Thinking Sideways: The Missing Postman of Stradbally

at PB dot com slash sideways. That's p B as in peanut butter. I guess it wouldn't be peanut butter, be more like Pitney Bows, but you got the point. PB dot com slash sideways terms apply Sea side for details. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast I Am Devin, joined as always by Steve and Joe the Boys. Today we're gonna talk about God. Today we're going to talk about a mystery. Yes, it's actually

a mysterious disappearance that happened on Christmas Day. The disappearance was of a postman in Ireland was, by the way, a big deal in Ireland still actually is a little bit of Yeah. I saw actually an article from two thousand twelve they were gonna like go search for him yet again. Yeah, yeah, I still haven't found him them.

This episode was actually suggested by a number of people. Kira, also Mary and Kilkenny and David were the three names that we actually bothered to write down before where we started just saying yeah, it's on the list. Yeah, I feel like three of a good number. Listen, We're better than we were at one time when we were so overwhelmed with emails that I would go into the list and I would find the date and the method of the suggestion in the story name and links and not

who had suggested it, because somehow we forgot. Yeah, yeah, it's not so much of a mess anymore, I don't forget. I checked. So let's start with our postman, shall we. Yeah, the missing Postman is No, that's the wrong postman. That was z post but not the missing I literally just didn't even know what you were talking about for a minute. Once I referenced you, crap, Well, it's just the old and awful anyway. Our postman's name was Larry Griffin. He

was born in Waterford, Ireland in eighteen eighty. He served with the British Army from eighteen to nineteen o seven, and he spent most of his first army stint in India. And then he was discharged and married a woman named Mary makes sounds Mary Mary ye. And then when World War One started he re enlisted. A lot of people did as a lot of people did. He was honorably discharged in June of nineteen sixteen, having suffered some pretty bad injuries. His arm was damaged. Whatever that maybe a

little damage. It sounds like he had use of it. Really, yeah. I suspect it was, you know, lack of I think it was a loss of motion, range of would suspect something like that. I think something blew up beside him because his arm was damaged. Part of his ear and many of his teeth from one side of his face were missing. Some kind of ordinance probably went off near him. Suspect pictures of them, and maybe these were taken before the war. I don't know, but he looks he looks okay. No,

I think it was. I think it was mostly I think it was. That was the major reason. They don't care if your ear looks ugly, and if your teeth are all messed I think they do care if you can hear out of but if you messed up looking yeah, but still functional, they don't care. But I think that the probably limited arms was the issue nextually by World War One standards, he got off pretty light. He did he really light, and he actually was given some awards

in nineteen eighteen for his bravery. So whatever happened, it was a brave act. I took out He took out a German machine gun nest just with one hand. Yeah, yeah, he just threw his arm, just kidding, using rocks. Yeah. After his discharge, he got a job as a postman, moving to kill mc thomas with his wife and three of his children. He had additional children. Actually don't know how many children total he had. I think it was

four too, but it's kind of just this. Nobody really cares apparently, but one of his children was working I believe in England, and then the other three lived with them in um what we're now going to call kill Mac for the rest of the episode. Actually that's actually the abbreviation. That's what all people call. Yeah, I mean, if you lived in that town, would you pronounce the entire freedom name every time they call it. Kill Mac. Yeah,

in those days, for God's sakes. So in those days, it was apparently customary for postmen to deliver mail on Christmas Day, though often they were given great hospitality for doing their job. On that day. They would have been offered meals and drinks at pretty much every house they called on. There was some discussion about whether or not it was actually postman would call for tips, but I

believe it was hospitality that they received. But people like rubbish men and other things that collected we would expect tips on Christmas Day, which I think is actually even here in America today, tipped their tip the amen in the holidays. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, present cookies and stuff like that. Yeah, Larry, it is reported had at least two different dinners on Christmas night at two separate houses,

and a lot of drinks. So I want to point out the number of meals that this guy has had because to me, it his state later on as it's described is a bit confusing. It depends on who you ask, well, actually, but for the amount that he has eaten, I it makes me always question his state of inebriation. Well, I mean, I think you can get drunk even if you've had a ton of food. I suspect that he was also drinking while he was eating. It wasn't just sitting down

to a meal, you know, I get that. My point is he wasn't on an mp stomach just knocking back shot. So that's why, absolutely, I just wanted, as I always do, I just want to throw that out there so people keep that in mind. I think that might maybe that the people of Strade Valley probably after this just chipped in and got the postman a bottle for Christmas, probably get to send it home with him. So actually, so actually that brings up a good point. Let's let's talk

about this a little bit. We Larry lived in kill Mac but his postman route was actually in Stradberry Root postal Root. What did I say, postman? I think it was actually and he has stops in between also, but I think but it was all in the Stradbally area. Yeah, and and and so his house was about six miles or ten kilometers away. It was eight miles. Uh strad Valley is eight miles away from kill Mack. And so they bicycle it's so bad. I mean, you can walk

a walk a mile in twenty minutes. It all depends on whether it's like level or uphill. That kind of thing is pretty level anyway, it doesn't really matter that much. What we know about Larry and what he did on that day is Christmas Morning. He got it up and went to Christmas Mass like most Catholics do. Then he delivered a few gifts to local families and kids that I think that his family was friends with, and then around noon he put on his uniform, got on his

standard issue bike and took off for strad Valley. He would have been expected back around seven pm, maybe a little later, depending on what happened, well, depending on the nature of the evening, you know, drinking and eating and stuff like that. However, that night it started to snow.

