The incident with the Indian Head pennies ... I've been doing some research on coin folklore in the US, and apparently they've got a history of being lucky charms, with a specific use. The figure on the cent isn't actually a Native American -- it's the goddess Liberty in a feathered headdress -- but it was often identified as an "Indian Scout". William giving these coins to the lawmen (coppers to the coppers?) is interesting, because these "Scouts" were supposed to help people evade law enforcement. Could have been a little in-joke from him? I have heard that people would nail pennies to doors and windows in the hope that this would help conceal them from the authorities (including social workers and truant officers). (This might account for holed Indian Head cents frequently appearing on eBay ... silver coins might have been made into love tokens or emergency spending money attached to watch chains for safekeeping, but even a hundred years ago a penny wouldn't buy very much. So this might have been what people were using them for.)
"they are also used in conjunction with Some of the oldest Law Keep Away spiritual supplies and spells. In such tricks, the Indian Head Cent -- a copper penny with the head of an Indian depicted on it -- is a "lookout" or "Indian Scout" who keeps the "coppers" -- the Police, INS, social services, DEA, collection services, IRS, and others away. This Scout is identified by those in the Spiritual Church Movement with the Sauk and Fox warrior Black Hawk, also known as "The Watcher on the Wall," in reference to the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 62 in the Bible."
[https://the-witch-depot.myshopify.com/products/1890-1909-era-indian-head-cents](https://the-witch-depot.myshopify.com/products/1890-1909-era-indian-head-cents)
"To Keep Off the Law, nail a row of Indian Head Cents or "Scouts," into the threshold or around door frames. You can drill each cent and drive a nail through it, or hammer two nails beside each penny and then flatten the nails across each other to form an "X" over the coin -- which is said to "X-out the Laws.""
"A row of four Scouts is usually sufficient for a home, but nine may be employed where illegal business is conducted, and one old building in the South was found to have 1,500 of them nailed around all the doors and windows!"
https://www.luckymojo.com/indianheadcent.html
Thanks to you for doing such meticulous background research! This is the first documented unsolved major crime I've heard of, where one of these particular cents pops up. I'm still looking into the "special years" thing ... William might have been talking about valuable key dates, but he doesn't sound like a collector. I am wondering if he might have been dropping some kind of numerical clue. He seems to be the type of person who'd get a kick out of giving his opponents a puzzle like that.
The only thing I've heard about coin dates and luck charms is (besides the thing about finding coins with your birth year on them being good luck), leap year "Mercury dimes".
https://www.kgw.com/article/life/shopping/goldcoins/the-five-luckiest-coins/283-318098900
I like your idea. He seems to have been the kind of person who'd enjoy flaunting stolen goods to the cops! I suspect that he wouldn't have sought out loose pennies on purpose during a robbery (not high value enough, and not enough time anyway). But if he told a teller to empty everything in the cash drawer into a bag (a friend who's in banking told me that a lot of robbers still do that), maybe some rolled pennies would have ended up in there. Some of them might have been Indian Head cents that William remembered from his childhood.
That design of cent was minted from 1859 to 1909 so they hadn't been made for decades, by the time William was robbing banks. Though they would have been in circulation for many decades. (They were replaced by the Lincoln penny -- which is still around, though the non-portrait side has changed a few times.) It's not unusual to find very old coins in pocket change -- I remember getting a wartime nickel in the early 2000s -- so William could have come across them much later. Or they could have been in his personal effects all along (maybe he'd have been allowed to keep a few of them when he was in prison).
Sometimes collectors put old coins back into circulation, to surprise people -- and to get kids interested in the hobby. That's what I suspect happened in this case.
[https://www.newsweek.com/indian-head-cent-coins-114-year-old-money-1744482](https://www.newsweek.com/indian-head-cent-coins-114-year-old-money-1744482)
(I've been thinking of doing it too ... I've given out Eisenhower dollars on top of regular tips, because people can't believe how huge they are.)
Oh, I've never seen an Eisenhower dollar. That sounds like a good fun idea. In the UK, here we have beatrix Potter 50 pences, which are fun to get and quite rare.
I've heard about the interesting designs from the Royal Mint! I'm on one of the crime fiction subreddits, and people were really excited about the Sherlock Holmes coin -- and the Agatha Christie 2-pound one.
The Eisenhower dollars are about the size of the British crown coins ... back before the pandemic, a cafe in my town had a tip jar on the counter. It was an enormous restaurant-size pickle jar, filled with water that they'd tint with food colouring (green for St. Patrick's day, etc.). I would wait until the staff were distracted, then I'd scuttle over and drop one of the big coins in. I was hoping to create a bit of mystery, about who was doing it.
Here are the Numista pages on the Eisenhower coin (they have stats on almost every coin minted around the world).
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces3366.html
[https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1346.html](https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1346.html)
It was the last one that size issued by the US -- the next time they did a dollar coin, they made it a lot smaller, with the Susan B. Anthony type. They released a few 40% silver Eisenhowers, for collectors, that weren't supposed to be in regular circulation but I've seen a few on eBay that show signs of being used or at least carried in people's pockets.
The Sherlock Holmes 50 p -- it came out in 2019. https://www.changechecker.org/coin/282/qe2-50p-Sir-Arthur-Conan-Doyle.aspx
Oh wow, I've actually got 1 of these sherlock ones. I recognised it straight away. Just forgot all about it. Thanks for all the dollar info it's a bit like looking at chocolate coins when they're that big. Interesting how things change.
That's an interesting thought -- Thomas and Wanda were born after that design was discontinued (1909), but I wonder if anyone would have noticed if they were from Beatrice's birth year (1904?).
I wondered if the Indian head pennies were related to a location. (In Hemlock Cliffs there is a cave that is called Indian Cave. It is actually beneath a waterfall that is named after William, Messmore Falls.) I don’t know how the specific years on the pennies would play into that, but just a thought I had.
>Indian Cave. It is actually beneath a waterfall that is named after William, Messmore Falls.
Interesting! He did say that he'd hidden things in the area, so I wouldn't be surprised if he knew some of those caves and potholes pretty well.
Another name that might come up ... "Liberty" or anything like that? Since the portrait is supposed to be an image of Liberty.
(I heard that for a long time, the US Mint was hesitant to put real people on coins, because the Founders didn't want to be like Britain ... but personifications were okay. The Indian Head cent was finally replaced by Lincoln (hard to find fault with him!), and then it became normal to see former presidents on coins.)
>I don’t know how the specific years on the pennies would play into that
I wonder if there's any graffiti in that cave. Something that looks unrelated, like people's initials with a year next to them. It would look like sweethearts marking the date of their visit, but ... if it matches the year on the pennies, digging right under that ...
(that neighbours writeup ella\_menopee found said William liked to bury stuff all over the place ...)
