Today’s Mysterious Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Almost one in five of all plunges off waterfalls in Yosemite National Park were by men who were by themselves at the time. On May 27, 1978, 23-year-old Dennison Taylor from San Carlos, California had been camping in the Valley with five friends. Alone, Taylor wandered about a mile and a half upstream of the footbridge east of Mirror Lake. He never returned. His body was found the next day, submerged in the second pool below Hidden Falls in Tenaya Creek. What led Taylor to being swept over this waterfall remains unknown.
Hidden Falls
The same uncertainty surrounds the fate of 26-year-old Richard E. Dix. On July 30, 1978, Dix had left San Mateo, California to go solo backpacking in the Hetch Hetchy region north of the Valley. Dix left his backpack, along with drug paraphernalia, on the trail between Tueeulala and Wapama Falls on the north side of the reservoir. Evidence next revealed that he detoured off the path and sat above the cascades at the base of the 1,400-foot Wapama Falls. After a brief ground search discovered his gear but failed to locate him, the Park launched a helicopter. This SAR (search and rescue) team discovered Dix’s partially nude body sprawled in the rocks below the base of the waterfall and above the reservoir.
Wapama Falls
Culled from: Off the Wall: Death In Yosemite
Crime Scene Du Jour!
TWO WHO CROSSED THE SYNDICATE (1947)
One man lies dead on a table, another on the floor in the next room: two failed mobsters murdered in a Brooklyn home.
Culled from: Deadly Intent
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
September 10th. Rourke, of our squad, died to-night, and I was detailed to carry him out to the dead-house. This is the first time I have been outside these horrid gates since I came in three months ago; and ‘tho’ outside less than three minutes, I caught a breath of fresh air which gave me a new lease on life. Rations of rice, meal, and molasses, and no salt. Several detachments went out at night and in the morning. Forty detachments have now gone, and the camp looks quite deserted; though there are over twenty thousand still here.
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost