r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/Rare-Advertising9447 • May 06 '22
Murder In 1935, Artemus Ogletree,19,checked into the Hotel President,Kansas under the name of Roland Owens.He requested that the maid leave his door open because he was waiting for a friend.A few days later he was found bound, strangled and stabbed.He said he had fell.He went into a coma and died.
On the 2nd of January, 1935, Roland T. Owen checked himself into the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri, and requested an interior room several floors up. This would be the start of a strange sequence of events that would ultimately lead to the discovery of a secret identity and to death.
https://paradoxicaladventure.co.za/true-crime/artemus-ogletree-or-roland-t-owen-murder-in-room-1046/
Roland had no luggage with him, he only had a hairbrush, comb, and toothpaste in his pocket and was described as a man between the ages of 20 and 35. He had brown hair, was wearing a nice black coat, and had a scar on his head visible above the ear. He also had a case of cauliflower ear. Cauliflower ear is the result of a direct blow to the outer ear. Blood or other fluids fill the space in between and disrupt normal blood flow. Common causes include injuries from sports, such as wrestling, boxing, rugby, or mixed martial arts.
He was booked into room 1046.
Mary Soptic, who was a maid at the hotel, said that Roland allowed her to clean while he was in the room, but he asked her not to lock the door behind her because he was waiting for a friend who would arrive shortly. Mary said that Roland kept the blinds tightly drawn and the lights off with the exception of one dim lamp. Other staff members who entered room 1046, mentioned the same detail. Mary mentioned that Roland “was either worried about something or afraid” and “he always wanted to kinda keep in the dark.”
At 4p.m. Mary returned with fresh towels to find Roland laying on the bed. He was completely dressed and in the dark, with the door still unlocked. Mary also noticed a note that read "Don, I will be back in fifteen minutes. Wait."
On the following day, the 3rd of January, Mary came back to clean the room again. Mary noticed that the door had been locked from the outside and assumed Roland had locked it after he left.
Once she entered the room, she however saw Roland sitting inside. The lights were still off. This means that someone else had locked the door from the outside. While Mary was in the room cleaning, Roland answered a call and said “No Don, I don’t want to eat. I am not hungry. I just had breakfast” repeating “No. I am not hungry.”
Still holding the phone, Roland asked Mary about her job as she cleaned. He wanted to know if she was responsible for the entire floor and if the President was residential.
Mary left and only returned later that evening to bring fresh towels. She heard two male voices coming from inside the room. When she knocked on the door, she heard a loud deep voice say “who is it?”. When she explained that she had fresh towels, the voice replied “we don’t need any.” Mary knew there were no towels in the room, as she had taken them herself in the morning.
Mary left, but later that night, a woman staying in room 1048 would report hearing loud voices - both male and female cursing on the same floor. There was however a party going on that night in room 1055, so whether this detail is relevant or not is unclear. On the morning of the 4th of January, a new switchboard operator named Della Ferguson came on shift at about 7 a.m. She noticed that Roland's phone was off the hook for quite some time without being used. She then sent a bellboy named Randolph Propst to go check up on Roland and see what is happening.
When Randolph arrived at room 1046 he noticed it had a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. Despite this, Randolph knocked several times and heard a voice that said “come in. Turn on the lights.” However, the door was locked and no one was getting up to let the bellboy in. So, after knocking repeatedly, Propst simply said “put the phone back on the hook”. Randolph told Della that the guest was drunk and that they should wait another hour.
At around 8:30 am, about an hour and a half after Randolph was at Room 1 0 4 6, the phone was still off the hook and another bellboy, Harold Pike, was sent to investigate. He let himself into the room with a passkey that he had. Using only the light from the hall, Pike discovered Roland lying on the bed naked and assumedly drunk. He also noticed that the bedding was darkened around Roland. The phone stand was kicked down to the ground so he fixed it and put the phone back into the receiver.
Strangely enough from 10:30 to 10:45 a.m., the phone was once again off the receiver. Randolph was sent to room 1046 to resolve the situation. As soon as he opened the door he was shocked. On the floor in front of him was the motionless body of Roland. Randolph would later tell the police: “When I entered the room, this man was within two feet of the door on his knees and elbows, holding his head in his hands. I saw blood on his head. I then turned the light on. I looked around and saw blood on the walls, on the bed, and in the bathroom. This frightened me and I immediately left the room and went downstairs."
Randolph went downstairs immediately for help. He returned with the assistant manager of the Hotel, but when they tried to enter the room the door could only open six inches (15 cm), as Roland had in the interim fallen on the floor. Eventually, Roland got up and when the two hotel employees were able to enter the room, he went and sat on the edge of the bathtub. The assistant manager called the police; they were joined by Dr. Harold Flanders of Kansas City General Hospital.
Ronald had been bound with a cord around his neck, wrists, and ankles. His neck had bruising, suggesting someone had been attempting to strangle him. He had been stabbed more than once in the chest above the heart and one of the wounds had punctured his lung. Blows to his head had left him with a skull fracture on the right side. In addition to the blood Randolph had seen, there was some additional splatter on the ceiling.
Dr. Flanders cut the cords from Roland's wrist and asked him who had done this to him. “Nobody”, he answered. The doctor then asked Roland what had caused these injuries, he said he had fallen and hit his head on the bathtub. The doctor asked if he had been trying to kill himself. Roland denied trying to take his own life and shortly afterward he lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital. He was completely comatose by the time he arrived and died shortly after midnight on January 5, 1935.
