In February Of 1982 My Folks And I Went To Helping My Ailing Uncle With His Property That Sat Between

Unsolved: Death of Dave Bocks

Working at a nuclear energy facility in rural Ohio, Dave Bocks was an engineer responsible for fitting pipes. The facility opened in the 1950′s, and was one of the few factories in America that produced uranium, a much sought-after material for the production of nuclear weapons at the time. The place was dangerous should things go wrong, and an incident in the fall of 1984 proved this when 200 tons of radioactive dust particles were released into the atmosphere, polluting local air and water supplies. Three years before this scandal, Dave Bocks mysteriously vanished into thin air in an incident far more horrific.

Dave normally carpooled to work with his co-worker, Harry Easterling. On the night of June 18th, 1984, Harry picked him up and they drove to work, ready to start the graveyard shift. They chatted about the usual things- Dave told his buddy that he was planning on taking his three children on holiday at some point. Though a divorcee, he had a good relationship with his kids and was apparently on good terms with his ex-wife. The pair clocked on at midnight and began work. Dave’s assignment for the night was to look at a broken water pump in building 8. Four hours later, another employee witnessed Dave sitting in a car. Dave and an unknown person were deep in conversation with both windows up, which the worker noted as being unusual based on how hot the night was. Later, Dave was seen walking into building 4, which was also unusual as there were no faults or work to be done in that particular building. Dave Bocks was never seen alive again.

His disappearance was first noticed when he didn’t show up to the 7 a.m. safety meeting. His colleagues assumed he was working overtime, probably stuck on some problem that needed fixing. 30 minutes later, an operator working in building 6 noticed a strange smell coming from the furnace. When a supervisor was called, they noticed that a sticky residue had formed on the casing inside the oven. At 11pm that night, when Dave was due to go to work again, he didn’t show up. A search of his locker revealed he hadn’t been back to change into his own clothes, meaning he had never left the site. It was discovered that at 5:15am on the morning of Dave’s disappearance, something foreign had entered the furnace in building 6. A worker had also found a piece of bone on the lip of the furnace. A horrible feeling of unease swept over the workforce as they all had the same idea: Dave had fallen into the hot liquid metal.

The plant was shut for several days while authorities investigated. Once the metal had cooled properly, they were able to unearth more bone fragments, a pair of steel-toed boots, and part of the signature thick glasses that Dave used to wear. It was clear this is where he had met his end. Police suspected suicide, as Dave had been depressed after his divorce and there were rumours he had attempted it before. His heartbroken family suspect foul play, as nobody knows who he was talking to in that car or more importantly, what they were talking about. Anonymous employees have come forward to say they believe Dave was a whistle-blower for the facility’s many safety concerns. There is a possibility that he was silenced by the factory in the most gruesome way possible. However, the truth remains a frustrating mystery.

The Cannibal House Part 2 (pt. 1) — This is part of Armin Meiwes’ kitchen, where he cooked the flesh of Bernd Brandes, his voluntary victim, over a period of 10 months. Upon Meiwes’ arrest, the police found 20 kgs (44 lbs) of human flesh stored in this deep freezer amongst boxes of pizza. If you look closely, you can see still the police label on the freezer from when it was taken into evidence (dated 12.12.02). 

In December of 1927, 12-year-old Marion Parker, who was the young daughter of banker, Perry Parker, was abducted from her school by William Edward Hickman. Over the next few days, Hickman contacted Parker and sent multiple ransom notes. Parker agreed to pay the $1,500 and met the man in a parked car. When Parker paid to ransom, he was allowed to see his daughter who was sitting on the passenger seat. She appeared to be wrapped up in a blanket up to her neck, rendering her unable to walk. Or so Parker thought.. Hickman threw the little girl out of the car and sped off with the money. It was immediately discovered that the little girl was already dead. When she was unwrapped from the blanket, he was horrified to see that her arms and legs had been cut off and she had been disembowelled. Her eyes had also been wired open. Hickman later admitted to strangling and slitting the throat of Marion and confessed that she was still alive while he disembowelled her. Hickman was quickly apprehended and hanged in 1928.

Were there ever any Western depictions of the himantopodes? They became popular in the Middle East but I've never seen any European art of them...

i've never heard of them before and i don't remember seeing anything like that, but i'll keep an eye out for them. i'm not an expert though. maybe some professional art historians/medievalists etc know more?

for context (from the wikipedia article on iranian folklore): "Himantopodes (davālpā): an evil creature that uses its flexible, leather-like legs as tentacles to grip and capture human beings. The captives will be enslaved and forced to carry the creature until they die of fatigue."

