This is about my solutions to major historic crimes of western New York State.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) THE LINDEN MURDERS
2) THE NIAGARA COUNTY VERSION OF THE ZODIAC KILLER
1) THE LINDEN MURDERS
Genesee County, in western New York State, is the mostly rural county that is centered around Batavia. A hundred years ago there were a series of brutal murders there that have never been solved. The murders are still talked about today. There is quite a bit of material online about the murders and there have been two books.
The police interviewed people all around Linden and what they wrote down is available for research through the Genesee County History Department. Artifacts are displayed in the Holland Land Office Museum.
I have come to my own conclusion about who was behind the Linden Murders.
BACKGROUND
Linden was a rural community in Genesee County about equidistant from Batavia and Attica. There is not much left of it today. The most important business of Linden seems to have been growing apples. Linden was on a rail line and this connection was vital to the community. Some of the people worked in Attica, which was a short train ride away.
This image, from Google Earth, shows what Linden looks like today. The curved line on the left side is the railroad on which the settlement depended.
KEY EVENTS
Here is a listing of the events comprising the Linden Murders that we will be dealing with, in chronological order.
There was a man in the community that was generally not well-liked who would become the main suspect in the Linden Murders. His name was Andrew Michal. He did various manual labor, working on farms, in factories and, on the railroad. He seems to have been a good worker but didn't handle money well and was often in debt. He once reportedly owned a cider mill that had burned down. Andrew Michel was fined in an animal cruelty case. He had beaten a horse with a board so savagely that it had lost an eye. An elderly local woman named Frances Kimball had testified against him.
In November 1917, a man and woman were seen walking along a road and then taking a shortcut through some trees. The man was seen emerging from the wooded area alone. It was private property and the farmer, a few days later, found the horribly battered body of the woman while gathering firewood. An object that had been used for a club was found nearby. The body was in a shallow hole that it looked like might have been ready so that this was planned in advance. The woman was never identified, despite great effort. She was given the name "Ruth". Some believe that she could have been a prostitute from outside the area. She had been battered to death in just the same way that Andrew Michel had battered the horse.
The elderly woman that had testified against Andrew Michel in the beating of the horse, Frances Kimball, lived with her brother. One evening, October 17, 1922, while her brother was away working, someone cut her telephone wires and entered the house. Her badly battered body was found in the cellar. She had been been battered in the same way as Ruth and the horse, except that it was with a rock which was found. There was no sign that anything had been taken, or that entry had been forced, except for the cut wires. The murderer locked the door with her key while leaving.
Next door to the Kimball house lived the local Justice of the Peace, Maurice Nelon. I have seen different spellings of both the first and last name. While the Nelons were at church, on September 23, 1923, railroad workers saw a figure in the distance walking across fields from where Andrew Michal lived to where Maurice Nelon lived. The railroad workers included Thomas Whaley, who would later be a victim of the Linden Murderer. The figure was carrying something and entered the Nelon house. The figure then emerged from the house and returned the way he came, but he was not carrying anything. Thomas Whaley later learned that there had been an arson fire at the Nelon house. Someone had entered the house with a gallon can of kerosene and attempted to burn it down. But the attempt was ineffectual and only caused a bed to smolder. The kerosene can was left behind so we do know that it was an arson attempt. Whatever brief fire there might have been did cause a clock to stop, so we know that it happened while the Nelons were at church. Everything else that the Linden Murderer is credited with doing was brutally effective. This arson attempt, in contrast, was extremely inept and ineffectual. Not only the unsuccessful arson but also allowing himself to be seen, although the railroad workers were too far away to positively identify him.
Thomas Whaley, who had witnessed the distant figure entering the Nelon house, was brutally murdered, along with his wife, by someone who entered their house on March 11, 1923. A neighbor, Mabel Morse, apparently happened to stop by and was also murdered. This time a pistol was used, as well as a blunt instrument. The house was then set on fire. The Whaley house was next to the train depot and the noise from the train may have been used to camouflage the sound of the gunshots. People passing by noticed the smoke, broke into the house to put out the fire, and found the three bodies. There was no sign of forced entry. As with the Kimball Murder, the murderer locked the door with the key while leaving.
People were moving out of Linden because of these murders. The village of Attica was a short train ride away and some of the people worked in Attica. Andrew Michal was already preparing to move to Attica when the Whaley Murders happened. He then lived in Attica for decades. In his mid-seventies he was declared legally incompetent and spent his last couple of years in a Rochester psychiatric hospital.
Some strange things happened after the Whaley-Morse Murders. Mabel Morse had a son who lived in either Buffalo or Rochester, according to different accounts. On the night of the murders he received a phone call from an unknown man who said "You will never see your mother again", and hung up. Andrew Michal's own mother had died a few months before. A letter was received by the police stating that the sender knew who had committed the murders and would reveal it in further letters, but no further letters were received. The letter was postmarked from Michigan, and it was known that Andrew Michal's in-laws lived in Michigan.
