Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained Season six, episode five, The Boy Who,
Speaker 1: Part two. George Friedrich Dahmer watched with amazement as Casper
Speaker 1: poured at the hand mirror and marveled at the face
Speaker 1: of the strange boy inside it, peering back at him. Then,
Speaker 1: just as he had done three or four times already,
Speaker 1: Casper quickly glanced behind the mirror, only to be disappointed
Speaker 1: once again to find the boy had vanished. That July afternoon,
Speaker 1: Professor Daumer had gathered at Mayor Yakov Binder's house to
Speaker 1: meet with the mayor and anselm Rita von foyerback, famed
Speaker 1: humanitarian and president of the recently established Court of Appeal
Speaker 1: in the nearby town of Ansbach, who had ultimate responsibility
Speaker 1: for any decisions involving Casper. Encouraged by the demonstrable warmth
Speaker 1: and interest that Dawmer had already shown Casper not to
Speaker 1: mention his credentials as a celebrated teacher, it was quickly
Speaker 1: decided that he should take the boy for the time being.
Speaker 1: On July eighteenth, eighteen twenty eight, just over seven weeks
Speaker 1: after his mysterious arrival in Nuremberg, Casper was given a
Speaker 1: room in Dawmer's home on the edge of the city,
Speaker 1: where he lived with Duma and his sister and mother,
Speaker 1: and was invited to treat the house as his own.
Speaker 1: Since Professor Dawmer would be working most of the time,
Speaker 1: Gottlieb Frear Vontuka, the brother in law of famed philosopher
Speaker 1: George Hagel, was installed as Casper's guardian. Together, they devised
Speaker 1: a daily course of lessons to help Casper's development, focusing
Speaker 1: mainly on speaking, reading, and writing. For the rest of
Speaker 1: the time, Casper was encouraged to keep up his drawing
Speaker 1: and to exercise as much as possible. Having seen the
Speaker 1: progress that Casper had made in the short time he'd
Speaker 1: known him, Daurmer was convinced that his lack of intellectual
Speaker 1: faculties was not something inherent in his biology, but simply
Speaker 1: down to the environment in which he had been raised.
Speaker 1: This became all the more evident as Casper's speaking and
Speaker 1: writing skills continued to markedly improve in the weeks and
Speaker 1: months following his arrival at Durmer's home. But there were
Speaker 1: other things about Casper that Daurmer hadn't expected to discover,
Speaker 1: such as his extraordinary ability to read in the dark,
Speaker 1: or pick his way around the house even in the
Speaker 1: most pitch black conditions, or perhaps more strangely, his heightened
Speaker 1: sense of smell, or the way in which he seemed
Speaker 1: superhumanly attuned to someone's presence. Once, as he approached the
Speaker 1: cemetery of a nearby church went out for a stroll
Speaker 1: one day, Casper was suddenly overtaken by cold sweats and
Speaker 1: began to shake wildly. It was the sickly smell in
Speaker 1: the air, he said, as he tried not to vomit. Dalma,
Speaker 1: who hadn't smelt anything unusual, then realized he was talking
Speaker 1: about the corpses in the graveyard. Clearly, as Damer surmised,
Speaker 1: having been denied the use of his eyes for so long,
Speaker 1: his other senses had intensified accordingly. And then there was
Speaker 1: his strange connection to metal. Once, when Casper was shown
Speaker 1: a magnet, he grabbed at his chest, suddenly complaining that
Speaker 1: he could feel the magnet dragging at him, as if
Speaker 1: it were sucking something out of his body. Another time,
Speaker 1: Casper was said to have correctly identified a gold coin
Speaker 1: without looking at it. Intrigued by this bizarre ability, Dama
Speaker 1: devised an experiment in which he asked Casper to identify
Speaker 1: three different types of metal hidden under a sheet of paper.
Speaker 1: After placing his hand above each item for a moment,
Speaker 1: Casper successfully identified them all. Over time, Casper's diet also
Speaker 1: broadened as he learned to first keep down and then
Speaker 1: eventually appreciate a much wider variety of food beyond the
Speaker 1: bread and water he'd become accustomed to. Within only a
Speaker 1: few months of moving into Dawma's house, he grew a
Speaker 1: further two inches, and soon as Casper's ability to communicate
Speaker 1: continue to improve, so too did his powers of reasoning.
Speaker 1: The way he comprehended himself and the world began to change.