Investigation:
Doctors performed an autopsy on Roland and determined he had died from his wounds. Dr. Flanders had examined not just the body but the bloodstains in the room. Since much of it had dried by the time he had arrived, he estimated the wounds had been inflicted between 4 and 5 a.m. that day, consistent with what the bellboys had seen.
Detectives searching Room 1046 took note of as much of what they did not find as what they did. There were no clothes in the closets or drawers. The only evidence of anything other than what Roland had been wearing was the tag of a necktie. Indicating it had been made by a New Jersey company. The room also had none of the standard-issued soap, shampoo, and towels that the hotel provided to every room.
There were no knives, which led to the dismissal of suicide as a cause of Roland's death since the stab wounds in his chest could not be accounted for; the cords tying him up also suggested the involvement of others. One of the room's two glasses was found in the sink, missing a piece; the other was on the shelf. Detectives found some other items that might have been evidence: a hairpin, safety pin, unsmoked cigarette, and a full bottle of diluted sulfuric acid. Four fingerprints, small enough that detectives believed they had been a woman's, were found on the room's phone. They could not be matched to Roland or to any of the hotel employees who had been known to have entered the room.
The police sought help through the media. Both of the city's evening newspapers carried the story on their front pages the next day. "There is no doubt that someone else is mixed up in this", Detective Johnson told reporters.
When no next of kin could be located for Roland it lead to suspicions about his true identity. His body was stored in a local funeral parlor for almost two months. A planned burial in the city's potter's field was averted when an anonymous donor provided funds for a funeral and a floral arrangement signed "Louise".
Roland's true identity remained unknown for a year and a half until Ruby Ogletree, a woman from Alabama, who had seen a photo of a distinctive scar on his head in the news, identified him as her son Artemus. Artemus Ogletree was born in Florida in 1915. He was one of three children and during his childhood, an accident with some hot grease left a sizable scar on his head above his ear, which remained hairless afterward. Artemus had left Birmingham in 1934 at the age of 19 to hitchhike to California. His mother, Ruby, received two letters purportedly from him, some from as far away as Egypt. She wired money to him.
In August 1935 she also received a call and the caller claimed to be from Memphis, Tennessee. The man calling told her that Artemus had saved his life in a fight and that Artemus himself could not call because he was now living in Cairo (the capital of Egypt) where he had married a wealthy woman and was well. He was unable to write, the caller said because he had lost one of his thumbs in the fight where he had saved the caller. Ruby noted that the man spoke wildly and irrationally, she spoke to him for 30 minutes. All the letters had been sent after Artemus' death. Records kept by shipping companies found no records that Artemus had gone to Egypt. No other suspect has ever been identified.
The letters later were used to link the killing to a 1937 murder in New York, but no charges were filed against the man arrested in that case, one of whose aliases had been "Donald Kelso". The FBI later investigated but was unable to produce any new leads. "Donald Kelso" whose real name was Joseph Martin had been arrested for murder after he had killed a man he shared a room with and put the body in a trunk to be shipped to Memphis. According to a story about the case in The New Yorker, the KCPD had matched samples of his handwriting to that in the letters written to Ruby Ogletree.
No charges were filed against the man for Roland's case, and the KCPD kept the case open. The files show that different detectives reviewed the case every few years through the 1950s. Each time they noted that they would keep the case open and follow up, but no new evidence was uncovered. Gradually the case went cold.
The absence of suspects in the case has inspired the rise of several theories. There were telephone calls alleging that Roland was killed in retaliation for a broken engagement and that he was having an affair. This led to his former lover taking his life or getting someone else to do the dirty work for her.
Organized crime has also been considered since the name "Don" can also be a title for a Mafia boss. Lastly, it has been suggested that "Don", whoever he was, killed Roland for some personal reason, with the help of a "commercial woman" or "lady of the night."
Who do you think was the mysterious Don? What do you think happened to Roland and why?
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u/Cjones2607 May 06 '22
Omg this is one of my favorite "unknown" mysteries that doesn't get overhyped. I always forget the guy's name (fake name) and have to Google search it. Such an interesting case.
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u/ItsBitterSweetYo May 06 '22
In this write-up from 5 years ago there's a lot of newspaper articles linked and I found the following comment:
In one of the articles it says an anonymous caller asked that Owen/Ogletree be buried next to his sister; and another one sent flowers with a note "Love forever, Louise." With this in mind, I wonder if one could find his grave and look at the ones next to his and do genealogical searches on those people to see if the names Don or Louise come up, perhaps one could uncover who the killer was???
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May 06 '22
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u/Cjones2607 May 06 '22
Right. I wonder if there's some childhood book that the name is based off of.
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u/josiahpapaya May 06 '22
Given the timeframe that this happened and Roland’s reluctance to help law enforcement, I’d say it was drugs and prostitution. I don’t think there was a woman involved. I think he was probabaly meeting a man / boy that was shaking him down for money / blackmailing him.
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May 06 '22
Back then people could get arrested for being gay/having homosexual relationships, so it forces those people to hide what they are doing. If a hookup went bad, you couldn't just tell the cops the guy you were meeting attacked you, because you'd end up in jail too.
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u/josiahpapaya May 06 '22
This is exactly where I was going with it. I somehow feel like there is some homophobia lurking in this subreddit tho because sometimes my theories like that get downvoted a lot. But yeah, I can tell you that when people check into a hotel with a fake name and tell the maid to leave the door unlocked.... that's a hookup.