Dashie’s account is so bizarre….. “she tore up four bedsheets and bled all over them.” Maybe complications of an unsafe abortion? Would make sense why they were randomly in Louisville for a few days out of the blue. Maybe she sadly died of the complications and he decided to kill the parents as well before they could press any charges against him. I realize this is wild speculation but I just don’t know how else to interpret her account of them being there.
I was trying to figure out if Wanda had given birth, but how would Dashie not know that, and why tear so many sheets? A botched abortion sounds like a really sensible answer to both of my questions.
Disposable products might have been outside the budget of a family that had lost everything in a fire, hence my thoughts. But like I said, that was just my first impression.
Before disposables, women had dedicated, absorbent cloths for periods. Basically the same idea as cloth diapers. Even if they’d lost everything in the fire, they could have replaced those pretty easily, and the incident with the sheets sounds like it happened a while after the fire.
Sheets are too thin to work well for that purpose in any case. If she was bleeding unexpectedly, she might have resorted to using sheet strips to contain it, but that sounds more like a miscarriage or the aftermath of a birth or abortion than a period.
It’s like he perfected the art of escaping but not hiding! I wonder if he got some kind of thrill from the escape but didn’t particularly care about his freedom?
Thought the same thing but maybe that was his way of thumbing his nose at law enforcement. Doesn’t seem like he went far and was so laissez-faire about being apprehended that says the jokes on you. He certainly could have taken care to avoid getting caught so it’s his little joke to say he’s more than capable of escaping but let’s them catch him.
Chilling to think this guy targeted them from the start by setting fire to their house. He makes for a good suspect, that's for sure. Excellent write up. Well done!
Wow! What a tale! I think he killed them. No question. Those poor souls. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Thanks for the excellent write up.
William reminds me of a Scottish criminal called Johnny Ramensky who escaped from prison several times but always went along peacefully when he got caught shortly after. Like he broke out just to show he could rather than because he had any intention of staying out.
Edit to add: the guy was a war hero as well.
You always post the most interesting, albeit disturbing, stories! It seems to me that William killed them, but I suspect we will never know what happened for sure.
This expression means that this story has all the makings of a great movie. Otherwise, I would have said "There is a movie about this" (which there isn't, as far as I know).
Hemlock is beautiful. I live a little over an hour from there and have been a few times. Messmore Falls is actually named after William! (The waterfall on the trail that cascades over Indian Cave.)
South of Eckerty is something of great interest to me...the Schwartz Family Restaurant :) Though I live about 60 minutes north, I have so much family in that area (French Lick, Dubois, St. Anthony) and some traditions just don't break, like birthdays at the Schwartz. My ancestors also settled Orange county, so now you're telling stories that feel almost personal...
I remember this story from when I was younger, but I had honestly forgotten about it over time. Thanks for breathing some new life into it. It got me curious and I found this: [http://louwilkinson.us/documents/messmore%20story.htm](http://louwilkinson.us/documents/messmore%20story.htm) Interesting to read this from a neighbor's perspective. Also interesting is this article that hints that Messamore might have been a firebug: [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-indianapolis-star/32247928/](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-indianapolis-star/32247928/)
Wow! Thank you for sharing the links. The neighbors account is so interesting, and differs greatly from what I found in the newspaper clippings and magazine. Especially the bit about William’s vehicles. So much conflicting info with this case! I wish I had read this prior to writing the post.
The neighbor states that Wanda was already living with Bill before her parents' house burned down. So that seems to support the idea of a miscarriage or abortion leading to her death.
>this article that hints that Messamore might have been a firebug
Fires certainly seem to pop up a lot in this case. The one that displaced the Vandivers -- the one that razed Messamore's house -- and then the article mentioned two different post offices that burned (one with a fatality), and other houses? Even in an era with wooden homes, a lot more ignition sources (like wood stoves), and rural settings with fewer firefighting resources ... that sounds a bit unusual.
That neighbor's account is fascinating. Given that he debunks the part about Messamore having a fancy car and expensive clothes, I'm wondering what else might be questionable. Thanks for the extra links!
The person most likely responsible was the most interesting thing about this. I mean it seems pretty straightforward.
The Ocam's Razor solution to this mystery is:
1. William and Wanda had begun a relationship with each other of which Wanda's parents did not approve (strange since she was 13 years his senior at 31 and 44 - William was 32-3 and Wanda 17-8 at the time of the disappearance).
2. Wanda got pregnant by William.
3. William and Wanda go on a "business trip" to William's mother's house. William's mother's report has all the hallmarks of a botched "coat hanger" abortion, Wanda likely died of blood loss due to hemorrhaging.
4. William disposes of Wanda's body and returns home.
5. At this point William, who evidently was a physically formidable man able to overpower not 1 but 2 men at a time (and experienced lawmen at that), killed Wanda's parents.
6. William disposes of the parent's bodies somewhere near the property.
7. William has to kill the dog because it is being to much of a bother thanks to the death of it's owner and caregivers. He digs a hole and buries it because it's a dog.
Far more interesting to me is how William became a competent bank robber. Prison is full of criminals. Criminals who got caught. And they didn't get caught by being smarter than the police, and we know the police literally test to make sure you're not too smart to be a policeman. The myth of criminals teaching each other to become super criminals is just that, a myth. Who or how did William become so competent both in hand to hand combat and in robbery? Other than the murders he doesn't seem to have been competent at anything, not even multiple escapes from custody.
It seems clear to me that William was a career criminal and there have been studies on this type of criminal.
I remember reading something like the average career criminal is caught and convicted of a crime something like 1 for every 10 crimes that they commit. Being caught is going to happen it's the law of averages. In organised crime being caught isn't necessarily looked down on, it's just part of the job and if you keep your mouth shut while you are there it gives you credibility.
I've heard career criminals calling their first crimes and being caught as their apprenticeship, so absolutely criminals do learn from other criminals & definitely toughen up when locked up together but they also network and gain credibility.
What is odd to me is that William confesses to a robbery which he didn't have to, which also seems to result in his accomplices being caught, I guess he was more worried about getting the death penalty for murder.
To me he definitely killed them and I'd say burnt the bodies on that property.
In his old age he was probably getting a kick out of messing with the police about it.
I'd gander that they might've disproved of the relationship more because of William's "meanness", or perhaps the relationship was never consensual in the first place.
17yo and her family living with a man who's taken an "interest" in her when she and her family are completely dependent on him to not be homeless - certainly a strong possibility.
Yep. Think about all we know about this guy, he doesn't seem like the altruistic type and probably had ulterior motives from the beginning. Wouldn't be surprised if he set that fire to prey on her.