Speaker 1: Having had no qualms at all about removing his clothes
Speaker 1: in front of people, Casper slowly began to feel a
Speaker 1: sense of shame at being naked, and where once he'd
Speaker 1: looked at a statue of Jesus Christ nailed to the
Speaker 1: cross in a local church and demanded that somebody free
Speaker 1: the tortured man, he eventually came to understand the difference
Speaker 1: between animate and inanimate objects. Those white wooden toy horses
Speaker 1: that he once so lovingly fed and watered were soon
Speaker 1: abandoned as childish and boring, and that stranger's face he'd
Speaker 1: so often seen in the mirror he slowly began to
Speaker 1: understand was his own. And as his sense of self
Speaker 1: and the world began to change, so too did his
Speaker 1: unders standing of the past and his place within it,
Speaker 1: or more specifically, his understanding of the countless years he
Speaker 1: spent locked up in the cage, as he called it.
Speaker 1: For hours at a time, he would try to think
Speaker 1: back to how he felt before, puzzled as to how
Speaker 1: on earth that hadn't even occurred to him that there
Speaker 1: was an entire world beyond the four dark walls that
Speaker 1: surrounded him. At other times, the assault on his senses
Speaker 1: from all the new sounds, smells, and colors he had
Speaker 1: to contend with, and the speed at which his mind
Speaker 1: was expanding, left him feeling overwhelmed. On occasion, he even
Speaker 1: longed to be back in the pitch black silence of
Speaker 1: his prison, often telling people how much more pleasurable it
Speaker 1: was for him to look at a blank white wall
Speaker 1: than to have to endure the tortuous, bucolic scenes of
Speaker 1: the country outside his bedroom window. In time, however, Casper
Speaker 1: learned to make peace with his new surroundings and even
Speaker 1: began to take pleasure in the beauty of the outside world.
Speaker 1: His languish skills had developed so much that he started
Speaker 1: work on an autobiography. He was, by all accounts, the
Speaker 1: happiest he had ever been, and especially fond of Professor
Speaker 1: Durmer and his family and the charity they'd afforded him,
Speaker 1: telling them that he wanted to stay in Nuremberg until
Speaker 1: he'd learned everything that Dumer had to teach him. One night,
Speaker 1: when the sky was especially clear, Dowmer led Casper outside
Speaker 1: and showed him the many thousands of stars that glistened
Speaker 1: in the darkness above them. It was, said Casper, the
Speaker 1: most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in the world. We
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Speaker 1: In late August, Casper told his guardian Von Tuca about
Speaker 1: a peculiar dream he'd had the night before. Such things
Speaker 1: were apparently an entirely new experience for the young boy,
Speaker 1: who claimed never to have had them before he came
Speaker 1: to stay in Professor Dawmer's home. In it, he found
Speaker 1: himself walking the halls of a strange, grand building with
Speaker 1: huge paintings of people in fancy colored clothes hung up
Speaker 1: on the walls. Looming over him. Then suddenly he was
Speaker 1: lying in bed in a room he didn't recognize when
Speaker 1: a woman appeared in the doorway wearing a yellow hat
Speaker 1: with thick, luxuriant feathers coming out of it, followed by
Speaker 1: a man in black with a tall hat and a
Speaker 1: sword at his side, and a blue ribbon pinned to
Speaker 1: his chest with a cross hanging down from it. A
Speaker 1: few weeks later, Vontuka took Casper to vest Castle in
Speaker 1: the center of Nuremberg. As they approached the large French
Speaker 1: doors at the front and saw through into the grand
Speaker 1: hall beyond, Casper suddenly froze. Like my dream, he said,
Speaker 1: much to Vontuka's confusion. It wasn't the same place he'd
Speaker 1: seen exactly, but yet something about it felt familiar. It was,
Speaker 1: he said, as if he'd once lived in a place
Speaker 1: just like it. Another time, Casper dreamt about a woman
Speaker 1: who sat crying at the end of his bed, calling
Speaker 1: him Gottfried over and over again. He believed she was
Speaker 1: his mother. With the dream sounding so vivid and Casper
Speaker 1: always being so insistent about them, Vontuca began to wander
Speaker 1: if they were in fact subconscious memories, slowly coming to
Speaker 1: the surface. When Professor Dawmer heard about the experience at
Speaker 1: vest Castle, he asked Casper if he could remember anything
Speaker 1: distinctive about the place he'd seen in his dream. A
Speaker 1: coat of arms perhaps that could identify the location. After
Speaker 1: explaining what that meant to the boy, Casper then took
Speaker 1: a pen and paper and drew a shield split into
Speaker 1: four quadrants. In one corner he drew what looked like
Speaker 1: a lion. In another, he put what looked like a scepter,
Speaker 1: something he hadn't even seen before, while the last two
Speaker 1: were given to two swords crossed over and a simple cross.