In 1929, the skeleton of a young man was found in a gravel pit in Genesee County. He had been severely beaten around the head just like the Linden victims. It was not known how long the body had been there.
In 1934, more than ten years after the Whaley Murders, an elderly one-armed farmer named Benjamin Phillips was murdered near Attica. He was killed in his home by repeated impacts to the head. With his body on a bed, the room was set on fire. It was just like the Linden Murders. An unsigned letter was received by the police that this murder was committed by the Linden Murderer. It appeared to be a woman's handwriting and was postmarked from Attica. The writer states that she cannot give her or the murderer's name because she is so afraid of him. But she gives his initials as "A. M.".
CONCLUSION
The conventional wisdom for years has been that Andrew Michal is obviously the most likely suspect in the murders. My conclusion is that, based on what I have read, the Justice of the Peace is the more likely suspect. In a small community with a limited number of potential suspects, in contrast to a city, when someone commits a murder they tend to set it up to appear that someone else did it. The murders are set up to look like Andrew Michal did it. The scenario goes back to Andrew Michal beating the horse with a board and the early suspicious fire at his cider mill.
QUESTIONS
Here are some questions that I think should be asked about the Linden Murders.
"Ruth" and the man that she was with walked past houses on the way to the place where he would kill her. Why would they walk past houses? It seems that he wanted them to be seen. Why didn't he kill her elsewhere? This was a rural area and it would be easy to kill her and dispose of her body where no one would see it and the body wouldn't be found. He wanted to be seen leaving the woods alone so there would be a search for the woman, but the farmer who owned the property found her body. What is strange is that the man was seen walking several steps ahead of the woman. The woman was short. A photo of Andrew Michal with fellow railroad workers shows that he was rather tall. Could this man have wanted observers to think that he was Andrew Michal and was trying to conceal that he was not as tall as Andrew Michal? His height would have been more obvious if the two had walked side-by-side.
Frances Kimball's telephone wires were cut on the day that she was murdered. But there was no other sign of forced entry and investigators later came to a strange conclusion. The wires were actually cut from inside, through a cellar window. This means that the killer was already in the house. This doesn't make sense. We know that Frances Kimball and Andrew Michal definitely didn't like each other. Could it be that the killer was someone familiar that she would have allowed in and he had cut the wires to make it look like a hostile entry?
Frances Kimball was killed in her cellar, and that is where her body was found. We know that she was killed in the cellar because fragments of her brain, her teeth and, her blood was all over the floor. Her cellar had a separate door to the outside. She had an apple orchard and it was the time of year to pick apples, October 17, which were stored in the cellar. It seems certain that the killer was very familiar with her routines and had been watching her, slipping in through the door while she was picking apples. Who could possibly be in a better position to do that than her nextdoor neighbor, the Justice of the Peace? If anyone else had done it they would have risked being seen.
Why did the killer use a rock to batter Frances Kimball when he could have used a club? Because a rock is something that can be concealed while entering a house but a club isn't. The killer slipped in through the cellar door while Frances Kimball was picking apples. But that would point to the nextdoor neighbor because he could have been watching her. The killer wanted it to look like he went up to the door while concealing the rock.
Every time that the Linden Murderer entered a home and killed someone, he also set fire to the house. There is one exception, that of Frances Kimball. Why didn't he set fire to her house? The Justice of the Peace lived next to Frances Kimball and if he set fire to her house then it would endanger his own house.
Maurice Nelon, the Justice of the Peace, actually appeared on a list of possible suspects after Frances Kimball was murdered. But then the attempted arson at his house showed that he was a target of the Linden Murderer himself, so it couldn't be him. But then how could the Linden Murderer be so inept at this attempted arson? Everything else that he was purported to have done was brutally effective. How can an arsonist enter a house with a gallon of kerosene and only succeed in making a bed smolder? And how did he let himself be seen by the railroad workers, although at a distance so that he couldn't be effectively identified? If they could see him then couldn't he see them?
It was reported that the would-be arsonist entered the home of Maurice Nelon because it was known that he left his door unlocked. But why would he leave his door unlocked? As Justice of the Peace he would have had many important documents at home. The murderer made a point of locking the front door with a key, while leaving, at both the Kimball and Whaley houses. Could this have been done to show that it couldn't be the Justice of the Peace that is doing this because he was known to leave his door unlocked?
Maurice Nelon was attending church when this staged arson attempt occurred. But how could someone attend church while doing something like this? This was part of the deception. Frances Kimball was known to be religious and opinionated and he wouldn't have argued with her over this, since he was a church-goer too.
Did the reported arson at the Justice of the Peace really happen at all? The report is that Thomas Whaley, and the other railroad workers, watched the arsonist cross the fields from the direction of where Andrew Michal lived, carrying what turned out to be a gallon of kerosene. A while later they saw him leave the house and return in the direction that he came from. When Thomas Whaley went home for lunch, he learned that there had been an arson fire at the house of the Justice of the Peace. But what about smoke? This means that he hadn't seen any smoke after the arsonist had supposedly set the fire. This was September 23 so it was too early for fireplaces. But yet the fire supposedly caused a clock to stop so we know that it happened while he was at church. This sounds completely staged. Since he was the local Justice of the Peace, they may have mostly taken his word for what happened.