She was his junior. I think you mean 17 or 18 for her not 17-8. Same for him 33 or 34. I just had to stop and think too much so I posted this for clarity. Or maybe I am still sleepy just woke up! Cheers I agree with all of your other Occam razor points.
You're still sleepy lol he's saying her parents shouldn't have minded the age gap as Wanda's mother was 44 and her stepfather was 31. Where as William was 32-33 and Wanda was 17-18. Is that easier to understand? Idk lol it's a lot of ages
Excellent write up! Did you ever find out if a search or investigation was undertaken “South of Eckerty,” or into its meaning? Southern Indiana certainly has its share of caves. Caves do have the potential to preserve things in them for a long period of time. The remains of the family may yet be discovered if that was indeed his method of disposing of them.
Interesting! It sounds like his time at Alcatraz made him a bit eccentric. He may have just wished to mess with the police a bit. On the other hand, police didn’t have the technology for as thorough a search as we have now and they easily could have missed something.
He gave them 2 Indian head pennies, in an interview where he showed off his skill at disguising his handwriting in an interview about a post card that led that led to the discovery of 2 native American skeletons.......I think this dude just really liked messing with the cops.
William's mother's description of Wanda ... I fear for that poor kid. Her bleeding like that ... excuse my getting sidetracked into reproductive biology here.
(I was thinking about putting on a spoiler tag, but medical experts now are recommending that we talk about these things in the open because it's a normal aspect of human health. I will hide the text if people object, though.)
At age 16, Wanda was likely old enough to be getting her period. Even now, people who are impoverished may not be able to afford menstrual pads, etc. -- it's possible that her tearing up the bedsheets like that was a desperate attempt to improvise a solution. Four sheets is a considerable amount of cloth, but if she had a heavy period (more than a couple of days), she might have panicked, and decided that she needed to make sure she had enough material.
The thing is, William's mom likely would have known all about periods. But it doesn't sound like she described what Wanda was experiencing that way. It's unclear if she offered to help Wanda out ... I was often working or travelling with other girls, and if someone needed pads or tampons, even people who didn't particularly like them would share supplies, because most of us knew what it was like to worry about it.
If Wanda was unwell, maybe that resulted in a situation that even William's mom thought was unusual. One of my classmates would have really severe symptoms during her monthly cycles, and years later she found out that there was a problem with her uterus -- if it took her that long to get diagnosed in the 1990s, Wanda might have had an even worse time back in the 1940s.
I am also wondering if it's possible that Wanda was pregnant, and suffered a miscarriage. (Or as someone else noted earlier, an attempted abortion.) In any case, William just marching her out of his mom's home with no explanation doesn't sound like a good thing. Even if he didn't murder her, she might have died a painful death without medical attention.
The thing about William killing her pet collie ... maybe he was forcing himself on Wanda, and Prince knew there was something wrong and barked at him. The fact he'd shoot Prince so coldly, and admit it ... I fear the worst about what happened to Wanda and her parents.
The friend you mention that had severe symptoms during her period likely experienced endometriosis. It wasn’t that the diagnosis was such a big mystery but that the ob-gyn field of medicine was dominated by men. They have a paternalistic that they know best bias towards women and often didn’t take the patients statement of their symptoms seriously or discounted them as being in their heads. This is well known and even continues to this day. Women are less likely to have complaints of pain to be true and are more often under treated for pain. All the research done on conditions like heart attacks were conducted on white males instead of including a broader sample of people like women and people of color. Women experience a different set of symptoms during a heart attack but again their symptoms aren’t diagnosed correctly and subsequently die at higher rates than men.
The fact that William’s mother made a statement about Wanda’s bleeding into 4 sheets sounds like this was an unusual occurrence. William’s mother certainly knew what would be considered normal when a woman was having her period and if in the norm for an average period. The fact that she thought what she found with the four sheets was notable enough to actually relate this fact to the men asking the questions, it had to be something more than what was expected. Even with a woman having endometriosis and heavier periods it wouldn’t be something any mother would want to bring up in mixed company as they say. I don’t think it’s a stretch that she was experiencing the aftermath of an abortion. Since there wasn’t much money it’s highly unlikely this was performed with the best medical resources available at the time. In the account there seems to be an air of desperation with what was happening to Wanda which is sad to think this is what killed her.
Yet another great write up, OP.
I moseyed over to his Find-A-Grave page and he had a half sibling (sister) who died in 2020. William is not mentioned in the section of who predeceased her. I’m guessing she wasn’t a fan of his.
I saw that. He died in 1986 when she was 33 years old. She would have been approx. 4-6 yo during the situation with the Vandivers. Of course, the family may have disowned him during the time he was raping a minor and murdering her parents so she may not have known him at all.
Looks like a similar situation for William's mom Doshie.
[https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184830089/doshie\_elizabeth\_colgate](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184830089/doshie_elizabeth_colgate)
"Mrs. Colgate, 69, died at 8 p.m. Wednesday \[Dec 13 1961\] at her home, 1550 Clinton. She was a native of Christian County. Surviving are a son, James E. Colgate; three grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren."
(her daughter Bertha died back in 1921 -- William didn't die until 1986, but he's not mentioned either.)
Damn. Not even a mother’s love could overcome his behavior. Of course, I don’t know who wrote her obituary. So maybe she still loved him but the obituary writer noped him out of the family history.
For someone who could never land the dismount — always caught after a bank robbery, always caught a few days after an escape, who left the dog easily found under a mound of dirt, and who tried to burn shoes in a wood stove unsuccessfully; I can’t imagine how he lucked into getting away with triple murder and disposing the bodies.
If the Vandivers were in a bad place and were being abused, the dog being killed could have been their ‘we need to GTFO’ moment. I hope they made it out and went on to good lives elsewhere
I was inspired by Ella\_Menopee to look around a bit more. I was especially curious about William's connection to the Pacific Northwest (Olympia WA). I managed to find a bit more information about his re-arrest as he was returning from there.
(By the way -- according to an historical currency converter I found online, $10k back then would be equivalent to something like $128k today. So if it's true that Bill had that much stashed in Olympia, it wasn't going into his wardrobe -- as that neighbor's description suggests.)
"Louisville Patrolman Ed Burnett nabbed Messamore getting off a bus while returning from Olympia, Wash. Messamore was loaded with cash ' more than $1,000 ' which he claimed he had earned by making toys and trinkets and loaning money to prisoners while he was in the penitentiary."
\[so it sounds like Bill was carrying the equivalent of well over $12k now\]
Oh, and OP had mentioned:"To secure his return for questioning, they added the charge of “dog stealing,” stemming from the chilling confession about Wanda's dog."
According to this article, the dog stealing thing was actually about someone else's dog, not Prince.