Speaker 1: After an exhaustive search, however, Dawma couldn't find anything like
Speaker 1: it anywhere. Even so, it was hard for Dalma and
Speaker 1: the others who taken such an interest in the young
Speaker 1: boy not to be stirred by these uncanny experiences. They
Speaker 1: began to wonder if there might be some truth to
Speaker 1: the rumors that he had indeed once come from a
Speaker 1: family of considerable wealth. Over the next year, things continued
Speaker 1: a pace under Duma's guidance, as Casper continued to expand
Speaker 1: his mind while never quite losing his childhood innocence nor
Speaker 1: what was perhaps his most profound characteristic, his inherent sense
Speaker 1: of injustice at the suffering of any living creature. A
Speaker 1: trip to the circus proved especially horrifying for Casper when
Speaker 1: it soon occurred to him that the performing monkeys he
Speaker 1: and everyone else were laughing at were in fact prisoners,
Speaker 1: just like he had been forced to repeat their tricks
Speaker 1: over and over again, night after night against their will.
Speaker 1: Realizing his own part in their misery, he turned Todwmer
Speaker 1: and begged him to be taken away. In time, he
Speaker 1: began to understand love too in a way. One day,
Speaker 1: he was found sitting alone crying in his room. When
Speaker 1: Vontooka asked him what the matter was, he replied, through tears,
Speaker 1: why was it that he didn't have a mother or
Speaker 1: a brother or sister, and how it would be so
Speaker 1: beautiful if he did. Though there was nothing that Professor
Speaker 1: Dowmer could do for Casper in this regard, he was
Speaker 1: able to indulge Casper's love of horses by ranging for
Speaker 1: him to be taught how to ride. Strangely, Casper seemed
Speaker 1: to take to it as though he had ridden horses
Speaker 1: his whole life. By all accounts were going well, it
Speaker 1: seemed By the autumn of eighteen twenty nine, however, Duma
Speaker 1: began to notice a shift in Casper's attitude, in which
Speaker 1: he seemed increasingly determined to do things on his own terms.
Speaker 1: He even began to skip some of the lessons that
Speaker 1: Duma had arranged for him. On October seventeenth, Dawma scolded
Speaker 1: Casper for missing yet another lesson, although Casper denied doing
Speaker 1: any such thing. Later, Casper told Dalma that he felt
Speaker 1: unwell and was told to stay home in bed to recuperate.
Speaker 1: It was just after midday as Dawma's sister Katerina, was
Speaker 1: cleaning the house when she spotted what looked like blood
Speaker 1: on the stairs leading into the backyard. Looking closer, she
Speaker 1: noticed a bloody footprint too. Believing Casper had most likely
Speaker 1: suffered a nose bleat but neglected to clean up after himself,
Speaker 1: Katerina went to his room to ask him about it,
Speaker 1: but Casper was nowhere to be found. Katerina eventually followed
Speaker 1: the trail of blood all the way to the outhouse
Speaker 1: at the back of the courtyard, where, much to her alarm,
Speaker 1: she found a large, thick puddle of it on the
Speaker 1: stone floor. Assuming that a cat had probably just given
Speaker 1: birth there. Katerina cleaned it up and thought nothing else
Speaker 1: of it. By lunchtime, however, Casper was still nowhere to
Speaker 1: be found. When Professor Damer returned home from his mid
Speaker 1: morning walk, he noticed Casper's coat and shirt hanging up
Speaker 1: by the side, something he did whenever he went to
Speaker 1: the outhouse. It was only then that they noticed the
Speaker 1: dark stain the trapdoor that led to the cellar. Realizing
Speaker 1: it was blood too, Katerina lifted the door and cried
Speaker 1: out at the sight of even more drops of blood
Speaker 1: on the steps leading into the darkness below, Shouting for