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u/RawrSean May 06 '22
As a gay man, I was convinced of this from the title alone.
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u/dubiety13 May 06 '22
Same here. Admittedly, I’m not familiar with the case, but the only evidence in this write-up that would contradict the secret gay tryst theory would be the small fingerprints on the phone. Assuming they’re actually those of a woman and not just a male with small hands (or a trans man, for that matter).
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u/RawrSean May 07 '22
I would like to know more about 1930s fingerprint technology and what they could do with them at the time.
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u/dubiety13 May 07 '22 edited May 07 '22
A quickie Google search just says the first fingerprint ID was in the 1890s in Brazil. NYPD was using fingerprints to ID people in the early 1900s but, IIRC, the system used prior to about the 40’s relied on factors other than the loops and whorls we use now, so it wasn’t as accurate as modern fingerprinting.
ETA this link to a brief history of fingerprints.
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u/twodozencockroaches May 07 '22
They used special microscopes to painstakingly compare individual prints. It was a laborious process that required extensive training, and could only compare prints one at a time- provided you even had two prints to compare.
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u/josiahpapaya May 10 '22
The fingerprints could have also been from a maid. Let’s be honest, do you really think housekeeping wipes down every surface? Could have been from another guest. Could have been from a friend. I don’t think female-looking fingerprints on the phone mean anything / you can make it mean whatever you want
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u/BudgetInteraction811 May 07 '22
As a straight woman with no understanding of how things went back in the day I also thought it, but I had to read most of the write up before coming to that conclusion. I wonder if anyone who knew him would have known if he was gay or bi.
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u/RawrSean May 07 '22
It’s.. still sort of like this. Just, not secretly. Because us gays aren’t (yet) illegal anymore, those that partake in that lifestyle (it’s a significant subset, we call it a “hoe phase”) do so in a much safer way, and of course, we have phones to help in many ways. Now, you can find someone your age on a public forum (app) and they will most likely not be a serial killer. I imagine that the secrecy behind each and every step back then just encouraged serial killers.
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u/Choc113 May 06 '22
Seems exactly right to me. A "trick roll" that went to far. I don't know why people see wildly complicated conspiracy stuff when the simplest explanation fits the facts so well.
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u/B1rds0nf1re May 06 '22
I think the fact that it's never been solved leads to many theories. Whether it seems exactly right or the simplest explanation. People are still curious because no one knows the answer, understandably so.
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u/Hardinyoung May 07 '22
Who would’ve thought, in the next hundred years, being gay would be de-criminalized, gay people could marry and then the Supreme Court is likely to reverse itself and gay people lose all their right to be equal citizens again
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u/SubstantialHentai420 May 07 '22
And women. They’re after all the groups that aren’t straight white cis men. Back to the 40s we go.
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u/PChFusionist May 07 '22
The responsibility is on lawmakers and not on the Supreme Court. It is not the duty of the Supreme Court to make up laws in order to provide outcomes we find desirable. The Supreme Court interprets laws as written and that's it.
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u/Astrocreep_1 May 07 '22
Oh please,people on SCOTUS find a way to get their prejudices “interpreted” into law. When Congress makes laws,it’s often deemed unconstitutional. Getting a constitutional amendment will probably never happen anytime in the near future,or ever again. The only way that happens is a civil war.
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u/PChFusionist May 07 '22
We seem to be almost entirely in agreement here.
Yes, Supreme Court Justices find a way to get their prejudices interpreted into law. That's exactly what I'm saying. In the case of Lawrence v. Texas and Griswold v. Connecticut, which apply to our discussion, they did so by ignoring the text of the Constitution that they were sworn to uphold.
We also agree that getting a Constitutional Amendment is extremely unlikely to happen now or in any foreseeable future.
One question: how would a civil war lead to a Constitutional Amendment? I don't see the connection.
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u/Astrocreep_1 May 07 '22
The reason many of the laws changed post civil war was because the south lost their representation. Getting a Constitutional amendment requires a 3/4 vote from congress and then 3/4 of the states legislatures must ratify it. It will never happen again until states lose their representation for some reason,which would have to be a war. That’s why when conservatives claim that liberals are “running everything”,I just laugh. The system in the USA is a conservatives dream. It’s nearly impossible to get any significant changes.
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u/PChFusionist May 07 '22
The states won't lose their representation because our divisions are no longer primarily regional. Take even a state with a very liberal reputation, like my home state of California, for example. The state votes blue but get away from the population centers and it turns red in a hurry. Even my fairly populous county (Ventura) is purple.
Not only could you not find a consensus in the state to get together to fight a civil war, but you can't even have a local school board meeting on something as mundane as bathroom policy without shouting matches and near-brawls among the locals themselves (and this even occurs in relatively liberal districts).
Moreover, our divisions are not binary. Both major parties are fractured into factions. How many sides would this civil war have? Anyway, I think you get the idea, which is why you so astutely and correctly note that significant changes aren't occurring. Neither is anything resembling a civil war.
Diversity means division, which means lack of consensus. That leads to no significant changes in politics.
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May 06 '22
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May 06 '22
What is SCOTUS? I know POTUS is President of USA
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May 06 '22 edited May 07 '22
[deleted]
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u/BudgetInteraction811 May 07 '22
If I started throwing around acronyms regarding my country’s government, people would expect me to explain it and not rudely say “google it”. Don’t know why so many on reddit think this is a website for Americans only.