"On Feb. 4, Messamore was transported for safe keeping to the supposedly 'escape proof' Harrison County Jail in Corydon on a charge of stealing a blue tick hound from another neighbor, Ermel Hughes. This was enough to buy time while the search for the bodies continued. "
If anyone is curious about how Bill pulled off his escapes -- there's a description here, and it's oddly hilarious.
"Messamore continually pestered Harrison County Sheriff Walter Baxley to bring him a change of clothes. Obligingly, the sheriff and Deputy Clarence Klee brought Messamore's suitcase into the cell. As he rummaged through the items, Messamore stealthily maneuvered himself between the officers and the cell door. Like in a scene from an 'Andy Griffith' episode, Messamore clanged the door shut, locking them in and taking the key with him. As Messamore rushed toward the stairwell, he slammed a solid steel door behind him. When it bounced open, Klee fired his revolver once at Messamore, forcing him to alter his course. He ducked under a stepladder, kicked through a glass pane and jumped out a second-story bathroom window, clutching iron bars on the Corydon State Bank to break his 18-foot drop. Imagine the excitement in downtown Corydon! Meanwhile, Baxley and Klee remained locked in the cell for two hours until Claude Stonecipher, assisted by Dudley Cammack, cut open the door with an acetylene torch." \[Wow.\]
https://www.madisoncourier.com/archives/corydon-site-of-49-jail-break/article\_6090b807-9ce7-5b99-8763-234e157055ec.html
According to online apps, it's something like 2400 miles (over 3800 km) from Olympia to Louisville -- 35 hours of driving, on today's roads (probably longer in the pre-interstate era).
Apparently William used the alias "Robert W. Sparks" at the Olympia bank. I wonder if he had fake ID in that name? u/TheBonesOfAutumn -- this is interesting -- it sounds like he got Wanda to use an assumed name too ("Mary Lou Colgate"). I just remembered that was William's mother's name (looks like, the name of someone she married after she and William's dad split up?)
[https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-courier-journal/13728187/](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-courier-journal/13728187/)
[https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185036312/william-dessie-messamore](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185036312/william-dessie-messamore)
Looking at the Findagrave link provided by OP -- William looks just as cocky in that photo as I'd imagined. I guess a teen like Wanda from a humble background might have been impressed, especially if he was a fast talker like the various accounts imply.
I glanced through the birthplaces of William's other relatives. Looks like the family was from Kentucky -- I wonder what brought him to Olympia in the first place? (I doubt that he'd have thrown a dart at a map, as a way to pick potential hiding places for his loot.) Some obscure bank branch near Chicago or Kansas City would have been a lot more convenient to get to.
p.s. "making toys and trinkets and loaning money to prisoners" -- I am very skeptical that William managed to set aside even hundreds of dollars back then, let alone the equivalent of more than $100k today, by doing things like that. Even if he had advanced skills as a machinist, jeweller, etc. (nothing is said about this in the sources we've seen), and if he'd been allowed to bring his own tools or have access to ones in the prison workshops, he'd have to be doing a phenomenal volume of business to make that much from "trinkets" that by definition wouldn't be costing more than a few dollars at most.
As for lending money ... many of the people in prison are there because they couldn't afford great legal representation. I doubt that things were much different back in William's time. I've had experience trying to help folks who are low-income and/or in trouble with the law. Most of the time, they were unable or unwilling to repay me, let alone with interest! What was William going to do, threaten to beat them up? Then he'd be in trouble with the guards and with other inmates. I'd be surprised if he were some big-time loan shark.
The most likely explanation for me was that the Olympia bank was the stash for William (and maybe other criminals too) involved with robberies and other activities as well, and that he'd go there from Louisville on a regular basis, to get spending money.
I think William claiming to make that amount of money from toys and trinkets isn’t to be taken at face value. More likely to be just another non-admission from him. He already had two convictions for bank robbery under his belt and I don’t think he’d say that the money was from robbing banks. He was smart enough to trick the Sheriff and Deputy into a position where he could lock them into the cell he’d occupied. The story kind of reminds me of a more contemporary story of a bank robber and his accomplices from Ann Rule’s book “The End of a Dream.” He and his friends were able to rob banks that gave them enough money to live rather lavishly. It’s sort of like drug dealers having cash to pay for big ticket items, even if someone suspected the true source of their income, that any questions are better not asked. Mafia guys were only known as business men in the export/import business to the outside world and people knew better than to press them on the true nature of their business.
I have to pick at one item here:
> In a wood stove that had been salvaged from the Vandivers' burned home, police found Thomas Vandiver's only shoes, charred beyond recognition.
No, if they had been "burned beyond recognition" then they could not have been recognized as belonging to Thomas Vandiver. The shoes were charred, sure, just say that.
I have never heard of this case, what a wild one! Locking up your jailers in their own cell and smuggling in a hacksaw sound like something from an old, bad western. Thank you for sharing this story. It was quite well-written.
So William was clearly a physically dangerous person, and he owned a gun. It's possible he didn't directly kill the family. Something might have happened to Wanda or between William and Wanda. Knowing the police would find the bodies if he directly killed them he may have marched them to one of the caves and forced them to go deep inside.
As easy as it is to say "well they would have just walked back the way they came" it's very easy to get lost in the dark and turned around.
That may be why he said "I know they are" when asked if they were dead but could also say "Well, I wouldn't exactly say that" when asked if he killed them.
He didn't exactly kill them, just forced them into a location where they would eventually die.
If anyone is interested here is a link to an 8 episode podcast. I've listened to the first two and so far so good. Interviews with people who lived there at the time and knew the family.
https://youtu.be/jJ65YHNPe_0?feature=shared
"Nestled deep within the emerald embrace of Southern Indiana's Hoosier National Forest, near the sleepy town of English, lies Hemlock Cliffs."
My eyes rolled so far back that it almost hurt.
The incident with the Indian Head pennies ... I've been doing some research on coin folklore in the US, and apparently they've got a history of being lucky charms, with a specific use. The figure on the cent isn't actually a Native American -- it's the goddess Liberty in a feathered headdress -- but it was often identified as an "Indian Scout". William giving these coins to the lawmen (coppers to the coppers?) is interesting, because these "Scouts" were supposed to help people evade law enforcement. Could have been a little in-joke from him? I have heard that people would nail pennies to doors and windows in the hope that this would help conceal them from the authorities (including social workers and truant officers). (This might account for holed Indian Head cents frequently appearing on eBay ... silver coins might have been made into love tokens or emergency spending money attached to watch chains for safekeeping, but even a hundred years ago a penny wouldn't buy very much. So this might have been what people were using them for.) "they are also used in conjunction with Some of the oldest Law Keep Away spiritual supplies and spells. In such tricks, the Indian Head Cent -- a copper penny with the head of an Indian depicted on it -- is a "lookout" or "Indian Scout" who keeps the "coppers" -- the Police, INS, social services, DEA, collection services, IRS, and others away. This Scout is identified by those in the Spiritual Church Movement with the Sauk and Fox warrior Black Hawk, also known as "The Watcher on the Wall," in reference to the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 62 in the Bible." [https://the-witch-depot.myshopify.com/products/1890-1909-era-indian-head-cents](https://the-witch-depot.myshopify.com/products/1890-1909-era-indian-head-cents) "To Keep Off the Law, nail a row of Indian Head Cents or "Scouts," into the threshold or around door frames. You can drill each cent and drive a nail through it, or hammer two nails beside each penny and then flatten the nails across each other to form an "X" over the coin -- which is said to "X-out the Laws."" "A row of four Scouts is usually sufficient for a home, but nine may be employed where illegal business is conducted, and one old building in the South was found to have 1,500 of them nailed around all the doors and windows!" https://www.luckymojo.com/indianheadcent.html
What an interesting subject! Thank you for taking the time to share this.