Speaker 1: a maid to bring a lamp. Katerina then made her
Speaker 1: way to the bottom, where in the far corner of
Speaker 1: the room, which was flooded ankle deep with water, she
Speaker 1: could just make out a pale skinned Casper lying slumped
Speaker 1: against the wall. When they finally managed to haul his
Speaker 1: seemingly lifeless body into the kitchen, all gasped in horror
Speaker 1: at the sight of his blood street shirt and the
Speaker 1: sickening gash on his forehead. Then, slowly, much to their relief,
Speaker 1: he began to stir the man. The man, he said weakly,
Speaker 1: with a look of abject terror on his face. After
Speaker 1: being put to bed, Casper spent the next forty eight
Speaker 1: hours in a state of delirium, during which he intimated
Speaker 1: that the man who had once kept him prisoner had
Speaker 1: tried to murder him. Two days after the apparent attack,
Speaker 1: he was invited to give a statement to the police,
Speaker 1: As he explained it, after making a visit to the outhouse,
Speaker 1: he was just about to leave when he caught sight
Speaker 1: of a man creeping into the courtyard. Having a bad
Speaker 1: feeling about it, he waited for the man to pass
Speaker 1: through before sticking his head out to check if the
Speaker 1: coast was clear, when he looked up suddenly to find
Speaker 1: the man was standing right in front of him. The man,
Speaker 1: who he described as being broad shouldered, was dressed all
Speaker 1: in black, with shiny boots and lemon colored kid's skin
Speaker 1: gloves and a dark scarf wrapped around his face so
Speaker 1: he couldn't be seen. Then shouting you must die before
Speaker 1: you leave the city of Nuremberg, he raised his arm
Speaker 1: to reveal a huge bladed weapon like a meat cleaver.
Speaker 1: The next thing Casper remembered, he was lying on the
Speaker 1: floor in a pool of blood, having tried to get upstairs.
Speaker 1: He soon panicked that the man would come back to
Speaker 1: get him, so decided his best chance was to hide
Speaker 1: in the basement. Only when he'd finally managed to find
Speaker 1: a dry spot to lie on by the wall, did
Speaker 1: he realize the mistake he'd made, worrying then that he
Speaker 1: would simply die down there alone before anybody found him anyway,
Speaker 1: and then he blacked out. Although Casper didn't see the
Speaker 1: man's face, he insisted that his voice was that of
Speaker 1: the man who had once kept him imprisoned for so long.
Speaker 1: After hearing Casper's testimony, Professor Dawmer and von yer Back
Speaker 1: were in little doubt that the man had clearly come
Speaker 1: back to kill Casper, spurred on perhaps by the worry
Speaker 1: that he might one day be brought to justice for
Speaker 1: his heinous crimes. However, despite the best efforts of the
Speaker 1: city's chief of Police, Lieutenant Joseph Hickle, no evidence to
Speaker 1: support Casper's story was ever found, and before long people
Speaker 1: were beginning to ask more questions about the mysterious boy
Speaker 1: whose life seemed so comfortable now compared to when he
Speaker 1: first appeared out of nowhere. Why had he been attacked
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day for example, and why
Speaker 1: hadn't the killer made sure to finish him off if
Speaker 1: that was his intention. Nonetheless, the city agreed to give
Speaker 1: Casper police protection for the foreseeable future, with two officers
Speaker 1: ordered to chaperone his every move. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: Casper was once more or to stay in his room
Speaker 1: by Professor Dowmer after the pair had argued again over
Speaker 1: Casper's increasing tendency to skip his lessons. An hour or
Speaker 1: so later, a shot was heard coming from his bedroom,
Speaker 1: followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.
