NC NC - Leila, 36, & Mary Rachel Bryan, 4, Carolina Beach, 10 May 1941

[Stella]

According to my research, bichloride of mercury is extremely toxic;if taken internally, it causes a slow, painful but certain death due to kidney failure. It was meant to be used externally for treatment of syphyllis. Examples of death due to this poison are silent film star Olive Thomas and KKK victim Madge Oberholtzer.

 

[KarlK]

Okay - I have read the PDF file and a fair ways down there is a page headed with part of a picture and the caption "Page murder case solved." Under that, under the heading 1956 is a story about the skeletons of Lelia and her daughter being found in near Carolina Beach. The article starts out claiming the fifteen year old mystery has been solved. It says a zoo keeper found them while chasing a pony.

Nothing else in the PDF file contradicts this. So, if they were found, why are they looking now?

See the very bottom of the pdf, there's a summary article there that mentions the skeletons were eventually ruled out as relating to the case.

 

[KarlK]

According to my research, bichloride of mercury is extremely toxic;if taken internally, it causes a slow, painful but certain death due to kidney failure. It was meant to be used externally for treatment of syphyllis. Examples of death due to this poison are silent film star Olive Thomas and KKK victim Madge Oberholtzer.

I looked this up and indeed you are right that if someone takes a huge amount of inorganic mercury salts (such as mercury bichloride) they may perish of kidney failure but this requires many hours if not days. I seriously doubt a nurse would choose this compound over the vast assortment of lethal substances available to her. At the time nurses were allowed to purchase drugs such as barbiturates that procured a quicker painless "gentle" way out. It is my belief that the drug was purchased to treat syphyllis or perhaps what the victim thought was syphillis. In those days having an STD must have been a devastating reality to a small-town girl and may have driven her to a desperate act, be it suicide or flight, to avoid the social consequences of her condition becoming known.

Hopefully the fact that her car (an extremely common model at the time) was never found could simply mean that she drove it far away enough to be out of the area where people would be looking for it, and started a new life elsewhere. The articles claim that the story was known nationwide but this was a common exaggeration with most cases of regional interest. Outside of the state it's likely that PD's in large cities were sent a description of the car and occupants but they received many such requests and rarely made them known to the local public. With Europe at war and FDR wanting to join there was little room in the national media for missing persons outside the areas where those events occured. I doubt anyone in NYC (for example) would have paid the slighest attention to a 1935 Ford, be it one with NC plates, since they weren't aware of the case. The articles make it sound as if it would have been very hard for her to disappear but I don't think it was such a challenge in those troubled days leading up to us becoming involved in the greatest war in world history. If she drove straight out she would have been quite far once authorities started looking for her.

 

[WholeLottaRosie]

See the very bottom of the pdf, there's a summary article there that mentions the skeletons were eventually ruled out as relating to the case.

Thanks, Karl. I missed that, and I thought I was kind of thorough.

ETA - Okay and I read that. It says ruled out "This was not true for the bones have been tested and proven to be Negro." I wonder a) when this test was made b) how would bones look Negro vs White c) LB is from the South and does not appear that fair - could she have had enough Negro blood to skewer this kind of test. Just thinking here - seems odd they would find a woman and child, seemingly right age, right size etc in what could be the right spot. Is anyone in the area that might be able to find out more about the bodies found in 1956 and how they were ruled out.

 

[Stella]

You're right about the poison. I would choose something as quick and painless as possible. The car is what has me baffled. Perhaps she changed the plates to ones from another state? If they were only looking for Fords with North Carolina plates, she could have gotten away completely. A lot of strange things about this case.

 

[KarlK]

Thanks, Karl. I missed that, and I thought I was kind of thorough.

ETA - Okay and I read that. It says ruled out "This was not true for the bones have been tested and proven to be Negro." I wonder a) when this test was made

Probably very shortly after the remains were found. Results were likely published but for some reason the article(s) were not included in the pdf, maybe because the author couldn't locate them.

b) how would bones look Negro vs White

In most cases race can be relatively easily determined from facial bone structure, at least when it comes to Negro vs Caucasian vs Mongoloid (East Asian).

c) LB is from the South and does not appear that fair - could she have had enough Negro blood to skewer this kind of test.