If the Justice of the Peace was a target of the Linden Murderer, because he had presided over the case of animal cruelty against Andrew Michal, then why wasn't he killed too, instead of this ineffective arson attempt? Notice the similarity between the man walking to the house with the kerosene and then emerging without it, and the man walking to the woods with "Ruth" and then emerging without her. This is a purposeful hint that the arsonist is also the killer of "Ruth".
By the time of the Whaley-Morse Murders, Andrew Michal was the primary suspect in the murder of Frances Kimball. But a pistol was used in these murders, which was not used in any of the others. Andrew Michal had lost all but one of the fingers on his right hand in a long-ago saw accident. Was the pistol used by the real murderer to make it look like Andrew Michal had really done it to make it look like he couldn't have done it because of his missing fingers? This shows the same kind of deceptive thinking as the staged arson when the Justice of the Peace was on the list of possible suspects in the Kimball Murder.
Another way that we see this deceptive thinking is the relationship between the Kimball and Whaley-Morse Murders. A rock was used in the Kimball killing and she was battered mainly on the right side of her face and head. This made it look like Andrew Michal had tried to be deceptive because he would have difficulty holding the rock with his right hand, because of the missing fingers, but had actually battered her while holding it in his left hand. In exactly the same way, he used the pistol in the Whaley-Morse killings but actually fired it with his left hand.
The drapes in the Whaley house were found tacked shut using the same fence tacks that were used by the railroad. Was this done to make it look like the murders were done by someone who had worked on the railroad? Andrew Michal had worked with Thomas Whaley on the railroad and both of them are in a group photo.
Andrew Michal is always portrayed as being in debt and owing people money. Yet no valuables seem to have been taken from any of the homes that the Linden Murderer entered. If he was the murderer then why didn't he steal anything?
What about the mysterious phone call that was made to the son of Mabel Morse on the night that she was killed? With all that is written about Andrew Michal, I can't see any reference to him ever making a phone call. Having a phone cost money and Andrew Michal was supposedly always in debt. I doubt that he would have a phone. But the Justice of the Peace would certainly have a phone, as well as records of phone numbers. This call was made to appear that Andrew Michal had a bit of sympathy for the son because he had recently lost his own mother.
What about the two mysterious letters that were sent to the police, with information or promised information about the murders? The significant thing about both was the postmark. The Justice of the Peace deals with documents and would certainly be aware of such things.
Andrew Michal was in the process of moving to Attica when the Whaley-Morse Murders took place. Could this be an attempt to get him before he left? In 1929 the skeleton of a young man was found in a gravel pit not far from Attica. It had obviously been there a long time. He had been severely beaten around the head just like the Linden Murders. Could this be an attempt to get him after he had moved to Attica, but the body wasn't found as expected? Then the murder of Benjamin Phillips was another attempt some years later.
There was snow on the ground when the Whaley-Morse Murders occurred. This meant that the murderer risked leaving footprints in the snow. It was March 11 and if he would have waited a little while the snow would be gone. Could it be that the killer was in a hurry to make it look like Andrew Michal did it before he left town?
Andrew Michal has always been the primary suspect in the Linden Murders. But then why wasn't he arrested? The police extensively questioned him multiple times, and then again when they took another look at the case in the 1940s. But they never quite found cause to arrest him. Doesn't it look like someone else was doing it, and almost succeeded in making it look like Andrew Michal did it?
All I know is what I have read but, based on that, the one that looks suspicious to me is the Justice of the Peace. There isn't much information about him. That's because few would expect a person in his position to do something like this. But the Justice of the Peace would know what was going on in the community better than anyone.
THE THREE LAYERS
We can see that there are three layers to each of the murder scenes around Linden. This shows that it was the same thinking that went into each one.
When someone commits a crime that is one layer. When someone sets up a crime to look like someone else did it, or the real criminal couldn't or wouldn't have done it, that's two layers. When someone sets up a crime to look like someone else did it who set it up to look like still another person did it or that the someone else couldn't have done it, that's three layers. Two layers are not uncommon in crimes but they would outsmart everyone by adding a third layer.
The first layer is an unknown person, other than Andrew Michal, committing the crime. The second layer is Andrew Michal committing the crime but making it look like the unknown person did it. The third layer is the real person who is committing the crime and making it look like Andrew Michal did it.
The murder of "Ruth" was set up to make it look like Andrew Michal did it, as we saw above. The murder happened on the same road where what is now called the Rolling Hills Asylum is located, although not close to it. So Andrew Michal appears to cover himself by making it look like someone from what was then the Genesee County Poorhouse might have done it. The murder site was also not that far from Batavia, making it appear that Andrew Michal might also be using that to divert suspicion from himself. This murder site was very carefully chosen.