Speaker 1: When his police guard rushed in to investigate, they found
Speaker 1: a bloodied Casper on the floor alongside a pistol. Although
Speaker 1: the boy claimed he'd grabbed the gun accidentally, which was
Speaker 1: hanging on the wall when he fell reaching for a book,
Speaker 1: the officers were not so sure, with one even reporting
Speaker 1: it as an attempted suicide. The continuing changes in Casper's
Speaker 1: personality led Dowmer to write that his nature has lost
Speaker 1: much of its original purity, and that a highly regrettable
Speaker 1: tendency to untruthfulness and dissimulation had manifested itself. Things only
Speaker 1: became more difficult for Casper when he was forced to
Speaker 1: leave Dawma's home in January eighteen thirty as Damer struggled
Speaker 1: with an ongoing illness. After four months spent living with
Speaker 1: the local businessman, who also found Casper to be infuriatingly untrustworthy,
Speaker 1: he was eventually taken in by his guardian, Vontuka in
Speaker 1: May of eighteen thirty. It was around this time that
Speaker 1: another rumor began to emerge, when a priest from Peste
Speaker 1: in the Kingdom of Hungary accused two associates of a
Speaker 1: Countess Mathany of being involved in Casper's imprisonment. In response,
Speaker 1: Vontuca quizzed Casper with some Hungarian words. Incredibly, Casper claimed
Speaker 1: to recognize a significant number of them, including the Hungarian
Speaker 1: name Istan, so much so he thought it might even
Speaker 1: be his own. At some point, with Casper's story now
Speaker 1: widely known throughout Europe, he began to arouse the interest
Speaker 1: of the English aristocrat and former Member of Parliament, Philip
Speaker 1: Henry Stanhope, The fourth Earl of Stanhope, also convinced that
Speaker 1: the boy was descended from nobility. Stanhope traveled to Nuremberg
Speaker 1: in May eighteen thirty one to pay him a visit.
Speaker 1: Stanhope's meeting with Casper only served to heighten his fascination,
Speaker 1: after which he resolved to adopt the boy for himself
Speaker 1: and take him back to his family estate in Chievening
Speaker 1: in the southeast of England. After negotiating with the city,
Speaker 1: Stanhope donated the princely sum of five hundred golden for
Speaker 1: the boys, continued upkeep until he could return to take
Speaker 1: care of him himself. Then a few months later, something
Speaker 1: else came to light. In October eighteen thirty one, Hungarian
Speaker 1: noble Ladislaus von mare was passing through Nuremberg when he
Speaker 1: requested a meeting with Casper, after then trying out a
Speaker 1: number of Hungarian phrases on the boy, to which he
Speaker 1: didn't respond. For Maree then said the phrase istan goes
Speaker 1: to zalah Kutz, at the sound of which Casper's eyes
Speaker 1: widened and he became suddenly animated. Yes, said Casper with
Speaker 1: great excitement. That's it. Salah Kutz was the castle home
Speaker 1: of the Countess Mathany. Then von Mare asked Casper if
Speaker 1: he recognized the name Bartakovich, to which his eyes grew
Speaker 1: wide once more. That is my mother's name, he cried out, triumphantly. This,
Speaker 1: as it turned out, was also Countess mathanas maiden name.
Speaker 1: When the Earl of Stanhope took formal custody of Casper
Speaker 1: the following month, he contacted Lieutenant Hickl, the city's chief
Speaker 1: of police, and instructed him to look into Casper's extraordinary
Speaker 1: claim immediately. In the meantime, with concern growing that Casper's
Speaker 1: life may be in danger if his true identity were discovered,
Speaker 1: Stanhope made arrangements to have him moved to the town
Speaker 1: of Ann's Back, fifty miles from Nuremberg and placed in
Speaker 1: the company of thirty two year old teacher, doctor Johann
Speaker 1: George Meyer. In January eighteen thirty two. Stanhope then returned
Speaker 1: to England, promising Casper that he would be brought to
Speaker 1: Chevening House at the first opportunity, but Stanhope would never
Speaker 1: see Casper again. The following month, Lieutenant Hickel traveled to Hungary,
Speaker 1: where he visited the castle of Salacootz and the Countess
Speaker 1: Mathany herself. However, he found nothing to suggest that Casper's
Speaker 1: story was even remotely true, with the initial rumors of
Speaker 1: her involvement blamed on the bitterness of a former employee.
