Strange Berry Picker Disappearances

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] oh in 2011 author of the missing four-on-one series david palladis stated that berries seemed to play a major role in some of the odd disappearances that caught his interest i'm not sure if this is something he still sticks by today but i thought that it might be interesting to expand on this research and to see if i could find any odd missing person cases that involve berry pickers it's also worth noting before we get into things that i did come across a number of disappearances involving berry pickers that seem to disappear or later be found in a swamp being discovered in a swamp of course is part of david's criteria but there was so little information present or just no follow-up at all by the press that i couldn't include those in this video i normally order these incidents by the date but in this video i've at least somewhat ordered them by oddness instead this time around and you'll see what i mean by that because at some point at least in terms of weirdness it just seems to go off a cliff now with all of that being said let's get into things and to do that let's travel back in time to alaska 1981. [Music] bert eichner was 74 years old when this incident took place burt and his wife were visiting fairbanks in alaska to see their daughter gene eidner who was an anthropology professor at the university of alaska at the time bert was picking berries with his wife and some other friends but when the decision was made to leave bert said that he wasn't finished and wanted to continue on for a while the group were picking berries in a wooded area off belain road unfortunately but never returned that day and the family made the call to the authorities volunteers were in the woods shortly after the call was made and they remained there throughout the night 40 searches from the explorer post arrived at 4 30 the following morning at the place but was last seen they scoured the woods for the entirety of the day but they couldn't locate any clues as to where he was during this time they also had a mast army helicopter crew in the air and members of the army also entered the woods together they scanned the trails and the wooded areas but they still couldn't find him some searchers stayed on looking through the entirety of the night and the following day would see various alaskan fire departments enter the search that same day three german shepherd dogs train for search and rescue entered the woods but they couldn't find burt's sense because the dogs seemed to be having trouble another dog from fairbanks and two more from anchorage arrived but their searches also failed which surprised the handlers it seems that the search leaders expected to find bert in a timely manner but because the searches were turning up nothing there was an active effort to upscale the search and later that day they had over 200 people in the woods the fairbanks daily miner said that because the efforts were failing the searchers were organized into fairly big divisions and around 60 searches would stand about 10 feet apart and travel in a straight line again they found nothing and a smaller number of searches continued on all through the night burt was found the following day but his discovery was not down to the massive search effort but by an anonymous woman who was out for a walk she discovered bert at 11 30 late that morning and said that he was in a state of confusion but was then quickly taken to hospital where apart from the confusion he seemed fine unfortunately the trooper said that other details were not immediately available and after that there was no further information on this case it's a shame that's where the paper trail ended on this one it would have been nice to know exactly where he was found in relation to his initial position while the group were picking berries in the wooded area it doesn't appear that they were very far from the road and it's not clear how bert managed to evade the searchers and the dogs the dog handlers did show surprise but i imagine all involved were excited and celebrated burt's return i think that the air of surprise by the searchers was down to the fact that bert was 74 and they didn't believe that he could have traveled very far and obviously it seemed that they placed a high degree of faith in the docks ultimately i'm just glad that he was found but i can't see why an air of surprise was present here now let's move on to the next internet and to do that we're going to have to travel to west virginia [Music] arthur oz disappeared on the 6th of august 1949 whilst picking berries on the west virginia canaan mountain unfortunately information on arthur seems to be few and far between so it's not clear if he was on that mountain alone at the time or part of a group the only clue we have in regards to this is that the bluefield daily telegraph stated that oz was last seen picking berries near the top of the rugged and brush-covered canaan mountain indicating that he was probably there with others arthur was a retired western maryland railroad worker and it was said that he was familiar with this area and he had been before a number of times again it's not clear who arthur was with but he failed to return to them or home that day and was subsequently reported missing to the authorities the searching started almost immediately and from what i can gather people were on that mountain looking for him the same day the press didn't seem to go in depth on the search effort but we do know that like most of the searches of this nature the search was on foot and in the air similar to other cases that i specifically look for on the channel the search dogs never found arthur's sense which by now you might believe to be a common occurrence in general but it's not in fact studies have been shown that the search dogs have an effectiveness rating of beyond 70 percent which probably explains why we've been using them in a search and rescue capacity for at least the last 400 years a few days now into the search sheriff crosstown was becoming increasingly worried as he at first believed that they would find arthur in a timely manner however they had still revealed no clues as to his whereabouts so the sheriff called in an additional 500 volunteers who assisted with the ongoing efforts airplanes were still flying overhead at this time but nobody was finding anything six days