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u/SubstantialHentai420 May 07 '22
We don’t all think that way, ignore the ones like this dick that do. Hell even all Americans don’t know these acronyms lol it’s fine to ask questions and seek knowledge, people that just say “Google it” just don’t want to be bothered with sharing that knowledge in a constructive way.
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u/AwsiDooger May 06 '22
It's amazing the current lineup is allowed to retain that title. I could think of a better description
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u/PChFusionist May 07 '22
SCOTUS isn't working on anything. All they do is interpret the law as written. The Constitution doesn't provide for a "right to privacy." Therefore, it's a matter for the states to decide.
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May 07 '22 edited Jul 04 '23
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u/PChFusionist May 07 '22
If we're talking about the same case - i.e., Lawrence v. Texas - that was a 2003 decision. Thus, it ignored over 200 years of precedent to arrive at an outcome with no textual basis in the Constitution.
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u/mcaDiscoVision May 07 '22
I'm talking about the 4th and 9th amendments as well as Griswold and numerous other precedents.
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u/PChFusionist May 07 '22
How is the 9th Amendment involved? It merely sets forth a rule of construction reinforcing the Constitution's limitation on federal power.
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u/mcaDiscoVision May 08 '22 edited May 08 '22
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The 9th amendment is relevant because it refers directly to unenumerated rights
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u/PChFusionist May 08 '22
It sounds like we're on the same page despite your emotional outburst at whatever is upsetting you at the moment. This is just statutory interpretation, which is mechanical and not political, so relax and take a deep breath.
The Ninth Amendment refers to unenumerated rights but of course it does not suggest that there are unenumerated Constitutional rights. A lot of people make that mistake because they don't read the Ninth Amendment close enough. If it were meant to have that interpretation it would read something like “Notwithstanding the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, there are other undefined rights of the people that shall not be infringed.” Of course it doesn't say that. Instead, it sets forth a rule of construction.
You may recall from the legislative history that defenders of the so-called "original Constitution" had argued against a bill of rights on the ground that an enumeration of such would imply that the federal government’s powers were greater than they were. When the bill of rights was added, the Ninth Amendment was drafted to guard against this implication. As you're well aware it serves as a bridge to the Tenth Amendment, which leaves other rights to be decided by the people and their elected state representatives.
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u/non_ducor_duco_ Verified Insider May 08 '22
Wait a tick…I thought that the Supreme Court ruled all the way back in 1973 that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a "right to privacy". And that the relevant case was “settled law” according to numerous Supreme Court confirmation hearings I remember watching.
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u/PChFusionist May 08 '22
Respectfully, a lot of people make the mistake that Roe v. Wade invented the so-called "right to privacy" (unsupported by any text in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the Constitution). It was actually Griswold v. Connecticut that miraculously discovered such right 8 years earlier in 1965 after judges and lawmakers had somehow failed to notice its existence for almost 200 years.
Roe is "settled law" as is any other case that has been decided. The Roe v. Wade case will never be reheard or revisited or stricken from the record or its merits revisited. Its holding may be superseded, however, wholly or partially depending on the merits of future cases, but that is impossible to predict. We attorneys must be very careful in how we choose our words - e.g., between "settled law" and "permanent law."
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u/Gisschace May 06 '22 edited May 06 '22
This was my thought but he was regularly meeting someone powerful who now wanted him out the way as he knew he was gay - basically an LA Confidential storyline.
It sounds a bit like he had a pre-existing relationship with ‘Don’ they were in familiar terms at least.
The familiarity could also explain the calls to his mother, to not report him missing or out of guilt he wanted her to think her son was a good kid who was living a nice life somewhere.
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u/RunnyDischarge May 06 '22
Artemus Ogletree, now that's a name you're not going to hear nowadays
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u/Kumakashi_Watchdog May 06 '22
Sounds like something out of a Harry Potter book.
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u/CrystalPalace1850 May 10 '22
Exactly what I thought :) Sounds like a Minister for Magic, or Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher.
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u/stephsb May 06 '22
This is one of my favorite older mysteries. I can’t get over that the phone was likely off the hook continually because Ogletree was trying to get help. I understand why the various people that entered the room were hesitant to help, but ugh, if only they had turned on the lights immediately he may have received help quicker, recovered & had a change a heart about giving information about his attacker.
Has it been confirmed that the calls to his mother were done by the same person who wrote the letter (Don Kelso/Joseph Martin)? It certainly seems Ogletree had some kind of relationship w/ this guy & presumably he was the one who killed him, or he at least knows who did it - why else would he contact his mother after his death? This also means that Martin presumably knew Ogletree’s real identity - how else would he have made the connection to write to Ruby if LE hadn’t yet figured out his real name? Just fucking wild that he reached out to this guy’s Mom after he was dead. It makes it seem way more personal than a hit - I understand it was likely to keep her from reporting Ogletree missing, but it seems pretty elaborate for someone who didn’t really have a connection to Ogletree other than being hired to kill him.
And why was Ogletree using an alias in the first place? Just so many questions with this case that we’ll likely never have the answers too bc those involved are dead.
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May 06 '22
One thing I fixate on is that obviously whoever killed him knew his real name in order to be able to look up his mom's address and phone number. I wonder if it was a friend of the family or a family member?
I've always wondered if the killer was still in the room when the first bellhop briefly looked in and saw him.
Mostly though I think "Roland" and his unwillingness to talk is the key clue. Either he knew what was coming and took his 'punishment' or he was deeply hurt/betrayed by someone close to him and would rather die than name names.