Speaker 1: It was said he had simply started it in revenge
Speaker 1: for having been sacked from his job as a tutor
Speaker 1: to the countess's children. Despite this trail going cold, however,
Speaker 1: more rumors began to crop up, such as that Casper
Speaker 1: was in fact the prince and heir to Grand Duke
Speaker 1: Carl Louis Frederick of Baden and Stephanie de la Pagerie,
Speaker 1: the adopted daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte, Their son they were
Speaker 1: led to believe, had died at birth in eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: only for some to claim he had in fact been
Speaker 1: stolen as part of a plot conceived by Carl's stepmother,
Speaker 1: Louise von Hochburg, to ensure her own children would inherit
Speaker 1: his title. Meanwhile, in Ann's back, with all the talk
Speaker 1: of Casper's supposed noble lineage, his enthusiasm for study had
Speaker 1: diminished even further, much to the exasperation of his new teacher,
Speaker 1: doctor Mayer. With none of the affection for his new
Speaker 1: pupil that Professor Daumer had, doctor Mayer grew quickly frustrated
Speaker 1: with what he saw as Casper's increasingly duplicitous behavior with
Speaker 1: nowhere else to go. However, Casper had little choice but
Speaker 1: to endure Maya's bitterness as he awaited the return of
Speaker 1: the Earl of Stanhope. Later that year, Anselm Writa von
Speaker 1: Fouerbach published a full account of Casper's story, which he
Speaker 1: followed up in January eighteen thirty three with a pamphlet
Speaker 1: speculating that Casper could well be the mythical Prince of Baden,
Speaker 1: whose life would be seriously endangered should the truth ever
Speaker 1: be discovered. Only a few months later, von Foubach fell
Speaker 1: gravely ill before dying of an apparent stroke on May
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, leading some to speculate that he had in
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Speaker 1: your first purchase. In December eighteen ninety three, with the
Speaker 1: Earl of Stanhope traveling through Germany on his way to
Speaker 1: meet with Casper, Casper and doctor Mayer fell out once
Speaker 1: again over Casper's apparent deceitfulness. A few days later, Maya
Speaker 1: and his wife were relaxing together in their home in
Speaker 1: Ann's back when a breathless Casper stumbled into the room,
Speaker 1: clutching his chest. I've been stabbed, he said, as he
Speaker 1: grabbed Maya's arm and pointed toward the door. Shocked at
Speaker 1: the sight of blood under Casper's shirt, Maya followed Casper
Speaker 1: out into the snow as he led him to where
Speaker 1: he claimed it had happened. There, said Casper a short
Speaker 1: time later, pointing toward the back of a small courtyard
Speaker 1: garden not far from the Mayor's home. Man had knife,
Speaker 1: gave back, stabbed, ran as hard as could bag still there,
Speaker 1: he said, still clutching at his chest. Realizing that Casper
Speaker 1: was beginning to lose his strength, Maya then helped him
Speaker 1: back to the house and into bed and called for
Speaker 1: a doctor. When the doctor arrived, he quickly found a
Speaker 1: small puncture wound just on the left side of Casper's
Speaker 1: breast that was still bleeding a little. Thinking it little
Speaker 1: more than a superficial wound, he suggested the boy be
Speaker 1: given a few days to rest, after which he would
Speaker 1: be fine. A police officer was dispatched to the garden, where,
Speaker 1: just as Casper had tried to explain, he found a
Speaker 1: small silk bag left out in the snow, inside which
Speaker 1: was a note tightly folded into a small triangle. Unfolding it,
Speaker 1: the police officer discovered a message written in pencil back
Speaker 1: to front in mirror writing back at doctor Maya's home.
Speaker 1: Maya took the note and held it in front of
Speaker 1: a mirror to be delivered. It read, houser will be
Speaker 1: able to tell you exactly how I look and from
Speaker 1: whence I came to save house of the trouble. I
Speaker 1: will myself tell you where I come from. I come
Speaker 1: from the Bavarian frontier on the river. I will even
Speaker 1: give my name as well. The writer then signed off
Speaker 1: with the initials M l O with an umlaut. A
Speaker 1: few days later, with Casper's condition showing little sign of improvement,
Speaker 1: the police came to interview him about what exactly had
Speaker 1: taken place. As Casper went on to explain, on the
Speaker 1: morning of the attack, he was approached by a man
Speaker 1: who claimed to have a message for him from the
Speaker 1: head gardener of the Courtyard park, requesting, strangely, that Casper
Speaker 1: meet with him at three thirty pm that afternoon to
Speaker 1: look at some specimens of clay that had been taken
Speaker 1: from the garden's artesian well. When Casper arrived, however, there
Speaker 1: was nobody there. After moving further into the garden, he
Speaker 1: saw a man he didn't recognize, dressed in a dark
Speaker 1: cloak and black hat, coming quickly towards him, saying, suddenly,
Speaker 1: I give you this. The man gave Casper the silk
Speaker 1: bag before quickly stabbing him under the arm. Casper's instant reaction,
Speaker 1: he said, was to drop the bag and run straight home.
