Speaker 1: A classic episode for this evening. On January second, nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five, a man checks into the Hotel President in
Speaker 1: Kansas City. He gives his name as Ronald t Owen,
Speaker 1: and later he dies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but not just dies, He's found like destroyed, brutally attacked,
Speaker 2: beaten to death.
Speaker 3: Yeah, signs of torture. Somebody took their time with him.
Speaker 3: Is the creepy thing.
Speaker 1: And this is always a tragedy whenever these things occur.
Speaker 1: But as we learned in twenty nineteen, in this classic episode,
Speaker 1: the guy's name Matt is not Roland t Owen.
Speaker 2: No, it's Artemis Ogletree and he's from Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 3: What happened?
Speaker 2: It's really weird.
Speaker 3: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 3: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 3: learn the stuff they don't want you to.
Speaker 2: Uh, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3: Myne name is Nolan. They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission Control Deck.
Speaker 1: At most importantly, you are you. You are here, and
Speaker 1: that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: It's quite possible that some of us listening to the
Speaker 1: show today or tonight, are listening in a hotel or
Speaker 1: a motel or an airbnb.
Speaker 2: A holiday and perhaps sure, perhaps or an express holiday
Speaker 2: and the.
Speaker 1: Best Western or go classy, maybe a Western ooh, nights
Speaker 1: nights in nights.
Speaker 3: In something ritzy like the Ritz.
Speaker 2: Or a Hilton. Yeah, the hotel we're gonna be speaking
Speaker 2: about today is currently a Hilton property.
Speaker 3: Yes, perhaps nights in white satin. It's true.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know that sounds actually not about knights at all.
Speaker 4: It's about like knights as in the evening nights bathed
Speaker 4: and dressed in white satin. Just realized that pretty recently. Unrelated,
Speaker 4: But it's true. There are all sorts of strange things.
Speaker 1: That happen in hotels. Similar to spending time in an airport.
Speaker 1: Spending time in a hotel is occupying a limbo, a
Speaker 1: liminal space. It looks like a home. You do things
Speaker 1: that you would do in a home, but it's not
Speaker 1: really a home. There's something uncanny valley about it. And
Speaker 1: today's story is about a very strange, extraordinary thing that
Speaker 1: occurred in a hotel. And we don't mean extraordinary in
Speaker 1: the way it's often misused today. Usually extraordinary is meant
Speaker 1: as a compliment, but actually extraordinary just means something out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary.
Speaker 2: And that is the way we are using it today.
Speaker 1: So let's set the scene on January the second, nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five, a well dressed young man calling himself Roland
Speaker 1: t Owen while into the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker 1: The man is not carrying luggage. He's heavy set. He
Speaker 1: appears to be a fighter of some sort, or at
Speaker 1: least someone who's had experience fighting, because he has a
Speaker 1: visible cauliflower ear and a horizontal scar on the left
Speaker 1: side of his face.
Speaker 2: Quick cauliflower ear thing. You'll see this if you google
Speaker 2: images of a lot of MMA fighters. You can see
Speaker 2: what that looks like.
Speaker 1: And it's a very easy thing to spot. Right, This
Speaker 1: man calling himself Roland t Owen requests a single room
Speaker 1: with no windows facing the street. He pays cash, which
Speaker 1: you could do at that time, right, which was the
Speaker 1: normal way to pay for things in nineteen in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five, and he checks into room ten forty six.
Speaker 1: When the cleaning staff goes by his room, you know,
Speaker 1: to change the sheets and change out the towels and stuff,
Speaker 1: they find the man calling himself rolling t and sitting
Speaker 1: in a dark room exhibiting signs of profound fright. He
Speaker 1: tells the staff that he's expecting someone to drop by.
Speaker 2: So, okay, so far, what we know scared guy sitting
Speaker 2: you know, alone in a room that he wanted to
Speaker 2: stay away, he wanted to be a little more anonymous
Speaker 2: than usual, hiding out in a hotel. But it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's mysterious, but it's not all that insane, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a little.
Speaker 4: Blair witchy though it reminds me of like the dude
Speaker 4: standing facing the corner in the Blair.
Speaker 2: With you know.
Speaker 3: Okay, and on its surface, it's not.
Speaker 4: That weird, but when you know a little more about
Speaker 4: the backstory, it becomes even weirder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And to explore this story, we're
Speaker 1: going to shift through various different perspectives, primarily people who
Speaker 1: work at the hotel. So first, what do you say,
Speaker 1: let's start with the Maid's Tale. If we want to
Speaker 1: make this Canterbury.
Speaker 2: Tale as or a Hulu original, maybe oh.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, the non Handmaid's Tail.
Speaker 2: That's right. So at ten thirty in the morning on
Speaker 2: January third, the day after our our protagonist, I guess
Speaker 2: Roland t Owen checks into the President.
Speaker 3: Hotel, a man calling himself rolling to that's right.
Speaker 2: A member of the cleaning staff goes up to room
Speaker 2: ten forty six where he is. She notices that the
Speaker 2: door is locked, and she you know, it's kind of
Speaker 2: a normal thing. Doors are locked. When the cleaning staff
Speaker 2: comes by, they knock generally and say housekeeping. She opens
Speaker 2: the door, and because she assumes that Owen is out,
Speaker 2: maybe at breakfast or having a meeting or something, so
Speaker 2: she notices the lights are off too, exactly, lights are off,
Speaker 2: door is locked. I'm going to clean this room well instead.
Speaker 2: As she opens the door, as we said earlier, she
Speaker 2: sees him sitting alone in the dark. Yes, you heard
Speaker 2: that correctly, just sitting there in the dark. Now, before
Speaker 2: you say all that is so insane, I just have
Speaker 2: to bring up a fact that I enjoy doing this
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 3: Actually, is it usual to do that?
