Let’s explore three more of the strangest unsolved mysteries!
D.B Cooper
On November 24th, 1971, Northwest Airlines Flight 305 from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington started off as any other flight. That was until an ordinary looking man in a business suit handed a note to a flight attendant.
Thinking nothing of it, the flight attendant stuffed it into her pocket and was about to go on her merry way, until the man said, “Miss, you better look at that note. I have a bomb.”
What followed was the beginning of one of America’s strangest unsolved mysteries.
The man, who’d bought the ticket under the name Daniel Cooper, proceeded to dictate a note to the captain that demanded $200,000 in $20 bills, two back parachutes and two front parachutes. He also insisted that the plane be refused when it landed. He also showed the flight attendant the contents of his briefcase – a mass of wires and what looked like dynamite sticks.
When the plane landed in Seattle, he allowed all the passengers and a handful of the crew to leave. With only a few crew members remaining, the plane was refused and Cooper demanded it be flown to Mexico City, staying under 10,000 feet.
While the plane was in the air, Cooper took two of the parachutes and the money and jumped out of the plane. He hasn’t been seen since.
In 1980, part of the ransom money was found in a river near Vancouver, Washington. The bills were disintegrated and seemed as though they’d been exposed to the elements, and in 2020, analysis suggested they’d entered the water several months after the hijacking.
Nobody knows what happened to D.B Cooper. Some believe he perished during the jump, after all, parachuting into the pitch black night, in the rain, over wooded terrain seems like a leap into certain death. Still, there are plenty of others who believe he could have survived.
In 1976, an anonymous FBI agent told the Seattle Times:
“I think [Cooper] made it. I think he slept in his own bed that night. It was a clear night. A lot of the country is pretty flat … he could have just walked out. Right down the road. Hell, they weren’t even looking for him there at the time. They thought he was somewhere else. He could just walk down the road.”
Although there’s been a handful of copycat hijackings and a few suspects thrown into the ring, no one knows for sure who D.B Cooper was, or what happened to him.
The Hinterkaifeck Murders
In March 1922, all five of the Gruber family and their maid were murdered on their farm in Bavaria. The victims consisted of Andreas Gruber and his wife Cäzilia, their widowed daughter, Viktoria and her two children, 7 year old Cäzilia Jr and 2 year old Josef. Their main, Maria had only started working at the farm the same day they were murdered. She replaced the family’s previous maid, who’d left after insisting the house was haunted.
Unfortunately, the house’s apparent haunting was not what it seemed. The footsteps and voices in the attic weren’t being made by a ghost. It was likely the family’s soon-to-be murderer. Just prior to their deaths, Andreas noticed a set of house keys had disappeared, and spied an unfamiliar newspaper in the house.
The murders themselves were thought to have taken place on Friday 31st of March. That evening, it seemed that Viktoria, Cäzilia Jr, Andreas and Cäzilia Sr, were lured out to the barn one by one, where they were bludgeoned with a mattock, their bodies stacked on top of each other. Then, the assailant entered the house and killed Josef in his crib, and Maria in her bedroom.
To make matters stranger, it seemed the killer lived in the house for the next four days. Neighbours reportedly saw smoke from the chimney and found the farm animals well fed, although Cäzilia Jr was absent from school and the family missed the Sunday Church service. The bodies were not discovered until the 4th of April.
No one has ever been convicted of the murders, but that hasn’t stopped speculation as to their identity. The most interesting suspect is in fact Karl Gabriel – the supposedly dead husband of Viktoria.
Karl Gabriel was reportedly killed in France during the First World War, but his body was never discovered. During the time he was away, Viktoria conceived her son, Josef. In a tragic twist, it was believed that Josef was the product of insets between Andreas and Viktoria – something which is supported in the town’s court documents.
People speculated that Karl Gabriel returned from the battlefield and made this discovery, causing him to murder the family in rage. This is partially supported by accounts from soldiers released from Soviet captivity, who testified that a German-speaking officer claimed to have murdered the Hinterkaifeck family. With others claiming to have seen Gabriel after his apparent death and saying he intended to go to Russia, some suspect this to be true. However, some questions the validity of these statements.
Unfortunately, it’s likely we’ll never know for certain what happened that night on the farm.
The Watcher
It’s June 2014 and the Broaddus family have just purchased their dream home – 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey. But three days later, a mysterious letter appeared in their mailbox. It read:
Dearest new neighbor of 657 Boulevard, allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood. How did you end up here? Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within? 657 Boulevard has been the subject of my family for decades now, and as it approaches its 110th birthday, I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s. It is now my time.
Who am I?… There are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by 657 Boulevard each day. Maybe I am in one. Look at all the windows you can see from 657 Boulevard. Maybe I am in one. Look out any of the many windows in 657 Boulevard at all the people who stroll by each day. Maybe I am one. … You have children. I have seen them. So far I think there are three that I have counted. … Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested? Better for me. Was your old house too small for the growing family? Or was it greed to bring me your children? Once I know their names I will call to them and draw them too [sic] me.”
It was signed, The Watcher.
Obviously disturbed, the family reached out to the previous owners, who revealed that in their 23 years in the house, they’d only received one letter, only days before moving out, which they quickly dismissed as a strange prank. Nevertheless, the families went to the police, who told them to keep quiet about the letters.
Two weeks later, the Broaddus had yet to move in, but proceeded to mill in and around the house decorating and what not. Still, a second letter arrived which included details of their children – referencing the daughter as “the artist of the family” after she’d spent time painting on the porch. It seemed there really was someone watching the house and the family.
With things becoming stranger, the family decided not to move into the house, but still the letters came. Six months since the house’s purchase, the Broaddus tried to sell the house, but of course, the story had become local gossip and no one dared buy it.
The Broaddus’s tried to sue the previous owners for withholding details about the letters, but their case was dismissed. This only brought wider attention to the story.
Still, letters kept coming and the Broaddus’s were stuck. They attempted to sell the house to developers, but this was rejected by the neighbourhood planning board, which sparked a host of letters from “Friennds of the Broaddus Family” to those who rejected the application.
Despite all this by 2016, the family found tenants to rent the property. A year two weeks later another, more threatening letter arrived. The tenants decided to stay on after cameras were installed around the house.
Despite investigations, police have still not been able to identify the sender, although a few suspects have been considered – including the family themselves. Against the family’s wishes, a horror film based on the events was released in 2016, but by 2019, the Broaddus’s managed to sell the home – albeit at a $400,000 loss.
Since the sale, there’s been no reports of any more letters from The Watcher.
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The Hawthorn Files 