Some Mother's Boy

September 29, 2017 12:03 PM

In 1921, a teenager died alone in Kentucky and was buried without a name. A century later, a team of sleuths set out to find his identity.

Some Mother’s Boy had been dead for nearly a century. “No one’s looking for him,” I told Matthews on the phone. “You don’t know that,” he shot back.

posted by poffin boffin (15 comments total)

"...Matthews once told me that the key to an unidentified person’s fate is the question: “Does somebody miss you?”

Most interesting line in the article.
posted by Beholder at 1:05 PM on September 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this. I appreciate the perspective and the natural shape of the story, the way that some pieces refused to fall into place, that resources just couldn't stretch.

I thought of Tent Girl as soon as I started to read it. That nickname always gave me the shivers. It sounded like an urban legend about her -- as if local kids told each other that she would come out of the woods draped in a dripping tent cloth.

Other nicknames that have haunted me: Little Lord Fauntleroy, Little Miss 1565, the Boy in the Box. (cw for pictures of dead children)
posted by Countess Elena at 1:07 PM on September 29, 2017

That was a ouroborus of a mystery. The evidence found on the body doesn't seem to match the family's circumstances, for sure. Kid from a poor family runs away and spends the night getting his clothes professionally laundered in the big city before hopping a train the next morning?
posted by Diablevert at 1:08 PM on September 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

This was quite a captivating read, I thought. I enjoyed the digressions into other... I hesitate to use the term "amateur sleuths" because it sounds pejorative, but others who have followed in Matthews' footsteps. One involves Ahlashia Thomas in Kentucky:

In 1993, when Thomas was in high school, hikers found a dead man at a local campground. He wore a backpacks but had no identification. Pulled over his head was a plastic bag from a Madison, Wisconsin, grocery store, secured around his neck with a belt. His hands were missing. The local media dubbed him Madison Man because of the plastic bag and because Berea was located in Madison County. Thomas couldn’t get the story out of her mind....

When the investigation cooled and police determined that Madison Man’s death was not a homicide, her unease turned to indignation. She began to suspect a law-enforcement cover-up. “They want to make it look like this is a perfect place to live,” she said. Deemed the “folk arts and crafts capital of Kentucky” by the state legislature, Berea is also home to the first integrated college in the South.

A coverup? The hell you say! I wish there were more about this; was the official police story that he committed suicide then cut off his hands and disposed of them?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:15 PM on September 29, 2017 [11 favorites]

I was a bit disappointed that the primary case was somewhat unresolved at the end, but the rest of the article was so good that I felt like that made up for it.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:22 PM on September 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

That was really interesting.
posted by COD at 1:47 PM on September 29, 2017

This was fascinating, thank you! I've always been intrigued by unidentified-body cases -- more so than missing persons, for some reason. I keep hoping we'll hear more about Isdal Woman following a breakthrough earlier this year. Then there's the Boy in the Box and Somerton Man ....

If anyone cares, I published a poem earlier this year about a case where there was a successful identification (David Lytton).
posted by Perodicticus potto at 1:57 PM on September 29, 2017

Kid from a poor family runs away and spends the night getting his clothes professionally laundered in the big city before hopping a train the next morning?


Or steals a set of clothes and a watch from someone's lodging.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:02 PM on September 29, 2017

Or steals a set of clothes and a watch from someone's lodging.

That's a definite possibility. It's often the case that things which appear incongrous in a retelling of a real life mystery make perfect sense in reality, to someone privy to the facts on the ground.

But if he nicked the clothes, then his parents were either lying or mistaken when they ID'd them as his. Maybe he nicked them, his parents realised they were stolen, and lied to protect him. But then why not say the watch was his, as well? If they were mistaken --- if the clothes weren't his and the watch wasn't his --- maybe they were mistaken in IDing the body as well?

The facts as given in the article don't hang together for me, anyway. A poor famer's son runs away from home after an argument, hops a train and gets lost in the city overnight, backtracks the next day again by hopping a train, and dies while crossing the tracks. Somewhere in there he's supposed to either have sent his own clothes to the laundry or stolen a much posher set of clothes, and also befriended a kid his own age who had enough money to buy a ticket? I could spin a tale that might make all that fit together, but it certainly doesn't seem like the Occam's razor solution. The idea that the kid was someone from a wealthier background, wearing his own posh, laundered suit and watch and having planned his escape well enough to have a companion and a bit of money seems a lot simpler.
posted by Diablevert at 3:12 PM on September 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

My immediate first reaction was, what if the other boy had been Frank, and had given his nice clothes to the other boy, before pushing him onto the track in an attempt to fake his own death? That would explain the Haynes recognition of the clothes but not the watch.
posted by corb at 4:08 PM on September 29, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'm so glad this thread isn't full of people complaining about how long the article was. I thought it was fascinating.
posted by goatdog at 4:24 PM on September 29, 2017

Great read, and reminds me of the equally interesting case of Mountain Jane Doe.
posted by WidgetAlley at 4:26 PM on September 29, 2017

Here's a similar tale for a woman who died in a poor area of London around 1850.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:04 PM on September 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

I loved, loved how long the article was. I read fast, too fast, and most longreads are essays in frustration for me.
posted by Dashy at 7:10 PM on September 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

Really enjoyed this, despite the mild frustration of the unresolved case, but it just serves to highlight the problem of removing funding, thanks for posting.
posted by ellieBOA at 1:46 AM on September 30, 2017