Here's a more in-depth lexicon entry

INTERESTING DOCUMENTARIES TO WATCH

JESUS CAMP 

Jesus Camp follows several young children as they prepare to attend a summer camp where the kids will get their daily dose of evangelical Christianity. Are these children being brainwashed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy_u4U7-cn8

SECRETS OF A WILD CHILD

This is a documentary about a girl, Genie,  who spent all her life locked in a bedroom - the wild child who grew up in total isolation with almost no human contact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdycJQi4QA

THE STORY OF 3 GIRLS, KIDNAPPED AND KEPT CAPTIVE FOR 10 YEARS

Documentary exploring the kidnapping - and recent release - of the three young women who were held captive in a cellar in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, for 11 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLObkZTi5TM

CHILDREN OF DARKNESS

Children of Darkness is an Oscar nominated 1983 documentary film. It explored the topic of juvenile psychiatry - an acute lack of mental health care in America for seriously emotionally disturbed youth. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTCSfx47R1w

CHILD OF RAGE 

A chilling documentary featuring an interview between a 6-year-old psychopath and her psychiatrist in which she describes in lurid detail the fantasies of wanting to murder her brother and parents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2-Re_Fl_L4

JUST MELVIN, JUST EVIL

a 2000 American documentary by James Ronald Whitney about his grandfather, Melvin Just, and the devastating consequences of the sexual abuse Just inflicted on their family. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY4eHaiVK9s

AOKIGAHARA (SUICIDE FOREST) 

The Aokigahara Forest is the most popular site for suicides in Japan. After the novel Kuroi Jukai was published, in which a young lover commits suicide in the forest, people started taking their own lives there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year. The site holds so many bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak into the forest and rob the corpses. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FDSdg09df8

INTERVIEW WITH A CANNIBAL 

On the afternoon of June 13, 1981, a Japanese man named Issei Sagawa walked to the Bois de Boulogne, a park on the outskirts of Paris, carrying two suitcases. The contents of those suitcases, to the lament of a nearby jogger, was the dismembered body of a fellow student – a Dutch woman named Renée Hartevelt, whom Sagawa had shot three days prior and had spent the days since eating various parts of her body. This documentary highlights his life after the incident. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BosZxa1bYcE

Fort Worth Museum Hauntings

In 2015, Kevin Brown snapped a series of photos on his iPad while he was at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in Texas. Brown, who was there with his niece and two nephews didn’t see anything strange about the images at the time they were taken. It wasn’t until later that day that his niece noticed something very unsettling in one of the photos.

The photo appears to show a withered old hag dressed in dirty rags floating above the floor with outstretched hands.

“That is the first time in my life I’ve actually had the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It freaked me out. It freaked (my niece) out,” Brown said in a newspaper report.

‘I’m positive I would have noticed something like that and it was strange.’ Brown added, It wasn’t noticed until we looked at the pictures.’

The museum has a history of strange occurrences particularly when it played host to a Titanic exhibition. Security guards have reported unusual shadows showing up on cameras and objects mysteriously moving around by themselves.

The Magdeburg Unicorn is an alleged Unicorn fossil that is on display at the Museum of Natural History in Magdeburg Germany. The Magdeburg Unicorn is described as bipedal horse-like fossil with little to no body, a horse-like head, a long tail, and a very long horn on its head. The fossil was first discovered in 1663 in Germany and the people that discovered the fossil thought they found a Unicorn however after the reconstruction, they realized that something seemed off. Later, testing was dine on the fossil and it was determined to be the fossil of a Wooly Rhinoceros and not a Unicorn. The Magdeburg Unicorn has been deemed as one of the worst fossil reconstructions of all time but, it still sparks the imagination that Unicorns and other creatures may exist and be out there.

Teenage Drama Turns to Death: The Tragic Murder of Skylar Neese

June 26, 2022

Skylar Annette Neese was born on February 10, 1996 in West Virginia and was the only child of Mary and Dave Neese. At 16 years old Skylar was attending University High School, worked at Wendy’s, got excellent grades and wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer.

Skylar had two best friends, Shelia Eddy (born September 28, 1995) and Rachel Shoaf (born June 10, 1996). Skylar and Shelia had met when they were 8 years old and had been inseparable ever since. Rachel became friends with the two girls a few years later, but the three of them were best friends, you would rarely see one of them without the other two. 

On July 5, 2012, Skylar had returned to her home in Star City, West Virginia, after working her regular night shift at Wendy’s. The Neese family lived in an apartment building and later on surveillance video showed Skylar leaving her apartment from her bedroom window at 12:30 am on July 6, getting into a sedan. 

Skylar’s father Dave Neese later said that Skylar had clearly planned on coming back later that night, as she didn’t take her phone charger with her and she had left the window open. 