after the initial search began arthur was found sitting in a swamp around six miles from the tugger county community sheriff crosstown stated that arthur had lost a lot of weight but he didn't appear to be in serious condition it appears that arthur was in a state of confusion but was otherwise okay what was odd about this finding is that arthur was found by a searcher known as lloyd winters and lloyd stated that he and many of the searchers had been in that exact area every single day since the search started i think that lloyd was somewhat shocked to find him sitting in the swamp interestingly if you follow david polidis you'll know that being found in a swamp and being confused are both part of the criteria that he's interested in alongside being found in an area previously searched unfortunately there's no further information on this other than the sheriff stated that he would only talk to arthur once physicians had determined his condition so i can only imagine that he was too dazed to be questioned right away that's where this one ended unfortunately but it would have been nice to know the outcome of that conversation because it also seems that arthur was familiar with the area so it's not clear exactly how he got lost ultimately though and again i'm just glad that he was found okay before it was too late now let's explore the next disappearance and to do that we're going to have to go to pennsylvania [Music] 68 year old alfred herzl went missing on the 27th of august 1942 on that date he had gone berry picking in bull hill located in sheffield pennsylvania the location in question is either inside or bordering the allegheny national forest alfred was no stranger to berry picking or this area and he had been there many times that day he had gone with his two friends fa lesser and william roland and arrived shortly after one o'clock when the trio entered the berry picking area they had split up but they didn't wander too far from one another as they always did the two believed that alfred was nearby the entire time and they had all agreed to meet back at the car at 3 30 in the afternoon they had parked the car at the top of bull hill and they wandered into the berry patch on the lower side of the highway meaning that they hadn't gone in very deep and was still close to the road when 3 30 pm came around lesser and roland made it back to the car but alfred hadn't made it back they waited besides the car for a short time while sounding the horn but there was no response from alfred at this point lester and roland took it in turns re-entering the berry patch while one of them stayed beside the car manning the horn as said they had all been to this area many times before and i think that there was an air of confusion presence because they didn't believe alfred could have gotten lost being so close to the road and they never received any kind of response while looking shouting and honking the horn for him at this time other people had been drawn to the attention of the horn and they started to enter the berry patch aiding this makeshift search effort it's not clear how many people ended up being present but it does specify that it was a large group unfortunately despite searching for a number of hours no trace of alfred was turning up they then made their way back to warren to enlist the help of the authorities and volunteers they came back with members of the police various scout groups and many other volunteers some of whom searched well into the night they didn't find anything that night and an entire day's worth of searching took place on the 28th but they still didn't have any luck alfred was found the night after at eight o'clock on the 29th he was found four miles away asleep in a barn by richard bloss who was a member of the auxiliary police and harold caldwell a member of the fire department unfortunately there was no mention of what kind of condition he was found in other than he was somewhat dazed and confused i couldn't find any statements made by alfred it would have been interesting to hear of how he got lost so close to the road and in a familiar area now at this point let's take a look at the disappearance of william lones who disappeared from the woods near lexington in massachusetts [Music] william was 82 years old at the time of this incident and he had been picking berries from this area for quite some time without incident however on the 13th of august 1939 his trip would not be the same as per usual william had gone to the same area with the group of his friends but he never came out of the brush this was a sensible group too as the spot they picked was right next to the concord river so they could hear it giving them an indication of their position when all but william came out of the brush the group started a makeshift search for him while others went to bedford to notify the authorities it seemed that being so close to the river absolutely no one believed that william could have gone missing and i get the impression that the police felt that he would be located quickly officers arrived on scene and began searching with those already present but nothing was turning up and they couldn't find a trace of william at this point the real search effort began and over 200 people flocked to the berry patch next to the river and fanned out it's safe to say that there was an air of confusion present at the time three days into the search and williams initial position alongside nearby swamps had been thoroughly searched but again they couldn't find a trace of him or anything to indicate a direction of travel search dogs couldn't locate a scent and there were no tracks to indicate that someone had been walking in the area despite being 82 years old william was described as being very active and fitter than you might imagine for a man of that age it seems as though there was an air of hopelessness present because the searchers couldn't figure out where it might have gone and they were expecting to find some sort of clue such as boot prints but nothing was turning up okay at this point we need to skip forwards to the 14th of november 1939 three months after the initial disappearance the lowell son reported this november 14 the body of a man found in thick brushland near the lexington town line was tentatively identified today by relatives as that of william a loans who disappeared while picking blueberries in the woods near the bedford calzone line