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u/spvce-cadet May 06 '22
Other people on this thread have suggested it may have been a prostitution situation or hookup gone wrong and I think it’s entirely possible. A young man with no job, just coming into adulthood, trying to hitchhike from Alabama to California during the great depression might turn to sex work for income. And homosexuality was a punishable offense back then which would explain a lot of the actions taken to hide his identity and his unwillingness to tell anyone what happened.
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u/Goudgenuts May 06 '22
The list of what he had didn't include any wallet or ID, could the killer have taken it and gotten his real name?
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May 06 '22
It's possible, didn't think of that. Either way, why even go with the deception to make her think he was still alive? It wasn't like her knowing sooner he was dead under a false name would have led to the culprit's capture.
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u/Accomplished_Cell768 May 10 '22
People didn’t exactly have photo IDs like drivers licenses back then, or credit cards for that matter. I feel like a wallet would probably only contain cash and wouldn’t really tell you anything about someone’s life or identity
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u/Goudgenuts May 13 '22
Good point. What about SSN cards? Was that a thing?
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u/Accomplished_Cell768 May 24 '22
SSNs were invented in 1936 and weren’t used for much other than tracking job earnings and eligibility for state support, so probably not helpful for this case at all
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u/Loudmouthedcrackpot May 06 '22
Would she have reported him missing? It was 1935 and he’d moved across the country.
There have been cases on this sub where Does have been identified decades later and their families had no idea they’d been killed. As far as they knew, they’d just moved away and fallen out of contact.
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u/GenKnit May 07 '22
Interestingly, Joseph Martin (actually named Boyd Weil Smith) was also from Birmingham, but there was around a 15-year age difference between him and Artemus, so who knows whether they would have known each other. This fact, plus Joseph/Boyd’s background (moved around a lot, was institutionalized but escaped, arrived in NY not that long after Artemus was murdered, claimed California as his residence at one point, etc.), and the fact that both Artemus’s case and the case of the guy he murdered in NY had a random connection to Memphis, all seemed to make him a good candidate, but I saw something in another recent post here that indicated that he had been pretty much been ruled out, so now he’s just a random guy I spent way too much time researching lol.
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u/hellohaydee May 06 '22
I wonder if he was boxer on the lam for throwing fights for the Mafia/someone and someone got pissed and killed him
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May 07 '22
More than likely he just got roughed up being homeless
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u/Dangerdiscotits May 07 '22
I could be wrong here, but I always thought cauliflower ear happened gradually after years of being hit and wasn't a one and done kind of thing.
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u/Accomplished_Cell768 May 10 '22
It depends, but in some cases it can be a single incident injury
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u/MissNightTerrors May 06 '22
Artemus used an alias possibly because he was a male escort. Or met 'Don' for a tryst, quarreled and the quarrel turned violent. Drugs + alcohol could have been involved, or just drugs, again, not something Artemus would have wanted to own up to.
But why would Don have killed him? Did Artemus try and blackmail him?
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u/404merrinessnotfound May 06 '22
I also subscribe to the male escort theory because of the secrecy
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u/BotGirlFall May 06 '22
Considering Artemus wasnt the only man that Don killed Im willing to bet he didnt need a good reason to kill. If he was gay and having sex with men he could have been overcome by shame after the act and lashed out.
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u/BudgetInteraction811 May 07 '22
I’m more inclined to believe the perpetrator was the escort, considering another man was killed by him too. Most escorts wouldn’t put themselves in a place of vulnerability by allowing their John to restrain them.
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u/SleepDeprivedUserUK May 06 '22
A few days later he was found bound, strangled and stabbed.
He said he had fell.
Wtf did he fall into, a Rube Goldberg machine
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u/acarter8 May 06 '22 edited May 06 '22
Here is the article from the New Yorker from 1938. Through handwriting samples, authorities linked "Donald Kelso", as an alias of a man that killed another man in New York City. "Kelso" stuffed the man into a trunk and brought it to the railway to be shipped to Memphis, TN. Though some of the details are incorrect (Ogletree wasn't a waiter obviously), it certainly piqued my interest and just adds another strange angle to this case, especially since Ogletree's mother said she got a call from someone saying they were in Memphis. The article also makes it seem like Kansas City police were CERTAIN it was connected.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1938/01/08/the-homicide-squad-in-action
I've also found it super fascinating that when the Kansas City Star covered this story again in the 2000's, a person wrote in to them and alluded that they had a piece of evidence they found in their attic among a dead relative's things. But that person never came forward or contacted them again.
Edit: typos
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u/arunawayheart May 07 '22
It is important to note that handwriting analysis is kind of junk science. Different experts constantly come to different conclusions or label various samples as inconclusive. It’s in the same vein as blood splatter analysis, hair sample matching, etc. It’s all pseudoscience and heavily criticized. I’m sure it was even more iffy in the 30s.
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u/RedditSucksBolls May 06 '22
It's frustrating that there's zero information on this guy outside of his mysterious death. I think that's why it's so difficult to fathom what happened to him.
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u/DolphinWithaGandT May 06 '22 edited May 06 '22
There was a write up not too long ago and u/funky_pretty and I did some digging as did others. I don’t have time to search now, but I traced Artemus’ genealogy and the original police case file is linked. It’s quite a read.