So when Mary, his aforementioned wife, saw that he just wasn't home and it was snowing, and she just kind of thought, well, he probably just stayed over in Strade Valley because it's hard to ride a bicycle, and he had probably and she knew he had probably been drinking, and he probably just said, you know, it's safer for me to just stay here than to make the trek back.

That's a logical thing to do, of course. Yeah, and you know this is pre cell phone, so it's not as though he could have just picked up a phone and called her. She actually, yeah, probably didn't even have a phone in the house, and if it did, it was a party line and whatever. Anyway, she probably just said whatever, he'll be home tomorrow morning. After this all blows over the next morning. However, at about seven o'clock, I think it was a local, a man local to

Strade Valley. I don't know. Maybe he was walking on the road between Strade Valley and Killmack and found a postman's bike laid carefully a few feet off the road. Larry, can I ask what does the description? Because I've never I've always just seen laid careful that is the description. What do you think that means? I think it means not haphazardly tossed and doesn't look like somebody had just fallen off of it, that they had been it. Maybe they had been walking it and carefully laid it over

on side, because it didn't a kickstand. Again, I never found a good description, so I was curious. I'm just making an assumption. And you know, the thing is is I would assume, given that it was a postman's bike, I would have assumed that it would have a kickstand on it. But you know, they clearly didn't use it for this. You know, I don't know when the kickstand

was invented. I know I don't either. This is this actually kind of the kickstand was invented pretty early on when they had those stupid bicycles with the giant front and rear wheels, and the only way that Parkham was to stand him. You just had a servant run behind you.

That's actually, but it's actually I kind of wonder if it stopped snowing early on in the snow turned to rain, if maybe, because I mean, otherwise you'd see tracks and stuff like that, like the tracks, you know, if somebody rode the back up or walked the bike up and then laid it down there, walked away and kept on going towards killing back, or walked back. I have I have no idea. There's no mention of any kind of tracks or anything like that, so I assume it must

just stopped snowing. Must have anyway, Larry, Larry was nowhere to be found and remains so to this day. The local man is unnamed, but he reported the bike to the police in Strade Valley, not in Killmack. I'm not again, I'm not. It's all local police, is how it's always named. And I know that the police department that did the most of the investigation was based in Strade Valley and I don't know if they also served kill mac and other regions. But yeah, but we're going to call police

officers because it's easier. But so they were the first people to receive this report that the bike and Larry, it's my understanding, was kind of the only postman that served that area, so they just thought, well, it's probably Larry's bike. I don't know if it had a name on it or something like that. It's possible it probably actually had some kind of number on it because it's

a postal issue. It's post office bike. Yeah, it's kind of like I would imagine it's got something identifying it as opposed to like, well it had his bags and the somewhere on it, almost like a license plate, kind of not necessarily a license plate, but something they identified. I think in those days that wasn't a relaxed about that stuff Ireland back. But either way, it doesn't really matter. That they probably had his name like scratched into, you know,

into a nail bag or something. I don't know. Well, so the police decided, while we're going to do a search. I have seen reports that there were police and postmen and a bunch of local farmers civilians, like they're like almost a hundred people or more. We're looking for Larry that day, on the day after Christmas Day, which in Ireland is St. St. Stephen's Day, my favorite day because

it's my day. State on that day, some other Steve. Yeah, not a state, you know what, I'm in a state on that day, which yeah, apparently so between strad Valley and kill Mack is mostly marshlands, big bogs. If you've listened to our for instance, Tunguska episode, you know those bogs can be quite deep often. They started the people initially kind of thought that maybe in his drunken state, he had accidentally fallen in, so they started looking in that area, but they there was no trace of him

at all anywhere. When they couldn't find Larry on they the investigators, the police department there decided that maybe they should report this to their higher ups. So they did. They called Chief Superintendent Harry O'Mara to let him know that Larry had gone missing from He was based out of Waterford, which I guess would have been the local head brass office, county seat or something like that. It

was Waterford County. His first act was to travel to strad Boy to question the police who had been investigating. And there they were named officers Delay, Frawley, Murphy, and Sullivan. They are the main named police officers. They might have actually been the that is the entire bunch of Irish names right there. I think. Actually they were the only police officers in that area at the time, and they were all but they were all based in right there

in strad Valley, Yeah, where our postman was last seen. Yeah. Frawley was married and so he lived actually above the post office in straw BALI not in Kim Yeah, but the others lived in an officers barracks, so they were allowed to I don't know whatever. They all denied seeing Larry leave the village, and also all of them, particularly Delay, claimed the Larry was sober. I do love that the officers were like, no, no, no, we didn't see Larry. We didn't see him, but we know we was sober.

It was definitely sober. It's kind of funny when your worst witnesses in the case what happened to be the local police. Yeah, that is actually kind of what happened here. Other people from strad Valley said that Larry was quote unquote a bit jolly, a k a drunk While he

was investigating. O'Mara was also able to establish that Larry had not made it to the houses at the end of his route, which were on the road back to kill Mac, nor was his bike on the road at four am when a different local man was walking along the road, presumably back to his house from the town. This is Christmas at four am. Christmas. It's supposed to take after Christmas, but at four am in an area that probably doesn't have street lighting, it's really freaking dark.