on august 13th identification was established from clothing found near the body william wilkinson caretaker of the lexington sportsmen's club found the body late yesterday afternoon the initial search was conducted along the river at carlisle line where he'd been last reported so william supposedly disappears right besides the concord river and now he was found in a wooded area bordering lexington how is that the end of the story how did william make it from the river to his final resting place without coming into contact with civilization at any point could that indicate third-party involvement it's worth noting that the coroner never said anything about a struggle or anything of that nature so i think we have to assume that it wasn't present so william was then found presumably uninjured and either clothesless or without some clothing though at the very least the clothes were still near him around seven air miles away which of course is many more than that on foot because you can't travel in a completely straight line i'm not sure why the journalists reporting on this at the time didn't find that odd there's quite literally no further information on this one it's quite hard to conclude this one as well because i have no idea how any of that happened and i can't explain it without involving some sort of third party foul play but it also seems that he was uninjured so i just don't know how did william go missing in the first place how in the world do you travel that kind of distance with civilization looking to be all over the place without ever coming into contact with it why was he missing clothing was he even at the blueberry picking location at all that day the police never mentioned foul play so i can't imagine they suspected it it would be nice if we had this exact map but representative of 1939 to see how much it has changed from then to now in terms of civilization density anyway we're going to have to move on now because it's just basically speculation at this point now at the start of this video i did warn you that things were going to get strange and if we haven't already got there yet just get ready for things to get bizarre now to be honest with you i don't even know where to start with this one and we're going to have to get bizarre pretty much immediately here 25 year old teresa hoffman lived with her parent and brother on her father's farm on the 24th of august 1953 teresa had planned to go berry picking with her mother and one of her cousins on said farm whilst they were picking berries they became separated and the family couldn't locate teresa again frank hoffman the father organized their own search which ultimately failed and the family were left confused having no idea where she could have gone to it's important to clarify that at the time of disappearance the mother nor the cousin had anything to suggest that something was wrong and during this search teresa never responded to the family's calls at this point frank contacted the sheriff's office who arrived on scene fairly promptly it's worth mentioning here that the search for teresa was actually massive in scale with over 2 000 people arriving on the farm of these 2 000 individuals we had officials from the sheriff's department professional search and rescuers other police officers search dog teams and many volunteers the entire search was fruitless and no trace of teresa was turning up at all i imagine this was quite a bewildering and confusing experience for all concerned here as it appeared that teresa had literally vanished into thin air now i promised you bizarre so here it is on the 3rd of october 1953 the norwich son reported this a 25 year old woman who disappeared while berry picking on the 24th of august returned to her home here last night state police said teresa hoffman was found by her brother henry in a woodshed on the farm where they live police said that she was in good health but could not remember where she'd been during her time missing more than two thousand men searched the woods and hills in this cataract county community for the missing woman uh what so teresa went missing on the 24th of august without a trace and she was now found on the 3rd of october in good health other than complete memory loss as to what had happened or where she'd been where do you even start with this that's the end of the paper trail by the way the journalists reporting didn't seem to have any questions about that as if it was completely normal how is that not an area of interest that you might want to poke some questions at i don't really know what to say here other than it seems to me that there are various questions that need answering was she still on the farm or in the woodshed the entire time of the search how did she manage to evade 2 000 searches and dogs here did she have any injuries at all was she eating during this time she surely must have had access to water and food the sheriff stated that she was in good health other than experiencing memory loss in regards to what had happened i can only imagine that there must have been some odd conversations surrounding this in the sheriff's office what's equally surprising to me is the short shrift that the press seemed to give teresa's disappearance i really wish there was more information on this or a follow-up but that seems to be everything i can find i've had to come back and edit this in but i actually found this reported by the saranac lake daily enterprise unfortunately it looks like there's been a bad photocopy job here but the title says that she lost 10 days while they acknowledged that she disappeared on the 24th of august and obviously the date at this stage is the 3rd of october i can only imagine that there was more to this post that provides some extra context perhaps a statement from teresa but i'm going to have to leave this one there because i just don't know but felt it should be included here now while the circumstances surrounding teresa was ought in my opinion this next one only gets stranger so let's travel to fort knox 1949. [Music] [Music] i think it's best to start this by citing the aniston star paper who under the heading of reward offered for missing vet reported this on the 4th of august 1949 a 1 000 cash reward has been offered here for the discovery and return of a veteran fort knox soldier who has been missing since the 23rd of june the missing man a possible amnesia victim is sergeant clarence