Speaker 2: I don't think it's that On you.
Speaker 1: Tub, I'm right there with you. I spend hours each
Speaker 1: week actually locked in a bathroom in the dark with
Speaker 1: a shower on, just sort of thinking nice.
Speaker 2: I definitely take showers in the dark when I can.
Speaker 3: Am I the outlier here? I think I'm the outlier here?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah? Am I the only one that finds this strange?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I got into it when I was
Speaker 2: a kid. We had a drum kit in this room
Speaker 2: that had no windows in it in my parents' basement,
Speaker 2: and I would go in there, shut the door and like,
Speaker 2: use a flashlight or something. You turn the light on,
Speaker 2: go sit down at my throne, and then turn off
Speaker 2: all the lights and just practice playing drums in the
Speaker 2: pitch black. And I found it to be riveting. So
Speaker 2: now I just like to do things like that.
Speaker 1: Didn't you have a similar setup with your drum kit
Speaker 1: and your last house too?
Speaker 2: I did, but it was in a basement with one window.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man that basement. When I went down there,
Speaker 1: it felt like a kill room. Yeah, And I have
Speaker 1: a very high tolerance for strangeness.
Speaker 2: I think that was just the factor of the basement itself.
Speaker 2: Having the drum kit was just a nice little accoutrement.
Speaker 3: Where the walls covered in plastic.
Speaker 2: Sometimes Yeah, okay, when you know when season was right,
Speaker 2: you are not digging yourself out of this.
Speaker 3: The whole of weirdness very well.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you so it sounds like two thirds of
Speaker 1: us are on board with this. He might have also
Speaker 1: been dozing off or sleeping. That's that's quite possible, right.
Speaker 1: But the maid is standing there, you know, she notices
Speaker 1: her senses somehow this person sitting in this room, and
Speaker 1: she realizes the room is in fact occupied.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 1: Roland pretty much tells her not to touch the lights,
Speaker 1: and he asked the maid to leave the door unlocked
Speaker 1: as she exits, because you see, he says he is
Speaker 1: again expecting someone. So this is the second time he
Speaker 1: said this.
Speaker 2: And then, according to a Mental Floss article that's written
Speaker 2: on this very subject, it says that the maid ended
Speaker 2: up returning to that room to deliver fresh towels, and
Speaker 2: this time when she went in, she found Owen lying
Speaker 2: on his bed. Now he's fully dressed, but there's a
Speaker 2: note on the desk that read down, I will be
Speaker 2: back in fifteen minutes. Wait, and that's down spelled Don.
Speaker 1: Yes, So who's now We've got Don and we've got
Speaker 1: another person in the mix.
Speaker 2: Is that like Donald or the Dawn?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, man, I never thought about it. Well,
Speaker 4: this is this is gonna come back around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this does come back around. And that's a good question.
Speaker 1: Is is it kind of the theme? Is it kind
Speaker 1: of like saying sir, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Or duke?
Speaker 1: Now we shift to the story of the motorist later
Speaker 1: on this night, January third, there's a guy named Robert Lane.
Speaker 1: That is his real name. He's not a guy who
Speaker 1: calls himself that. And he is driving he picks up
Speaker 1: a stranger a few blocks away from the hotel President.
Speaker 4: So the man was dressed only in pants and like
Speaker 4: an undershirt, and he had a scar on his left arm,
Speaker 4: not an open wound, but like a big, very obvious
Speaker 4: kind of gash of a scar. And I was on
Speaker 4: his left arm. And then when Lane told his passenger
Speaker 4: that he looked as if he was having a rough night,
Speaker 4: the man replied, I will kill that beep tomorrow.
Speaker 3: And this beap comes.
Speaker 4: We come honestly by this beat because the reports about
Speaker 4: this in the newspaper of the time in the area,
Speaker 4: they removed this word and it's not clear what it
Speaker 4: actually was.
Speaker 2: Well, in this guy, Robert Lane that we're talking about,
Speaker 2: he worked for the water department in Kansas City. So
Speaker 2: It's not like he was just some random guy out there.
Speaker 2: He was doing his job.
Speaker 1: When he interacted, right, And I have a proposition for
Speaker 1: the table for the show. I have a proposition. We
Speaker 1: do not know what expletive he used, and we don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what the newspapers decided to censor.
Speaker 3: We may not ever know it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I stumbled across this great anachronistic and I
Speaker 1: think I said this to you know, this great anachronistic insult.
Speaker 3: Better. So what if instead of saying, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and whatever gutter tramp, I don't know, whatever weird
Speaker 1: thing you want to put in there, what if he said,
Speaker 1: I'll kill that sockdologizing old man trap.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow, socktologizing old man trap, the.
Speaker 3: Old man trap, you old man trap. I don't know
Speaker 3: why that tickles me, but you're right. You're right.
Speaker 1: He did work for the water department. And then later
Speaker 1: when he's given the opportunity to identify this hitchhiker, who,
Speaker 1: as you said, was only in pants and an undershirt,
Speaker 1: looking like he had been roaded hard and put away wet,
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, that's the guy I picked up. And
Speaker 1: they said that guy is roland T Owen, or at
Speaker 1: least that's what he calls himself now.
Speaker 2: On this same night, January third, just a quick mention,
Speaker 2: he was allegedly seen around the town at several bars,
Speaker 2: hanging out with at least two women like that night,
Speaker 2: seen hanging around doing stuff with them. The timelines are
Speaker 2: a little bit weird, just just a little bit, but
Speaker 2: they say he was on twelfth Street, which you know,
Speaker 2: isn't isn't that far because we're we're our last person,
Speaker 2: our Robert Lane. He actually interacted with rolling to Owen
Speaker 2: along thirteenth Street, which is about a mile and a
Speaker 2: half from the hotel. So you know, twelfth Street distance
Speaker 2: is not that far from there, right.