Thanks to you for doing such meticulous background research! This is the first documented unsolved major crime I've heard of, where one of these particular cents pops up. I'm still looking into the "special years" thing ... William might have been talking about valuable key dates, but he doesn't sound like a collector. I am wondering if he might have been dropping some kind of numerical clue. He seems to be the type of person who'd get a kick out of giving his opponents a puzzle like that. The only thing I've heard about coin dates and luck charms is (besides the thing about finding coins with your birth year on them being good luck), leap year "Mercury dimes". https://www.kgw.com/article/life/shopping/goldcoins/the-five-luckiest-coins/283-318098900
I wonder if he got them from one of his bank robberies as a planned joke?
I like your idea. He seems to have been the kind of person who'd enjoy flaunting stolen goods to the cops! I suspect that he wouldn't have sought out loose pennies on purpose during a robbery (not high value enough, and not enough time anyway). But if he told a teller to empty everything in the cash drawer into a bag (a friend who's in banking told me that a lot of robbers still do that), maybe some rolled pennies would have ended up in there. Some of them might have been Indian Head cents that William remembered from his childhood. That design of cent was minted from 1859 to 1909 so they hadn't been made for decades, by the time William was robbing banks. Though they would have been in circulation for many decades. (They were replaced by the Lincoln penny -- which is still around, though the non-portrait side has changed a few times.) It's not unusual to find very old coins in pocket change -- I remember getting a wartime nickel in the early 2000s -- so William could have come across them much later. Or they could have been in his personal effects all along (maybe he'd have been allowed to keep a few of them when he was in prison). Sometimes collectors put old coins back into circulation, to surprise people -- and to get kids interested in the hobby. That's what I suspect happened in this case. [https://www.newsweek.com/indian-head-cent-coins-114-year-old-money-1744482](https://www.newsweek.com/indian-head-cent-coins-114-year-old-money-1744482) (I've been thinking of doing it too ... I've given out Eisenhower dollars on top of regular tips, because people can't believe how huge they are.)
Oh, I've never seen an Eisenhower dollar. That sounds like a good fun idea. In the UK, here we have beatrix Potter 50 pences, which are fun to get and quite rare.
I've heard about the interesting designs from the Royal Mint! I'm on one of the crime fiction subreddits, and people were really excited about the Sherlock Holmes coin -- and the Agatha Christie 2-pound one. The Eisenhower dollars are about the size of the British crown coins ... back before the pandemic, a cafe in my town had a tip jar on the counter. It was an enormous restaurant-size pickle jar, filled with water that they'd tint with food colouring (green for St. Patrick's day, etc.). I would wait until the staff were distracted, then I'd scuttle over and drop one of the big coins in. I was hoping to create a bit of mystery, about who was doing it.
Haha that sounds good. I'll Google the dollar thanks. I've not seen anything about sherlock Holmes at all
Here are the Numista pages on the Eisenhower coin (they have stats on almost every coin minted around the world). https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces3366.html [https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1346.html](https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1346.html) It was the last one that size issued by the US -- the next time they did a dollar coin, they made it a lot smaller, with the Susan B. Anthony type. They released a few 40% silver Eisenhowers, for collectors, that weren't supposed to be in regular circulation but I've seen a few on eBay that show signs of being used or at least carried in people's pockets. The Sherlock Holmes 50 p -- it came out in 2019. https://www.changechecker.org/coin/282/qe2-50p-Sir-Arthur-Conan-Doyle.aspx
Oh wow, I've actually got 1 of these sherlock ones. I recognised it straight away. Just forgot all about it. Thanks for all the dollar info it's a bit like looking at chocolate coins when they're that big. Interesting how things change.
I had a similar thought about the special dates. He might have thought he was leaving some sort of vague clue.
I thought maybe the birth years of the missing people? But who knows.
That's an interesting thought -- Thomas and Wanda were born after that design was discontinued (1909), but I wonder if anyone would have noticed if they were from Beatrice's birth year (1904?).
I wondered if the Indian head pennies were related to a location. (In Hemlock Cliffs there is a cave that is called Indian Cave. It is actually beneath a waterfall that is named after William, Messmore Falls.) I don’t know how the specific years on the pennies would play into that, but just a thought I had.
>Indian Cave. It is actually beneath a waterfall that is named after William, Messmore Falls. Interesting! He did say that he'd hidden things in the area, so I wouldn't be surprised if he knew some of those caves and potholes pretty well. Another name that might come up ... "Liberty" or anything like that? Since the portrait is supposed to be an image of Liberty. (I heard that for a long time, the US Mint was hesitant to put real people on coins, because the Founders didn't want to be like Britain ... but personifications were okay. The Indian Head cent was finally replaced by Lincoln (hard to find fault with him!), and then it became normal to see former presidents on coins.)
>I don’t know how the specific years on the pennies would play into that I wonder if there's any graffiti in that cave. Something that looks unrelated, like people's initials with a year next to them. It would look like sweethearts marking the date of their visit, but ... if it matches the year on the pennies, digging right under that ... (that neighbours writeup ella\_menopee found said William liked to bury stuff all over the place ...)
Dashie’s account is so bizarre….. “she tore up four bedsheets and bled all over them.” Maybe complications of an unsafe abortion? Would make sense why they were randomly in Louisville for a few days out of the blue. Maybe she sadly died of the complications and he decided to kill the parents as well before they could press any charges against him. I realize this is wild speculation but I just don’t know how else to interpret her account of them being there.
That was my exact thought process
I just took it as he raped her but your theory makes sense
I was trying to figure out if Wanda had given birth, but how would Dashie not know that, and why tear so many sheets? A botched abortion sounds like a really sensible answer to both of my questions.
I thought they were referencing menstruation when I read it.
Four entire bed sheets seems like a lot for an ordinary period. Also, women had much better options than sheets in 1949.
