the police. Adding weight to his claim, a store clerk testified that Laurie had recently purchased an ice pick. However, as Russell had not witnessed the attack while he slept, the charges against Laurie were eventually dropped. The couple divorced shortly thereafter. During the divorce proceedings, Laurie’s ex-boyfriend from five years prior became the target of threatening phone calls in which she falsely claimed to be pregnant with his child. The harassment ceased only when her ex-boyfriend’s lawyer intervened and contacted her parents.

Following her departure from the marital home, Laurie attempted to pursue a career as a babysitter. However, her venture quickly soured as she faced accusations of theft and vandalism, including slashing furniture, rugs, and curtains in clients’ homes. With this business idea in ruins, she sought refuge in a dormitory on a college campus. Unfortunately, her stay there was also fraught with erratic behavior. Laurie hid rotting meat inside furniture and deposited trash in other students’ rooms. 

Seeking a fresh start, she moved to another dorm in Madison, Wisconsin, where her presence earned her the nickname “elevator lady.” Witness accounts painted a disturbing picture of Laurie aimlessly riding the elevator for hours on end. She continued her pattern of leaving decomposing meat around the building and even startled onlookers by appearing naked in communal areas. Just one month after her arrival, a dorm room was set ablaze. Although suspicions were raised about Laurie’s involvement, no concrete evidence was found, and she was never charged.

By this point, Laurie’s mental state had deteriorated to a point of no return. Tragically, appropriate professional intervention was never sought. After threatening a fellow student and slashing his clothing, Laurie turned to a more sinister act. She baked buns laced with arsenic and distributed them to various fraternity houses and local residences. 

In a separate incident, she attempted to take two children from a former babysitting client to a fair, but fortunately, the children refused to consume the poisoned milk she offered them. The diluted arsenic in the treats she had distributed caused no harm. Laurie’s descent into chaos continued as she tried to set fire to a nearby daycare center before returning to the home of her former clients and setting it ablaze. The family managed to escape through a broken window just in time. 

Unfazed, Laurie proceeded to Hubbard Woods Elementary School armed with two handguns. Upon entering the building, she opened fire indiscriminately, killing 8-year-old Nicholas Corwin and critically injuring five others. After shedding her blood-soaked shorts and improvising a makeshift bag around her waist, Laurie fled the school. Her escape came to an abrupt end when she crashed her car into a tree. 

Seeking refuge, she broke into the home of Ruth and Phillip Andrews, holding the terrified family hostage for six harrowing hours. Laurie claimed she had killed her rapist and was now evading the police. In a desperate struggle, Phillip managed to wrestle the gun away from her, sustaining a gunshot wound to his chest in the process. Despite his injury, he staggered into the garden while his family sought safety. Alone in the Andrews’ residence, Laurie turned the gun on herself, ending her tumultuous life.

Unsolved: Death of Dave Bocks

Working at a nuclear energy facility in rural Ohio, Dave Bocks was an engineer responsible for fitting pipes. The facility opened in the 1950′s, and was one of the few factories in America that produced uranium, a much sought-after material for the production of nuclear weapons at the time. The place was dangerous should things go wrong, and an incident in the fall of 1984 proved this when 200 tons of radioactive dust particles were released into the atmosphere, polluting local air and water supplies. Three years before this scandal, Dave Bocks mysteriously vanished into thin air in an incident far more horrific.

Dave normally carpooled to work with his co-worker, Harry Easterling. On the night of June 18th, 1984, Harry picked him up and they drove to work, ready to start the graveyard shift. They chatted about the usual things- Dave told his buddy that he was planning on taking his three children on holiday at some point. Though a divorcee, he had a good relationship with his kids and was apparently on good terms with his ex-wife. The pair clocked on at midnight and began work. Dave’s assignment for the night was to look at a broken water pump in building 8. Four hours later, another employee witnessed Dave sitting in a car. Dave and an unknown person were deep in conversation with both windows up, which the worker noted as being unusual based on how hot the night was. Later, Dave was seen walking into building 4, which was also unusual as there were no faults or work to be done in that particular building. Dave Bocks was never seen alive again.