Speaker 1: All right, So it's completely plausible that he could be
Speaker 1: in that area, that there could be some sand to
Speaker 1: those those reports which did not have they didn't get
Speaker 1: widely publicized, if I'm correct, They were sort of hearsayers.
Speaker 3: Some rumors.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we should also mention that the cleaning staff, the
Speaker 1: member of the cleaning staff, her name was Mary Stoptik. Yes,
Speaker 1: so speaking of staff, and we are building a case here,
Speaker 1: we are going somewhere with this, folks. I know we're
Speaker 1: taking a circuitous route But speaking of staff, let's go
Speaker 1: to the first bell boy, whose name we don't have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so bell Boy one interacts around seven am with
Speaker 2: our protagonist. It's January fourth, the phone operator at Hotel President.
Speaker 2: Because you know, this an entire system of phone lines
Speaker 2: going to all the different rooms, there's actually a human
Speaker 2: being in nineteen thirty five that is operating these phones.
Speaker 2: This operator notices that the receiver of the telephone in
Speaker 2: ten forty six, where Roland is staying, is off the hook.
Speaker 2: And so this bell boy goes up to check on
Speaker 2: Owen and or at least to check up on the
Speaker 2: phone itself. And when he gets there, he finds that
Speaker 2: the door's locked and there's a do not disturb sign
Speaker 2: hanging from the knob. It probably says something like nary
Speaker 2: a disturbance something like that. He knocks and he hears
Speaker 2: somebody from the other side of the room say come in,
Speaker 2: and again he's like, the door's locked. Hello, door's locked.
Speaker 2: Man inside the room just kind of ignores that he's
Speaker 2: letting him know that the door is locked. But then
Speaker 2: the guy.
Speaker 3: Says, turn on the lights.
Speaker 2: Kind Of hard to do that when you can't get
Speaker 2: into the room. Bell boy just keeps on knocking, but
Speaker 2: he ends up just leaving. But right before he leaves,
Speaker 2: he shouts through the door, he said.
Speaker 4: The way he wants him to put his phone on
Speaker 4: the hook, Right, it's what did the voice.
Speaker 3: Put damn pout on the hook?
Speaker 4: Son?
Speaker 2: Because that's because it's Hank Hill, that's the Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: an approximation of what occurred. But yes, he just like
Speaker 2: yells at him to put the phone back on the hook,
Speaker 2: and the bellboy just doesn't have his past key on
Speaker 2: him at that moment, so he can't go in and
Speaker 2: do it, so he just kind of gives up and
Speaker 2: goes downstairs.
Speaker 1: An hour's pass. Let's go to the second bell boy.
Speaker 1: A different member of the hotel staff goes up later
Speaker 1: that afternoon. So at seven am January fourth, when he
Speaker 1: has the first guy has that weird interaction. In the afternoon,
Speaker 1: this different guy goes up and he does have his
Speaker 1: key on him, so he lets himself into the room
Speaker 1: and he finds the man calling himself rolling t Owen,
Speaker 1: lying on the bed in the dark, and from what
Speaker 1: he could tell, this man was very much naked and
Speaker 1: very much drunk. He also sees that the phone stand
Speaker 1: has been knocked over, so he doesn't turn on the lights.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say anything to this naked man reeking a booze.
Speaker 1: He just hangs up the phone, cuts his losses leaves
Speaker 1: the room.
Speaker 2: Because at this point it's you know, it's been hours
Speaker 2: and hours. The operator is like, somebody, hang up that phone.
Speaker 2: I need order. I'm the operator here, hang up that phone.
Speaker 2: So that bell boy just did it and got out.
Speaker 1: And we have two more perspectives that are crucial to
Speaker 1: understanding this mystery. We'll get back to those after a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. So we have our first returning
Speaker 1: a recurring guest star here in this strange tale.
Speaker 3: The first bell boy comes back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as well as the phone operator.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right, Yeah, I should give her more credit.
Speaker 3: Do you think she was a smooth operator?
Speaker 4: One would hope guaranteed, because she she runs a tight ship.
Speaker 4: She doesn't like phones being off the hook.
Speaker 3: At our hotel.
Speaker 4: That's right, Because when we were talking about this, Matt,
Speaker 4: I was sort of like man very particular, because I mean,
Speaker 4: some people might take the phone off the hook so
Speaker 4: they won't be disturbed. So wouldn't it be kind of
Speaker 4: an affront to be disturbed?
Speaker 3: For trying to not be disturbed. That's a good question, agreed.
Speaker 1: It also it also may be a situation where, given
Speaker 1: phone technology at the time, having one thing off the
Speaker 1: hook could mess up the line for other other patrons.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you got to wonder too, was it like
Speaker 4: a safety concern, you know what I mean, where like
Speaker 4: they would want to be able to reach you or
Speaker 4: let you know if there was a problem or I
Speaker 4: don't know. Yeah, I'm just wondering what was the urgency
Speaker 4: with sending a physical human to knock on the door
Speaker 4: pretty aggressively if you ask me.
Speaker 1: Maybe she yeah, heard this crazy noise on the on
Speaker 1: this all the old switchboard, and she was like, get
Speaker 1: this guy out of my ear holes.
Speaker 2: But she didn't want to say what yours hearing.
Speaker 3: She didn't want to say what she heard. Ye, she is.
Speaker 2: She is the best witness that we have yet to
Speaker 2: I like really even discussed that we don't have information
Speaker 2: about We need someone to go back to nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: five and interview the phone operator. Yes, yes, if you
Speaker 2: have your time machine, John Teetoor, Yeah right, help.