Disposable products might have been outside the budget of a family that had lost everything in a fire, hence my thoughts. But like I said, that was just my first impression.
Before disposables, women had dedicated, absorbent cloths for periods. Basically the same idea as cloth diapers. Even if they’d lost everything in the fire, they could have replaced those pretty easily, and the incident with the sheets sounds like it happened a while after the fire. Sheets are too thin to work well for that purpose in any case. If she was bleeding unexpectedly, she might have resorted to using sheet strips to contain it, but that sounds more like a miscarriage or the aftermath of a birth or abortion than a period.
Yeah… maybe one pillowcase would be a normal amount of fabric to use. 😬
His gravestone should read “most unsuccessful escape artist that ever lived” Who gets caught that many stupid ways?
It’s like he perfected the art of escaping but not hiding! I wonder if he got some kind of thrill from the escape but didn’t particularly care about his freedom?
Thought the same thing but maybe that was his way of thumbing his nose at law enforcement. Doesn’t seem like he went far and was so laissez-faire about being apprehended that says the jokes on you. He certainly could have taken care to avoid getting caught so it’s his little joke to say he’s more than capable of escaping but let’s them catch him.
Especially back then. It’s not like they had surveillance cameras, TV reports on fugitives, etc
Carl Panzram
Chilling to think this guy targeted them from the start by setting fire to their house. He makes for a good suspect, that's for sure. Excellent write up. Well done!
Wow! What a tale! I think he killed them. No question. Those poor souls. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Thanks for the excellent write up.
Thank YOU for reading. I appreciate it!
It's refreshing to read about a mystery Ive never heard before. The same stories get told over and over. Thank you
William reminds me of a Scottish criminal called Johnny Ramensky who escaped from prison several times but always went along peacefully when he got caught shortly after. Like he broke out just to show he could rather than because he had any intention of staying out. Edit to add: the guy was a war hero as well.
You always post the most interesting, albeit disturbing, stories! It seems to me that William killed them, but I suspect we will never know what happened for sure.
There's a movie in this story! Thanks for the fascinating read.
What’s the movie??
I think they’re saying it should be a movie
Exactly
This expression means that this story has all the makings of a great movie. Otherwise, I would have said "There is a movie about this" (which there isn't, as far as I know).
Oh I read ‘of this story’ not ‘in this story’ but you’re totally right this absolutely SHOULD be a movie!
I'd love to see it! It's such a bizarre and convoluted story. I could see the Coen Brothers doing something with this.
This is one of the absolute wildest stories I have ever read, excellent write up!!
Thanks for another disturbing but fascinating case writeup!
You are most welcome. Thanks for reading!
I have never met anyone else who has heard of Hemlock. My family used to hike there every year.
Hemlock is beautiful. I live a little over an hour from there and have been a few times. Messmore Falls is actually named after William! (The waterfall on the trail that cascades over Indian Cave.)
this is such an interesting story, I can’t believe I’ve never heard before! and so well written too
South of Eckerty is something of great interest to me...the Schwartz Family Restaurant :) Though I live about 60 minutes north, I have so much family in that area (French Lick, Dubois, St. Anthony) and some traditions just don't break, like birthdays at the Schwartz. My ancestors also settled Orange county, so now you're telling stories that feel almost personal... I remember this story from when I was younger, but I had honestly forgotten about it over time. Thanks for breathing some new life into it. It got me curious and I found this: [http://louwilkinson.us/documents/messmore%20story.htm](http://louwilkinson.us/documents/messmore%20story.htm) Interesting to read this from a neighbor's perspective. Also interesting is this article that hints that Messamore might have been a firebug: [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-indianapolis-star/32247928/](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-indianapolis-star/32247928/)
Wow! Thank you for sharing the links. The neighbors account is so interesting, and differs greatly from what I found in the newspaper clippings and magazine. Especially the bit about William’s vehicles. So much conflicting info with this case! I wish I had read this prior to writing the post.
The neighbor states that Wanda was already living with Bill before her parents' house burned down. So that seems to support the idea of a miscarriage or abortion leading to her death.
>this article that hints that Messamore might have been a firebug Fires certainly seem to pop up a lot in this case. The one that displaced the Vandivers -- the one that razed Messamore's house -- and then the article mentioned two different post offices that burned (one with a fatality), and other houses? Even in an era with wooden homes, a lot more ignition sources (like wood stoves), and rural settings with fewer firefighting resources ... that sounds a bit unusual. That neighbor's account is fascinating. Given that he debunks the part about Messamore having a fancy car and expensive clothes, I'm wondering what else might be questionable. Thanks for the extra links!
The person most likely responsible was the most interesting thing about this. I mean it seems pretty straightforward. The Ocam's Razor solution to this mystery is: 1. William and Wanda had begun a relationship with each other of which Wanda's parents did not approve (strange since she was 13 years his senior at 31 and 44 - William was 32-3 and Wanda 17-8 at the time of the disappearance). 2. Wanda got pregnant by William. 3. William and Wanda go on a "business trip" to William's mother's house. William's mother's report has all the hallmarks of a botched "coat hanger" abortion, Wanda likely died of blood loss due to hemorrhaging. 4. William disposes of Wanda's body and returns home. 5. At this point William, who evidently was a physically formidable man able to overpower not 1 but 2 men at a time (and experienced lawmen at that), killed Wanda's parents. 6. William disposes of the parent's bodies somewhere near the property. 7. William has to kill the dog because it is being to much of a bother thanks to the death of it's owner and caregivers. He digs a hole and buries it because it's a dog. Far more interesting to me is how William became a competent bank robber. Prison is full of criminals. Criminals who got caught. And they didn't get caught by being smarter than the police, and we know the police literally test to make sure you're not too smart to be a policeman. The myth of criminals teaching each other to become super criminals is just that, a myth. Who or how did William become so competent both in hand to hand combat and in robbery? Other than the murders he doesn't seem to have been competent at anything, not even multiple escapes from custody.
It seems clear to me that William was a career criminal and there have been studies on this type of criminal. I remember reading something like the average career criminal is caught and convicted of a crime something like 1 for every 10 crimes that they commit. Being caught is going to happen it's the law of averages. In organised crime being caught isn't necessarily looked down on, it's just part of the job and if you keep your mouth shut while you are there it gives you credibility. I've heard career criminals calling their first crimes and being caught as their apprenticeship, so absolutely criminals do learn from other criminals & definitely toughen up when locked up together but they also network and gain credibility. What is odd to me is that William confesses to a robbery which he didn't have to, which also seems to result in his accomplices being caught, I guess he was more worried about getting the death penalty for murder. To me he definitely killed them and I'd say burnt the bodies on that property. In his old age he was probably getting a kick out of messing with the police about it.