I think pictures of LB and her daughter clearly show that their facial features, fairly common among whites, could not be mistaken for negro by those performing an autopsy.


Just thinking here - seems odd they would find a woman and child, seemingly right age, right size etc in what could be the right spot.[/quote]

Well, little info is known about the circumstances of the discovery, the age of the skeletons (how long they had been there) and why it could be referred to as the "right" spot (other than by accepting that the inmate claiming he killed them was telling the truth). For all we know the guy who found them may have stumbled on an old slave burial ground, many of which were left unmarked after the Civil War.

 

[KarlK]

You're right about the poison. I would choose something as quick and painless as possible. The car is what has me baffled. Perhaps she changed the plates to ones from another state? If they were only looking for Fords with North Carolina plates, she could have gotten away completely. A lot of strange things about this case.

Indeed. There is the odd behavior of LB shortly before she vanished, and the fact that LE was somehow implying that publishing engine serial# would somehow make it difficult for someone to keep a common model car from being noticed. Even in the computer age this info would not be very useful unless a car was sold (to a dealership), involved in an accident, scrapped or otherwise processed.

 

[gaia227]

KarlK - you make some good points. There is a lot of hearsay in this case and I'm sure some of it has been exaggerated, taken out of context and in some cases complete fabrications.

Mercury being used to treat syphllis is pretty compelling. It supports both theories pretty well. If she had cheated on her husband and contracted the disease it makes sense she would decide to run away rather than face the consequences. If she had cheated on her hubby, contracted the disease and he found out that is certainly a motive for murder.

I find Cora Hollis interesting. If the things she actually said are true they don't make a lot of sense. Did Leila really stop by her house to tell Cora to go tell Leila's sister, Ida, she wanted to ride with her the next day to their mothers. Why wouldn't she just go herself and certainly she would have known that Ida didn't have a car. Even if she thought Ida was not home it would make much more sense for her to leave her note than send someone else to relay the message. By Ida's admission she and Leila were not close and hadn't seen eachother for months so why would Leila all the sudden want to ride with her to their parents. Was Cora lying? For herself or maybe lying for Leila? Maybe she knew that Leila was planning on leaving and even gave her permission to use her name. I wonder if LE researched Cora Hollis's name to see if it had been used in hotels, pharmacies, etc.

Medicine and forensics were still evolving in the 40's, 50's, etc (it still is but you know what I mean) and I think it would be worthwhile for LE to check those two skeletons again and re-examine them to make sure the original ruling was correct. It has happened before.

 

[KarlK]

Karl, I'm sorry about your great-grandfather. Were you ever able to deduce from the police reports who you thought may have been the murderer or possibly why it happened?

Sorry Marybeth, for some reason I had missed this post.

With regards to my GGF I don't think it will ever be possible to determine who was involved exactly because the Sheriff's office never properly investigated the case. This occurred in a town located directly on the border with Canada which in that area consists of a river (the boundary is the middle of the river) with several road and rail bridges spanning it. During the Prohibition the area was teeming with smugglers and bootleggers on both sides of the border and unexplained murders were not uncommon, some people taking advantage of the situation to settle a score hoping cops would blame it on the smugglers. When deputies had no leads they blamed the booze traders and handed the case over to the understaffed state police who filed it because they didn't really have the resources to pursue it.

The Coroner's report was quite short, it only stated that "the individual perished of a single bullet shot to the back of the head while he was in an automobile". Bullet was extracted but there was no autospy, back then autopsies were only performed when cause of death was not apparent. Reports don't mention the caliber but state it was from a handgun, no idea how they came to that conclusion but there must be a reason. My GGF was not robbed even though he had over $300 in his wallet, quite a sum for the day, but not unusual since sawmill owners often paid cash for their lumber.

My theory is that he was shot during an argument with someone he was doing business with, or he stumbled upon something he wasn't supposed to see. Those were very rough times on the border.