His disappearance was first noticed when he didn’t show up to the 7 a.m. safety meeting. His colleagues assumed he was working overtime, probably stuck on some problem that needed fixing. 30 minutes later, an operator working in building 6 noticed a strange smell coming from the furnace. When a supervisor was called, they noticed that a sticky residue had formed on the casing inside the oven. At 11pm that night, when Dave was due to go to work again, he didn’t show up. A search of his locker revealed he hadn’t been back to change into his own clothes, meaning he had never left the site. It was discovered that at 5:15am on the morning of Dave’s disappearance, something foreign had entered the furnace in building 6. A worker had also found a piece of bone on the lip of the furnace. A horrible feeling of unease swept over the workforce as they all had the same idea: Dave had fallen into the hot liquid metal.

The plant was shut for several days while authorities investigated. Once the metal had cooled properly, they were able to unearth more bone fragments, a pair of steel-toed boots, and part of the signature thick glasses that Dave used to wear. It was clear this is where he had met his end. Police suspected suicide, as Dave had been depressed after his divorce and there were rumours he had attempted it before. His heartbroken family suspect foul play, as nobody knows who he was talking to in that car or more importantly, what they were talking about. Anonymous employees have come forward to say they believe Dave was a whistle-blower for the facility’s many safety concerns. There is a possibility that he was silenced by the factory in the most gruesome way possible. However, the truth remains a frustrating mystery.

In a chilling revelation, the discovery of a 14-year-old girl’s skull in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony provided irrefutable evidence of cannibalistic practices during the bleak winter of 1609, known as the “Starving Time.” In 2012, this relic was unearthed, shedding light on a dark chapter in the colony’s history. The girl’s remains were interred alongside a macabre collection of butchered horse and dog bones, painting a grim picture of the desperation faced by the settlers.

Amid persistent rumors and conjecture surrounding the settlers’ resort to cannibalism for survival, this archaeological find marked the first concrete proof. The deeply etched scratch marks on the skull indicated that the flesh that was methodically sliced away. Examining the trauma at the frontal region of the skull, forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley concluded that it resulted from the brutal force used to access the brain.

Texarkana is a sleepy town that is split between both Texas and Arkansas. Over the spring of 1946, a ruthless serial killer held the citizens of Texarkana in a state of perpetual fear. Even to this day, even the thought of the “Texarkana Moonlight Murders” sends a chill down the spine of the residents. This elusive killer predominantly targeted young couples parked on lovers’ lanes; their final attack, however, was committed against a middle-aged couple in their own farmhouse. Despite an abundance of theories and suspects, the identity of the “Phantom Killer” still remains unknown.

It all began on the night of February 22, 1946, when Jimmy Hollis, 24, and his girlfriend, Mary Jeanne Larey, 19, were parked in a secluded corner on a lonely road just off Richmond Road in Texarkana. The young couple had spent the evening at the cinema and decided they would stop down the lovers’ lane for some alone time before Jimmy dropped Mary back home. Out of the darkness, a man wearing a white cloth mask – presumably a pillowcase with eye holes – appeared at the car window and shone a flashlight into their eyes.

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞:

Morbidology

The Texarkana Moonlight Murders • Morbidology

Over the spring of 1946, a ruthless serial killer held the citizens of Texarkana in a state of perpetual fear. The identity of the so-called

Perhaps one of the most mind-boggling unsolved cases to the FBI is Ricky McCormick’s encrypted notes. On June 30th, 1999, the 41-year-old’s body was discovered in a Missouri corn field after having been missing for a whole three days. Police found the location of his body to be strange, as it was 15 miles from where Ricky lived and he did not own a car, nor were there any public transportation served in that area. Since his body was already in its early stages of decomposition, police ascertained he had been dead for at least a few days, but there were no indications that he was murdered. In fact, his cause of death appeared to be a mystery, so police initially ruled out homicide. That was until twelve years later, when the FBI announced that Ricky McCormick was indeed murdered. But then they revealed a shocking clue that they had never disclosed to the public before: inside Ricky’s pockets contained two cryptic notes in his handwriting, which investigators believe were written three days prior to his death. The notes consisted of ‘’a jumble of letters and numbers occasionally set off with parentheses’’. This also struck police as odd, considering that all who knew Ricky claimed Ricky was an illiterate and only knew how to write his name. The FBI was convinced that the cipher messages would point toward whoever was responsible for the murder, but all attempts made to decipher their meaning led to failure. To this day, the two coded notes are listed as one of the FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit’s top unsolved cases.