dear lunzway a member of the army since 1920 the soldier disappeared while berry picking in a wooded area near the fort sergeant londway is described as 49 5 feet 6 inches tall 150 pounds stocky build he walks pigeon toad and talks from the side of his mouth persons knowing the location of the missing soldier should contact fort knox military authorities i'd never heard of a pitching toad walk but it is listed as a genuine disability though from what i can gather people with the condition mostly are able to live completely independently and without issues i just wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page before we got into this now while the first article we picked up there was reported on the 4th of august the military stationed at fort knox had been scouring the area for clarence since the 23rd of june when he failed to return from his berry picking session i want to make this abundantly clear by the way the search for clarence was like nothing we've ever seen before on this channel it wasn't just massive it was absolutely gigantic and long the military were obviously looking out for their own on this one and they pulled out all the stops and spared no expense they had in excess of over 10 000 men in the area that he disappeared from and they did discover his car seemingly abandoned near a blackberry patch the army authorities stated that apart from this no trace of him had been found it seems to me that the authorities may have been getting slightly desperate here when they then offered a 1 000 reward for finding sgt clarence so who knows how many thousands of people they had in the area after the reward was broadcast i've had to come back and edit this in but it actually wasn't the authorities who offered the reward for finding clarence but it was actually his wife who put out the reward but the searches failed completely and it wouldn't be for another two years until the next development was made around two years later on the 22nd of may 1951 the koshops and tribune reported this under the heading of found soldier's body army thinks he passed of natural causes army officials indicated today that a veteran sergeant whose body was found yesterday after a two-year search probably passed away of natural causes a group of trainees ended the long hunt for sergeant clarence d lund's way when they discovered his skeleton about five miles from the heart of camp officers said that there was no indication that lun's weight had passed from anything other than natural causes but the army's criminal investigation division was making an inquiry to determine the circumstances of his passing things are about to take a strange turn now so let's get bizarre the area where sergeant clarence was discovered was in a remote training field near fort knox as the trainees were performing a field maneuver i would love to know where this area was in relation to his car and the place he was picking berries the autopsy revealed that there was no sign of a struggle or any injuries of any kind indicating that foul play didn't seem to be a factor here this is when a captain joseph schneider a public information officer revealed something that he found odd he said that the area where the body was found had been searched by several thousand troops when he disappeared those two years ago this isn't one or two people nor a hundred were talking about thousands upon thousands of people who were in that exact location and never found him not to mention they had search dogs in the area and planes flying overhead it seems to me that sergeant lund's way may not have been in that area when it was initially searched how in the world could he have been missed by thousands of searchers and well-trained search dog teams how did the dogs fail to find a scent in the very area that he was supposed to be am i missing something here or is that not just outright weird captain schneider seemed to think it was odd it's not as if this search was abruptly ended either he disappeared on the 23rd of june and they still have thousands of boots on the ground searching in late august and probably beyond that too what in the world happened to sergeant lonzwear that day and where did he go and what do we mean by he probably passed away due to natural causes it seems completely unreasonable to me that this man could have evaded over ten thousand searchers search dog teams and planes flying overhead for two months at the least unfortunately the paper trail goes cold after this and there doesn't seem to be much of a follow-up what do you make of this one now at this stage i wanted to have a change of pace and i actually found an interesting segment in the syracuse herald back in 1931 unfortunately specific names of the people involved are not mentioned in this instance but i wanted to include this here because one of the lieutenants working these cases seemed to want to draw a connection between the two as he felt something was off about them he is what was reported by the syracuse herald on the 1st of november 1931. there's a strange coincidence in the case lieutenant hughes encountered when he found a missing girl berry picker asleep in one field and an elderly man berry picker gone to his eternal rest in another field nearby lieutenant hughes who operates an airplane with his state troopers reported the following strange case about a little girl and an elderly man just recently there came a report over the teletype that a 50 year old man who was last seen going into the huckleberry field near utica had not returned home lieutenant hughes piloted his plane over the huckleberry fields and discovered no clue three days passed and the usual numbers of missing persons cases flash through stations but the 50 year old man remained dropped from this earth state police had hunted without a veil then came a report that a 15 year old girl last seen going into the same huckleberry field near utica had vanished from sight here's a clue determined the state troopers lieutenant hughes piloted his plane over the six square miles of mast bushes he flew low and peered into the wild brush a rainy spell had held the valley in a dark vise and the case only deepened suddenly at nightfall the flying lieutenant perceived a sleeping form on the damp earth he had difficulty in landing on the roof territory hurriedly he rushed over to the girl and discovered her to be the missing berry picker he questioned her rapidly about