Warning. This episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. Imagine waking up to find a lock of your hair missing, then finding a bedroom window open with its screen cut the opening large enough for a person to climb through. This is exactly what happened to a handful of residents of Pascagoula, Mississippi, in 1942.
The town was haunted by a mysterious figure who slipped into their homes at night, leaving behind only whispers of his presence and nothing missing except for hair. Who was the Phantom Barber of Pascagoula and what drove him on such a peculiar and terrifying crime spree? This is a study of strange. Welcome back to the show. I'm Michael, your host and guide into all the strangeness that awaits. Today's episode is a mini sode, which means it's just me and you,
dear listeners, not a guest. Like normal. And a quick bit of news before I dive into today's story. It is the summertime. I have a family. I'm also busy, so there will be a couple weeks off from a study of strange. However, I will be releasing a lot of articles on all sorts of historical mysteries and true crime and oh, all those kind of things on our Substack, which you can find through our website. History of strange.com. All the articles coming out this summer will be free. All right.
Let's talk about some hair color, shall we? Pascagoula, Mississippi is a city that sits near the Gulf of Mexico. It was a quaint fishing village until it was transformed during World War Two into a bustling industrial town. Due to the Ingalls Shipyard, which was built in 1938, the population of Pascagoula boomed from 5000 before the war to over 10,000 residents in the early 1940s.
Ingalls shipbuilding employed most of the residents in town, and fun fact it's still one of the largest employers in Mississippi today. It was in 1942 when a strange and absolutely creepy spree of break ins terrorized the city. Not because homes were being robbed, but because people were waking up to find their hair had been cut during their sleep. Yet when I first came across this story, I thought this was some kind of urban legend, and in some ways it has become an urban legend.
But this is real. These are real people, real events, and I can't quite put my finger on it. I mean, I kind of can't, but I just find this really eerie and creepy. At the time, Pascagoula was under blackout regulations, meaning lights had to be off at night. This was enacted due to security for the shipyard, which could be a prized target of the enemy during war time. And there were enemy subs lurking off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico. During World War Two people.
It's a that's a very real thing. The darkness put the city on edge and created a playground for a sinister individual to lurk. On June 5th, 1942, 11 year old Mary Evelyn Briggs and 12 year old Edna Marie Hyde woke up in their bedroom at the convent of Our Lady of Victories. It was a normal morning, except for one thing. One of the girls, Evelyn Briggs, saw a man standing over her with scissors, and he immediately jumped out of the window and ran away.
The only clue left behind was a cut screen on the bedroom window. Some reports I will mention claimed that bloodhounds and dogs and bloodhounds are dogs were called and tracked a scent through the woods where the man had escaped on a bicycle. That is unconfirmed, but that does come up in some articles here and there. Quoting from the Greenville News. The only victim of the hair shearing who awoke was Mary Evelyn Briggs.
I saw the figure of a kind of short fat man, she said, bending over me with something shiny in his hand, and he was fooling with my hair when he saw me open my eyes, he said. I yelled and he jumped out the window. End quote. This man would quickly be deemed the Phantom Barber of Pascagoula. On June 6th, the very next night, six year old Carol P.D. awoke to find much of her hair missing. The screen on her window was cut, just like the break in at Our Lady of Victories.
Sleeping near her was her twin brother, who had it been disturbed during the night, meaning he still had all of his hair. And neither of them witnessed a stranger in their room. The Phantom's motives have always been up for debate. After the first few incidents, people were perplexed and the press knew a weird story like this would sell papers. So word spread and everyone in town was fascinated.
But soon their strange fascination in this case would grow into fear because the Phantom Barber was just getting started. A few days later, the Heidelberg a couple were attacked by a man with a tire iron who had come through a window cutting a hole in the screen. Both were injured and the man got away without any hair. I shall add Now, you'll be quick to note that this attack doesn't really fit the M.O. of the others, because this was a very violent physical assault.
Instead of just cutting hair. The reason this could have happened are numerous. Maybe they woke up and he felt he had to attack them to protect himself. Or, maybe there was something more personal going on with the Heidelberg. And that's a comment I'll circle back to here in a moment. But it does bring up the question on whether this was the same person. He did, however, cut a screen to get through a window just like the Phantom Barber had done.
Now, a few days after that, some say the final Santa Barbara attack would take place, this time to Mrs. Ari Taylor adds another level of creepiness to this tale. See, Mrs. Taylor was sleeping in a room with her husband and two daughters. None of them woke up during the night yet when she got out of bed in the morning, her brand new perm had been cut by two inches. she also reported feeling ill after she got up in the morning. and this seemed to back up a theory that the police had posited.