But I'm amazed that they grabbed onto this. It couldn't have been there at this time because this guy didn't notice it. Well, so, yeah, that's fair. Certainly, I'm inclined to believe that the conclusions that o'mera was able to draw from his investigations were by and large correct, but it's totally fair to say we don't know the situation.

You know, we there weren't street lights, right, but we don't know if by that point the moon had come out and it was glowing off of the snow and it was super bright, and he was able to say no with with the absolute certainty the bike was. You know, we don't know, but so we The timeline then becomes some time between four am and seven thirty am, Larry's bike made it a few miles out of town, and

this point you aren't suspicious about something. You are far behind where o'mera was at, because it started to become very suspicious. Pretty much a lot of people, you know, you know who else was suspicious? Yeah, well yeah, but you know the local priest actually he was like doing doing all Father Brown on these guys. He was actually, yeah, we're about to talk about that. We'll talk about that

actually right now. Okay. Yeah, So O'Meara continued to investigate because he just kind of thought, you know, there was some something we're going Yeah. On January six, local priest named Father O'Shea told O'Meara that he should question a sixteen year old boy from Stradbally named John Power. Seems that the father had likely heard a confession from John that made him think that the strad Bali police might

be covering something up. Turns out probably don't, don't. Emera set up an interview with young John Powers at a different police station that didn't include our named officers. Already, he's not trusting these guys already. What he told Amara was actually very different than the story that the police officers had told him about that night. He told them that he had witnessed a set of events on Christmas Day night, and that there were three other people with

him that night who could corroborate his story. His story was basically that he had been standing outside the window of Wheeland's Pub with three these three other men who we'll talk about a second. And by the way, sorry to interrupt you. I just want to say, if you get on Google Street you and go to Stread Valley, there's like a center part of town, like a crossroads right there. There's a little almost town squarish kind of like a little parkas thing right there, and you'll see

all these places at a reference here. The Wheeland's Pub is like right there that's still operational. Toe and still open. And then right next to it is the post office which garda policeman Frawley lived above, and then the hall is like to the right and across the street, and the police barracks is next door to that. Still anything away. Yeah, and I'm probably in pretty much the same condition. Just that, probably a little updating, but yeah, go ahead and just

go check it out. Yeah, because I I kind of just assumed people would look it up. I didn't spend a lot of time kind of describing where things aren't relation to each other. So so anyway, the story that John Powers told was that he had been standing outside the window of Wheeland's Pub and with the other three men from six pm on Christmas Day and then they had seen Larry and Officer do Lay outside the post office at six thirty and then they walked past them

and around the corner. Officer do Lay was pushing a bike and Larry appeared to be really drunk um and sick. Well sorry, the quote is trying to empty the contents of his stomach, not Yeah. Power said that he remained outside Wheeland's for another hour and he did not see do Lay or Larry again. So based on this testimony evidence whatever it is superintended. O'mea. O'Meara, of course goes back to question Delay again, and Delay says at this point basically, well, yeah, okay, fine, Yes, I was with

Larry that night, but he was definitely totally sober. And I didn't tell you about it because I mean, I didn't lie about it because no, I mean I didn't tell you about it because I just didn't think it was important. He literally literally the quote attributed to him is that he said that it was of no consequence that he had actually seen Larry on the night that he disappeared, just that wasn't important, of course, not right, to which anyone with a brain, of course, would say, well,

clearly you are hiding something more on this. Later, O'Mara continued to investigate, and you know, the story around this is really hazy because there's a lot of conflicting accounts of things. This is my least favorite kind of story because everybody is contradicting each other and changing and themselves. Yeah, pretty much, any time anybody was interviewed, their story changed substantially. These guys did not get together and get their stories

all alone, clearly not. But even the locals. They would talk to locals and it seemed like their stories would shift. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. Actually, there's some pretty compelling testimony that they thought they could get a conviction on that later when they called that person. Yeah, they called them into the to testify in court, and they were like totally totally different stories. So we'll talk

about that in a second. But this haze is kind of we're trying to clear it away a little bit, and this is just one of many. It seems to be pretty much accepted by both the research that I did. It seems to be the most consistent story, and like you know, reading around the internet, people pretty much agree this is kind of the most consistent stuff. But again

it's not changes a million times. So the people who lived in strad Valley were able to solidify the story that it sounds like about after six pm, a clearly drunk Larry had called had called on sorry head, visited Officer Frawley's flat, the one that's above the post office, right, yeah, and he had actually apparently showed up with Officer do Lay where they all of them had some more alcohol. More being an operative term on Christmas in that town. I mean, that's what I do all day, and I

have a lot of other stuff going on. There's not much going on in that town. Yeah, And from there, the three men went outside, and the officers, in their clearly sober state, decided that Larry was too drunk to go home. So apparently Officer Frawley went to Wheelands to see if they could let him stay there for the night, sleep it off, whatever, But he realized that he had

been followed into Wheelands by h Sergeant Gain. Yeah. Apparently it sounds like the actual what's the word I'm thinking about, the actual sergeant well in charge, in charge, But he sounds like he was the more of the law and order guy in the crowd there, the local police, and so he was the one that that followed was by the book. Well, so yeah, I think that I think that Delay realized, oh my god, he's following me into the pub. I better turn around and back right out

of because the people in the pub. Yeah. So from there, apparently Officer Delay took Larry around the corner, which would have been I guess when John and his friends saw Larry with Delay, because there was a back door in the back door into the pub, and they both went into Wheeland's by the back door, and then neither of

them were seemed to leave again. This, of course was all news to O'Meara, because this version of the story had not been presented to him yet, which yeah, which was a problem, because he had interviewed the police officers now not once but twice and had not heard this story from any of them, so that was probably a problem. These guys are not supposed to do. This was the early days of what we call organized policing, you know,

and it wasn't very organized. Well, it was early early days form the Irish Republic as well, so that might have part of it. They were not quite as professional

in those days. So pretty much it's accepted that Larry was at Wheeland's that night drinking, and that the police officers were probably a little bit involved in his disappearance, whether whether right, whether explicitly caused it or at least they had seen him on that night, and clearly they were trying to cover something up because they kept saying, no, he was sober, or we just didn't even see him.

