The Roaring 20s might conjure up images of flapper dresses and bootleggers,
but the decade had a darker side. Will the era's unsolved murders and mysterious
disappearances remain unresolved forever? Will we ever know what really happened
when Agatha Christie became part of a real life mystery? Good questions!
The death of Virginia Rappe and the subsequent trial of actor
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle was one of the biggest scandals of the 1920s. Although
Arbuckle was found not guilty, it's still unclear exactly what led to Rappe's death.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, Rappe and Arbuckle were at a party together at the St.
Francis Hotel in San Francisco on September 5, 1921. Arbuckle claimed that after having a
few drinks with Rappe, she became "hysterical," and he soon found her vomiting in the bathroom.
Believing she'd just had too much to drink,
Arbuckle and a few other guests moved her to a private room.
When her condition didn't improve for three days, she was finally taken to the hospital. There,
doctors discovered that she’d had a ruptured bladder, which led to her death on September 9th.
At the hospital, Rappe's friend Maude Delmont claimed that Arbuckle had sexually assaulted
Rappe, and the attack had caused her death. No evidence was found to support the claim,
but the BBC also notes that before being taken to the hospital,
Rappe also claimed, quote, "He did this to me."
As a result, both Rappe and Arbuckle were disparaged in the papers,
which wrote either about Arbuckle's weight causing the ruptured bladder during the alleged assault,
or blamed Rappe's potential venereal diseases.
According to Urology Case Reports, a ruptured bladder most commonly occurs due to abdominal
trauma but can occur if there's chronic inflammation. And while it's suspected
that Rappe suffered from cystitis, which may have led to the ruptured bladder,
no one will ever know exactly what happened to the aspiring actress.
Known as the Lava Lake murders, the killing of Ed Nichols, Roy Wilson, and Dewey Morris was one
of the most gruesome murders Oregon witnessed during the 1920s. And although the police had
a main suspect, insufficient evidence meant that the crime remains officially unsolved to this day.
Nichols, Wilson, and Morris lived and worked as trappers during the winter months,
staying in an isolated cabin in Little Lava Lake. Those who saw them that winter would later say
that everything seemed fine, and they didn't seem to suspect they wouldn't live to see the spring.
The last that anyone had seen or heard from the men was around January 15th,
so by April the families became worried and ventured out to the cabin.
Reports say that the cabin was found abandoned,
and it looked as though no one had been there for at least two months.
And in the nearby storage shed, they also found a bloodstained hammer. Before long, they discovered
the bodies of the three men: All three had gunshot wounds, likely from a shotgun blast.
"I'd be very surprised if our suspect was from Brainerd."
"Yaaa."
After hearing that a former Elk Lake Lodge employee named Charles Kimzey had threatened
one of the trappers, a $1,000 reward was offered for Kimzey's capture. But even with the reward,
it took years to find Kimzey, and in the end, no one was able to prove that he was responsible.
Thomas H. Ince was one of the most influential figures in the
silent film industry during the beginning of the 20th century,
but the circumstances of his death remain unknown to this day. Theories are wild,
with some even claiming that newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst was responsible.
On November 16, 1924, Ince boarded The Oneida, Hearst's yacht, for a weekend
excursion for Ince's 42nd birthday. There were some business deals going on as well:
They were also finalizing negotiations that would give Hearst access to Ince's film studio.
There were a number of other celebrities on the yacht, including actor Charlie Chaplin,
Hearst's long-time, live-in girlfriend, Marion Davies,
and columnist Louella Parsons. A dinner was held for Ince's birthday,
but Ince allegedly left the dinner early due to stomach cramps. When the cramps worsened,
Ince left the yacht and traveled back to Los Angeles with his family. Three days later,
on November 19th, Ince was dead, and the doctor put down the cause of death as "heart failure."
But according to the New England Historical Society, rumors soon spread that Ince had
been shot on the yacht after Hearst caught Chaplin and Davies together.
The theory goes that Hearst hit Ince by mistake in an attempt to shoot Chaplin.
And while it's unclear exactly what led to Ince's death, there have been suggestions that there was
some shady stuff going on, and gifts may have been given in exchange for silence. But since Ince's
body ended up being cremated incredibly quickly, it's impossible to confirm what exactly happened.
Casper Holstein was one of the richest mobsters in New York City during the 1920s. It's possible
that his wealth — most of which came from his Harlem numbers racket — or even his philanthropy
towards the Black community made him a target for one of the unsolved kidnappings of the 1920s.
In September 1928, Holstein was kidnapped by five white men who,
according to The New York Times, demanded a ransom of $50,000.
That's no small sum, and adjusted for inflation, that's around $700,000 today.
Holstein ended up being released after three days, but he repeatedly insisted that the ransom wasn't
paid. Strangely, even after being released, Holstein refused to identify his kidnappers,
even when it appeared as though the police had caught them.
As a result, nobody was arrested in connection
with the kidnapping and no one knows exactly what happened.
Holstein told reporters that he could in fact identify the kidnappers,
"but [he] kept quiet due to business reasons."
However, one of the main rumors that circulated claimed that another mobster,
Dutch Schultz, set up the kidnapping in order to take over the gambling scene in Harlem.
But at the end of the day, no one but Holstein knows exactly
what happened over those three days of being taken hostage.