You're right about things being twisted and losing translation that are passed down through the generations. I actually don't have my hopes up THAT high about the scan, but I'm just hoping Mrs. Bryan and her daughter are there nevertheless.

Unfortunately I think this is unlikely, we don't even know when that concrete was poured. On thing that appears certain is that it wasn't on the day the victims disappeared otherwise it would have been mentioned in the original articles. If LE had good reasons to become convinced Bryan was not involved then I trust their judgment. They did poke around quite a bit after all.

They probably never met in the ER as suggested. It did sound like it was a line from either a B film or a 10 cent pulp detective magazine. And possibly the family never even held Edis Bryan in low esteem....until after the disappearance when suddenly things about Edis were brought up which may or may not have happened regarding his behavior. There had to be someone to blame, in their eyes. I agree, I don't think he was seeing anyone else when he went to Florida but met someone later and remarried.

indeed there is nothing in Bryan's behavior that appears abnormal or suspicious to me, or to those who knew him at the time. I don't know when the in-laws became hostile towards him but it could have been simply because they did not know him and stangers are always suspicious in such a situation. What I do get from the articles though is that the in-laws did not live in the area, did not visit much (except for one brother and one sister but the sister stated they weren't close) and that the community's opinion of Bryan does not match theirs. They lived in a small town where neighbors are like extended family, I think the community's opinion should prevail over that of relatives who were, after all, strangers. LB appears to have married late for the time, and it sounds like she was an independent-minded woman. Families often did not approve of this and could view any life choices such a woman would make -like selecting a husband- in a negative light regardless of actual merit. In any case neither the brother or sister who sometimes visited LB seemed to have disliked her husband or suspected him of foul play.

What I do find suspicious is the concrete (if there's any truth to it) and the fact that he seemingly left so soon after the disappearance. He may have had nothing to do with it and left because he was grief-stricken and wanted to get away from there.

Well the articles do not mention the concrete but they do mention that Bryan stayed in town for quite a while, living in a basement bachelor after subletting the house. This implies he did not own the house therefore without his family or relatives with him there was only his job tying him down there. He probably put in for a transfer after a while (I would have) and left a place that was depressing to him. I imagine he sold the houseboat since they hadn't been using it much for themselves anyway.

I just thought that the SBI must have given some credence to the concrete being laid around that time to do the scan at all.

It's not clear but this may be a privately funded venture, since states do not re-open such old cases as a rule. Good thing the current owners of the house gave permission otherwise it would have ended right then and there, no judge would issue a warrant.

 

[KarlK]

KarlK - you make some good points. There is a lot of hearsay in this case and I'm sure some of it has been exaggerated, taken out of context and in some cases complete fabrications.

Hearsay and opinion are useful when examining all aspects of a case, because they sometimes carry a seed of truth but can become serious obstacles when people begin confusing fact with legend. What I find troubling here is the wide discrepancy between known fact and the family's suspicions. If they know something we don't, it's not in the pdf file.

Mercury being used to treat syphllis is pretty compelling.

Indeed, and the fact that the articles never allude to what this compound was used for (it had no other indications) illustrate the fact that such a disease was considered extremely shameful in a small southern town of the 1940's, certainly shameful enough to make one afflicted with it want to avoid having this exposed, at any cost. If LB was hiding from her husband she must had been emotionally exhausted to a point that's hard to imagine, having to pretend that nothing was amiss all the time.

It supports both theories pretty well. If she had cheated on her husband and contracted the disease it makes sense she would decide to run away rather than face the consequences. If she had cheated on her hubby, contracted the disease and he found out that is certainly a motive for murder.

That's possible but I think it's unlikely. Given the circumstances at hand murder would only be third on my list of possibilities, behind flight and suicide.

I find Cora Hollis interesting. If the things she actually said are true they don't make a lot of sense. Did Leila really stop by her house to tell Cora to go tell Leila's sister, Ida, she wanted to ride with her the next day to their mothers. Why wouldn't she just go herself and certainly she would have known that Ida didn't have a car. Even if she thought Ida was not home it would make much more sense for her to leave her note than send someone else to relay the message. By Ida's admission she and Leila were not close and hadn't seen eachother for months so why would Leila all the sudden want to ride with her to their parents. Was Cora lying? For herself or maybe lying for Leila? Maybe she knew that Leila was planning on leaving and even gave her permission to use her name. I wonder if LE researched Cora Hollis's name to see if it had been used in hotels, pharmacies, etc.