They believed the Phantom barber was using chloroform to make sure no one else in these rooms would wake up. But here's where the story begins to enter the realm of urban legend. People called the authorities in fear, making numerous reports of vagrants, suspicious suspects, and complaining that the police weren't doing enough. They're also claiming that they're being attacked and people are breaking in all over the place.
newspapers ran articles claiming that more than ten homes had been broken into and hair had been cut. Though those reports seem to be unconfirmed as well. Personally, I think these were additional break ins, but my theory is that they were amateur criminals taking advantage of the hysteria. And from what I've actually read is some items were stolen or the homes were basically just ransacked and a mess was made, but no one had their hair cut. And any of these additional quote unquote, attacks.
The only official Santa Barbara attacks are those mentioned thus far in this episode. The police chief, however, offered $300 for tips that could lead to the capture of the notorious stylist and enlisted volunteers to help collect clues, talk to witnesses, and hopefully catch the suspect. In the following weeks, the reward was increased to $400 when no one was caught and fear continued in the community. Then August rolls around and what was a shocking relief?
Police arrested a suspect, William Dolan, a 57 year old chemist, was arrested not for being the Phantom barber, but for the attempted murder of the Heidelberg, and during a search of Dolan's house, a large clump of human hair and a couple of pairs of barber scissors were found. The hair, police contend, matched that of six year old Carol PD. Enough evidence to suspect Dolan was the Phantom barber. The assault on the Heidelberg had a clear motive, a grudge that Dolan held against Mr.
Heidelberg. His father, who was a judge. Dolan had also been educated in Germany and allegedly was sympathetic to the Germans during World War Two. Not exactly an opinion that would appeal to the good nature of those in Pascagoula or a jury. Sure enough, at trial Dolan was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison for attempted murder. He was not charged for any of the Phantom Barber attacks. However, the Phantom Barber of Pascagoula never appeared again.
His nighttime shenanigans seemed to die when Dolan went to prison. Perhaps they did catch the Phantom. Here's a quote from an article on November 20th, 1942, in the Clarion Ledger, William Dolan described by the police as the phantom barber whose nocturnal haircuts disturbed the shipbuilding city. Five months ago was convicted by a district court jury yesterday on a charge of assault with the intent to kill. He was sentenced to a maximum term of ten years.
Dolan was convicted for an attack on Mr. and Mrs. Terrill Heidelberg at their home on June 13th. Many workers at the shipyard here, afraid to leave their families, stayed away from the night shift jobs during the early summer. When a night marauder attacked several people and cut others hair while they slept. End quote. But the story doesn't end there. William Dolan's life. Well, he's a strange one. A handful of years into his sentence, he was pardoned by the governor of Mississippi.
Allegedly, he had been a stand up prisoner and was rehabilitated Once he was pardoned, Dolan and his family get the heck out of Pascagoula and move to another city closer to the border of Louisiana. for reasons that I'm unaware of. Dolan was unsatisfied with his life and family, and he randomly left everything to his wife and skipped town. He simply disappeared, Three weeks after Dolan left, a man's body was found in the Mississippi River. Dolan's family identified the body as William.
Now Dolan was a felon. His fingerprints are on file. And this dead man's bodies. Prints had been sent off for identification purposes. Even though Dolan's family identified this body and it was being prepared for burial, the information came back and stated the fingerprints did not match, meaning the deceased man found in the Mississippi River was not actually William Dolan.
The supposed Phantom barber was likely alive, whereabouts unknown In 1954, the Hancock County Sheriff's Department were contacted by the FBI inquiring about the prints on file for William A Dolan. The reason being is a man had been arrested in Sacramento, California, and they suspected that this man was William Dolan. And guess what? The prints matched. But this William Dolan in Sacramento never mentioned a former family in Mississippi or that he had even lived in Mississippi.
Here's a quote from an article in the Sacramento Bee in 1954. Booked for vagrancy. Sacramento Assistant Police Chief Joseph Rooney said. Dolan booked here April 2nd on vagrancy charge and later was ordered out of town. His whereabouts are not known. The big mystery now is whose body was recovered from the Mississippi River. End quote. So who was the man found in the Mississippi River? Where did William Dolan go after this? And was he the Phantom barber?
Did he continue snipping off hair of unsuspecting people? Answers to all of these questions we may never know. One thing is certain. The Phantom Barber is one of the most unique and creepy criminals from this time period. the residents of Pascagoula at the time, believed predominantly that William Dolan was the culprit the Phantom. No one, however, has been able to explain his motives convincingly anyway. Behind the strange strain behavior of breaking into homes and cutting hair.
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