MISSING: Moira Anderson

On Feb. 23, 1957, 11-year-old Moira Anderson left her grandmothers Coatbridge, Scotland home to go one an errand for her grandmother. She was supposed to go and buy a birthday card and butter for her mother's birthday. This was unfortunately during one of the worst snowstorms that the area knew.

She was last seen around 5:15 p.m. on the bus by a couple. Police believed that the girl was abducted while traveling home on the bus and murdered. Her body was never found.

Two years later Janet, Moira's sister, was out on her lunch break from school. A man working under his hood asked her to hold his dipstick. While holding it the man groped her and she ran from him, but not before taking note of his registration plate. She reported it to the school and they called the cops. This caused the school to ask students to pair up if they leave.

Nothing was done of this incident, but it was later found out the man was Alexander Gartshore. At the time Alexander Gartshore was out on bail for raping his young babysitter. He was also the bus driver of the bus Moira was last seen on. 

When his daughter, Saundra Brown, was older she wrote a book Where There is Evil about suspecting him of killing young Moira. At one point he when she was bringing up his shortcomings as a father he told her that his father thought he killed Moira. That his father tried to convince him to go to the police to admit where Moira's body was. He said he didn't know the girl, but was the last person to talk to her. It wasn't a confession, but his own father was convinced he had done something to the girl. His own daughter even believed so. 

He died in 2006. He was a suspect before his death but wasn't prosecuted due to a lack of evidence. But in total it isn't really known what had happened that snowy night. 

Moira is a white female and was 22 at the time. He's 5'3" and 113 lbs. She was wearing a fawn-colored kilted Burberry coat, a blue winter scarf, a blue jumper, a lemon-colored cardigan, a thick tweed skirt, fawn socks, brown shoes and a navy-blue woolen pixie hat with red bands. 

SOURCES:

Doe Network

BBC

The Scottish Sun

Old Glasglows Murders

Murder of Chrissie Clare Venn

On Feb. 20, 1921, around 5 p.m. 13-year-old Chrissie Venn left her home on Allison Road in North Motton, Tasmania, Australia. She was going to run some errands and it was only 3 miles away. She didn't return home and this worried her family. A search was had, but she wasn't found till March 1st in a tree stump that was close to Allison rd, which she used to walk into town.

There are two different stories of how she was found and the condition of her body. Her body was either mutilated and left in a hollow tree stump or she was suffocated or stranged with no mutilation. She was half-dressed and seemed to have been sexually assaulted. One source states that twine used for hay bailing was tied around her neck and her mouth was stuffed with pieces of cloth from her dress, and the cloth had a gold pin attached to it.

It's believed that she may have died sometime on Feb 26th.

Former police officer and minor, George William King, was tried for the crime. He had cuts on his hands that made him suspicious. He claimed his hands were cut up due to a log falling on them while searching for Chrissie. The trial started on August 21 of the same year and was done in Hobart. Albert Ogilvie defended him and William was found not guilty.

It's believed that Chrissie haunts the road she was killed on.

SOURCES:
Find a Grave
Daily Herald
Examiner
Revolvy
Wikipedia
Press Reader

Unsolved Murder of Evelyn Grace Shank

On Feb. 4, 1959, 45-year-old Evelyn Shank was working at the Travelodge Motel in Las Vegas, Nevada. When her relief came for the night there was no sign of her and the police were called. When her coworker came there was a 1949-1950 Sedan possibly dark blue parked by the door. When the coworker looked back outside the vehicle was gone.

There was $174 stolen and Evelyn missing. It was obvious something bad had happened to Evelyn and she was abducted. An all point bulletin was posted and the roadblocks were set up in Henderson, Boulder City, and Las Vegas and Clark County. The police were hoping to catch her kidnapper.

On February 7, teens riding horses off of Moutain Springs Rd. Evelyn was alive for at least 24 hours. They had forced Evelyn to walk where they found her body and then shot her twice with 32-20 slugs. They had left her to die.