In the following image, from Google Earth, Batavia is at the top. The red line at the bottom is Linden. The upper yellow line is the site of the murder of "Ruth". The lower yellow line is the Rolling Hills Asylum.
The murder of Frances Kimball involved three layers. Andrew Michal supposedly used a rock to batter Frances Kimball. But he was right-handed and would have difficulty holding the rock in his right hand because of the missing fingers, unlike a club which could be held with both hands. But she was battered mostly on the right side of her face and head, making it look like he did it with his left hand. So someone killed Frances Kimball, making it look like Andrew Michal did it but set it up to look like he didn't do it.
In the Whaley-Morse Murders, the killer used a pistol. This was made to appear as an attempt to absolve Andrew Michal of suspicion because he wouldn't be able to fire a pistol with his right hand because he had lost three fingers on that hand. But the shots were close-range and could have been fired by his left hand. So the three layers are the murders being done, to look like Andrew Michal did it, but set it up to look like he couldn't have done it. Exactly the same kind of thinking is in both cases, but the first uses a rock while the second uses a pistol.
THE MOST LIKELY SCENARIO
Here is what I think most likely happened in the Linden Murders. The Justice of the Peace, Maurice Nelon, was behind the murders. He obviously had someone working with him, since the purported arsonist was seen walking to the Nelon house when he was in church. This was almost certainly the same man who had been seen walking with "Ruth", and probably the one actually doing the murders. He also could have mailed the letter from Michigan and made the phone call to the son of Mabel Morse.
But why would a Justice of the Peace do something like this and why would this man be working with him? There is actually a simple answer.
What about the cider mill that Andrew Michal had earlier owned but had burned? Nothing more seems to be written about it. Andrew Michal seems to be hardly the kind of person who would run a business. He was physically a good worker but wasn't well liked and was usually in debt. He may have had psychological issues and the last part of his life was spent in a Rochester psychiatric hospital. He obviously had anger issues as evidenced by the severe beating of the horse.
What if Andrew Michal had one or more business partners in the cider mill? He might have done the labor while they ran the business end of it. But they had a falling out, after which the mill mysteriously burned. Maybe someone had been killed or had suffered great loss when the mill was destroyed.
According to one report, Andrew Michal's father had been a significant land owner around Linden. Maybe he inherited the cider mill but someone else had ended up with control of it.
They were certain that Andrew Michal had done it and they went to the Justice of the Peace. The Justice of the Peace, knowing well Andrew Michal's record, agreed with them but they couldn't convince the police.
Whether or not it started with the cider mill, someone really wanted vengeance against Andrew Michal and the Justice of the Peace, who would handle local legal issues, sided with them.
They determined that Andrew Michal was going to pay for this. New York State was executing people in it's infamous electric chair, and they would find a way to get him sent there.
They decided to kill a prostitute and make it look like Andrew Michal did it, by beating her to death in exactly the same way that Andrew Michal had beaten the horse. It would be done in a place that Andrew Michal would be familiar with because he had reportedly worked clearing wood there. The man would be seen walking with "Ruth". In those days men wore hats and he would dress to look like Andrew Michal. But he was shorter than Andrew Michal and the woman was short. So he would walk several steps ahead of her to conceal the height difference. He would make sure that he was seen emerging from the woods alone, to prompt a search for the woman.
The plan to get Andrew Michal blamed for the murder of "Ruth" was ultimately unsuccessful. It may be that the man working with the Justice of the Peace had moved away, and returned periodically to try something else. This time they would target the woman who had testified against Andrew Michal in the beating of the horse, Frances Kimball, who lived next door to the Justice of the Peace. Andrew Michal would appear to kill her in the same way that he had beaten the horse and killed "Ruth", a savage beating around the head with a blunt object.
The murder of Frances Kimball brought them closer to their goal. Andrew Michal had a cloud of suspicion over him that would last for the rest of his life. The Justice of the Peace was also on the list of possible suspects so the man working with him returned the following year for the staged arson attempt. This was to show that the the Justice of the Peace couldn't possibly be the Linden Murderer because he was also one of his targets.
People began moving out of Linden. The Village of Attica was a short train ride away and some people were already working there. Andrew Michal was in the process of moving. He was already under suspicion for the Frances Kimball murder and they decided to try again before he could leave. This time the target was Thomas Whaley, who had witnessed the would-be arsonist walking to the Nelon house and had worked with Andrew Michal on the railroad. Again they came close but didn't quite succeed in getting Andrew Michal charged with the murders.
They tried again, after Andrew Michal had moved to Attica, with the skeleton that was found in the gravel pit but the body wasn't found until it was skeletal. Finally, ten years after the Whaley-Morse Murders, they tried one more time with the murder of Benjamin Phillips and the anonymous letter afterward.
Andrew Michal must have known what was going on, that someone was doing this to get it blamed on him. He almost certainly knew who the actual murderer was. But if he told the full story to the police it would mean admitting that their reason for vengeance against him was correct. He had torched the cider mill or whatever else it was about.