There are a few other details that I want to add, but I actually want to just incorporate those into theories or suspects or whatever we're in. Yeah, whatever whatever today. Yeah, so let's get into that. But first let's take a break. Is this the point where we break out the guinness? Yeah? What did the Holy Grail never Tit's tomb and Michael Rockefeller have in common? They're gone? But what happened where

they go? If you're a fan of this podcast, you probably want to know, so join the search for the answer in Gone, a new mystery podcast that dives deep into the past to explore historic disappearances and the theories that they have spawned. If it disappeared, The hosts of Gone are looking and using in death research to figure out what happened. Check out episodes on The Amber Room, dB Cooper, and What Happened to Oliver Cromwell's Head right Now.

With a new episode coming out every Monday. You can also expect to hear about Hamingways, Lost Manuscript, Black Beards, Treasure, and many more. Just visit Apple podcast, tune In, Spotify, Google Player, well wherever you go to get your podcasts and search for Gone, That's Gone, g O n E, or visit podcast dot com slash Gone to start listening. Now that's podcast p A r C A st dot com slash gone to listen. Now, all right, we have our whiskey and guinness and soda pop or whatever more whiskey.

Yeah cool, alright, cool, Let's talk about theories or suspects or whatever, because it's kind of both. It's everything. It's as let's aliens and yeah. So the first theory that we're going to talk about, just really briefly, because it's kind like nobody really thinks has happened. But mine is that it was a personal accident caused by Larry on the road with no other human intervention or cover up whatsoever. He was drunk. He was drunk. Yeah, he uh delicately

put his bike down, wandered into the bog and disappeared. Foret, when you drank a lot, sometimes you have to stop and answer the call of nature, you know, and listen. I think we've all been there where you were pretty sauced. But there's suddenly are some things that you do by road and very gently and with a little bit of grace, and so you don't just like drop the bike and clatter it on the ground and stumble. He still stumbled, but just you could presumably do that. I just would

expect that if this were the case, they found something. Yeah. Well, so there are a lot of problems with this. Actually. One is they've never found anything and and and that's what Joe was talking about earlier. That was one of the things that they were looking for. Even as recently as two thousand and twelve they were excavating more bogs

they were still have not found anything. Yeah, there was I believe also a road in in a nearby village and near the Strade Valley that was actually being be paved or worked on at the time of the disappearance. And I thinking was that perhaps he had been buried underneath the road and then he was paved over essentially. And yeah, so they've they've looked pretty much even with modern technology, they still haven't found him. It is the

mystery is still alive in Ireland. You know what, actually have a question in regards to this, because Joe brought this up earlier that it was weird that there was no footprints and all of that. I actually was just suddenly thinking about it. Do we know where specifically it's snowed, because there are times in this town where it will snow in one place and not be snowing four or five miles away. It might have only been snowing and kill mac for all. I was wondering about it kind

of a micro climate scenario. I don't know answer to that question. I have not heard any accounts of it having snowed in strad Valley. That is true, but I just assumed that it's all kind of the same. You would think that they're close enough that it would be the same, but I just realized that it might be right. Yeah, what happens that my house, you know, weather wise, is totally different than what happens at a lot of other

places in Portland. So that's that's a good thought. One of the other problems with this theory is that you remember how I was talking about the search and how policemen and civilians and postmen had been searching. They got to answer the call, so they did notice the empty mail bag, waterproof coveralls, and a cape were strapped to the bike, like you would expect for somebody who was

at the end of their route. But the way that the cape was strapped to the bike, the postman said, was not the way that a season postman would strap a cape to the bike, because it would actually cause cracks the way it was folded up, and it would lose its like rubberized canvas. Is I think it was just waxed canvas, or even just canvas for all I know, But I think it was probably waxed canvas at that time. It seems like that would have been the relatively cheap

way to do something like that. But but and and I know that that it will crack when you know, if you fold something up like that, it will it will start a that's not meant to take that kind of right. So the feeling is that Larry was seasons enough that even if he had been really drunk, it just would have been the natural way that he folded that cape would have been the correct way every time, because it would have been the only way he ever folded it. Many times. I'm confident he did a ton

of times. So that brings a lot of doubt onto this. And somebody made a note here in my script as well that the everything that they found was dry, despite the fact that it had apparently been precipitating in some nature overnight, so it would lend itself to seem like it wasn't just laying out all night m hm, that makes sense. Or micro climate or micro it could have been seventy and sunny on Christmas Day. Micro I mean it's like tiny, tiny climates, you know, like you know,

just surrounding the bicycle itself. Yeah, it was a bicycle climate. It's like the cartoons, cloud just follows the person. Okay, so pretty much nobody thinks this actually happened. Um, so let's move on. I have a couple other theories. Yeah, next theory is it was a murder. This is where we're going to start adding more details to that night, and then we'll kind of talk about some of the suspects and why it could have or could have not been. Okay,