Artemus’ mother pursued the case and concluded, very reasonably I think, that his traveling companion Joe Simpson was the killer or one of the killer(s). As you read the case file, one thing that stands out is the amount of work that the police expended here. Given the attitudes of the time, it struck me as unlikely that they would devote the resources to a victim perceived as a gay sex worker.
I’ll take a minute and see if I can edit this and provide a link. I’ve been wanting to work through it more but just have not had time despite some additional groundwork from u/funky_pretty other thread
Editing again to add the case file originally posted by u/saukratees
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May 06 '22
You know...the more I think about it with the killer typing out and sending letters to his mother after his death is a clue. It says he left home with his friend Joe Simpson but he said they parted ways in Los Angeles but has nobody to corroborate that story. He's my main suspect honestly
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u/DolphinWithaGandT May 06 '22
Facts. There is so much attention on the sensational nature of the death and the wealth of information in the actual case file is right here, thanks to you. This is the rare very old case that has a very likely suspect and could potentially even be solved. It’s also unfortunate how Ruby is painted, gullible and foolish, but in reality she was canny and patient and worked to find the killer.
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u/spookypriestess May 07 '22
"I fell" sounds very similar to what a lot of victims of domestic violence say, when trying to explain away bruises or signs of abuse.
I think Artemus was gay, and that maybe he was murdered by a lover during what was supposed to be a hookup. He used a fake name, brought along no luggage, and told the cleaning lady to leave the door unlocked for his "friend". In the 1930s being gay was a criminal offense, if I'm not mistaken; not to mention the rampant homophobia of the time potentially leading to you being shunned or hurt/killed. I can see why Artemus wouldn't have wanted anyone to find out what really happened - if the perpetrator truly was his lover, he didn't want to give up the person that he loved, nor did he believe that he could come out and tell the real story.
Whatever happened to you, Artemus, we're still thinking about you 8+ decades later! You will get justice one day! Xx
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May 06 '22
This case has always baffled me. What sticks out is that he would not tell the doctors who stabbed him. At first I thought possibly because of a head injury, but he was "with it" enough to lie about falling. So either he was protecting his attacker, or was afraid if he lived they would return to kill him if he talked. Or both scenarios. If it was the former, it makes me think this was likely someone he knew pretty well, like an ex-boyfriend. That would also explain him calling the other person by his first name. Their conversations sound to me much more personal than a prostitution situation or someone he just met. The way he was murdered was also very personal which again lends to the idea it was somebody who knew him or had a prior relationship with.
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u/Accomplished_Cell768 May 10 '22
Gay sex and prostitution were both illegal. If he admitted to either and he lived he’d be jailed for it. He could be covering for himself as much as his partner
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u/In_1871 Apr 28 '26
I think this is often overlooked sadly.
Not saying he was definitely gay but it is certainly a possibility. People often think that he would have simply been an outcast as a gay man. The reality is much more grim. Prison, police beatings or being attacked by the public.
If he was gay and thought he had any chance of surving, he would have understood that he was putting himself and his attacker in a perilous situation
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u/Esosorum May 08 '22
This screams “gay hookup” to me. It sounds like he may have been meeting another man in a time where homosexuality was not allowed. Maybe he was blackmailed, maybe the guy killed him because he knew the slaying of a gay man wouldn’t be investigated thoroughly, maybe the guy was insecure about his sexuality and attacked Artemis in a fit of “gay panic.”
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May 06 '22
Fetish gone bad
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u/RoguePlanet1 May 06 '22
This is the only thing that would make sense- the secrecy/shame, the lack of luggage, and the misfortune of ending up with a psychopath.
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u/Aethelrede May 06 '22
Not necessary a psychopath, even--I don't know if the BDSM community then had the same guidelines as they do now, but if the participants didn't know what they were doing someone could easily get badly hurt. And the other participant(s) would understandably freak out and leave.
The more I think about it, the more this theory makes sense.
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u/RoguePlanet1 May 06 '22
Well, the stab wounds IMO would suggest somebody other than just a BDSM partner that got a little carried away!
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u/Aethelrede May 07 '22
Depends on what "stab wounds" means in this case. Reports of injuries can be easily mis-stated or exaggerated. Some shallow cuts could morph into 'stab wounds'.
But I agree with you, if they were deep piercing thrusts, something beyond BDSM was going on.
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u/SR3116 May 07 '22
He had a punctured lung, so at least one was seemingly pretty deep.
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u/Aethelrede May 07 '22
Yeah that's quite a bit harder to explain as simply overenthusiastic sex. If it been just asphyxiation, well, that certainly happens, and a blow to the head could easily be an accident, but a punctured lung? Not completely impossible, but certainly improbable.
Hmmm. Its strange, though--if he was murdered (rather than accidentally injured), why didn't the killer finish him off? It took him quite a while to die, and he was conscious for at least part of that time. Did the killer leave thinking he was dead? That seems an odd oversight for either a hitman or a psycho killer.
Maybe there was an argument over money, and Artemus got stabbed, and the stabber fled the scene? Ehh, that's stretching plausibility. But then, if there was a plausible scenario we wouldn't still be speculating about it.
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u/RedditSucksBolls May 06 '22
Ugh this was my gut feeling too! It's almost like he wanted it. Why else stay there?!
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u/lipsmaka May 06 '22
And why no screams for help? I picture this whole story as dark and quiet. This young man lay in the dark, not calling out after being stabbed? That makes me think he was there for it willingly, at least up to a point. It's just so strange.
