The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries Page 8

  Ingrid Schubert, one of the women who had helped free Baader in 1970, and who had been jailed for her part in bank robberies, was found hanging in her cell on 5 November 1977, three weeks after the deaths of Baader, Ensslin, and Raspe.

  Was the Baader-Meinhof gang “executed” by its captors? The Bonn government denied it. There had, they insisted, been a suicide pact, whose aim was to fuel the revolutionary fervor of the comrades outside. (Even during the trial there had been another murder – of chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Bruback, on 7 April 1977, and soon after the trial, on 30 July 1977, Jürgen Ponto was murdered by his own goddaughter, Susanne Albrecht.) A portable transistor radio had been discovered in the cell of Raspe, and the wires left in the walls of the gang members’ cells could have been used as a primitive signaling device. Explosives found in the cells were alleged to have been smuggled in to the gang members at the same time as the pistols that had killed Baader and Raspe. The aim, said the official statement, had been to make suicide look like murder. Baader even wrote a letter to a Stuttgart court insisting that he would never commit suicide – although there was no particular need for this admission. Similarly, Ensslin had sent for two clergymen and indicated that she thought she might be murdered. All this, like Moller’s accusation, could certainly be interpreted as evidence of a plot to embarrass the authorities with a final act of desperation and defiance.

  The evidence against this view is sparse yet highly disturbing: the semen stains on Ulrike Meinhof’s underwear; and the stab wounds – made with a blunt butter knife – in Irmgard Moller’s chest. One expert stated that there would be an overwhelming inhibition against the self-infliction of such wounds.

  The irony of the Baader-Meinhof story is that nearly all the protagonists came from comfortable middle-class backgrounds and had little firsthand experience of poverty or injustice. If they had been living under Hitler or Stalin, it would be easier to sympathize with the violence of their reactions. But in the democratic regime of West Germany, the argument that they were fighting “the generation of Auschwitz” sounds somehow exaggerated. One student leader commented about Gudrun Ensslin’s “Auschwitz” speech: “She was too hysterical”. Andreas Baader, who had always been cynically nonpolitical, allowed Ensslin’s hysteria to draw him into the fire-bombing. From then on, like some character in Sophocles or Shakespeare, he was drawn into a whirlpool of events over which he had no control and that made him the central figure in a grotesque tragedy that involved the whole country. The verdict of history on the Baader-Meinhof orgy of terrorism will probably be: It was all so unnecessary.

  4

  The Barbados Vault

  Mystery of the Moving Coffins

  On 9 August 1812 the coffin of the Hon. Thomas Chase, a slave-owner on the Caribbean island of Barbados, was carried down the steps of the family vault. As the heavy slab was moved aside and the lamplight illuminated the interior, it became clear that something strange had happened. One of the three coffins it already contained was lying on its side. Another, that of a baby, was lying, head-downward, in a corner. It seemed obvious that the tomb had been desecrated. The odd thing was that there was no sign of forced entry. The coffins were replaced in their original positions, and the tomb resealed. The local white population had no doubt that Negro labourers were responsible for the violation; Thomas Chase had been a cruel and ruthless man. In fact, the last coffin to be laid in the vault – only a month before Chase’s – was that of his daughter, Dorcas Chase, who was rumoured to have starved herself to death because of her father’s brutality.

  Four years went by. On 25 September 1816 another small coffin – this time of eleven-month-old Samuel Brewster Ames – was carried into the vault; once again, it was found in wild disorder. Someone had tumbled all four coffins about the floor, including the immensely heavy lead-encased coffin of Thomas Chase, which it had taken eight men to lift. Once more the coffins were arranged neatly, and the vault resealed.

  It was opened again seven weeks later, this time to receive the body of Samuel Brewster, a man who had been murdered in a slave uprising the previous April, and who had been temporarily buried elsewhere in the meantime. Yet again the vault was in disorder, the coffins tumbled about in confusion. No one doubted that Negro slaves were responsible, and that this was an act of revenge. The mystery was: how had it been done? The great marble slab had been cemented into place each time, and there was no sign that it had been broken open and then recemented.