the Strade Valley police were hot fur lead. That was not them, obviously. They continued to investigate as well while O'Meara was doing his investigation, and they arrested two local men, Jim Fitzgerald and Thomas Corbett. Jim was a fifty five year old local laborer and Thomas, also a local laborer, was twenty five. Jim had taken Thomas, who's often referred to as Tommy as well. He had taken Tommy and his pregnant girlfriend into his home because they didn't have

a place to live Tommy's girlfriend. So Tommy and Tommy's girlfriend who was pregnant lived with Jim because Jim was a nice person, and I mean, maybe maybe a little, but that was something. It's it seemed like it was a unique circumstance that he was being. Yes. One thing to stop and mentioned before we go any further on this is that apparently at the time, it was illegal for pubs to serve alcohol on Christmas Day and the

day after, which is St. Stephen's Day. And I have revoked the band on drinking on my day because I personally think that you should drink on My day. But anyway, back to your never caive down and also the this this particular lot was passed by the way only in nineteen seven, so just a few years before this incident.

And you said you did some digging into this, and there were some other days that a lot, not a lot, but no, that the lot of the Seven Lot as far as I know, and again I didn't investigate extensively, but a banned serving or selling liquor on Good Friday, Christmas Day, and best of all St. Patrick's Day, although the St Patrick's Day band was was actually repealed in nineteen sixty. Yeah, and and just like the past year, seventeen, they finally got rid of the band on on liquor

sales on Good Friday, so now it's only Discristmas Day. Yeah. Well, they would be really upset to come to this country and see what we do on St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, not so much about snakes, more about just drinking as much as you possible they can. In case it wasn't clear earlier, as we mentioned, Whelands is a pub. Wheland's Pub still is to this day. I think the original grandson is running. I think it's still a family that's

runs it. Yeah, I'm not totally clear if it was also an inn at the time or just a pub, or if they just maybe had like a little extra room. Well, it's a two story building and probably the family lived in the second on the second floor. But the question becomes because so the reason that I like bring this question up even is because, as mentioned, Delay seemed to think that Larry there might be room for Larry to

sleep it off in Wheeland. So I don't know if they just he just seemed to think maybe they had a little extra room in the house or if they actually did, that was a thing they offered, was a room or to sleep it often and that actually, if you think about it from a pub's perspective, that is a great money making Basically a closet with the teeny cot it's easy to clean off and you you've charged a drunk a couple of pence and push him in

and say see you in the morning. Dummy, don't come out, and if he comes out, you say, oh, you want to go back in there. It's a couple of pence more. I mean that that is that is just cheap and easy. Oh yeah, I would absolutely yeah, called drunk tax, and it might actually just be something they provided for free. It's just good customer service, you know. Yeah, I think it was unlikely that somebody was going to drive home. There was only one car in town. It was the

police car. I'm kidding. I actually don't know how many on one carr. According to a lot of the articles I read, the only car in town belonged to and I remember who it was, but they always said it was the only car in town. Thomas, Yes, that's who it was. And he by the way, I lived right across the street from Weiland's Public. Well, it was hard to not live right across the street from it. But Weland's, you know, like we said, still in operation today. They

still have very strong feelings about this. We'll talk about it in a minute. Probably they don't like to hear about it. But they're also still very much just serve the local community and that's that. So I think that's probably how it was there as well. Yeah, I'm sure now as a tourist and going and have a drink.

Actually read there's one single Yelp review of Wheland there is, and it was from somebody who was from America and who was touring through, and they said, we saw Whelands and it was a pub, and we were driving through and we need someplace to stop. So we stopped and we went in, and it was clear that we were not welcome since we were not local. Yeah, but they stayed. They said they gave it a good review. I mean, but they were like, it was clear we did not

fit in a liquor. I don't know, I didn't. Yeah. Anyway, we're a little off topic here. So Jim and Thomas Tommy both admitted to having been at Wheeland's that night and to having seen Larry. Jim's story was that another man named Morrissey had pushed Larry over maybe a dispute over some money, hit his head on a stove, and he pushed him hard enough to knock him over over. Well, reportedly, it was not so hard to knock Larry over that night. He actually felt knocked himself over a number of times.

Probably he had been sober, he would not have fallen, but apparently he fell over and hit his head on a stove and died. Um. And you can read the actual account from Jim of this, and it's kind of hard to follow. It's pretty conversationally wandering, but that's as far as I can surmised, that's what happened in his story.

Tommy's story was a little different. His story was that they had gone to Wheeland's but hadn't been allowed in for whatever reason, maybe their capacity, Maybe it was when the sergeant was kind of around, because again they were serving liquor and so you had to keep it on the download. And I'm not sure the way it's described, like Fitzgerald and Tommy, it sounds like they went in the back way and they didn't. Actually, it sounds like Tommy didn't not actually go into the main the bar area,

just stood in the kitchen drinking. And I'm not sure why that was customer or something. I don't know what it was, or they were full in the other room or the sergeant. So in the original telling of the story, when Um O'Mara Amara finally went and interviewed the police officers for the first time, they claimed that they had been to Wheeland's. Actually, I think it was a couple of times after that he interviewed them because somebody was like, we saw them going into a wheelands that night, and