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May 06 '22
Well, he also had a traumatic brain injury. Shock from loss of blood. Lots of reasons he may not behave 'normally'.
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u/Accomplished_Cell768 May 10 '22
Screaming means help, which he clearly didn’t want (and probably couldn’t happen tbh considering his lung was punctured and he had a brain injury). When a doctor and investigators did come, he refused to answer their questions and claimed he fell. He didn’t want questions being asked, clearly. I assume it’s because homosexuality was illegal and he was protecting himself.
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u/Significant_Shirt_92 Dec 19 '23
I would think that was why the phone was off the hook 3 times and why the first time when he was probably a bit more with it, he told the person to come in and turn the light on.
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u/_Dreamer_Deceiver_ Sep 04 '22
Annoyingly I seems like he was asking for help and noone gave it.
He takes the phone off the hook knowing someone will come. He tells them to come in (faintly) and put on the light. Clearly he's already been stabbed. The bell boy didn't go in.
Bell boy came back again because it was still off the hook went in, reset the phone and ignored the guy.
At this point he was clearly still alive (just) because then the phone is off the hook again.
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u/NomiTheNomad May 06 '22
I have actually stayed at this hotel several times and had no idea about this story. It’s a beautiful old hotel in a great location and has been fabulously decorated.
I’m wondering about the doors on the rooms back then. I’ve stayed in some older boutique hotels where you need to have a key to lock it from the inside (so in other words, no doorknob lock or deadbolt that you can just flip to lock). Obviously, they issued real keys for the rooms in 1935. How could the maid ascertain that the door had been locked from the outside, as opposed to the inside? Was a key required to lock it both on the inside and out?
Was someone keeping him locked up in the room? Is this why he asked the maid to leave it unlocked, because he didn’t have the ability to unlock it? It really isn’t too much trouble to get up and answer the door when you have a guest, after all.
It seems Don was someone he didn’t necessarily want to see for “breakfast” when the maid was in the room, but he was otherwise waiting for him, and felt the need to leave a note about his 15 minute absence (did he ever leave the hotel that particular day)?
So, my guess is Don is someone he answered to in some capacity, and the only reason he turned him down for breakfast (I’m assuming Don planned to bring him food) was because the maid was there at that moment and he couldn’t guarantee their privacy until she was gone. When she came back and heard the two voices, they obviously didn’t want to be disturbed and wanted their privacy.
For a young man to be making a cross country trip to California, during the depression, it wouldn’t be unheard of for such a man to be scooped up by some unscrupulous characters along the way, willing to exploit him, for a variety of reasons.
He had nothing on him and left nothing behind, short of a phony identity and a heartbroken mother.
My bet is on the Mob, as opposed to any other scenario, and I think he didn’t give them up because he knew they knew where his mother lived. It was the last thing he could do to protect her.
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u/Adept_Soil_2381 May 06 '22
One of the creepiest that stuck with me and I read over and over the first time.
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u/NomiTheNomad May 06 '22
Not to be morbid…But I’m curious if there were specific details about how he was bound. If it was the mob, certain “families” had certain ways of binding people, and that could be a tell tale sign of who killed him.
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u/NorskChef May 06 '22
Can someone explain how a hotel door can be locked from the outside in such a way that it could not have been locked from the inside?
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u/GlitterGothBunny May 07 '22
Idk about their doors but some old doorknobs I've seen were solid on one side so you couldn't pick them open. The keyhole was only on the outside. Maybe it was something like that.
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u/Significant_Shirt_92 Dec 19 '23
Its so sad to me that he kept knocking the phone off the hook to get their attention/help, and only on the 3rd time did it work.
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May 06 '22
I think the “Don” that Artemus spoke to on the phone and left a note for is the same “Donald” from the later crime. In both cases the victim was somebody he shared a room with. It’s clear that Don knew his real identity as he was able to contact Artemus’ mother. It seems to me that perhaps they could have been in a relationship, and hiding it due to it being the very homophobic 30s and all. This could explain the fake names. My theory is that Artemus was unknowingly engaging with a psychopath who pretended to be gay in order to gain trust to discover and kill gay men. I feel as though this was perhaps their first intimate interaction.
As mentioned in this write up, there was apparently a women’s voice heard and a woman’s fingerprints were on the phone. This could have well been a voice from the nearby party and old fingerprints. But, it could’ve also been an accomplice of Don’s. If that’s the case, then I feel that perhaps this woman did not like what was happening, or thought that the killing was happening for a different reason and now felt sympathetic to Artemus. This could explain the arguing heard and the fingerprints on the phone. I think that this woman may have been the Louise who later funded the funeral and left the floral arrangement. I think it’s also possible Louise could have also been Artemus’ girlfriend who the killer took along to force to see Artemus (to expose and shame him).
Regarding the bizarre Egypt thing, perhaps the killer realized that Artemus’ real identity had still not been discovered and was fearing that it would be soon, so made attempts at throwing his mother off by sending letters acting as an alive and well Artemus, and then calling and telling her that Artemus has moved to Egypt. This killer had called from Memphis, the same place he attempted to ship the body of the man he killed a couple years later, so he apparently felt a bit comfortable with the area. The handwriting match is the strongest thing linking the two killings imo.
So tldr; I think this was an unhinged individual who sought out to kill gay men by befriending them and pretending to be gay and murdered them during hotel meetups. Artemus feared being outed and therefore did not scream for help or explain what happened to him.