SOURCES:
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
Reno Gazette-Journal Feb. 9, 1959
Reno Gazette-Journal March 7, 1959

UNIDENTIFIED: Cochise County Does 1878-1884 Tombstone, Arizona

 

The Boothill Cemetary in Tombstone, Arizona was active between 1878 and 1884. On Row 11, Lot 9 two Chinese Does are buried there. They had died from leprosy, but it is unknown when they had died, but it's likely between 1878 and 1884.

SOURCES:

Unidentified Wiki

Find a Grave

Find a Grave

MISSING: Helen Stark

On or about Jan. 12, 1946, 23 to 26-year-old Helen Stark was last seen in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the time Helen was having marital issues with her husband William P. Stark. She was supposed to come and pick up her young children but never arrived. 

The date of her disappearance is the same day as William's discharge from the Army. He had enlisted in March of 1943.

Helen's family doesn't believe that she abandoned her children as her own mother died when she was a teenager. This lead to her and her siblings going to an orphanage. 

Helen is a white female between 23 and 26 years-old and her maiden name was Brokowski. She was 5'8" to 6'0" and 170 to 180 lbs. She has brown hair and brown eyes and may be wearing glasses.

SOURCES:
Charley Project

Murder of Reinhold Deske

I could only find the same article in several papers. The murder would have happened before Jan. 10, 1882 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

SOURCES:
St. Louis Globe-Democrat January 10, 1882
The Greeley News January 12, 1882
Kingman County Citizen January 19, 1882
The Patron of Husbandry January 21, 1882

Murder of Bertha Schippan

A photograph of the Schippan family, with Matthes (second from left) and Mary (to his right), Bertha is not in the photo.  

The Schippan family was a German immigrant family living in Towitta, South Australia, Australia. They were living in a small German farming community. Among the family was 13-year-old Johanne who went by Bertha and 24/25-year-old Mary.

Their parents Mattes and Johanne left on the day of  Jan. 1, 1902 to travel to Eden Valley that was 20 km away. They left the younger children to be watched by their oldest daughter Mary. By 8 p.m. that night both girls went to bed in the cottage while the boys slept in a galvanized iron room connected to a farm shed.

Around 10 p.m. Mary awoke to something heavy on her chest. She claimed that it was a bearded man that was on top of her. She was able to break free and run to the farm shed her brothers were sleeping in.

She told them of the man and she sent one of the boys to a neighbor for help. Bertha was still in the house with the man. The neighbor the boy ran to declined to help the family so he had to run 1 km to the house of Constable Lambert. When they returned they found Bertha laying in a puddle of her own blood. She didn't get to make it to her 14th birthday that was only 15 days away.

There was no bearded man in the home. There was also no evidence of anyone breaking in to harm the girls. So the police did not believe Mary's story of what had happened that night and two months later she was put on trial.

The evidence against Mary was circumstantial. She pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors brought up the fact that Mary and 21-year-old Gustave Nitschke had been in a secret relationship for the last year. They believed Bertha knew of the relationship and threatened to tell their father. Who was described as a nasty piece of work. They believed it was possible that Gustave could have also helped with the murder, but there was no evidence.

Some believed that their father was the perpetrator of the crime. He was a mean man. He once fired a shotgun at a Nitschke boy leaving the boy to pick pellets out of his leg. But it wasn't possible with the time to travel that far by horse and be where he was that day.

Mary eventually came back to town and was known as the grey lady. She would wear a grey dress and bonnet when walking around town. She would keep her head down and didn't talk to anyone. She would eventually die in 1919 from tuberculosis

It isn't for sure known who the murderer was. Maybe it was a member of the family, but maybe there was an unknown perpetrator. Maybe Mary was able to escape a terrible fate and was left to be called a liar. No one will ever really know what happened in the home that New Years Day.


SOURCES:
Wikipedia
ABC
Find a Grave