the police officers said, yeah, we were doing raids. Yeah, we're doing raids. Did it twice? Two raids bargianna checking to make sure no illicit drinking was going on, right, which was maybe not actually the reason um they were raiding, but it could have been that that was, you know, the moment that the sergeant was in and and the Wheeland said, well, we're just you know, for whatever reason, I don't really know what, but they were in this

kind of back room, and that was Jim's story. Tommy story was that they had actually not been allowed in UM at first. So they went across to the hall, which is across the way, as Joe mentioned, which was basically just another place where people drank, and then they played cards and Tommy had gotten into a fight with somebody there. That the story of the fight is actually

corroborated by a number of people. It's one of the three things that everybody seems to know certain Yeah, and so I don't really know where the truth is in these stories. I don't even know if it's possible. It's certainly possible. I guess that they were both slashed, and Jim went to Wheelands and was like, Tommy's right behind me, and Tommy for whatever reason, was like, well, I'm going over the hall, or they were like Tommy, you can't

come in here. So he went over gotten fight and came back and thought Jim was with him the whole time. I don't really know where tom was. Just here. How do you lose your buddy in a village that size. I think you're just drunk and you don't really you're not paying attention. Yeah, But like I said, pretty much everybody has changed their story a number of times, and then includes both Jim and Tommy, which is so very frustrating,

super frustrating because there's just nothing consistent. Yeah, so this is and this is actually where we get into this a little bit. The police arrested um Tommy Cashane, the car owner, and Ned Morrissey both right after the interview, based on the testimony of Jim, because they said that Thomas Cashane was also there, and he also, I think as part of this testimony, said that someone said that like maybe it was Thomas cash in and said that he was going to bring his car. They put the

body and there get rid of it. So the only car in town. Yeah, because there's not really like a development on that story necessarily. Of the story kind of ends with well, Morrissey pushed him and he fell, and then everybody around was kind of like whatever, like he'll get up, and then somebody said, oh, he's dead, and then somebody else was yelling at him to get up, and I think Morrissey was Morrissey turned him over and then and then said get up, and he just never

never moved except for that right after that. This is why Jim's story there's it's very frustrating because they he says, Morrissey turned him over and there was a little blood, but not much. And you know, Morrissey said get up, and he didn't. He never moved again, but he was mumbling about and it was like, well, wait what he was he mumbling about something? Or was he dead? I

don't understand what was happening. But one of the reason for Fitzgerald's Jim Fitzgerald's confusion on the whole matter was it turns out that he told another police officer quite a long time after this, like months afterwards, that actually he had not been there, had not and not witnessed this, that he had just heard it. He said he heard

it third hand from somebody who was there. So yeah, so that's why Thomas Coshane and uh Ned Morrissey were arrested at first, and the police seemed to think they could get some kind of conviction based on Jim's original testimony, and maybe they thought some other people who had been in the pub. They named so many people. There are a lot of people, yeah, I think, but yeah, there was a Wheelans, I think the Wheelands. I think four

of the wheel And family were arrested. Well, yeah, so they policeman and several exactly, so they arrested Thomas and ned and then charged them, also charged them with like theft of postman property or something something like that a few days later. Okay, yes it is, though there's no really evidence to suggest that they actually did steal anything. I mean, the bike and everything was returned. And maybe it was the uniform. I think it was the hat

specifically were charging them for. But there was something about the mailbag too, but I don't remember if the mail bag was was what the bike it was it was, Yeah, so it might have been actually just touching it. Maybe it might be that if you're not remember the post office, you're not even allowed to handle that mail bag. I hope that's not true in America, because then I'm actually it is. If you kick a mail bag in America, you can go to jail kick it or handle it.

If you just kick it, you know, if you abuse a mail bag in anyway, that's actually stroke it lovingly. And like I was gonna say, I usually have to move a mail bag to clean my house. So hopefully just taking a mail bag up was not you probably won't get arrested for it, just as they really Okay, thank you, Yeah, why don't you inquire on my behalf I would let them know where we live now. Great,

so yeah, okay. So a few days later, after Thomas and Ned were arrested the I think it was for your right of real mom and dad and two of their children and two of their kids. Then on February three, officers do Lay and Murphy were arrested and charged. Though I'm not totally sure how Murphy was the one that got wrapped up in that, because it sounded like it was Frawley that was the one that was actually wrapped

up in actually. And then on March seventh, they were all let go after some kind of trivial trial time. Well they weren't let go per se. They were all reassigned other other areas around the country or other precincts. I thought, no, no, no, no, no no, I'm sorry. All of the people that I just listed that had been arrested and charged, they tried them all together in one single trial, and the judge was like, Okay, you gotta

give me more than this. O'Meara like, you can't just give me one guy who has somehow changed his story sitting on the stand. The trial was that they kept moving things out by we need done a week or two to get this and oh when you know, the week or two for that, and then it became what six or eight months, not about four, but well, yeah, originally it was supposed to be kind of a quick thing.