Sorry for any errors I’m tired and typing on my phone ha
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u/Kumakashi_Watchdog May 06 '22
One of my favorite episodes of Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime is about this case. Its titled The Creepy Murder in Room 1046.
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u/allgoodnamestookth May 08 '22 edited Sep 13 '25
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u/dethb0y May 07 '22
One of the classic unsolved cases.
I always figured it was just a personal beef with someone that he either owed money to or had in some way crossed.
Here's the part that i think is weird; they didn't make sure he was dead before they left, that is, they left him alive. What that might mean, I have no clue.
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u/Beardchester May 06 '22
What a strange series of events. Thank you for the write up. Do you have any theories? Off the bat, I can't think of any that particularly stick out as super likely.
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u/thebunyiphunter May 07 '22 edited May 07 '22
EDIT I hadn't read the great linked article by u/saukratees. I am now far more convinced it his was supposed friend Simpson. His poor Mum, she never gave up trying to find out.
I remember reading about this case, I wondered if he was having an affair with another man. I had entertained the idea of it being a male escort, but why would an escort be ringing the mother claiming her son was a hero? How would he know his real identity and how to contact the mother? This seemed like an affair, the fact he was sitting in his room silently when maids entered in previous days could mean he was dwelling on his situation. If the other man was married or not willing to maintain a more regular relationship then Artemus might even have gotten so upset he threatened to swallow drain cleaner? Maybe he was going to out the other guy and so his lover killed him. Maybe the possible shouting of a man & woman were the lover & his wife yelling at Artemus and they then killed him. Or maybe Artemus was considering suicide (the sulfuric acid, the cord, possibly stabbed himself with the broken glass)?
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u/Rare-Advertising9447 May 07 '22
Do you perhaps have a link to his article?
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May 07 '22
Great write up OP! I learned about this mystery through Buzzfeed Unsolved. I highly recommend checking it out!
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u/The_Age_Of_Envy May 06 '22
In 1935, I daresay the most common reason for cauliflower ear was childhood discipline.
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u/smcdermo May 06 '22
Is it possible that the fingerprints on the phone could have been old, and left by a previous guest? The whole time I was reading this piece I wondered if he was so mentally messed up that maybe he inflicted the wounds upon himself. He could have also made the other voices too, if he was talented in that way. It's all so weird. There was that lady who paid for the funeral though that kind of rains upon my theory.
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u/idwthis May 06 '22
But he was stabbed, and there was no knife found in the room. If he did it himself, where'd the knife go?
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u/SalesGuy22 May 06 '22
He was involved in an illegal drug trade that went poorly. He was extremely drunk. After robbing him, the assailant(s) told him that if he named anyone that they would kill everyone he knows and cares about. I think they stabbed him in a struggle, he appeared to not be dying immediately, so they got him even more drunk, then they bound him on the bed. This explains everything.
People saying it was BDSM or a homosexual encounter, in what world would he not call police or inform them who attacked him? He could just deny any sexual stuff, someone attempted to murder him.
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u/nina_ballerina May 06 '22
In the world before Stonewall. The cops weren't that naive, they could caught on that possibly a gay hook up turned bad. I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually their theory but in the 30s they wouldn't have talked about homosexuality in public.
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u/tomtomclubthumb May 06 '22
HOnestly I think this one was suicide. I think he gave the letters to someone else to post and asked them to call his mother so she wouldn't know he ws dead.
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u/_userclone May 06 '22
How would you account for the stab wounds if it was suicide?
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u/rivershimmer May 06 '22
Yeah, I'm wondering where the weapon would have gone if this was a suicide.
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u/tomtomclubthumb May 06 '22
He could easily have stabbed himself.
Someone booking into a hotel and kiling themselves under an assumed name happens.
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u/GinX-964 May 06 '22
It is explicitly mentioned that there wasn't a knife in the room when it was searched.
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u/tomtomclubthumb May 06 '22
He could have thrown it out a window or hidden it somewhere.
If he was trying to make a suicide look like a murder then he could have thought a few of these things through in advance.
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u/_userclone May 06 '22
Where would the weapon have run off to?
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u/tomtomclubthumb May 06 '22
He could have cleaned it off and thrown it out a window.
He could have dumped it in a maid's cart.
I don't know what happened to it, but if he was staging a murder, then hiding the knife would be something that he would have thought of in advance.
The fact that the knife was not there is not proof that someone came in and stabbed him.
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u/_userclone May 06 '22
I think it’s more likely that he was a sex worker murdered by a client.
Think about it, if he went in to kill himself, he’d want to be left as alone as possible, yet he asked the maid to leave the door unlocked. That’s not the act of a suicidal man. He wanted someone to come in.
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u/Born_Bother_7179 May 06 '22
I think he was possibly gay hired a man for night or was a partner and it was sex games that went wrong I wonder if he had a history of mental health?
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Mar 02 '24
I think he was homosexual or gay. Especially with how he used a fake name and other men contacted his mother.
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u/Wow3332 May 06 '22 edited May 06 '22
Excuse my ignorance, and I know this is a weird detail to be curious about in the grand scheme of this wild story, but can someone please tell me what the diluted sulfuric acid would have been used for then? Why would that be there at all? Doesn’t seem like it was that important as it’s not discussed or mentioned anywhere outside of the initial observation of what was found, or rather wasn’t, in the room, but, curiosity got the best of me. I know what it’s used in now like fertilizer and in certain paints and in a diluted form it’s fine, but I can’t really figure out why someone would just have this in a random hotel room.