On the evening of March tenth, nineteen twenty nine, on New York City's East one hundred and thirty second Street, something strange was brewing. It had just gone ten thirty pm when Missus Smith was alerted to a short burst of screams coming from the laundrette next to her home. The laundrette, located at number four East one hundred and thirty second Street, belonged to thirty year old Isadore Fink,
who also lived at the property. Smith summoned nearby police officer patrolman Captain Bone, who proceeded to investigate the situation. Unable to see anything through the windows, cat and Bone attempted to access the building, only to find the front door and all the windows locked from the inside. There was, however, a small transom window just above the door that appeared to be open, but it was far too small for
the officer or Missus Smith to fit through. With Smith's help, Cat' and Bone asked a local child to climb inside the property and unlock the door for them. After squeezing through the window, the boy appeared moments later at the front door, having opened its heavy bolt lock from inside, turning on the lights. The officer quickly found Fink lying on the floor in a pool of blood, having died from three gunshot wounds. Robbery was quickly ruled out as a motive.
Since no money or anything of any value was found to have been taken, and since the transom window was far too small for an adult to climb through, police concluded that Fink had shot himself, only no gun was ever found at the scene. The case, which was never satisfactorily resolved, was described by then police Edward mulrooney as
an insoluble mystery. The death of Isadore Fink has since become known as one of the most compelling real life examples of the fabled locked room mystery, a subgenre of crime fiction in which usually someone is murdered despite it appearing impossible for a perpetrator to have committed the crime without detection. The locked room mystery in literature is widely thought to have originated with Edgar Allan Poe's Disturbing the
Murder in Room Morgue, published in eighteen forty eight. With Soji Shimada's dark and puzzling Tokyo Zodiac Murders, considered to be one of the finest examples of the hugely popular genre, though Isadore Fink's murder is one of the better known real world examples. Only six years later, in a hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, another infamous locked room mystery would unfold as compelling and strange as fiction you're listening to
unexplained and I'm Richard McClean smith. The President Hotel at thirteen twenty nine Baltimore Avenue in Kansas City is one of those grand old downtown hotels that speak of a bygone age of glitz and glamor. Built in nineteen twenty five in a bold Jacobean revival style, complete with ornate terra cotta moldings and its name in lights high up on the rooftop, it soon established itself as one of
the more aspirational venues of its day. In nineteen twenty eight, the fifteen floor hotel was selected for that year's Republican Party convention, and its famously plush drum room lounge would go on to host Frank Sinatra and King of Swing Benny Goodman, among many other prestigious performers, and it was there just after one twenty pm on Wednesday, January second nineteen thirty five, when Randolph Propsed, one of the hotel's bellhops, was called over to reception to escort a new guest
to his room. The man, neatly dressed in a black overcoat, had checked in under the name Roland t Owen and claimed to have recently arrived from Los Angeles. As Probst was quick to note, despite booking the room for a number of days, the man carried no luggage with him. But perhaps even stranger was how particular he'd been about his choice of room, insisting that it be at least
several floors up and hidden from the street. The desk clerk decided that room number ten forty six would be the perfect solution, being as it was an interior room located at the back of the hotel, overlooking and inner court. Probst took the key and motioned for mister Owen to him into the lift. Riding the car up together in silence, Probst couldn't help but notice the peculiar scar just above the man's left ear. It was some kind of burn that had left a bald patch of skin loosely covered
by an otherwise thick head of dark brown hair. As a bell hop, it was almost impossible not to wander about the secret lives of the many guests that came and went through the hotel doors, and for Probst, mister Owen was already proving to be fertile ground for the imagination. This was only exacerbated moments later, when having let mister Owen into his room, the man asked Probs to wait by the door as he removed a hair brush, comb, and tube of toothpaste from his coat pocket and placed
each item carefully on the small shelf above the sink. Then, turning to Probst, he announced he would be heading out for the afternoon. The pair then rode the elevator back to the first floor, with Owen handing him a small tip before heading on out of the hotel. It had just gone seven am on Friday, January fourth, two days after Owen had checked in that Probst received an instruction from the hotel's telephone operator to make a quick check on his room, as the phone appeared to be left
off the hook. Arriving at room ten forty six moments later, Probst founder do not disturb sign hanging from the door handle. After knocking on the door. A muffled voice from inside instructed him to come in, but when he tried to handle the door wouldn't budge, having been locked from the inside. Sorry, sir, I think the door is locked, he said, After hearing someone inside saying turn on the lights. Probst knocked again,