I find it interesting that Andrew Michal had been living in Attica, which is in Wyoming County, while these latter two murders were in Genesee County, where Linden is. Maybe they thought that the police in Genesee County were almost convinced that Andrew Michal was the murderer and they didn't want to hinder that by having the investigation split between two jurisdictions.
THE GAP FACTOR
One major issue remains with the Linden Murders and it makes it appear very unlikely that Andrew Michal is the murderer.
Why was there the five-year gap between the killing of "Ruth" and that of Frances Kimball? After her murder, events were much closer together. If Andrew Michal was a crazed psychopath, killing people that he didn't like, then why did he wait these five years?
This is a timeline of the events around Linden. 1 is the murder of "Ruth". 2 is the murder of Frances Kimball. 3 is the staged arson fire at the home of the Justice of the Peace. 4 is the Whaley-Morse Murders.
There is a simple answer that also explains why the murders began. It goes something like this.
Someone had convinced the Justice of the Peace, Maurice Nelon, that Andrew Michal deserved to go to prison, and they were deciding what they could do. The United States entered the First World War in 1917. The person had gotten his draft notice and would be leaving soon. Maybe he would never return and Andrew Michal would get away with this.
They decided to do something drastic. They would kill an itinerant woman, maybe a prostitute, and set it up to appear that Andrew Michal had done it. "Ruth" was murdered as described above, savagely beaten in the same way that Andrew Michal had beaten the horse. This may be when they first thought of killing someone.
The First World War ended in 1918. After that, America got involved in the Russian Civil War. If the real Linden Murderer was away for four years it would explain this long gap perfectly. There was little chance that Andrew Michal was going to be blamed for the murder of "Ruth", so they weren't waiting for that. Andrew Michal was around Linden all this time so this is another reason to think that he wasn't the killer.
After the real Linden Murderer returned from service, they picked up where they had left off. "Ruth" had not been known by the community and was never identified. They had already killed one person. This time they chose a victim that was known to have a mutual dislike for Andrew Michal. They would kill Frances Kimball and make it appear that Andrew Michal had done it by killing her in the same way that "Ruth" had been killed and he had beaten the horse. This should get him blamed for the murder of "Ruth" as well.
2) THE NIAGARA COUNTY VERSION OF THE ZODIAC KILLER
I wrote about the Nancy Guthrie case, February 2026, and it got me into crime writing mode. I spent hours looking through old news about Niagara County and I would like to show how Niagara County had it's own version of the Zodiac Killer, who sent in complex clues, but it was never noticed. This goes beyond Niagara County and involves Buffalo and the Canadian side.
Exactly fifty years ago, rural Niagara County was terrorized by a serial arsonist. The arsonist targeted wooden structures and lumberyards and did a tremendous amount of damage, although he didn't seem intent on hurting anyone. There was an article about it in the New York Times, November 20, 1976. Remember that $9,500 was a lot of money then.
What finally happened is that the arsonist got a little bit too bold. In January 1978 he tried to torch two lumber companies in the north end of Niagara Falls. He got the first one but was caught at the second one, on Lockport Road. He had a scanner radio that could receive both police and fire department communications. This was in the news on January 17, 1978.
What I have found is that it went much further than this.
1969 was my first summer where I live now. One evening, from somewhere out in La Salle, was a towering column of smoke. There must have been no wind at all because the column of smoke went straight up into the sky. The news the next day revealed that it had been the River Road Lumber Company.
I see now that the cause of the fire must have been arson, by a game-playing arsonist. Someone had made two emergency calls, one that he had set fire to a restaurant and the other to a school. Then he made a third call that there was a fire in the basement of the lumber company. The police carefully checked the lumber company and nothing seemed out of place. But then, about two hours later, the lumber company really was burning. This was in the news on July 14, 1969 but was never connected to the later Niagara County Arsonist, who targeted many lumberyards including the final two described above.
There was an old school, Pacific Avenue School on Buffalo Ave between 71st and 72nd Streets, that had closed and then been converted into a restaurant. It burned around the beginning of 1977. This is just down the street from where the lumber company had been located. So the arsonist called before torching the lumber company that he had set fire to a restaurant and to a school and now a school that had turned into a restaurant had mysteriously burned. But this was never connected together.
Also around the beginning of 1977 were three major fires in downtown Niagara Falls. As with the lumber company and the school they were right down the street from each other. There was Levy Brothers Furniture, at Pine Avenue and 15th Street, and the Haeberle Plaza. The plaza fire was caused by arson which began with an explosion. Then there was a major fire on north Main Street, where the police station is now located.
What might have happened is that, with the rural arsons getting a lot of attention, the arsonist shifted his focus into the city of Niagara Falls, picking up where he left off with the River Road Lumber Company seven years before.
With that background now let's get to the deadly part.