Speaker 1: Later that evening, Casper began behaving strangely, moving his hands
Speaker 1: feverishly up and down his sheets, saying, I have much
Speaker 1: to write today, all in pencil, I must write, he said,
Speaker 1: Sensing a turn for the worse. Maya then called for
Speaker 1: the doctor and the local pastor to come immediately before
Speaker 1: asking Casper if he had anything to say to him,
Speaker 1: demanding that he looked him full in the face when
Speaker 1: he said it, but Casper could only look back with confusion,
Speaker 1: before spouting a series of seemingly random statements, Sin destruction,
Speaker 1: cannot get free, the monster stronger than I. Why should
Speaker 1: I feel anger or rancor no one ever did me wrong?
Speaker 1: And then finally tie it very tired, A long journey
Speaker 1: to take. As the last word left his mouth. By
Speaker 1: then deathly pale, Casper turned his face to the wall
Speaker 1: and died. Casper Houses post mortem revealed that although the
Speaker 1: puncture wound was small, it had in fact penetrated all
Speaker 1: the way to his heart, causing him to eventually bleed
Speaker 1: internally to death. Although efforts were made to trace the
Speaker 1: apparent culprit, police quickly began to suspect, owing largely to
Speaker 1: doctor Mayor's character assessment that Casper had in fact inflicted
Speaker 1: the wound on himself. Despite extensive interviews with the local community,
Speaker 1: no one saw a man matching the description given by
Speaker 1: Casper in the vicinity on the day of the supposed attack.
Speaker 1: The police also thought it strange that, despite Casper telling
Speaker 1: people that the man had thrust a bag into his hands,
Speaker 1: he seemed to have no interest in what was actually
Speaker 1: in it. As for the note that was found, one
Speaker 1: spelling mistake and grammatical error were found, reminiscent of similar
Speaker 1: mistakes that Casper often made himself. The way it had
Speaker 1: been folded into a triangle was also something that he
Speaker 1: was fond of doing. While the paper was found to
Speaker 1: match paper that was later found in a bin in
Speaker 1: Casper's bedroom, and despite the Earl of Stanhope offering up
Speaker 1: to ten thousand golden for any information leading to the
Speaker 1: capture of the culprit, nobody came forward to claim it.
Speaker 1: In September eighteen thirty four, the investigation into Casper Houser's
Speaker 1: apparent murder came to an end with an inquest concluding
Speaker 1: that no murder had been committed. Few, however, believed that
Speaker 1: Casper intended to kill himself, suspecting rather that he'd tried
Speaker 1: to fake an attack, only to end up stabbing himself
Speaker 1: a little deeper than he'd meant to. Professor Dawmer, however,
Speaker 1: continued to stand by his former pupil, and even accused
Speaker 1: the Earl of Stanhope of being involved in his assassination
Speaker 1: and possibly even the death of Anselm writ of von Foyebach.
Speaker 1: Over time, however, as news of the inquest resolved spread
Speaker 1: throughout the German Confederation, most came to doubt Casper's entire story,
Speaker 1: believing he'd simply made it all up to find himself
Speaker 1: a better life, and so things remained for the next
Speaker 1: one hundred years until something new came to light. In
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, novelist Clara Hoffer and her husband moved into
Speaker 1: a castle by the name of Schloss Pilsack, located about
Speaker 1: forty kilometers southeast of Nuremberg. It wasn't until nineteen twenty four, however,
Speaker 1: that they began a much needed renovation of the property,
Speaker 1: during which a strange dungeon like room was discovered hidden
Speaker 1: away on a mezzanine level of the building, roughly six
Speaker 1: feet by four and five feet high, with a tiny,
Speaker 1: blocked up window at one end and its floor of
Speaker 1: hard press dirt. It was almost identical to the room
Speaker 1: in which Casper claimed he'd been imprisoned for most of
Speaker 1: his life. It was another sixty years later when workers
Speaker 1: carrying out reconstruction work on a basement staircase at the
Speaker 1: property discovered something peculiar buried in the earth underneath it.
Speaker 1: It was only when they dug it up and wiped
Speaker 1: it clean, however, that they realized what it was, A
Speaker 1: large white wooden toy horse, just like the one Casper
Speaker 1: said he used to play with in the cage. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you
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Speaker 1: featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on
Speaker 1: the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can
Speaker 1: purchase through Amazon Barnes and Noble and Waterstones, among other bookstores.
Speaker 1: All elements have Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced
Speaker 1: by me Richard McClane Smith. Please subscribe and rate the
Speaker 1: show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to
Speaker 1: get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the
Speaker 1: stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an
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