Excellent call! After reading your post it just occurred to me that if there is one person a woman planning to run away would confide in and seek help from, it would be her closest friend (being a guy this sort of thing takes time to reach my upper brain areas). Hollis may have known a lot more than she told. I guess her stance was that as long as no one was being wrongly accused of murder then there was no reason for her to tell on her friend. If LB had syphillis then Hollis, herself a nurse, may have supported the plan to leave, knowing what would have happened to LB had she stayed.

 

[Lorraining]

I look at the possibility of the victim purchasing medication to treat syphilis in another way. My first thought was that perhaps her husband was cheating on her and gave her the syphilis. I imagine her discovering she had it and realizing her husband had been cheating on her. She could have confronted him when she returned with the medication, a fight ensued and he ended up killing both her and his daughter.

This case is fascinating. I'll be looking forward to finding out if they find anything under the house.

 

[gaia227]

Lorraining - that is a possibility too. There are too many.

Regarding the suicide theory - would Leila been able to murder her little girl too?

I tend to think if Leila was planning on running away that night or committing suicide she would not had let her daughter come with her.
It is possible that none of the above happened and they did encounter someone and they were abducted and murdered. Although Leila's reported behavior makes that theory less believable for me.

I wish we knew what Cora Hollis' real name was. I definitely think she knew more than she was telling.

 

[KarlK]

I look at the possibility of the victim purchasing medication to treat syphilis in another way. My first thought was that perhaps her husband was cheating on her and gave her the syphilis. I imagine her discovering she had it and realizing her husband had been cheating on her. She could have confronted him when she returned with the medication, a fight ensued and he ended up killing both her and his daughter.

That would not explain why she purchased the drug under a false name. Syphilis often takes a very long time before unmistakable symptoms appear and in those days it was very difficult even for a physician to diagnose the condition in its early stages because symptoms mimic those of a myriad of other diseases and I don't get the impression they had been married that long. If Bryan killed his wife and daughter he would have been the luckiest of murderers considering that there were witnesses around, his wife happened to be acting odd on the day she disappeared and police showed so little interest in the alleged freshly poured concrete that no one mentions it.

 

[MaryLiz]

Geologist suggests police search for bodies under home

The geologist who is helping authorities study the ground below a home in Carolina Beach said Thursday he told police it’s time to dig for human remains.

More at link..

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20081120/ARTICLES/811200248/0/NEWS4520

 

[WholeLottaRosie]

Medicine and forensics were still evolving in the 40's, 50's, etc (it still is but you know what I mean) and I think it would be worthwhile for LE to check those two skeletons again and re-examine them to make sure the original ruling was correct. It has happened before.

I think so as well. I went to school with a girl who thought she and her family were white and learned just a few years ago they had African American ancestry , like 1/16 or so and her and her sisters as well as their mother - you WOULD NEVER have thought this. But, they all had dark hair, eyes and pale skin, similar to LB - so I think you just don't know. Many with it did try to hide it back then. And I would think any "test" back then was purely subjective, so I would say test again.

 

[WholeLottaRosie]

Geologist suggests police search for bodies under home

The geologist who is helping authorities study the ground below a home in Carolina Beach said Thursday he told police it’s time to dig for human remains.

More at link..

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20081120/ARTICLES/811200248/0/NEWS4520

I don't know. I suppose it would be nice to find them to give the nephew some closure; but, I don't think they are going to find them under the house. The three spaces the geologist refers to being under the three different rooms makes me think it is just going to be sand disturbances or something. If they were the missing they would probably be closer together, KWIM?

 

[MaryLiz]

I don't know. I suppose it would be nice to find them to give the nephew some closure; but, I don't think they are going to find them under the house. The three spaces the geologist refers to being under the three different rooms makes me think it is just going to be sand disturbances or something. If they were the missing they would probably be closer together, KWIM?