Speaker 1: So so, like, like you said, she's pretty ardent about this.
Speaker 1: All phones shall be either in use or they darn
Speaker 1: well better be hooked and on their proper stand So
Speaker 1: she's a bit of a stickler. Perhaps she sends one
Speaker 1: of the staff members up to check this out.
Speaker 3: He opens the door.
Speaker 1: He's got his key on him, and then he finds
Speaker 1: the man calling himself rolling to and still naked, still nude,
Speaker 1: but viciously brutalized. Someone has beaten the tar out of
Speaker 1: him and he is on the edge of death. Of course,
Speaker 1: the hotel calls the cops. The cops find blood spatters
Speaker 1: festooning the walls, the bed, the bathroom, owen the guy
Speaker 1: who calls himself that it appears to have been tortured,
Speaker 1: so not just roughed up, but maliciously, purposely victimized, with
Speaker 1: an emphasis more on making things painful rather than just
Speaker 1: immediately killing the guy.
Speaker 4: Because he was stabbed, I believe dozens of times, very shallowly,
Speaker 4: which you know, would show you that it was something
Speaker 4: to keep him alive in order to maybe make him
Speaker 4: talk or just extend that pain as much as possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good observation, right, because it's very messy to kill
Speaker 1: someone with a knife, but it's very easy. So whomever
Speaker 1: it was, they knew what they were doing, and they
Speaker 1: did not want to immediately kill him. His skull was
Speaker 1: also fractured from what appeared to be a series of
Speaker 1: intense impacts from a blunt object. Somehow, old boy is
Speaker 1: still alive, at least for a second.
Speaker 4: And goodness gracious, did he have a strong desire cover
Speaker 4: up who had done this to him. He literally said
Speaker 4: something along the lines of I tripped and fell, you know,
Speaker 4: onto a knife repeatedly. Yeah, very strange thing to say.
Speaker 2: He was trying to protect something or from body else,
Speaker 2: or you know what he had done, Like if may
Speaker 2: perhaps if the police knew who did this to him,
Speaker 2: they might know something that he had done. So maybe
Speaker 2: he was self preservation, or maybe he's protecting a third party,
Speaker 2: or maybe he.
Speaker 1: Was involved in criminal activity. I mean, that's what you
Speaker 1: would think if your law enforcements once said I slipped
Speaker 1: and fell, and maybe he was just like, I'm not
Speaker 1: a rat, you know.
Speaker 2: That could be it.
Speaker 4: He also could have been completely insane from the pain
Speaker 4: and torture and just you know, and it probably had
Speaker 4: undergone some brain damage from being whatever kicked in the head.
Speaker 4: I mean, if he had a serious fracture there.
Speaker 2: Well that's almost certain because the next thing that happens
Speaker 2: to Roland is he slips into a coma.
Speaker 3: And he doesn't make it through the night. Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: not in the coma for long. He dies that evening.
Speaker 1: So this brings us to today's question, what happened to
Speaker 1: the man calling himself Roland t Owen. Here's where it
Speaker 1: gets crazy. It turns out there is no Roland t
Speaker 1: Owen matching the description of this corpse. There are several
Speaker 1: people with the name Roland Owen in the world at
Speaker 1: this time and in the United States, and there are
Speaker 1: plenty of dead people who have that name, but none
Speaker 1: of them are this person. Roland t Owen cannot be identified,
Speaker 1: and so law enforcement takes a tact that may be
Speaker 1: surprising to some of us here in twenty nineteen. I've
Speaker 1: never heard of this happening in the modern day.
Speaker 3: What do they do? Okay?
Speaker 4: So, yes, this is it's very strange, and we've talked
Speaker 4: we've all talked about this off bike. How I don't
Speaker 4: think any of us have ever heard of this exact
Speaker 4: technique for identifying somebody.
Speaker 2: For other John Doe's, I've never heard of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they literally propped him up in a funeral home
Speaker 4: like window, which is one of the most macabre things
Speaker 4: I've ever seen. First of all, if I was walking
Speaker 4: down the street and saw that with my kids or
Speaker 4: something like that, I would consider that a personal affront.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I certainly wouldn't be like, oh, look, it's Steve. I'd
Speaker 4: be like, Jesus, what is that? Get me out of here, mom. No,
Speaker 4: it is not a good thing, not a good look.
Speaker 4: But yeah, they do this and it actually yields some hits.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, several people around the area do recognize Roland to
Speaker 1: and from various encounters with him while he was on
Speaker 1: this side of the veil, but none of them know
Speaker 1: him as anything other than Roland, and the police are
Speaker 1: at this point, we should add, the police are befuddled
Speaker 1: and they think that there's something something else at place,
Speaker 1: something beyond the mundane although horrific tragedy of homicide, because
Speaker 1: we didn't mention this when they found Owen right and
Speaker 1: we said he was naked, but his hotel room had
Speaker 1: also been ransacked. There were no towels, no shampoo, he
Speaker 1: didn't have any clothes in the room. He had a
Speaker 1: label for a necktie, a hairpin, a cigarette, a safety pin,
Speaker 1: and a small sealed bottle of sulfuric acid.
Speaker 2: What right, what are you doing with that acid? Man?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: Then, also, don't they find a broken glass of some
Speaker 2: sort somewhere?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, in the sink with the jagged edge. And
Speaker 1: the only prints they've found, because they didn't have fingerprint
Speaker 1: technology in the nineteen thirties, came from the telephone stand
Speaker 1: and the police for some reason, correct us if you're
Speaker 1: a forensic expert, but the police, for some reason say, well,
Speaker 1: these the fingerprints of a woman.
Speaker 2: Is that profiling? But I guess it would be if
Speaker 2: it's police officers trying to I don't.
Speaker 3: Maybe the person just had dainty hands.