The arsonist had called in that there was a fire in the basement of the River Road Lumber Company, before there really was a fire. The Haeberle Plaza arson, seven years later, would begin with an explosion. In the early morning of February 20, 1970, an explosion in the basement of the Sagamore Apartments building, at Main and Third Streets, started a fire that killed two elderly women but I cannot see that this was ever considered as arson. The building is just down the street from the Haeberle Plaza.
The Sagamore arson was a definite attempt to put people in danger. The building was full of elderly people and it was a very cold night so that if anyone had to rush to escape without a coat, they would be in danger of freezing. Maybe the arsonist couldn't get attention with property fires. When this still failed to get attention, he moved on to the next one.
The Sagamore was one of two apartment buildings that were connected together. The fire was prevented from spreading to the other building by an internal fire wall. In the following image from Google Earth the former Sagamore building is to the right and you can see that there is a narrow gap between the two buildings, although they are joined in the front.
A few weeks after the Sagamore fire came the worst fire of all. In the early morning of April 4, 1970, a terrible fire in Lockport killed six children. The children, from two related families, were sleeping in a house at 7 Mill Street. Their parents were next door at a bar-restaurant at 5 Mill Street, which was heavily damaged by the fire.
Both old structures were considered as substandard and the city was trying to vacate them. The following image, which I think was taken in the 1950s from the Mill Street Bridge, shows the restaurant in the foreground. The light colored house, just beyond the restaurant with the white car in front of it, is where the six children died (History Collection).
The cause of the fire was listed as electrical, due to improper wiring. But the fire happened at about 2:30 AM. An electrical fire is caused by the flow of electricity through improper or overloaded wiring. This means that an electrical fire is least likely to happen in the middle of the night because, at least in a house, that is when the least amount of current would be flowing.
There was a narrow gap between the two buildings and, at that gap, part of the lower outer wall of the house was completely burned away. This is obviously where the fire must have started. Since heat and flame goes upward it is extremely rare for the outer wall of a house to be burned through unless the fire burned for a long time, which this one didn't. This indicates that the fire started outside, in the narrow gap between the buildings.
The following illustration shows the house at 7 and the restaurant at 5 Mill Street. The red line shows where the fire started.
The narrow gap between the two buildings is reminiscent of the gap between the Sagamore and the adjoining apartment building. The fire was prevented from spreading to that building by an internal fire wall but this time the arsonist would solve that and the fire would spread from one building to the other. This was a clue that he had also set the Sagamore fire.
If it had been in the news that the city was trying to vacate these two properties then he might have thought that the house was vacant. There seems to have been mostly a break in the fires until they began again in earnest in April 1976. It is interesting that he killed six children and April 1976 would be the sixth anniversary of this fire. Maybe he was initially horrified at having killed six children but later decided to send clues as to what he had done with further fires. This ultimately got the article in the New York Times, described above.
I remember wondering in fourth grade, and then again in eleventh grade, why there were so many fires. The later fires didn't kill anyone but were more obviously caused by arson.
The final two arsons, at the lumberyards in January 1978 in the North End of Niagara Falls with the second being on Lockport Road as described above, were to convey that the arsonist had set the fire in Lockport that had spread from one building to the other. The Mill Street fire had been in the northernmost part of Lockport, Lowertown.
Just look at the following 1976 article. This article tells us what we need to know. The arsonist was sending clues with the fires during this period that he had set the deadly Mill Street fire. Unlike the Zodiac Killer he used the names of the locations of the fires, rather than sending in cryptograms.
The arson fires are heavily concentrated on Lockport Road. Why would there be such a concentration of fires on Lockport Road? There are five such fires listed in this article. With the later one where he was caught, as described above, that makes six fires on Lockport Road. Could it be to tell us that he was the one who killed the six children in Lockport?
The children in Lockport had been native Indians. The other streets where his targets were located were Shawnee, Erie and, Cayuga. These are native Indian tribes.
But then why would he target Miller Hardware and the Sanborn Milling Company? As clues to the fire that happened on Mill Street.
One unfortunate farmer was targeted twice, apparently at two different locations. He probably never imagined that he was being targeted because of his name, as a clue to Mill Street (NYT article).
His favorite targets were 84 Lumber stores. Could this be a clue that he had killed 8 people, six in Lockport and two at the Sagamore?
These early fires were going on at the same time as the Zodiac Killer, in California, and could have been influenced by that, in this sending of complex clues.
With all of these clues about what he had done, there must be some as to who he was. He might have targeted lumber yards and wooden structures because the nearest intersection to where he lived was Candlewood. He might have targeted the site on Quarry Road because the street where he lived ended at Stone Road.
He let himself be seen, sometimes showing up in bars and talking about the fires and correctly predicting which targets would be next although not admitting to starting them.
Then we have the physical geography clues. Six of the sites described above have the target adjacent to a waterway and a bridge over the waterway. This could not be a coincidence. In the days before the Internet he must have spent a lot of time with maps and this gave him a strong sense of physical geography. Images from Google Earth.