And then Jim Fitzgerald comes in to testify. That's when he changed his story, which actually turned to the story was sort of b s because he claimed to have beendon when he never was probably and he says, well, I didn't really see him see that stuff, so in a sense he was he was almost telling the truth, although it looked like he lie out the stand, but I guess he was sort of telling the trucher said, well, actually I didn't actually see that, although he didn't explain that, well,

you know, I heard it from somebody else, he didn't say that. So that's when they got the first continuance for a week so the prosecution can firm up its case, because that was literally all they were going. Yeah, they didn't have much else to do. Well, I think they had a little bit of evidence. They took, like the

stove out of Wheeler's pub. Yeah, they actually took they use some confessions they did, they did some forensic testing at the time, I remember, and they actually I think they did forensic testing on like all of Wheeland's, including the upstairs, and the only human blood they found was in the trash and was connected to one of the daughter's menstrual cycles. Is the only the only trace they found? Um, Yeah, I mean they even they swabbed the stove extensively and

there was no sign it wasn't clean. But there was no human blood anywhere, you know, So they just didn't have evidence. There was no evidence, but there was, so they just they were all let go. So I guess we can kind of briefly talk about some of the people who were brought in and charged and kind of discussed them. I would say the first we should talk about is um Thomas Cushion. And as far as I know, Jim is the only person who has come forward with that story. And it sounds like there were a ton

of people in there and Whelands at the time. Even by Jim's own account, there were a lot of people in that same room who reportedly even spoke to or reacted to the incident where Larry fell down. I just find it very hard to believe that he's the only one, even though maybe he did wasn't actually there that he would be the only one who would speak up about

that about Jim Jim FitzGeralds. You mean, yeah, if they had, if that actually happened, well, um, you know, you know, I think that at a certain point, when you enter into a conspiracy, you're breaking a lot. At a certain point, you're kind of you know, in for a penny, in for a pound, you know what I mean. I think that these these people really uh and obviously the motive here, it would have just been reported as an accident, you

call the doctor, called the cops. But they were drinking illegally in the pub Christmas Day, and several of those people had a lot to lose. I mean, number one, the wheelands would lose their license, in their livelihood, and the policeman would lose their jobs. And then Tom Tom cash and was a school principle. He would have lost his job. And so everybody had a motive. But at the same time, it's like, dudes, you know, there's so

many patter ways to approach this whole thing. Literally, the cassitions could have said all of you get the hell out of here, and we're gonna say Larry wandered in and we tried to put him to bed, and he drunk. Larry started stumbling around and fell like bringing that many co conspirators and especially when you're all drinking. Yea, it was dumb. I mean everything everything they did to handle

this thing like like that. For example, this is what happened if they took the bike, which is what appair appeared. Apparently somebody planted the bike on the road back to kill mac Uh. They should have wheeled it further down the road before they dropped it. They only took him about a quarter of the way to kill mac and then left it by the side of the road, well closer to kill than le. So the one little thing here that I didn't really mention is that it's the

one road that goes from strad Valley to Killmack. But there's one little intersection on that road that intersects with five other roads and pretty much like right there is where they found the bike. So I can understand why somebody might be like going to the junction, and that's as far as I going, here's the bike, and it could be anywhere in anyway. Yeah, especially and it was cold, maybe it was swing because that early in the morning

they're starting to have the hangover come on. But I think that whoever did leave the bike there, you know, probably later on had regrets about not maybe really got a couple of miles further down the road, or just tossing it in the bog. Yeah, that would have been a good way to go to So um, I mean, yeah, we can talk about the Wheelands, we can talk about all the officers, but I guess we can just hop right to my last and favorite theory, which is that

it was an accident and then a cover up. I actually heard a story that I guess, you know, somebody probably in the village had said that actually what happened is that the police officers had haken Larry up to their barracks to sleep it off that night, by the way, also across the street from Wheelers Pub, right across the street, and that what had happened is the stairs at the time coming down from the barracks didn't actually have a railing on it, and that he was drunk, had woken

up drunk up there, walked down the stairs, fallen off and died, and that they decided to cover that up for some reason. I don't necessarily believe that so much as some other accident. But regardless, I do think that Larry probably got drunk and some kind of accident happened to him. But then there was this massive conspiracy of pretty much everybody who lived in the village to cover

it up. There was actually a lot of talk about that there were a lot of mines in the area, mineral and it's it's pretty much believed that he was dropped down a mine shaft and then covered up. Yeah. Actually, um, as part of the search effort, I mean, they searched a bunch of those minds. They also dug up there's a local beach. They dug up the entire beach. They also dug up a bunch of graves and the local

church graveyard. Yeah, they've done a lot of stuff. But I you know, it's certainly if you know the area, well, it's certainly possible that they could have I still, I just still struggle with the sheer number of people involved.

You think somebody would have cracked well, and well my well, my problem is that these people all seemed to have a similar story, and then they diverged, and then they began to turn on each other, and there was this what appeared to be some really vicious fighting going on between them, and I if that were the case, if they were all really involved, I could just see somebody being so fed up and just saying, effort, you were there, you did this, you did that, like just spilling the

So my guest is is really that you know, everybody had been drinking all day, and everybody was pretty sauce, and at some point it was a smaller group, right, at some point, everybody's kind of like, well then I lost track of him, right, and maybe one of the cops, yeah, or I'm or maybe or maybe two of the cops or something. But that that what happened was, you know,

maybe he did fault. Let's say that Jim was telling the truth and that he did fall down and Wheland's Pub and hit his head on the stove, and that's how he died. At some point, somebody says, well, we know up to that point, and we were all doing something really illegal, and so to admit that we were there makes us culpable for that illegal thing. So we just got out of the room, we left, and then

that's it. And then that explains all this in fighting of nobody actually knows what I mean, you know, maybe two or three very end, except maybe two or three people actually know, but in the whole group as a

whole doesn't really know what happened next. And so that explains this, like, well, I think it was this person doing this thing, but really what the truth is is that maybe you were so black out drunk or just like so slashed that you all you could pay attention to is getting yourself out of that situation that you realized was bad and you weren't paying attention to anything else.