but there was no further response. After knocking a few more times, the bellhop eventually gave up and yelled for mister Owen to put the phone back on the hook before heading back downstairs. An hour later, with the phone still off the hook, it fell, this time to twenty five year old bellhop Harold Pike to make another check on the room. Pike found the door was once again locked, only this time it had been locked from the outside,
suggesting the occupant had now left the room. After knocking and receiving no reply, Pike used his pass key to open the door and was immediately hit by a waft of warm, stale air. With the shades completely shut, it was hard at first to see anything when a Pike was suddenly startled by the shape of some one lying on the bed. Sir, he called out as he stepped in a little further, pulling back suddenly in embarrassment at the sight of a naked mister Owen lying sprawled out
and fast asleep on top of the bed sheets. Sir Pike said again, but Owen would not be roused. Noticing then that the phone had been knocked off its stand in the corner of the room, Pike simply placed it back on its holder and left, locking the door behind him. Two hours later, the phone was once again off the hook. With Randolph Probst back on duty, he swiftly made his way to Room ten forty six to investigate again. Having
got no reply. After knocking on the door, Probst promptly opened it and were shocked to find a naked Owen a few feet inside the door, down on the floor on his knees and elbows and holding his head in his hands. Probst switched on the light and recoiled in horror. The walls, ceiling, bathroom and bedsheets were covered in blood, and so too was the man's head. Here's something you
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before use. If you have a serious medical condition, or use prescription medications after running to get help. Probst returned with the hotel manager, only to find Owen had by then collapsed with his body blocking the door from the
other side. With police arriving on the scene soon after, Detectives Irah Johnson and William Edridge, along with Detective Sergeant Frank Howland and doctor Harold Flanders, succeeded and barging their way into the room, they found Owen breathing rascally and lying face down in a small pool of blood, similar to how Probst had first found him. What Probst hadn't seen, however, was that Owen's neck, hands and feet had been tied together with cord, having assumed the blood had come from
the man's head wound. After cutting him free, doctor Flanders was surprised to find a series of what appeared to be deep knife wounds on his chest, one of which Flanders's guest had punctured his lung, which explained his raspy breathing. There was bruising on his neck too, from where someone had tried to strangle him. Then, suddenly, as if roused from a deep sleep, Owen began to stir, rising to
his feet as the doctor helped him up. He stumbled into the bathroom, clearly on shore of where he was exactly. The detectives followed him inside and demanded to know what had happened. Who did this to you, they asked, Nobody, said Owen droggily. Then how did you get hurt? A fell against the bathtub, replied the man. The detectives looked to each other in confusion. After asking if Owen had somehow done it all to himself, the man reply i'd know,
before toppling over and falling unconscious once more. Mister Owen was rushed to hospital by ambulance, only to fall into a coma later that night, from which he would never recover, dying shortly after midnight later that evening. Oddly, despite Owen being completely naked, no shoes or clothes were found in his room, not even the ones he'd arrived in. The room had been almost completely stripped, with all the usual hotel supplies found to have been taken, including the room's towels.
In the end, detectives found only a single unlit cigarette, as well as a hairpin and an unopened bottle of diluted sulfuric acid, perhaps used to treat mouth ulcers. Detectives also found to drinking glasses, with one left unused on the shelf above the sink, while the other was found in the sink with a large chunk of glass missing
from it. Four small fingerprints were also found on top of the telephone stand that did not belong to Owen or any of the hotel staff, leading detectives to conclude that despite Owen's protestations, he'd almost certainly been murdered, or at the very least had not acted alone. After placing a call to the Los Angeles Police Department to find the man's home address, the police turned their attention to anyone who'd come into contact with him over the last
few days. Having left the hotel shortly after arriving on Wednesday, January, the second hotel cleaner, Mary Soptic, found him back in his room when she went to clean it in the early afternoon. Mary cleaned the room as Owen sat on the bed under the dim light of a single lamp with the shades pulled tightly shut over the window. Mary was nervous at first to be in the room with him alone, but something about the man gave her reason to feel safe. Despite having the physique of a boxer
or wrestler. Perhaps as he sat there alone in the dark, he looked, she thought, like a small wounded animal, and from the troubled look on his face, it was clear he was deeply preoccupied with something. As Mary continued to clean, Owen eventually stood up from the bed, pulled on his jacket, and left the room, telling Mary on his way out to leave the door unknocked when she left because he was expecting company. After finishing up, Mary did as she
was instructed. When Mary returned to the room four hours later to deliver clean towels, she found Owen once again inside, this time lying down on his bed. As she quietly put the towels away, she caught sight of a note on the desk which read, don I will be back in fifteen minutes. Wait. The next morning, around ten thirty a m. Mary returned again to the room to clean it.