Speaker 2: Who knows. Okay, so.
Speaker 1: People could identify his body. Some knew him as Roland,
Speaker 1: but other people knew him by different names. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't have those names today, but like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: Alvin or Alfonso or Beauregard.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: And it turned out he stayed in more than one hotel.
Speaker 1: Before he stayed at the Hotel President, there was another
Speaker 1: hotel called the mule Bach Hotel.
Speaker 3: And they knew him as Eugene K. Scott.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they said he like stayed there for one
Speaker 2: night and that was.
Speaker 3: It and didn't want windows facing the street.
Speaker 2: Yeah hmm, what is he up to? Oh? He also
Speaker 2: stayed the same regis that's another nice hotel in the area.
Speaker 2: Oh in this time his name, now this is gonna
Speaker 2: be we don't want to spoil too much, but his
Speaker 2: name here. He called himself Duncan Ogle Tree at that hotel,
Speaker 2: and he shared a room with another man who was
Speaker 2: known as Donald Kelso. There's our Don Don?
Speaker 3: Is that our don Don? Donald Kelso?
Speaker 1: Then there was a wrestling promoter who said that Owen,
Speaker 1: remember looked like a fighter, had approached him a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago or a few weeks earlier and said, I'd
Speaker 1: like to sign up for some wrestling matches, but don't
Speaker 1: call me Roland t Owen.
Speaker 3: My name is Cecil Warner.
Speaker 2: Cecil Werner. Interesting. So all right, now I'm getting a
Speaker 2: little more of a picture. I'm assuming everyone listening, all
Speaker 2: of us have heard of these, I guess smaller wrestling
Speaker 2: matches or more localized wrestling matches. They can range from
Speaker 2: like family friendly to the macabre. Essentially, now I'm imagining
Speaker 2: all these shallow cuts on him and injuries to head.
Speaker 2: He's a local wrestler that maybe takes things too far,
Speaker 2: but we'll get into that later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this not entirely related or tangentially related at best,
Speaker 1: But have you guys ever seen those kind of local
Speaker 1: wrestling matches? Yea, I saw it when I saw one
Speaker 1: where the blood was definitely real and these guys were
Speaker 1: not we're not faking it all due respect to the
Speaker 1: k fabe or whatever they call it in w w E,
Speaker 1: but these guys were actually beating the snot out of
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 4: The one that I went to was super theatrical in
Speaker 4: the sense that, like, the bad guy was often some
Speaker 4: sort of foreigner I'm doing fingers, yeah and uh, and
Speaker 4: the good guy was like swathed in like an American
Speaker 4: flag or something like that, and there was some real
Speaker 4: hooting and hollering from the stands. I was out and
Speaker 4: down the country, down in rural Georgia. It was what
Speaker 4: it was a real experience.
Speaker 3: Were we were we friends, we met when you went it.
Speaker 1: Was pretty recently, Okay, Yeah, because I feel like I
Speaker 1: remember that story, I would still I would still go
Speaker 1: check out one of those matches. But yeah, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: he was involved in something related to wrestling, to fixing
Speaker 1: a match, right, or something with the organized crime, but.
Speaker 2: Or participating in a match.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. But that's that's the thing.
Speaker 1: The police or at their wits end due to the
Speaker 1: circumstances of the discovery and the circumstances of this man's death,
Speaker 1: they say they need to identify him because they have
Speaker 1: the feeling that this may be a bread crumb leading
Speaker 1: to something much, much, much more sinister. And they put
Speaker 1: his body on display, and they put take out an
Speaker 1: ad to got ads telling people to help and to
Speaker 1: show up at this funeral.
Speaker 3: Home for the viewing.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of people go, and as we said, a lot
Speaker 1: of them know this guy under various different names, and
Speaker 1: far be it from me to criticize and for traveling
Speaker 1: under different names.
Speaker 2: What a lot of it goes back to that scar
Speaker 2: that he had on the left side of his face,
Speaker 2: right and the ear in the ear, because it's just something,
Speaker 2: like you said earlier, Ben, you just would recognize that.
Speaker 1: So people are following this story in the local papers
Speaker 1: of the time, and the million dollar question is who
Speaker 1: the hell is this. Eventually people just throw out their
Speaker 1: hands and say, you know, we tried our best. You
Speaker 1: can't win them all. They make plans to bury, the
Speaker 1: body of the man calling himself rolling te West and
Speaker 1: Eugene and Cecil and so on in an unmarked grave
Speaker 1: at a potter's field. And a potter's field is where
Speaker 1: bodies will be inturned if they have no survivors to
Speaker 1: take care of them, or if they have no funds
Speaker 1: or no will, or they can't be identified.
Speaker 2: Now, just okay, let's go back to when the news
Speaker 2: article comes out where they're announcing here's this unidentified person.
Speaker 2: Let us know if you've heard of this person before,
Speaker 2: an anonymous person. A woman calls the local paper and
Speaker 2: she says that somebody somewhere, some anonymous person is going
Speaker 2: to pay for a proper funeral role for this person
Speaker 2: known as Roland. And when when the local paper inquires about, well, hey,
Speaker 2: do you know what happened to him or why he
Speaker 2: ended up in this state, she says, quote, he got
Speaker 2: into a.
Speaker 1: Jam, got into a jam. Who is this Dennis Reynolds.
Speaker 1: This is like a Dennis jammed up when he get
Speaker 1: jammed up, buddy, Oh boy, But seriously, that's that's a
Speaker 1: strange thing to say, right, And shortly afterwards, another person
Speaker 1: calls him anonymously. This time it's a man and they
Speaker 1: call the funeral home and he confirms that he'll be
Speaker 1: paying for the funeral of this person, calling themselves and
Speaker 1: t Owen, and he has some conditions along with his
Speaker 1: payment and says, not only will I pay for the funeral,
Speaker 1: but he is going to be there. Is my wish
Speaker 1: they be buried in this specific cemetery, And then he.