And that's it. I can get behind that, because again, as we've discussed before, it minimizes the pool of people who were involved, and the people who were on the outside know a little bit, but not enough to actually say the right thing to give it away. Still, here's the problem I have with these people is they should

have discussed this and gotten their stories straight. I mean, my god, bonehead should have How many times have we been drinking together in years past and we'd all had too much to drink and something happened as a body and we got to get rid of the bloody But and then everybody's stories different because everybody remember he's like, hey, do you remember what so and so did oh, yeah he did this right. No, no, no, he did that.

I'm not I'm not saying you get together that night when you're all hammered and hammer at your story, then no pun intend I'm not I'm saying next day when you're all sober. But I think that was I think that would be. The difficulty, though, is that if there's suddenly this giant search the next morning, right away, it looks really suspicious that you all come together and have that conversation, and if you do it in pairs or small groups, it would become a game of telephone. People

in the front had one version another. The trick, right, is that it sounds like the police officers did have their story story straight at first. Right. Their story was, we didn't see him, but he was sober. We didn't do it right, we didn't see him, we don't know what happened, but he was sober. And then suddenly somebody else said no, he was with them, and they were like, oh damn, you forgot to tell the wheeling. This is

they forgot to tell a lot of people. This is the problem is that when you tell, when you tell lies that are going to be very easily and quickly unmasked, and it was incredible. We're not saying that these people were like particularly intelligent. And I guess the last reason that I think that this was like a big conspiracy is that to this day, any kind of inquiries about this with the locals and Strade Valley is met with like extreme hostility. Yeah, yeah, how about you just the

right off right like that? It's far almost you know that ninety years later you could go into that town and say, hey, do you know anything about this disappearance and for people to just swear at you and tell you to get out. You know, I think they're going about it all wrong. I mean I would have a little museum to the whole thing myself. I would open it up and I would postcards and key chains, and was like, they're gonna like they're gonna put Grandpa in

jail anymore at this point though. That's the thing, is that Joe has got a point this long gone. Who gives a crash. Locals communities that are tightened it like that and don't like outsiders. They don't care about the possibility of making money off the loons that are coming by.

They just don't want the loons to come by. But I just think of about the fun prospects, like if you make the museum and then you've got all these exhibits and they're sort of in chronological order of the mystery, and yet as you go from stage one to two to three, to four to five to six, the hell contradict each other. Wouldn't that be perfect? So I know what you're gonna do with all of your thinking sideways money is You're going to buy a place in Strade Valley and open up, and I will be I will

be the missing podcaster of Strade Valley. You will be found hard and feathered in a bog in a bog in a mind check. Okay, do you guys have any other theories? That's all I got? Yeah, I mean really, I think is really sad. I wish that we knew what happened to him. It doesn't really sound like it was anyone's faults. Well then Morrissey, I think it is was the culprit. But I don't think he intended to

hurt him out. I mean yeah, my impression is that he kind of just you know, like on the shoulder, like hey, Bud, like why don't you back off, and Larry was just so drunk that he was just like whoa loss is balance and tumbled into the stove. Yeah. Probably, Yeah, Probably nobody's real fault. It's if I hadn't meant for this silly non drink no no selling liquor on Christmas law, everything would have been everything would have been okay, abolished that law. Yeah, well, I'm sure it's coming one of

these days. Two out of three are already down, so Christmas is next. It won't be too much longer, probably, So there you go. That's our story. If you want to see any of the links to some of our research, or listen to this episode, or find a list of episode it um, or find links to merch or I don't know, other stuff that's fun. I guess I don't know, you can check out our website. Website is Thinking Sideways

podcast dot com. If you would like to have your name read off at the beginning of an episode like this a k A. Suggest one, or send us you know, talk to me about how horrible my Irish pronunciation is, anything like that, you can email us. Our email address is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. You can connect with us on social media. They should write that email in Gaelic though, yeah they should. Yeah, actually would you?

I don't really know how it would be said? What's subtitles? Yeah? Um. If you would like to connect with us on social media, you can do that in pretty much any kind of form. We have a Twitter where we're thinking sideways. We have an Instagram where are thinking sideways podcast, and we have a Facebook page and group, both of which we are just thinking sideways. So true with podcast thing sideways on Facebook. Yeah, just find us and if you find the page, it'll

link you to the group. And if you find the page, you can like it. And if you join the group, you have to answer some questions, so don't forget to do that easy questions. But we also have a slubreadit thinking sideways. Sometimes I forget about that. You probably know how you're listening to us. Uh, If it's not Stitcher premium, you're doing it wrong. But if you should get on Sticher premium. But it might also be iTunes or I

don't know, Google Play or Spotify now apparently too. But if you are listening to a place where you can give us a rating and a review, please do that. It's how other people find us and um, you know, make it a good one because we like you, I guess or whatever. Oh and if you really do want to get Stitcher Premium and be a cool kid like us, you can go to stitcher dot com slash thinking sideways and if you would like to sign up for it, you can use the promo code sideways for one month

free on your annual plan. Uh and you get bonus content and add free content and add free content is early. It's like four days early, so it's totally worth it. All of that having been said, I think we are going to get lost. I'm gonna get it. Get us. Merry Christmas. Bye guys,