Finding it locked from the outside and getting no response when she knocked, Mary thought it safe to assume that the room was empty, so it was with some surprise when she opened the door to find Owen inside, once again sitting quietly in the dark. Owen motioned for her to continue with her duties. When the phone rang suddenly, Owen hastily picked it up. Mary heard a muffled voice from the other end. Then Owen replied, no, don I don't want to eat. I'm not hungry. I just had breakfast.
Owen hung up the phone, then asked Mary if she looked after the entire floor. Yes, she replied, a little taken aback by the question. Owen also wanted to know if there were any permanent residence living at the hotel, then moaned a little about the prices at the nearby Muleback Hotel, where he'd stayed a few nights before. When Mary returned at four that afternoon with clean towels for the room, she heard two men talking inside. This time, when she knocked, she was met with a curt who
was it laundry? She'd replied, we don't want any came the rough reply. Other hotel guests were spoken to, including Jean Owen, no relation to the dead man, who was staying in room ten forty eight the night before the incident. Though she hadn't seen anyone coming in or out of room ten forty six that night, she remembered hearing the voices of what she assumed to be men and women
squabbling loudly with each other. Later that night, around one thirty am, elevator operator Charles Blocker took a woman up to the tenth floor. Blocker identified the woman, who was about five foot six with black hair and was dressed in a coat of black Hudson Seal as a possible sex worker who was a regular visitor to the hotel. After arriving at the tenth floor, the woman asked for directions to room ten twenty six, then headed off down
the corridor to find it. After returning to the ground floor, Blocker returned to the tenth floor minutes later to find the same woman waiting for him, having seemingly been stood up by whoever called her to the hotel. Wandering aloud if she'd perhaps got the room number wrong. The woman stayed for another thirty minutes before leaving the hotel. An hour later, the woman returned, this time in the company of a man in a brown hat and overcoat. Blocker
took the couple to the ninth floor. Than just over an hour later, the woman left the hotel once again, followed fifteen minutes later by the man who muttered something to the reception staff about not being able to sleep and that he was going out for a walk with mister Rowen having died in the early hours of Saturday morning.
By the afternoon, detectives had made some headway in piecing together the events leading up to his death, but then came an unexpected call from the Los Angeles Police Department. They'd made inquiries into the man's address, only to find there wasn't one, simply because Roland t Owen didn't exist. The name had been made up. If you love Unexplained and you're looking for another podcast to binge, let me tell you about Strange and Unexplained with Daisy Egan. Do
you believe in ghosts? How about Bigfoot? Do you think it's strange and fast snating that a four year old in Oklahoma could look at a black and white picture of a man from the nineteen thirties and say that was me before and then provide actual, verifiable details of the man's life. If so, Strange and Unexplained with Daisy Egan is about to be your new favorite podcast. Daisy is a Tony Award winning actor, writer, and true crime fanatic,
but she's also a skeptic. Each week. She looks at real stories of hauntings, disappearances, UFO encounters, the Bermuda Triangle, near death experiences, and anything else that feels just beyond what we can easily make sense of. She is your guide into the inexplicable details of these stories, but she's also like, show me the receipts. So if you want to dive further into the unexplained, check out Strange and Unexplained with Daisy Egan. Find Strange and Unexplained with Daisy
Egan wherever you get your podcasts. On Saturday evening, front page articles in the Kansas City Star and the Kansas City Journal Post encouraged anyone to get in touch with police who might be able to identify the man. Members of the public were also encouraged to go down to Melody mc gilly funeral Home on Linwood and Maine, where the man's body was being kept, to identify it for themselves.