Speaker 3: Says he'll be near my sister.
Speaker 1: The man mentioned specifically Memorial Park cemetery, and if we
Speaker 1: were to paraphrase, he tells the He tells law enforcement
Speaker 1: that Roland had jilted a girl that he, the unidentified caller,
Speaker 1: had planned to marry, and that the three of them
Speaker 1: had met up at the hotel President Ooh, and the
Speaker 1: caller says.
Speaker 4: Chaders usually get what's coming to them. I'm not sure
Speaker 4: why they're all Southern, but it's just more fun than
Speaker 4: I says, a fun one to do.
Speaker 1: I think we're just feeling it, you know, feeling, and
Speaker 1: we would we would need to put in some more
Speaker 1: research to really give a Missouri accent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't know what that would be. Kansas City.
Speaker 1: That's what people call you, right, they call you Kansas City.
Speaker 1: So he hangs up, right, after he says, cheaters usually
Speaker 1: get what's coming to them. Dial tone, noise, the whole nine.
Speaker 1: Multiple unidentified people send flowers to the funeral. One order
Speaker 1: for flowers five dollars worth of flowers has a car attached,
Speaker 1: and it says love Forever Louise Louis, and then time passes.
Speaker 1: It isn't until nineteen thirty six when a woman from Birmingham,
Speaker 1: Alabama reads an account of this unsolved murder in the
Speaker 1: magazine American Weekly, and.
Speaker 3: He she thinks it's.
Speaker 1: Fairly apparent in the article that this guy's name was
Speaker 1: not rolling to Owen, nor was it any of the
Speaker 1: other names he used. Most likely, so this lady says,
Speaker 1: this corpse might be the missing child of my good friend.
Speaker 1: He left home in April of nineteen thirty four. But
Speaker 1: his name isn't Roland.
Speaker 2: And we'll tell you what his name is after aword
Speaker 2: from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: All right, ready for this Artemis Ogletree.
Speaker 2: Ah, you recall Ogletree from.
Speaker 3: Earlier Duncan ogle Tree.
Speaker 2: Yeh, yes, okay. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So the woman who finds this article in American Weekly,
Speaker 1: she reaches out to Artemis's mother, Missus Ogletree, and she
Speaker 1: goes on the mother to positively confirm the body of
Speaker 1: Roland t Owen as that of her son, and law
Speaker 1: enforcement says, all right, we believe you. We agree with
Speaker 1: your claim. The timeline checks out. This is your son.
Speaker 1: We have finally identified this victim. It is an Artemis
Speaker 1: ogle Tree. He had left home. He had left Alabama
Speaker 1: in April of nineteen thirty four, ostensibly to travel to California.
Speaker 1: But it's weird because for some time the family, the
Speaker 1: ogle Tree family, thought he was completely fine. You see,
Speaker 1: sometime after Ogletree's physical death, the family had received two
Speaker 1: letters from Artemis, two typewritten letters after his murder, where
Speaker 1: he claimed everything was fine, don't worry about him.
Speaker 3: Plans have changed. He's now traveling the world.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: So they did not know he was dead, but he
Speaker 3: certainly didn't write these letters.
Speaker 2: That's right, because generally when the mother had received letters
Speaker 2: from her son, they were all handwritten in a very
Speaker 2: specific handwriting that her son uses. These typed out writer
Speaker 2: letters were much more formal than what she was used
Speaker 2: to receiving, which definitely made them, or at least set
Speaker 2: them apart, and made her a bit suspicious about them.
Speaker 2: Then before the mother actually found out that the son
Speaker 2: was dead. She had received a phone call from some man,
Speaker 2: some I guess anonymous person. But this person called themselves Jordan.
Speaker 3: This is so weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he claimed Jordan claimed that Artemis was now
Speaker 2: living in Cairo, Egypt, had become married to some at
Speaker 2: least unknown to the mother, wealthy woman, and that everything
Speaker 2: was okay and he was just he was living out
Speaker 2: his life now in Cairo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very strange.
Speaker 1: So the authorities said, let's not push our luck. We'll
Speaker 1: settle for identifying the body. Yeah, you know this. We
Speaker 1: may never identify the the murderer or the murderers, but
Speaker 1: it's amazing that we're able to bring closure to this grizzly,
Speaker 1: grizzly story. So these letters, by the way, said various
Speaker 1: different things. One said he was in Chicago, one said
Speaker 1: he was sailing from New York to Europe. It appeared
Speaker 1: as though they were real time updates. And at this point,
Speaker 1: we can try to go a bit further than the
Speaker 1: police went. We don't have to settle for just identifying
Speaker 1: the body. You see, in the decades, almost a century
Speaker 1: of time since the discovery of the murder and the
Speaker 1: death of Artemis ocal Tree. Hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 1: have been working the case, attempting to figure out what
Speaker 1: actually happened to this poor, unfortunate young man, and they've
Speaker 1: built some pretty interesting theories here.
Speaker 3: Was it a jilted lover situation? We've talked about those possibilities.
Speaker 4: Did the unidentified male caller have a part in ogle
Speaker 4: Tree's murder?
Speaker 2: Jordan, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4: Was one of Was he possibly one of Louise's siblings,
Speaker 4: a relative.
Speaker 2: Of some kind?
Speaker 4: Was Memorial Park Cemetery a place where ogle Trees spurn
Speaker 4: Lever could visit her grave. My question there, though, is
Speaker 4: why why bury your enemy next to the person who
Speaker 4: he wronged, who you did him in for.
Speaker 3: It feels like a mob move.