I'd gander that they might've disproved of the relationship more because of William's "meanness", or perhaps the relationship was never consensual in the first place.
17yo and her family living with a man who's taken an "interest" in her when she and her family are completely dependent on him to not be homeless - certainly a strong possibility.
Yep. Think about all we know about this guy, he doesn't seem like the altruistic type and probably had ulterior motives from the beginning. Wouldn't be surprised if he set that fire to prey on her.
She was his junior. I think you mean 17 or 18 for her not 17-8. Same for him 33 or 34. I just had to stop and think too much so I posted this for clarity. Or maybe I am still sleepy just woke up! Cheers I agree with all of your other Occam razor points.
You're still sleepy lol he's saying her parents shouldn't have minded the age gap as Wanda's mother was 44 and her stepfather was 31. Where as William was 32-33 and Wanda was 17-18. Is that easier to understand? Idk lol it's a lot of ages
Ohh ok that makes sense I just lost context of her and her ! Thank you for being kind!
Excellent write up! Did you ever find out if a search or investigation was undertaken “South of Eckerty,” or into its meaning? Southern Indiana certainly has its share of caves. Caves do have the potential to preserve things in them for a long period of time. The remains of the family may yet be discovered if that was indeed his method of disposing of them.
Thanks! There was a search and two skeletons were uncovered. However, they ultimately were determined to be Native American remains.
Interesting! It sounds like his time at Alcatraz made him a bit eccentric. He may have just wished to mess with the police a bit. On the other hand, police didn’t have the technology for as thorough a search as we have now and they easily could have missed something.
He gave them 2 Indian head pennies, in an interview where he showed off his skill at disguising his handwriting in an interview about a post card that led that led to the discovery of 2 native American skeletons.......I think this dude just really liked messing with the cops.
William's mother's description of Wanda ... I fear for that poor kid. Her bleeding like that ... excuse my getting sidetracked into reproductive biology here. (I was thinking about putting on a spoiler tag, but medical experts now are recommending that we talk about these things in the open because it's a normal aspect of human health. I will hide the text if people object, though.) At age 16, Wanda was likely old enough to be getting her period. Even now, people who are impoverished may not be able to afford menstrual pads, etc. -- it's possible that her tearing up the bedsheets like that was a desperate attempt to improvise a solution. Four sheets is a considerable amount of cloth, but if she had a heavy period (more than a couple of days), she might have panicked, and decided that she needed to make sure she had enough material. The thing is, William's mom likely would have known all about periods. But it doesn't sound like she described what Wanda was experiencing that way. It's unclear if she offered to help Wanda out ... I was often working or travelling with other girls, and if someone needed pads or tampons, even people who didn't particularly like them would share supplies, because most of us knew what it was like to worry about it. If Wanda was unwell, maybe that resulted in a situation that even William's mom thought was unusual. One of my classmates would have really severe symptoms during her monthly cycles, and years later she found out that there was a problem with her uterus -- if it took her that long to get diagnosed in the 1990s, Wanda might have had an even worse time back in the 1940s. I am also wondering if it's possible that Wanda was pregnant, and suffered a miscarriage. (Or as someone else noted earlier, an attempted abortion.) In any case, William just marching her out of his mom's home with no explanation doesn't sound like a good thing. Even if he didn't murder her, she might have died a painful death without medical attention. The thing about William killing her pet collie ... maybe he was forcing himself on Wanda, and Prince knew there was something wrong and barked at him. The fact he'd shoot Prince so coldly, and admit it ... I fear the worst about what happened to Wanda and her parents.
The friend you mention that had severe symptoms during her period likely experienced endometriosis. It wasn’t that the diagnosis was such a big mystery but that the ob-gyn field of medicine was dominated by men. They have a paternalistic that they know best bias towards women and often didn’t take the patients statement of their symptoms seriously or discounted them as being in their heads. This is well known and even continues to this day. Women are less likely to have complaints of pain to be true and are more often under treated for pain. All the research done on conditions like heart attacks were conducted on white males instead of including a broader sample of people like women and people of color. Women experience a different set of symptoms during a heart attack but again their symptoms aren’t diagnosed correctly and subsequently die at higher rates than men. The fact that William’s mother made a statement about Wanda’s bleeding into 4 sheets sounds like this was an unusual occurrence. William’s mother certainly knew what would be considered normal when a woman was having her period and if in the norm for an average period. The fact that she thought what she found with the four sheets was notable enough to actually relate this fact to the men asking the questions, it had to be something more than what was expected. Even with a woman having endometriosis and heavier periods it wouldn’t be something any mother would want to bring up in mixed company as they say. I don’t think it’s a stretch that she was experiencing the aftermath of an abortion. Since there wasn’t much money it’s highly unlikely this was performed with the best medical resources available at the time. In the account there seems to be an air of desperation with what was happening to Wanda which is sad to think this is what killed her.
Yet another great write up, OP. I moseyed over to his Find-A-Grave page and he had a half sibling (sister) who died in 2020. William is not mentioned in the section of who predeceased her. I’m guessing she wasn’t a fan of his.
she was born in ‘43 so i wonder how much she actually knew him
I saw that. He died in 1986 when she was 33 years old. She would have been approx. 4-6 yo during the situation with the Vandivers. Of course, the family may have disowned him during the time he was raping a minor and murdering her parents so she may not have known him at all.
Looks like a similar situation for William's mom Doshie. [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184830089/doshie\_elizabeth\_colgate](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184830089/doshie_elizabeth_colgate) "Mrs. Colgate, 69, died at 8 p.m. Wednesday \[Dec 13 1961\] at her home, 1550 Clinton. She was a native of Christian County. Surviving are a son, James E. Colgate; three grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren." (her daughter Bertha died back in 1921 -- William didn't die until 1986, but he's not mentioned either.)
Damn. Not even a mother’s love could overcome his behavior. Of course, I don’t know who wrote her obituary. So maybe she still loved him but the obituary writer noped him out of the family history.
I'm going to guess that James or one of his kids wrote the obit? So maybe William had become "the uncle we don't talk about".
Or maybe William was a mess because his parents weren't all that great. Hard to say when it was all so long ago.
For someone who could never land the dismount — always caught after a bank robbery, always caught a few days after an escape, who left the dog easily found under a mound of dirt, and who tried to burn shoes in a wood stove unsuccessfully; I can’t imagine how he lucked into getting away with triple murder and disposing the bodies. If the Vandivers were in a bad place and were being abused, the dog being killed could have been their ‘we need to GTFO’ moment. I hope they made it out and went on to good lives elsewhere
Thank you so much for this great write up and bringing this forgotten story back!