In the initial two calls before the River Road Lumber Company fire in 1969, the caller claimed to have set fire to a restaurant and then a school. The sites of these are indicated by the two red lines in the following image, both adjacent to Bergholtz Creek and the 91st Street Bridge over it. The road parallel to the creek is Cayuga Drive.
There is also numerical clues. The River Road Lumber Company fire happened on July 13, 7/13. 7 x 13 = 91 and 7 + 13 + 91 = 111. But he made two calls before the lumber company fire so it was 222 days from the lumber company to the Sagamore fires. From there it was 43 days to the 5 and 7 Mill Street fire. The fire started at 7 Mill Street and 4 + 3 = 7. 4 x 3 = 12 = 5 + 7. Both show exactly the same pattern of using both addition and multiplication.
The site of the River Road Lumber Company is indicated by the red line, adjacent to Cayuga Creek and the La Salle Expressway bridge over it.
The former Sagamore Apartments building is shown in the upper right by the red dot on the white roof, adjacent to the Niagara River and the Rainbow Bridge.
A reason that he might have targeted the Sagamore is in preparation for the Mill Street fire, because there is a very similar building to the Sagamore in Lockport, both in structure and being centrally located. The Mill Street Bridge is just down the street from this building in about exactly the same way that the Rainbow Bridge is just down the street from the former Sagamore building. Again we see this "just down the street" pattern between fire sites.
The arsonist lived near Eighteen Mile Creek and that might be part of why he used waterways near the fire sites as clues. The Sagamore is the most distant of the U.S. sites from where he lived, and it was about exactly eighteen miles from where he lived.
The red line shows the location of the wooden restaurant structure at 5 Mill Street in Lockport, adjacent to the canal and the Mill Street Bridge over it.
The red line across the park in the upper right of the following image is the site of the former Pacific Avenue School, later turned into a restaurant, adjacent to the Niagara River and the Grand Island Bridge.
The fire site on north Main Street is shown in the following image by the red line. It is positioned relative to the Whirlpool and Michigan Central Bridges in exactly the same way.
It is also interesting how the lumberyard targeted in the final fire, on Lockport Road when the arsonist was caught, was positioned in exactly the same way relative to the Hyde Park Boulevard Bridge, indicated by the red line over two white roofs. The bridge is indicated by the yellow line. But this bridge was over railroad tracks, rather than a waterway.
This is to tell us that he killed the six children in Lockport in one of the fires relative to a bridge. There were also six fires on Lockport Road.
The Zodiac Killer couldn't have done the clues any better than this. But it was never recognized. The arsonist was showing how brilliant he was and the fires unfortunately had to happen to display that brilliance. This was before electronic calculators were common so he must have figured all of this out on paper.
THE CANADIAN SIDE
The arsonist visited a tavern in Canada, as described above. There was once a spring around Dufferin Islands where natural gas emerged from the ground. It was known as the Burning Spring.
In the late 1960s there was a museum on the high ground above the falls called the Burning Spring Wax Museum. It was part of the general tourist district. My parents took me there. It had scenes of the history of the area. There was a model of the Burning Spring with a flame.
The museum was near the observation tower that was much more prominent before taller hotels were built around it. It is now known as the Tower Hotel. Image from the Wikipedia article "Tower Hotel (Niagara Falls)".
On June 5, 1969, the museum burned. I didn't give much thought to what caused the fire, maybe the flame had gotten out of control. But now I see the same kind of numeracy described above, involving the dates and the number of days between fires.
Next to the Burning Spring Wax Museum was the Loretto Academy, although there was a parking lot between the two where a hotel is now located. This was the site of a historic fire in Niagara Falls. The Loretto Academy had burned on January 10, 1938.
It was 38 days from the Burning Spring fire to the River Road Lumber Company fire. We saw the doubling above so that it was 222 days from the River Road Lumber Company fire to the Sagamore fire. The same kind of doubling can be seen here. The Loretto Academy fire occurred on January 10, 1/10. The Sagamore fire occurred on 2/20. Again this might be something that was influenced by the cryptograms of the Zodiac Killer.
The way the arsonist used dates, it doesn't matter whether the month or the day is put first.
The Burning Spring Wax Museum had burned exactly two years before, in 1967. The two years are another indication of this doubling. On the other side of the Loretto Academy was the Mount Carmel Shrine. That burned later in 1967, on November 25.
This use of an anniversary resonates with the later fires apparently beginning in April 1976, which was the sixth anniversary of the death of the six children.
The Burning Spring Wax Museum fires were one day short of two years apart. The 1967 fire was on June 6 but the 1969 fire was on June 5. June 5 was necessary to get the numbers to work out for the River Road Lumber and Sagamore fires because the fire at the Loretto Academy had been in 1938.
The name of the Burning Spring Wax Museum obviously fits into this scenario and the fire and smoke would be very visible during the tourist season from both sides of the border.
I wonder if there might have been a rock music influence because the 1967 Burning Spring fire was when the song that might have launched psychedelic rock, "Light My Fire" by The Doors, was popular.