Speaker 4: It feels like a mob move or kind of a
Speaker 4: twisted some sort of weird vengeance kind of thing, like
Speaker 4: where it's like a power move. I don't know, it's very,
Speaker 4: very weird.
Speaker 1: It's like, Louise, my sister, I love you, but I
Speaker 1: cannot let this disrespect go unpunished.
Speaker 2: There you go. Well, let's get back into just the
Speaker 2: concept of the jilted lover's theory here. So what we
Speaker 2: do know or at least what we have heard here
Speaker 2: throughout the story is that perhaps Ogletree was in the
Speaker 2: middle of some kind of love triangle and it the
Speaker 2: question then is whether or not, like which side of
Speaker 2: the triangle he's on. Essentially, was he betrothed to someone
Speaker 2: where and he messed up, was his partner messing up
Speaker 2: in some way doing something with someone else, or was
Speaker 2: the other person like the husband or something to that effect. So,
Speaker 2: and there's really no way for us to know for
Speaker 2: sure like what that situation was, and it's difficult to
Speaker 2: go down all the different paths and try to figure
Speaker 2: that out. But we do know that this Dawn character
Speaker 2: was somehow in his room involved in some way. At
Speaker 2: least there would be more information there if you could
Speaker 2: find it with this person and the other Louise is
Speaker 2: a possibility, and then you've got the fingerprints. I would
Speaker 2: say that's one of the more promising theories, one of the.
Speaker 1: More promising avenues. Yeah, there's another thing that occurs in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven. There's a guy named Joseph Ogden that's
Speaker 1: the alias, never says his real name, and the police
Speaker 1: don't believe him. He is arrested for the murder of
Speaker 1: his roommates. Turns out Joseph Ogden is not this guy's
Speaker 1: only AKA. He's also been known to go under the
Speaker 1: moniker of Donald Kelso. Uh oh, and his description matches
Speaker 1: the description of the Donald Kelso who had stayed at
Speaker 1: the Saint Regis with Artemis when he was going by
Speaker 1: the name Duncan Ogle Tree dude.
Speaker 2: But again, here's the deal this. I guess there wasn't
Speaker 2: much else to learn here, or it was just never
Speaker 2: pursued for one reason or another, So we don't know
Speaker 2: anything more about this lead. And then let's bring in Jordan,
Speaker 2: the caller you brought up. Could this guy have actually
Speaker 2: like that caller who call himself Jordan? Could that have
Speaker 2: also been Kelso slash Ogden, whoever that guy was, And
Speaker 2: was he just trying to cover his tracks by saying, oh,
Speaker 2: he's out in Cairo somewhere, don't worry about him, he's fine.
Speaker 2: But either way, this person, Jordan, this caller made himself
Speaker 2: very suspicious.
Speaker 1: Right because all we know about this caller is that
Speaker 1: they called themselves Jordan. Yeah, they don't present identification or
Speaker 1: a birth certificate or anything like that. And frankly, we
Speaker 1: have two people who were definitely using multiple fake names,
Speaker 1: right mm hmm, Kelso and Ogletree. We don't really know
Speaker 1: why they were using these fake names, and that that
Speaker 1: I think is a fascinating twist to this tale, because
Speaker 1: that's something they did they don't want you to know,
Speaker 1: and was much easier to travel under an assumed name
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 3: This has caused some people.
Speaker 1: You can find these in various like independent investigation threads
Speaker 1: or the excellent subreddit Unresolved Mysteries. Various people have due
Speaker 1: to the secrecy and the fact they was traveling at
Speaker 1: one point with another guy. They've said perhaps he was
Speaker 1: assuming a false identity to pursue a same sex relationship,
Speaker 1: which would have been very controversial at that time. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: but in all fairness, there's not a whole lot like
Speaker 1: there's no proof that that was not the case, but
Speaker 1: there's not really any proof that it was the case.
Speaker 3: So that's clearly speculation.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it could be sure, but who knows.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: The other big question is was there any kind of
Speaker 2: drugs drug involvement one way or the other, in use
Speaker 2: or in sales.
Speaker 4: Perhaps, Yeah, I don't see how I kind of almost
Speaker 4: lump that in with any potential mob connection. Right, they've
Speaker 4: been part and parcel of the same kind of toxic reallylationship.
Speaker 1: You know, it seemed like he was drinking very, very heavily,
Speaker 1: at least by the time he got to a hotel.
Speaker 3: President. Yeah, you learn about the other stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, so okay, so using assumed names because you're doing something,
Speaker 2: you're you're involved in some kind of illegal activity. That's
Speaker 2: why you don't want it to be known who you
Speaker 2: actually are. That's so that's what we're saying. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can I can imagine that there's a Isn't it
Speaker 2: kind of known that in Kansas City, Missouri, around the
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, organized crime was a thing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this might this might be surprising to some
Speaker 1: of us listening, but it's true. The Kansas City Crime Family,
Speaker 1: also known as the Savella Crime Family, is a mafia
Speaker 1: mafia outfit based in Kansas City, Missouri. They've been there
Speaker 1: since nineteen twelve, when the founders, the di Giovanni brothers,
Speaker 1: fled Sicily and landed in Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, guys, but when I think
Speaker 1: of Kansas City, I think of stuff like barbecue or
Speaker 1: maybe there's some great art museums, but I don't immediately
Speaker 1: think of the Mob.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna admit that I don't think about Kansas City,
Speaker 2: Missouri enough, and I vow to think about it more.
Speaker 4: Very take that vow very seriously, Matt, I am. You
Speaker 4: can't vow lightly, sir. I'm gonna quizz you on Kansas
Speaker 4: City in a week's time.
Speaker 2: All right, do it.
Speaker 4: I just know there was a place I think in
Speaker 4: New York called Max's Kansas City, and it's not in
Speaker 4: Kansas City.
