This
book is about unsolved crimes: those mysteries which linger for decades after they happen--where there may be many theories, but the truth is never officially known, nor the case solved to anyone''s satisfaction. The first case is that of D. B. Cooper, the only airline hijacker to escape with the loot he received from the authorities, and not be killed or suffer arrest and conviction. He asked for $200,000 and 2 sport parachutes (of an exact type, the kind used for target diving by skydivers). He bailed out over the dark forests of Cowlitz County, Washington State, USA, in a blinding snowstorm, while wearing only a brown suit. It has been theorized that he froze before he hit the ground, but neither he nor his parachute (let alone the money) was ever recovered. The second unsolved
crime was the
murder of Serge Rubinstein, a very welathy Russian emigre, who had more people with reason to hate him than most people have the merest acquaintances. Consequently, in these years before DNA, no one could be convicted of causing his death. The third story involves
art theft--someone stole ten small paintings by old masters. One, THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST by Peter Paul Rubens, was worth at least $3 million (in 1933s cash values). Some were later returned, but that one, and the best of the others, remained missing for at least 40 more years (the date of this book''s publication is 1976.) The fourth unsolved crime was the first known
kidnapping for ransom in the United States, according to this author. The child and his brother were taken--the brother left behind and returned home, but the younger boy was never seen again. The kidnappers were killed in a robbery attempt--one robber lived long enough to confess to the kidnapping, but not long enough to tell what he did with the child, and no one ever knew what had happened to the boy. The
police refused to permit ransom to be paid, lest this lead to other kidnappings. The fifth story is the vanishing of the bones of PEKING MAN, the ealiest fossil man ever found in Asia. During the war, their caretakers were captured by the Japanese, but the bones themselves vanished. The last case is that of Lizzie Borden, acquitted by the jury when charged with the murder of her dearly beloved father and much loathed stepmother. Popular opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, no one was ever convicted of that crime. There is a deep sense of unhappiness implicit in unsolved crimes--there is no CLOSURE, as the police are so fond of saying in their search for a culprit for various crimes. One feels this as one reads these stories, but they are fascinating starting points for search or speculation, as your sense of wonder, or unease, leads you to.
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