Eponymous Rox's blog

In solving a youth’s odd disappearance and the mystery at Tupper Lake, is dead serial killer Israel Keyes the key, or something even more nefarious?

  by Eponymous Rox

The sprawling Adirondack mountain region of upstate New York is a dense world of water and woods. Sometimes serene, sometimes sinister, it remains a sparsely populated and unspoiled wildlife habitat, peppered with small, historic hamlets and connected by a network of mostly nameless footpaths, dirt roads, winding county routes, and, here and there, slicing through the countryside like a machete, a superhighway that seems to go on and on and on…to nowhere.

Major, minor, or backwoods, in spring, summer, autumn or winter, none of these passageways ever sees any significant amount of traffic. Not one, regardless of length or width, maintenance or neglect, is ever congested.

That peace and quiet is part of the appeal of this northern U.S. territory, for both year-round residents and the thousands of visitors who annually hike or vacation in these pristine hills during the hot, humid, and much too brief summertime.

Summer is when this tranquil place fully comes to life, when it is at its most peopled and inviting. In wintertime, though, the same idyllic landscape becomes a great deal more stark and forbidding. Deadly even, if one disrespects it.

Feb. 11, 2013

Natalie Wood and Joshua Swalls: Foul play, or splendid accidents?

Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner

by EPONYMOUS ROX

Without a doubt, this glamorous woman’s fatal midnight plummet from the deck of The Splendour into the cool ocean waters off Catalina Island in 1981 has got to be the most high profile “accidental drowning” on record.

In the hours preceding her watery demise, she was overheard loudly quarreling with an enraged and jealous husband. They had been at this all day, in fact. All evening they’d been drinking.

Married, divorced, and remarried for a second try, the two were known to have a volatile relationship, with more than their fair share of public and private disagreements, be they drunk or sober. But this argument was different. The worst one yet.

When she drowned, she had prominent contusions in “no particular pattern” all over the front and back of her body. Some of these were fresh injuries, said to have been obtained as she frantically grappled with a small, wooden dinghy secured to the side of the yacht. Some she’d received just days before plunging to her death.

by Eponymous Rox

He mysteriously disappeared on October 12, 2012 from downtown Indianapolis, Indiana where he'd spent the evening entertaining himself at a few popular watering holes.

Peppers Bar, Applebee's Restaurant, Mindshaft, Landsharks...the 23-year-old friendly, fearless, and athletic Walton Matthew Ward spent an hour or two at all of these crowded establishments, socializing, dancing, and drinking at each one before moving on to the next.

At 10:30 p.m. when his mother buzzed his cell phone just to touch base with him again and chat for a few minutes, Ward assured her everything was okay and that, as might be expected, he was having a blast.

But shortly thereafter, at approximately two in the morning, there was a drastic change in that happy status. Ward was dragged from Landsharks by security staff into the parking lot, and during this event he placed an emergency 911 call which was terminated after only one second.

After that, the outgoing young man wouldn't be seen again until October 23rd when construction workers downtown discovered his body floating in the White River.