Speaker 3: That's all I know. A restaurant.
Speaker 4: I think it's like it was a famous music venue.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, here's here's the weird thing. Not only is
Speaker 1: the Mob a force to be reckoned with in Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker 3: But they.
Speaker 1: Had a lot of para governmental control, meaning that you
Speaker 1: know you've heard the stories. We also have a great story.
Speaker 1: I of got to tell you guys off air to
Speaker 1: see if we can get it on the show. But
Speaker 1: we've some of your fellow listeners before to send in
Speaker 1: stories about small town corruption Kansas City in well, it's
Speaker 1: not a small town in the turn of the century,
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds, there is a lot of
Speaker 1: rank corruption prohibition ended in nineteen thirty three, So just
Speaker 1: like a few years before, Artemis Ogletree meets his untimely
Speaker 1: end and the family made a lot of coint off prohibition,
Speaker 1: but they also diversified, so they have different rackets, protection
Speaker 1: money from bars and restaurants, right, and things get ugly.
Speaker 1: They're involved in politics too, you know, cooking the books
Speaker 1: and the race for governor of Missouri and things like that.
Speaker 1: So it is completely possible that when we add up
Speaker 1: these dots, these break crumbs, it's completely possible that there's
Speaker 1: an argument for or a criminal underground or the mob.
Speaker 2: Can I add one extra thing on top of this
Speaker 2: mob connection, because I can totally see this reasoning and
Speaker 2: we've illuminated it pretty well. What if he's on the
Speaker 2: other side of the law. What if he and Dawn
Speaker 2: or maybe just he was actually an agent of some
Speaker 2: sort that was investigating some of the organized crime and
Speaker 2: that's why he ended up getting taken out, And then
Speaker 2: it's the mob connections that are arranging his funeral or
Speaker 2: you know, paying for his funeral, putting him by his sister.
Speaker 2: What if he was a rat?
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 1: I mean, the only the cops did hold that funeral. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a funeral service, but the detectives on the
Speaker 1: case were the only people who attended the funeral. Aha,
Speaker 1: which also makes you think, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because if it's just a case, why would you go
Speaker 1: to the funeral.
Speaker 2: To just to to case the joint to see if
Speaker 2: anybody shows.
Speaker 3: Up, right, to see if someone takes the bait.
Speaker 2: Or if he is a part of your team.
Speaker 1: Or if he's you know, if he's one of those
Speaker 1: undercover cops. People who work undercover at that at that
Speaker 1: kind of level of intelligence. It's brutal life, and you
Speaker 1: know a lot of times they're never in the spotlight.
Speaker 1: They can't compromise.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, whire, It's true, Ben, Thanks, Matt. I was
Speaker 1: just going to keep saying each other's.
Speaker 2: Names in the State Department.
Speaker 3: So so.
Speaker 1: It is true. It's it's not proof positive. It is
Speaker 1: true that the Kansas mob could and did murder multiple
Speaker 1: people in this time period without a ton of interference
Speaker 1: from regional or federal authorities, some because they were bought
Speaker 1: off or they were already in the thick of the corruption,
Speaker 1: and others because their hands were tied.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Right, So is that the end of the story. Not really.
Speaker 1: This is very strange because we have to ask ourselves
Speaker 1: whether a cover up persist. You see, decades and decades later,
Speaker 1: there's a researcher based at the Kansas City Public Library.
Speaker 3: Unlike a lot.
Speaker 1: Of residents or residents of Missouri or residence of Kansas City,
Speaker 1: this researcher has a hobby they look into these kind
Speaker 1: of cases, so they are familiar with the case of
Speaker 1: Artemis Okle Tree. They receive an anonymous phone call and
Speaker 1: the caller first starts asking questions, have you heard of
Speaker 1: the Ogletree case? Have you heard of the person calling
Speaker 1: themselves Roland t Owen, and they say, yes, I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with it. I'm a researcher. And then this anonymous caller
Speaker 1: says they had someone who's close to them pass away,
Speaker 1: and they've been going through the belongings of this person
Speaker 1: because they had died quite recently, and they found a box.
Speaker 1: Within this box, there were multiple newspapers flippings all about
Speaker 1: the same story, the so called mystery of Room ten
Speaker 1: forty six. But that's not all they find. They also
Speaker 1: say they find something that's the quote, something that was
Speaker 1: mentioned in these articles. M and then they hang up.
Speaker 1: These people have terrible phone etiquette. Really, it's like out
Speaker 1: in television and in film. No one ever says goodbye
Speaker 1: on the phone. Yeah, and there's immediately a dial town. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's true, as we know, it is not how phones work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So that's where we're left at this
Speaker 2: point in twenty nineteen, the old Artemis Ogletree rowing to
Speaker 2: Owen story. That's where we're left.
Speaker 1: Who was this mystery caller? Was it a surviving relative
Speaker 1: of ogle Tree's murderer and a surviving relative or friend
Speaker 1: of his former lover, his paramore.
Speaker 2: What do you think, honestly? Do you think it was
Speaker 2: mob involvement? Do you think it was just a love
Speaker 2: triangle gone wrong? Uh? Just tell us, tell us your
Speaker 2: best theory and support it please with arguments. Then we
Speaker 2: will combine all of those, and Ben and Nolea and
Speaker 2: I will sit around a desk somewhere and we'll figure
Speaker 2: it out just just to ourselves. We will tell you
Speaker 2: guys about it.
Speaker 1: And also, if you are listening to this and you
Speaker 1: are related to someone with inside knowledge of this case,
Speaker 1: and you want to break it down for us anonymously,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear you out you can write, and
Speaker 1: that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts. We try to be easy to
Speaker 1: find online.
Speaker 4: Find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
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