  One of the coffins – that of Mrs Thomasina Goddard, the first occupant of the vault – had disintegrated into planks, apparently as a result of its rough treatment. They were tied together roughly with wire, and the coffin was placed against the wall. Since the vault (which was only 12 feet by 6½ feet) was becoming somewhat crowded, the children’s coffins were placed on top of those of adults. Then once more the vault was resealed.

  The story had now become something of a sensation in the islands. Christ Church, and its rector, the Rev. Thomas Orderson, became the focus of unwelcome curiosity. He showed understandable impatience with some of the sensation-seekers; but to those whose rank demanded politeness he explained that he and a magistrate had made a careful search of the vault after the last desecration, trying to find how the vandals had got in. There was undoubtedly no secret door; the floor, walls and curved ceiling were solid and uncracked. He was also convinced that the problem had not been caused by flooding. Although the vault was two feet below ground-level, it had been excavated out of solid limestone. And floods would have left some mark. Besides, it was unlikely that heavy leaden coffins would float. Orderson naturally dismissed the theory held by the local black population that the tomb had some kind of curse on it, and that supernatural forces were responsible.

  By the time the next and last burial took place, there was universal interest and excitement. On 7 July 1819 (other accounts say the 17th), Mrs Thomazina Clarke was carried into the vault in a cedar coffin. The cement took a long time to remove from the door – it had been used in abundance to reseal the vault – and even when it had been chipped away, the door still refused to yield. Considerable effort revealed that the massive leaden coffin of Thomas Chase was now jammed against it, six feet from where it had been placed. All the other coffins were disturbed, with the exception of the wire-bound coffin of Mrs Goddard. This seemed to prove that flooding was not the answer – would leaden coffins float when wooden planks lay unmoved?

  The governor, Lord Combermere, had been one of the first into the vault. He now ordered an exhaustive search. But it only verified what Orderson had said earlier; there was no way that vandals could have forced their way into the vault, no hidden trapdoor, no entrance for floodwater. Before he ordered the tomb resealed, the governor ordered that the floor should be sprinkled with sand, which would show footprints. Then once more the door was cemented shut. Combermere even used his private seal on it so that it could not be opened and then recemented without leaving obvious traces.

  Eight months later, on 18 April 1820, a party was gathered at Lord Combermere’s residence, and conversation turned as it often did on the vault. Finally, the governor decided that they would go and investigate whether their precautions had been effective. There were nine of them in all, including the governor, the rector, and two masons. They verified that the cement was undisturbed and the seals intact. Then the masons opened the door. Once again the place was in chaos. A child’s coffin lay on the steps that led down into the chamber, while Thomas Chase’s coffin was upside down. Only Mrs Goddard’s bundle of planks remained undisturbed. The sand on the floor was still unmarked. Once again the masons struck the walls with their hammers, looking for a secret entrance. And finally, when it seemed obvious that the mystery was insoluble, Lord Combermere ordered that the coffins should be removed and buried elsewhere. After that the tomb remained empty.

  None of the many writers on the case have been able to supply a plausible explanation. The obvious “natural” explanations are flooding and ear
th tremors. But flooding would have disarranged Mrs Goddard’s coffin and moved the sand on the floor; besides, someone would have noticed if rain had been so heavy that it flooded the graveyard. The same applies to earth tremors strong enough to shake coffins around like dice in a wooden cup. Conan Doyle suggested that the explanation was some kind of explosion inside the vault, and to explain this he suggests that the “effluvia” (sweat?) of the Negro slaves somehow combined with unnamed forces inside the vault to produce a gas explosion. Nothing seems less likely.