"The truth, yes. The truth, it’s so difficult to tell."
During the 1920s, the Purple Gang had a firm grip on the bootleg industry
in Detroit. But their legacy came from more than just bootlegging.
During their reign, the Purple Gang is thought to have been responsible for hundreds of gang-related
murders, rivaled only by Murder Inc. and Al Capone's crew. But some of their killings,
like the Milaflores Massacre, remain unsolved to this day.
The Milaflores Massacre is thought to have originated with the murder of Johnny Reid in 1921.
Reid was one of the biggest distributors for the Purple Gang,
and so the gang decided to retaliate after he was killed. However, it's unclear why the
retaliation would've taken another six years to plan, making the connection a little odd.
But on March 28, 1927, it's believed the Purple Gang lured Frank Wright
and two other men whom they thought were responsible for Reed's murder
into the Milaflores Apartments in Detroit. There, the three men were allegedly mowed
down by the Purple Gang in what became known as the first machine-gun slaying in state history.
The apartment where the crime took place was leased by Eddie Fletcher and Abe Axler,
both members of the Purple Gang. But in the end, nobody ended up being charged with the crime.
B. H. DeLay started out as a racecar driver, but eventually took his daredevil skills to
the skies and created his own company to perform aerial stunts for motion pictures.
DeLay was no stranger to danger, but in 1923, his luck seemed to run out.
On July 4, 1923, DeLay was performing for a crowd at Ocean Park. The performance seemed
to be going fine, but then in the middle of a loop-the-loop the wings of his plane folded back,
causing the plane to crash down nose-first.
The plane soon burst into flames and although DeLay
and his passenger were pulled out of the wreck, neither survived the crash.
Upon further inspection, it was found that the pins in the airplane's wings had been tampered
with, and that the accident was no accident after all: It was the result of sabotage.
To this day no one knows who was responsible for DeLay's murder. However,
just a few days before the crash, someone reportedly shot at DeLay in Clover Field,
so the sabotaged plane was clearly just another attempt to finish the job.
Although Italian anarchists were blamed for the Wall Street bombing of 1920,
no one was ever convicted for the bombing. One would think that an attack on the burgeoning
financial capital of the United States would warrant an intense investigation,
but within 20 years even the FBI had given up.
On the morning of September 16, 1920, witnesses claimed that they saw a wagon
park outside J.P. Morgan & Company bank and the driver left the wagon unattended.
And then, one minute after noon, a massive explosion rocked the area,
shattering windows across a half-mile radius. Up to 300 people were injured and at least 40
people were killed, largely due to the 500 pounds of shrapnel that was packed alongside
the explosive. But the next day, the New York Stock Exchange building was back up
and running and sheets were used to cover up the horrors left over from the day before.
The so-called "American Anarchist Fighters" were blamed due to the leaflets found near
the explosion site, according to the FBI, but although many anarchists were picked up during
the Palmer Raids, no one was ever charged in connection with the 1920 Wall Street Bombing.
It only seems fair that one of the most acclaimed mystery writers would be involved
in a mind-boggling mystery of her own — and that's exactly what happened on December 3, 1926.
Mystery writer Agatha Christie left her home in Sunningdale, Berkshire after arguing with
her husband, Archibald Christie. She wrote a note for her secretary saying she wouldn't be
coming home that night, and left her house with a briefcase, taking the family's car.
What happened over the next 11 days is something that only Christie knows. Archie reported his wife
missing the day after she left, and soon her car was found abandoned with her clothes and
driver's license left inside. Police immediately began to question Archie, who was the last person
to see her alive, and tried to pressure him into confessing while they continued to search for her.
But then, all of a sudden, Christie was spotted alive and well in a Yorkshire spa,
which is where her brother-in-law told the police she might be. But for some reason,
she was registered under an assumed name.
Upon being found, Christie claimed that she had amnesia and was suffering from, quote,
"the most complete loss of memory," a claim she maintained even in her
own memoir. Was it a fugue state? Or was Christie just tired of her
cheating husband? This is one mystery that Agatha Christie took to her grave.
"What are murderers like?"
"Well, um…. you."
Francisco "Pancho" Villa was a key figure of the Mexican Revolution,
but by 1920, he'd largely retreated out of politics and guerrilla warfare.
Villa retired to his 163,000 acre hacienda at Canutillo and rarely left over the next three
years. And whenever he did, around 50 armed bodyguards went with him.
But then in July 1923, Villa set off to the town of Parral with
only a few of the armed bodyguards he typically traveled with. There,
he attended the baptism and was named godfather to the child of one of his men.
On July 20th, Villa was driving back to Canutillo,
but as he drove down a street in Parral, he was assassinated as someone shot at him from
a house along the way. The El Paso Times reported that the assassins were believed
to be deserters from Villa's team of personal bodyguards, but is that really all they were?
The assassins never ended up being caught, and it was clear that the killing was well organized,
especially since telegraph lines out of Parral had been cut and communications had been severed.
Although Jesús Salas Barraza soon claimed responsibility for the assassination,
this allowed higher officials to evade responsibility,
even though the plot likely went all the way up to President Alvaro Obregón. The former
general had lost an arm fighting Villa's men in 1915, and that's what they call motive.
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