One man, Robert Lane, who visited the body the following day, recognized the man as the same individual he'd given a lift to on Thursday night, the night before the man died. Lane had first seen him in some distress running down Thirteenth Street, a few minutes walk from the President Hotel, bleeding on his arm and wearing only an undershirt on
his top half despite the freezing cold weather. When Lane pulled over to see if the man was okay, he asked if Lane could take him to the nearest taxi rank. After a gree to help, Lane heard the man saying I'll kill that son of a bitch tomorrow as he jumped into the back of his car. He dropped him off at the next junction, where the man promptly found
a cab and drove off into the night. As many as fifty to three hundred people are said to view the body, with many more calling in to inquire if it was a missing loved one or family member, sometimes sending pictures to back up their requests. However, none were able to successfully identify the deceased. Efforts to locate the mysterious don were also made, with some wandering if the woman in the Hudson sealed coat and her companion in the brown hat had anything to do with it, but
nothing was ever found of the pair. Inquiries were also made at the mule Back Hotel, where the man was thought to have stayed shortly before arriving at the President Hotel, staff identified the man as the guest known to them as Eugene case Scott, who also claimed to have arrived from la although once again the LAPD could find no
record of such a person. After further investigations, the man was also found to have stayed at the city's Saint Regis Hotel, this time checking in under the name Duncan Ogletree, where he shared his room with another guest named Donald Kelso perhaps this man was their don thought police. However, despite continued efforts to locate the man and countless more failed attempts to identify the body, the case eventually went cold.
On Sunday, March third, it was announced in the Kansas City Journal Post that the unidentified man would be buried the next day in the Potter's Field or a pauper's Grave, as it is sometimes known, an area reserved for the unknown and unclaimed. Later that afternoon, however, a call was received at the Melody mc gillie funeral Home. The caller, a woman who didn't leave her name, asked only that they hold off on the burial to give her time
to find some money to pay for it. Three weeks later, an envelope stuffed with cash arrived at the funeral home with a note to use the money for the unknown man. Payments were also made to a local flower company for the purchase of thirteen roses to be placed on the man's grave, alongside a card that dread simply Love Forever, Louise.
A few days later, at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Kansas City, as the reverend conducted the service for the unidentified man, some police detectives gathered as a sign of respect, but also in the hope that the mysterious Louise might make an appearance, but nobody came. In early autumn nineteen thirty six, in Birmingham, Alabama, Ruby Ogletree had spent the best part of a year agonizing about the whereabouts of
her seventeen year old son, Artemis. Back in April of nineteen thirty four, Artemis decided he wanted to see more of America and set out to hitchhike to California. Ruby missed her son greatly, but gained solace from the frequent letters he would write to her informing her of his latest adventures. By spring the following year, however, things had
taken a peculiar turn. Artemis's letters, which had once been free flowing, handwritten and upbeat accounts of his travels, had suddenly become typewritten and strangely curt often using slang that sounded very unlike her son. In one letter, the apparent Artemis declared he was traveling to Chica to enroll in business school, while another soon after said he was in fact going to visit Europe and was scheduled to leave
on a boat from New York imminently. But by far the strangest communication came a few months later, in August of nineteen thirty five, when Ruby received a phone call from a man named Jordan, who said he was calling from Memphis, Tennessee. The man, who spoke with great speed and energy, was bringing to let her know that Artemis was by then in Cairo in Egypt, having married and
settled down with a wealthy woman he'd met there. Jordan also explained that her son had saved his life in a fight, but had lost his thumb in the process and so would be unable to write to her any time. Soon. Realizing that something was up, a confused and distressed Ruby wrote to j Edgar Hoover at the FBI to look into the matter. She also wrote to the American Consulate in Cairo in the hope that they might be able to help track her sundown, but nothing came of it.
A year later, having heard nothing more of her son, a friend of Ruby's arrived one morning at her house carrying an old issue of the American Weekly magazine. Handing it to Ruby, she said, I think that something you
should see. It was an article titled the Mystery of Room Number ten forty six, the story of the unidentified man who had been found mortally wounded at the President Hotel, and right in the middle was a large photo of the man lying dead at the funeral home, with his unusual scar showing prominently on the side of his head. Ruby took the magazine from her friend and felt her legs buckle beneath her. The man, or, as it turned
out more a boy, was unmistakeably her son Artemis. After the boy's identity was confirmed with Kansas City Police, further efforts were made to locate the mysterious Donald Kelso, but they were to no avail. In nineteen thirty seven, a man named Joseph Ogden was arrested for killing a roommate of his. Ogden was later found to sometimes go by the name of Donald Kelso. However, this was never investigated
further in connection to the Ogletree case. Littlemore was heard of the story until around two thousand and three, when writer John Horner, who was working at Kansas City Library at the time, took a phone call from someone who
wanted to find out more about it. As Horner later detailed in a twenty twelve article he wrote about the case for the Kansas City Library, the caller was going through the belongings of an elderly person who'd recently died and had come across a box of newspaper clippings about the incident. The caller also said that they'd found something in the box that was mentioned in one of the newspaper stories. Just what that item was, however, was never revealed.
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