Skylar was at first considered a runaway by authorities and there was no Amber Alert issued for her disappearance because it was clear from the video footage that she had willingly left on her own accord. Skylar’s parents posted flyers about their missing daughter, hoping that someone would know her whereabouts. 

Police soon found out that the sedan that Skylar was seen getting into that night belonged to Shelia Eddy so they brought her in for an interview. Shelia did admit that she picked up Skylar that night, but they had only driven around for about an hour before she dropped her back off at her apartment. 

Rachel and Shelia were interviewed by the police several times, but their stories always remained the same. Shelia even helped the Neeses’ distribute missing persons flyers, and would come over to their house to cry with them about missing Skylar. 

As time went on, Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf began to become suspects to the police, as other schoolmates were claiming they had heard the girls talking about committing a murder at school. One of the girls’ teachers even contacted the police to tell them she had also heard of them talking about murder. 

About 6 months after Skylar had disappeared, Rachel Shoaf admitted that her and Shelia Eddy had been plotting to kill Skylar for 9 months. Rachel claimed that the reason the girls murdered Skylar was because they didn’t want to be friends with her anymore. 

The seemingly perfect friendship the trio shared was anything but, as Skylar would often tweet about how Shelia and Rachel would leave her out of things. It seemed the girls would fight a lot, and Skylar had even written in her diary that Shelia and Rachel had a sexual relationship with each other, and would make-out or have sex in front of Skylar, making her extremely uncomfortable. 

Skylar’s body was found on January 16, 2013, less than 30 miles away from her home. 

Rachel told the police the whole story, claiming that on the night of July 5, 2012, Sheila and her had invited Skylar to go drive around with them. Apparently, Skylar was hesitant of this, as she had recently had a falling out with them, but after the girls texted and called her a few times she eventually agreed to sneak out. 

Rachel told police that her and Shelia had prepared “a serial killer kit” which included kitchen knives, paper towels, bleach, clean clothes, cleaning cloths and a shovel. They had hid the knives in their hoodies. 

When Skylar got into the sedan with the girls, they headed northwest from Star City toward Blacksville, on U.S. Route 19. Rachel and Shelia had originally planned on travelling along W.V. Route 7, but they changed their route once they saw a state police car in that direction. 

They arrived across the Pennsylvania state border, where all three of the girls would occasionally smoke weed there. When they got out of the car, they told Skylar that they had forgotten to bring a lighter with them. Skylar then volunteered to go back to the sedan to get her own lighter, and once she turned her back, Rachel and Shelia both counted to three, which they agreed would be their signal, and began to stab Skylar.

Skylar had attempted to run away, but was only able to get a few feet before Rachel got her on the ground and continued to stab her. At one point during the attack, Skylar had managed to get the knife away from Rachel and stabbed her in the leg, which caused Rachel to back off and stop the attack, though Shelia kept going. 

It was admitted that Rachel and Shelia stopped counting how many times they stabbed Skylar once they got to 50, and Shelia had stabbed Skylar until there was silence and her neck stopped making gurgling sounds. 

The pair attempted to bury Skylar’s body, but the soil was too hard and rocky to dig a hole, so they decided to hide Skylar’s body with rocks, fallen branches and dirt. They then returned to the sedan, cleaned themselves up, changed into clothes, and left. 

On May 1, 2013, Rachel pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Rachel actually got a plea deal because authorities believed she had cooperated with them, so the recommended sentence for her would be 20 years of incarceration. 

On September 4, 2013, the prosecutors identified Shelia Eddy publicly as the second perpetrator in Skylar’s murder and stated that she would be tried as ana adult. Sheila was indicted on September 6, 2013, on one count of kidnapping, one count of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. She pleaded not guilty. 

The trial date was set for January 28, 2014. Shelia was facing additional charges from Pennsylvania authorities so she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. During the trial, Shelia expressed no remorse and did not cry at all. She was sentenced to life in prison and is eligible for parole after 15 years. Because of her plea deal to plead guilty to first-degree murder, Pennsylvania did not file charges against her. 

On February 25, 2014, Rachel received a sentence of 30 years in prison and will be eligible for parole after 10 years. Both Shelia and Rachel are incarcerated at the Lakin Correctional Center in Mason County. 

Due to an Amber Alert not being issued in Skylar’s disappearance due to a waiting period of 48 hours before a teenager is considered missing and the fact that Skylar had left on her own accord and was not considered kidnapped, a new bill was introduced called “Skylar’s Law” which modifies West Virginia’s Amber Alert plan to issue immediate public announcements when any child is missing and in danger, regardless if the child is believed to be kidnapped.

Rachel Shoaf will be up for parole next year, with the hearing on May 1, 2023, though according to WV DOC she will likely be paroled on April 28, 2028. Shelia Eddy will be up for parole in 2028.