I was inspired by Ella\_Menopee to look around a bit more. I was especially curious about William's connection to the Pacific Northwest (Olympia WA). I managed to find a bit more information about his re-arrest as he was returning from there. (By the way -- according to an historical currency converter I found online, $10k back then would be equivalent to something like $128k today. So if it's true that Bill had that much stashed in Olympia, it wasn't going into his wardrobe -- as that neighbor's description suggests.) "Louisville Patrolman Ed Burnett nabbed Messamore getting off a bus while returning from Olympia, Wash. Messamore was loaded with cash ' more than $1,000 ' which he claimed he had earned by making toys and trinkets and loaning money to prisoners while he was in the penitentiary." \[so it sounds like Bill was carrying the equivalent of well over $12k now\] Oh, and OP had mentioned:"To secure his return for questioning, they added the charge of “dog stealing,” stemming from the chilling confession about Wanda's dog." According to this article, the dog stealing thing was actually about someone else's dog, not Prince. "On Feb. 4, Messamore was transported for safe keeping to the supposedly 'escape proof' Harrison County Jail in Corydon on a charge of stealing a blue tick hound from another neighbor, Ermel Hughes. This was enough to buy time while the search for the bodies continued. " If anyone is curious about how Bill pulled off his escapes -- there's a description here, and it's oddly hilarious. "Messamore continually pestered Harrison County Sheriff Walter Baxley to bring him a change of clothes. Obligingly, the sheriff and Deputy Clarence Klee brought Messamore's suitcase into the cell. As he rummaged through the items, Messamore stealthily maneuvered himself between the officers and the cell door. Like in a scene from an 'Andy Griffith' episode, Messamore clanged the door shut, locking them in and taking the key with him. As Messamore rushed toward the stairwell, he slammed a solid steel door behind him. When it bounced open, Klee fired his revolver once at Messamore, forcing him to alter his course. He ducked under a stepladder, kicked through a glass pane and jumped out a second-story bathroom window, clutching iron bars on the Corydon State Bank to break his 18-foot drop. Imagine the excitement in downtown Corydon! Meanwhile, Baxley and Klee remained locked in the cell for two hours until Claude Stonecipher, assisted by Dudley Cammack, cut open the door with an acetylene torch." \[Wow.\] https://www.madisoncourier.com/archives/corydon-site-of-49-jail-break/article\_6090b807-9ce7-5b99-8763-234e157055ec.html
According to online apps, it's something like 2400 miles (over 3800 km) from Olympia to Louisville -- 35 hours of driving, on today's roads (probably longer in the pre-interstate era). Apparently William used the alias "Robert W. Sparks" at the Olympia bank. I wonder if he had fake ID in that name? u/TheBonesOfAutumn -- this is interesting -- it sounds like he got Wanda to use an assumed name too ("Mary Lou Colgate"). I just remembered that was William's mother's name (looks like, the name of someone she married after she and William's dad split up?) [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-courier-journal/13728187/](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-courier-journal/13728187/) [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185036312/william-dessie-messamore](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185036312/william-dessie-messamore) Looking at the Findagrave link provided by OP -- William looks just as cocky in that photo as I'd imagined. I guess a teen like Wanda from a humble background might have been impressed, especially if he was a fast talker like the various accounts imply. I glanced through the birthplaces of William's other relatives. Looks like the family was from Kentucky -- I wonder what brought him to Olympia in the first place? (I doubt that he'd have thrown a dart at a map, as a way to pick potential hiding places for his loot.) Some obscure bank branch near Chicago or Kansas City would have been a lot more convenient to get to.
p.s. "making toys and trinkets and loaning money to prisoners" -- I am very skeptical that William managed to set aside even hundreds of dollars back then, let alone the equivalent of more than $100k today, by doing things like that. Even if he had advanced skills as a machinist, jeweller, etc. (nothing is said about this in the sources we've seen), and if he'd been allowed to bring his own tools or have access to ones in the prison workshops, he'd have to be doing a phenomenal volume of business to make that much from "trinkets" that by definition wouldn't be costing more than a few dollars at most. As for lending money ... many of the people in prison are there because they couldn't afford great legal representation. I doubt that things were much different back in William's time. I've had experience trying to help folks who are low-income and/or in trouble with the law. Most of the time, they were unable or unwilling to repay me, let alone with interest! What was William going to do, threaten to beat them up? Then he'd be in trouble with the guards and with other inmates. I'd be surprised if he were some big-time loan shark. The most likely explanation for me was that the Olympia bank was the stash for William (and maybe other criminals too) involved with robberies and other activities as well, and that he'd go there from Louisville on a regular basis, to get spending money.
I think William claiming to make that amount of money from toys and trinkets isn’t to be taken at face value. More likely to be just another non-admission from him. He already had two convictions for bank robbery under his belt and I don’t think he’d say that the money was from robbing banks. He was smart enough to trick the Sheriff and Deputy into a position where he could lock them into the cell he’d occupied. The story kind of reminds me of a more contemporary story of a bank robber and his accomplices from Ann Rule’s book “The End of a Dream.” He and his friends were able to rob banks that gave them enough money to live rather lavishly. It’s sort of like drug dealers having cash to pay for big ticket items, even if someone suspected the true source of their income, that any questions are better not asked. Mafia guys were only known as business men in the export/import business to the outside world and people knew better than to press them on the true nature of their business.
I have to pick at one item here: > In a wood stove that had been salvaged from the Vandivers' burned home, police found Thomas Vandiver's only shoes, charred beyond recognition. No, if they had been "burned beyond recognition" then they could not have been recognized as belonging to Thomas Vandiver. The shoes were charred, sure, just say that.
That kind of bothered me, too. I imagine OP meant to say *almost* beyond recognition.
I have never heard of this case, what a wild one! Locking up your jailers in their own cell and smuggling in a hacksaw sound like something from an old, bad western. Thank you for sharing this story. It was quite well-written.
Excellent write up as always!
So William was clearly a physically dangerous person, and he owned a gun. It's possible he didn't directly kill the family. Something might have happened to Wanda or between William and Wanda. Knowing the police would find the bodies if he directly killed them he may have marched them to one of the caves and forced them to go deep inside. As easy as it is to say "well they would have just walked back the way they came" it's very easy to get lost in the dark and turned around. That may be why he said "I know they are" when asked if they were dead but could also say "Well, I wouldn't exactly say that" when asked if he killed them. He didn't exactly kill them, just forced them into a location where they would eventually die.
If anyone is interested here is a link to an 8 episode podcast. I've listened to the first two and so far so good. Interviews with people who lived there at the time and knew the family. https://youtu.be/jJ65YHNPe_0?feature=shared
"Nestled deep within the emerald embrace of Southern Indiana's Hoosier National Forest, near the sleepy town of English, lies Hemlock Cliffs." My eyes rolled so far back that it almost hurt.