  Yet a “supernatural” explanation is just as implausible. It has often been pointed out that the disturbances began after the burial of a woman believed to have committed suicide; the suggestion is that the other “spirits” refused to rest at ease with a suicide. But the movement of the coffins suggest a poltergeist (qv), and all the investigators are agreed that a poltergeist needs some kind of “energy source” – often an emotionally disturbed adolescent living on the premises. And an empty tomb can provide no such energy source.

  The Negroes obviously believed there was some kind of voodoo at work – some magical force deliberately conjured by a witch or witch doctor, the motive being revenge on the hated slave-owners. It sounds unlikely, but it is the best that can be offered.

  5

  The Basa Murder

  The Voice from the Grave

  There have been many folktales in which the dead have returned to give evidence against their murderers; but there is only one example that has been authenticated beyond all shadow of a doubt. It is the case of a Filippino physical therapist named Teresita Basa, who was stabbed to death in Chicago on February 21, 1977.

  Toward 8:30 on the evening of that day, the Chicago fire department was called to put out a blaze in a high-rise apartment building on the North Side. Two fire fighters crawled into Apartment 15B through black smoke and saw that the fire was in the bedroom. A mattress lying at the foot of the bed was blazing. Within minutes the firemen had put the blaze out and opened the windows to let out the smoke. When they lifted the waterlogged mattress, they found the naked body of a woman, with her legs spread apart and a knife sticking out of her chest.

  Forty-eight-year-old Teresita Basa had been born in the city of Damaguete, in the Philippines, the daughter of a judge. She had become a physical therapist specializing in respiratory problems – perhaps because her father had died of a respiratory illness – and was working at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago at the time of her death.

  Forensic examination postulated that Teresita had answered the door to someone she knew – she had been talking to a friend on the telephone when the doorbell rang. The intruder had encircled her neck from behind with his arm and choked her until she lost consciousness. He then had taken money from her handbag and ransacked the apartment. After that he had stripped off all her clothes, taken a butcher knife from the kitchen drawer, and driven it virtually through her body. Then he had set the mattress on fire with a piece of burning paper, dumped it on top of her, and hurried out of the apartment. The fire alarm had sounded before he had gone more than a few blocks.

  Forensic investigation also revealed that there had been no sexual assault. Teresita Basa had died a virgin.

  Although Remy (short for Remibias) Chua, another Filippino, had worked with Teresita Basa in the respiratory therapy department of Edgewater Hospital, the two had been only slightly acquainted. Two weeks after the murder, during the course of a conversation, Chua remarked, only half seriously, “If there is no solution to her murder, she can come to me in a dream”. She then went for a brief nap in the hospital locker room – it was two o’clock in the morning. As she was dozing on a chair, her feet propped on another, something made her open her eyes. She had to suppress a scream as she saw Teresita Basa – looking as solid as a living person – standing in front of her. She lost no time in running out of the room.

  During the course of the next few weeks, two of Mrs Chua’s fellow employees jokingly remarked that she looked – and behaved – like Teresita Basa. Her husband, Dr José Chua, also noticed that his wife seemed to have undergone a personality change. Normally sunny and good-natured, she had become oddly peremptory and moody. Teresita Basa had also been prone to moods.

  In late July, five months after the murder, Remy Chua was working with a hospital orderly named Allan Showery when she found herself experiencing an inexplicable panic. Showery was a sinewy but powerfully built black man with an open and confident manner. When Showery was standing behind Mrs Chua, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye – just as Teresita Basa may have when her killer stepped up behind her to lock his forearm round her neck – and, inexplicably, her heart began to pound violently. She decided that she was suffering from nervous problems and asked for time off from work.