I am hoping for the nephew's sake they find them there but after reading other posts on here, I too have my doubts. I WANT them to be under the house for his sake. But I agree that I think they would be closer together too. The fact that the spaces are in 3 different rooms probably speaks against Lelia and Mary Rachel being there. But I think they should go ahead with their plans to dig just in case....

 

[Stella]

My post disappeared! In case it doesn't show up, here was my question. If 3 spaces were found and 2 are the remains of Leila and Mary Rachel, who in the world is body #3?

 

[KarlK]

I think so as well. I went to school with a girl who thought she and her family were white and learned just a few years ago they had African American ancestry , like 1/16 or so and her and her sisters as well as their mother - you WOULD NEVER have thought this. But, they all had dark hair, eyes and pale skin, similar to LB - so I think you just don't know. Many with it did try to hide it back then. And I would think any "test" back then was purely subjective, so I would say test again.

My assumption was that the skeletons were deemed black because they had unmistakable negroid features which is very easy to determine by trained personnel. It's not a "test" per se but a clinical observation, like trained primate biologists or anthropologists can tell the breed of even very closely related variants of a species (such as lowland gorillas vs mountain gorillas which look very similar) by observing certain features of the skull. If Arthrobones reads this I'm sure he can explain better than I do.

But this said my assumption was based on the belief that the observation was done by a knowledgeable individual. Thinking about it I agree with you ladies that it is quite possible that the coroner at the time thought he knew enough about the matter to be competent while this is far from certain. Back in the days the office of coroner was almost always an elected position and anyone could run for it, in some counties coroner and sheriff was one and the same. While there are still jusrisdictions where this applies most of the time the coroner is either a physician with some legal training or a lawyer with some medical training, some coroners are even both lawyers and physicians. Moreover coroners don't perform legal autopsies anymore, this has to be done by a pathologist under their authority and when they say someone belonged to X race they are usually right, but it wasn't always like that.

I guess that the issue remains open for as long as we don't know who determined the skeletons' race.

 

[belimom]

Hi, everyone. Just finished reading the articles. There are soooo many odd things here, all pointing in alot of different directions:

- If Lelia did give the message to 'Cora', then I think Lelia was trying to get some sort of message to Ida ("I'm leaving my husband" or "I really need you tomorrow"). She may really have been planning on leaving her husband, with the suitcase packed. Not sure why Lelia wouldn't have delivered the message herself, though.

- If Lelia did not really give the message the Cora, then I think Cora is looking very suspicious. And, she was very quick to state that Lelia must be dead. Strong assumption to make such a short time after their disappearance. Cora may not be directly involved but she knew something. Wish we knew what her real name was and if also the name of Edis Bryan's new wife...Hmmm. (I know the last part of this statement is really far-fetched).

- The brother: would you really wake someone back up at 12:30am or so, just to say 'hi' to your sister? Especially when they have a small child? And all the lights are out? Why did the brother return, just to announce (and I paraphrase here), 'Oh, I didn't see her. Nope, not me.' Don't know what the motive would be, but sounds suspect, even if just a little.

- Mercury: for some reason, the syphilis thing doesn't fit to me. Not sure why. I think maybe she was planning to go after her husband or someone else (Cora?). But whoever it was found out about it and got her first.

- skeletons: yep. Take another look at those. Don't think they're Civil War - seems to me like you'd be able to tell the difference between a 10-15 yr old skeleton and a century-old one.

- picture: Does Lelia look like she has a black eye in the clippings (her left eye)? I now they are bad copies and dark anyway, but her left eye doesn't look right - a little swollen, dark around the lids. Could definitely be the quality/age of the paper, though.

- Concrete slabs: definitely seems plausible.

- Lelia's family: for someone who wasn't close to her family and didn't see them often, there sure seemed to be alot of contact that one night - of all nights: the message to the sister and the visit by the brother (who stopped by TWICE).

So there! Alot of theories - LOL! Just dumping it all out for thought...