the elderly man if she had seen him and what she was doing in the field strangely she replied that the last thing that she remembers was picking berries and then she thinks she had fallen asleep two days later a couple of lads walking through the woods a few miles from the huckleberry bushes stumbled across the body of the 50 year old man it doesn't appear that the cause of the man's passing was ever determined and lieutenant hughes seemed to have some sort of gut feeling that the two incidents were related somehow it looks like while he wasn't actually able to connect the two cases he was absolutely certain that they were linked in some way i can't say that i've ever just had the urge to sleep in a field after hiking but perhaps it was a different time back then i can certainly see why at least to some degree while lieutenant hughes was caught on this one that's all of the information unfortunately and it's a shame that hughes didn't go into more detail about the potential link but i thought that it was odd and worth sharing anyway moving past that in these videos where possible i like to try to find some sort of recent example of the topic at hand and i actually managed to find a disappearance involving berries that took place in july of 2019 [Music] mary beyman disappeared on the 25th of july in 2019 from southeastern manitoba in the spare woods mary had planned to go berry picking that day with a large group and she had been to this exact location dozens of times before in fact her daughter stated that this was one of her favorite activities and that she was always out in this area picking them this particular location was not far from her home in menacino and around 77 miles southeast of winnipeg mary was partnered with another woman and they went to their usual spot in the woods and split up but didn't part too far from one another all members of the group had a whistle on hand for safety reasons and it was also used when it was time to leave the woods it's not clear when they agreed to leave the woods but when they did mary's partner sounded a whistle to which mary seemed to have responded once with her own this is what mary's daughter maureen gwertz had to say this is really bizarre because her partner had a whistle and she blew it when it was time to come out of the bush and she swears she heard my mother blow the whistle cbc.ca reported that the woman waited for around 15 minutes for mary but she didn't appear and it looks like mary didn't sound her whistle again at this point those present knew something was wrong and the authorities were quickly made aware of the situation approximately 100 volunteers most of which were experienced in search and rescue were organized and arrived on scene they found no trace of her that day and search dogs arrived on the day afterwards with aircraft also being deployed overhead an area of over 40 square miles had been searched but no sign of her was coming up and the dogs were not finding a sense one of the searchers lynn friesen said we're all baffled because it's as if she's disappeared into thin air she was 84 years old she couldn't exactly run a mouth through the bush so where is she at the height of the search they had over 1 000 people out there with dogs horses atvs droughts helicopters and two planes all of the stops were being pulled out here mary was found four days later over a mile away at 8pm on the 29th huddled under a tree in a shallow hole that was filled with water mary's shoes were missing and she was somewhat dazed and said that she thought that she'd been there for around a day though she did let out a smile once she realized that she'd been discovered mary had sustained bruises and scratches and was unable to walk but was otherwise okay at first mary thought that she was hallucinating when the searches came across her i'm not sure if that indicates that she'd been hallucinating prior to this the searcher who found her through the dense vegetation said you're not going to spend another night in this brush what's interesting and this was given short shrift but it doesn't appear that the rescuers could actually get to her at first and the fire department had to spend two hours clearing out the brush around her which is odd the articles didn't seem to question that but how did she even get in there if they first had to spend two hours cutting it away to reach her perhaps i'm misunderstanding something there it's worth mentioning that all concerned we're surprised that she was found in relatively good condition she had no food or water with her other than the berries that she had previously picked maureen was warned and told by the authorities that on the fourth day they were likely searching for her body because of her lack of supplies now there was another oddity surrounding mary's discovery the searchers who found her were daryl concious and his son beau daryl said that he had a dream the night prior in which his mother who has long since passed told him to go find mary which is exactly what he did mary's daughter said that she doesn't believe in magic but she does find the circumstances of her mother's discovery strange daryl said that he didn't have the money to drive down but oddly a stranger did give him some cash to fund his trip after telling him what he was trying to do i suppose you could say that it's an odd coincidence that he would have this dream and then drive to her exact location but i don't really know to comment on that other than saying that i suppose it is a bit odd i just wanted to say a big thank you to my patrons who are really helping this channel a lot so thank you very much for your continued support and thank you for watching if you found the video interesting then please do leave a like and subscribe if you haven't already it helps me a lot and if not then feel free to leave a dislike i'm just looking for your honest opinion so do share and do share your thoughts on the cases discussed i hope that you've had a great day or evening depending on where you are be safe guys i'll see you next time [Music] peace you

Channel: Top Mysteries

Views: 295,440

Rating: 4.866859 out of 5

Keywords: Strange Berry Picker Disappearances, missing 411 berries, berry picker disappearances, missing 411 berry disappearances, berry disappearances, missing 411 berry picker disappearances

Id: Tlz9-j4QzSM

Length: 36min 54sec (2214 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020