  That night her husband heard her talking in her sleep – she was repeating, “Al–Al–Al . . .” She told him later that she had dreamed of being in a smoke-filled room. The next day she felt so ill that she asked her parents to come over. After taking a strong sedative, she climbed into bed. But after a few hours’ sleep she began to babble in Spanish – a language Remy Chua did not speak. Her husband knelt beside the bed and asked, “How are you”? His wife replied, “I am Teresita Basa”. When José Chua asked what she wanted, the voice replied, “I want help . . . Nothing has been done about the man who killed me”. A few minutes later “Teresita” disappeared and Remy Chua was herself again.

  Two days later Remy Chua felt a pain in her chest, followed by a heavy sensation, “as if someone was stepping into her body”. She told her mother (who was still with them), “Terrie is here again”.

  When her husband returned he found his wife in bed. The voice of Teresita Basa issued from her mouth, asking accusingly, “Did you talk to the police”? José Chua acknowledged that he hadn’t, because he needed proof. “Allan killed me” insisted the voice. “I let Al into the apartment and he killed me”.

  The strain of Remy Chua’s “possession” was beginning to adversely affect the whole family (the Chuas had four children). José Chua finally went to his boss at Franklin Park Hospital, Dr Winograd, and told him the whole story; Dr Winograd took the “possession” seriously but believed that the police would dismiss it as an absurdity. He advised Dr Chua to write them an anonymous letter.

  The “possessing entity” had other ideas. The next time Remy Chua went into a trancelike state, the voice demanded to know why José Chua had not done as she asked. He explained that he had no proof. “Dr Chua”, said the voice, “the man Allan Showery stole my jewelry and gave it to his girlfriend. They live together”.

  “But how could it be identified”?

  “My cousins, Ron Somera and Ken Basa, could identify it. So could my friends, Richard Pessoti and Ray King”. She went on to give Dr Chua Ron Somera’s telephone number. After that she told him, “Al came to fix my television and he killed me and burned me. Tell the police”.

  Dr Chua finally decided to do as she asked; he telephoned the Evanston police headquarters. On 8 August 1977, Investigator Joseph Stachula was assigned to interview the Chuas. Their story left him stunned, yet he had an intuitive certainty that they were not cranks. All the same, he could see no obvious way to make use of what they had told him. He could hardly walk up to Allan Showery and arrest him on the grounds that his victim had come back from the dead to accuse him.

  A check on Showery revealed that he might well be the killer. He had a long criminal record that included two rapes, each of which had taken place in the victim’s apartment. Moreover, he had lived only four blocks from Teresita Basa.

  Showery was brought to the police station, and was asked if it were true that he had agreed to repair Teresita Basa’s television on the evening of her murder. He acknowledged that it was but insisted that he had gone to a local bar for a drink and simply forgotten. Asked if he had ever been in the Basa apartment, he denied it. Then, when asked for fingerprint samples to compare with some found in the apartment, he change
d his mind and acknowledged that he had been there some months earlier. Finally, he admitted that he had been there on the evening of her death but claimed that he had left immediately because he did not have a circuit plan for that particular television.

  Now the suspect was obviously nervous, and the interviewers left him alone while they went back to talk to Yanka. She recalled that on the evening of the murder – she remembered it because the fire engine had passed her window – Showery had come home early. Asked by the interviewers if he had recently given her any jewelry, she showed them an antique cocktail ring. She was asked to accompany them back to the police station, together with her jewelry box. Meanwhile, Teresita Basa’s two friends, Richard Pessoti and Ray King, were brought to the station. As soon as Pessoti glimpsed the ring on Yanka’s finger, he recognized it as one belonging to Teresita Basa. The two were also able to identify other jewelry in Yanka’s jewelry box.

  Stachula’s partner, Detective Lee Epplen, confronted Showery and told him, “It’s all over”. Showery screamed angrily, “You cops are trying to frame me”. When shown the jewelry, he insisted that he had bought it at a pawnshop but had failed to get a receipt. Minutes later he realized that the evidence against him was overwhelming. He asked to speak to Yanka, and in the presence of the detectives said, “Yanka, I have something to tell you. I killed Teresita Basa”.