In this episode of Strange Matters the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Thelma Krull is discussed. Thelma was a 57 year old grandmother living in Winnipeg, Canada. On the morning of July 11th, 2015, she left for her usual morning walk. At some point in her walk along quiet neighborhood roads and local parks, something unexpected must have happened. As a result, Thelma Krull would never be seen again.
The case of Thelma Krull is strange and unusual in several ways. It is rare that an established member of the community could just vanish during the day while walking along public pathways. Leaving virtually no evidence or clues behind, both family members and Law Enforcement were left with nothing but speculation on what happened to the missing woman. To this day there is still no definitive answer as to what caused the sudden and unexplained disappearance of Thelma Krull.
“On a crisp December day in 1910, Dorothy Arnold walked out of the pages of life and left behind her a mystery that outdoes fiction. There have been a thousand theories, a million rumors- but not one shred of real evidence which might explain where she went, how she went, or why.” This newspaper quote perfectly summarizes the unsolved disappearance case of Dorothy Arnold, the heiress of a wealthy New York family, who vanished suddenly and without explanation.
Dorothy Arnold was a well known and liked socialite of a prestigious family. The young woman had aspirations of becoming a writer, though all of her submitted works came back rejected. Dorothy was secretly carrying out a romantic relationship with an older man, against her family’s wishes. On one fateful day in December of 1910, Dorothy said farewell to her mother and left the house to go shopping. The distinguished Arnold family would never see her again.
The mystery of this cases revolves around the bizarre question, how does a woman simply vanish while walking along a busy city street in the middle of the day? There are far more questions than answers in this intriguing mystery: Did Dorothy run away? Was she abducted, kidnapped, or murdered? Did her secret lover have anything to do with her disappearance? Was Dorothy’s depression too great to continue living? Almost any theory is as plausible as any other due to the complete lack of evidence and clues following the young lady’s disappearance.
Listen to this episode of Strange Matters and hear all about what was called at the time the most famous Missing Persons case in American History!
In this sequel to the original Ancient Mysteries, Eric discusses several mysterious cases from olden times. First is the legend of the screaming mummy. Gaston Maspero, the head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service was inspecting various different mummies found at Deir El Bahri near the Valley of the Kings. Amongst the newly-discovered, legendary leaders of Egypt was an unmarked sarcophagus belonging to an unknown mummy. However this was no ordinary mummy. Upon opening the case he discovered this mummy’s face was locked in an eternal scream. This body had been bound by his hands and feet, so tightly that there were marks on his bones. But despite this apparent torture the remains were carefully mummified and preserved. The body had also been wrapped in sheep or goat skin which is considered by the ancient Egyptians to be ritualistically unclean. While many believe this individual to be the traitor son of Ramses III who was punished for his alleged betrayal of his father, others suspect him to be a prince from the nearby rival civilization of the Hittites. Modern advancements in technology have shed some light on the details regarding this unexplained anomaly however this mystery has yet to be confirmed.
Next up is the “Devil’s Footprints” which were a line of footprints left in the snow, discovered one morning in 1855 in Devon, England. These footprints were said to have stretched over 100 miles which is more distance than any earthly creature would be able to cover in a single night. These cloven hoof prints were said to have either scaled 14 foot walls or passed directly through them and continued on the other side, unimpeded. One report states that the trail passed a two-mile stretch of the River Exe and then continued on the other side. While clergymen were eager to jump on this opportunity and claim these prints belonged to Satan himself and that he was here to collect souls of sinners, others took a more reasonable approach and attempted to rationalize the anomaly as belonging to animals. One thing is for sure: these footprints caused a significant amount of unrest in Devon in the 1850s.
Our final investigation is the mysterious disappearance of James Burne Worson. This story of a shoemaker and established citizen in his community in Warwickshire, England tells of this boastful individual’s habit of getting involved in impossible wagers. His latest bet involved him running to a nearby town and back again — a total round trip of nearly 40 miles. After setting out on this venture, with two fellows following him in a carriage to vouch for his completion of the task, Worson began running without difficulty for several miles. Then suddenly with their eyes fully upon him, he stumbled and began to fall, let out a shrill gut-wrenching scream and immediately vanished without hitting the ground. There have been very few reasonable explanations for what could have happened here, however the truth of the story is in question. Is it possible for individuals to not only go missing but to disappear entirely?