The following three images are from Google Earth. In the first image the falls are at right. The Loretto Academy is indicated by the red line and the site of the Burning Spring Wax Museum by the yellow line. Mount Carmel is indicated by the purple line.
The following image, from a higher scale, shows the site of the Burning Spring Wax Museum as the red line at bottom left and the Sagamore as the red line at upper right. The two are positioned roughly the same relative to the Rainbow Bridge.
This image shows, by the red line, that there was once a north wing to the Mount Carmel Shrine, which was destroyed by the 1967 fire.
A great urban fire occurred in Toronto on the night of August 28, 1969. The glow of the fire could be seen from Niagara Falls.
The Toronto fire began at the Oliver Lumber Company and spread from there. Near where the arsonist lived, and the site of some of his fires, is the city of North Tonawanda. The nickname of North Tonawanda is "The Lumber City", because of the logs that used to be brought in on the Erie Canal to be sawn into lumber. The main street in North Tonawanda is Oliver Street. There were many 84 Lumber stores in the area, which seemed to be the arsonist's favorite targets. This Toronto fire happened 84 days after the June 5 fire at the Burning Spring Wax Museum.
The site of this major Toronto fire is now the Walter Saunders Memorial Park. Image from Google Earth.
Considering the use of historical fires in this scenario, the Burning Spring Wax Museum was next to the Loretto Academy, which had burned in 1938 and the River Road Lumber Company burned 38 days after the Burning Spring, it is interesting that the great Toronto Fire happened in April 1904 and the Mill Street fire was on 4/4.
Notice that the dates of three of the four Canadian fires multiply or add to 36. This shows the same use of both multiplication and addition.
The 1967 fire at the Burning Spring Wax Museum happened on June 6. 6 x 6 = 36.
The 1967 fire at the Mount Carmel Shrine happened on November 25. 11 + 25 = 36.
The 1969 fire in Toronto happened on August 28. 8 + 28 = 36.
The Canadian fire that doesn't equal 36 is the 1969 fire at the Burning Spring Wax Museum, which happened one day early on June 5. This was necessary because this was the start of the other line of numbers, involving the River Road Lumber Company, the Sagamore and, Mill Street, as described above. The adjacent Loretto Academy had burned in 1938 so the River Road Lumber Company was scheduled to burn 38 days after the Burning Spring. The River Road Lumber Company fire had to be on July 13, 7/13, to fit with the nearby 91st Street Bridge as described above.
The arsonist thus "owed" one day because the 1969 fire at the Burning Spring Wax Museum had been a day too early to amount to 36. So what might have happened is that the Mroz Lumber Company, in Buffalo, burned on September 28, 9/28. This was one day over amounting to 36.
The site of the Mroz Lumber Company is shown by the two red lines in the following image from Google Earth. We see the familiar adjacent bridge pattern, the railroad bridge over Broadway. The street to the left is Lathrop Street.
To show the debt relationship with the Burning Spring Wax Museum fire, this site is adjacent to the towering Central Terminal in the same way that the Burning Spring site is adjacent to the observation tower described above. Image from Google Street View.
So if we took a day from the Buffalo fire and added it to the 1969 Burning Spring Wax Museum fire then both would equal 36 like the other fires. Remember that the Zodiac Killer was in the news around this time and moving a day, from one fire to another like this, resembles the Zodiac Killer's cryptogram where it appears that the characters must be moved around before the puzzle is solved.
So we have two numeric lines in the early fires, from 1967 to 1970. These are the 36 Line and the River Road-Sagamore-Mill Street Line. The two lines meet at the 1969 fire at the Burning Spring Wax Museum, on June 5.
The later fires, from 1976-78, were about names, rather than numbers, as clues to the 1970 fire on Mill Street that had killed the six children. The adjacent bridge pattern is seen in both early and later fires. Just as the Zodiac Killer has been sending in cryptograms during the time of the early fires, the Son of Sam was in the news for sending in names as clues during the time of the later fires.
WILLIAMSVILLE NY
There used to be a concert venue in Williamsville NY called, of all things, The Inferno. There was also another entertainment venue on the site, either an amusement park or a casino. On the site was the waterfall on Ellicott Creek. Image from Google Street View.
On September 23, 1968, The Inferno lived up to it's name and was destroyed in a massive fire. Nearly five years later, on September 8, 1973, the rest of the entertainment venue was destroyed in another great fire. The site is now Glen Park. The white water of the falls is visible. Image from Google Earth.
I cannot see that these fires were ever considered as arson but has anyone ever noticed that there is an adjacent mill, built in 1811 with the 1811 prominently displayed and the fires were 1811 days apart? The first image is from Google Street View.
This resonates with the fire, eight months before, at the River Road Lumber Company, as this fire was at a lumber company on a road that ran alongside the river.
A SCOTTISH NAME
We have seen how the fires contained all kinds of clues about who the arsonist was. But I wondered if there was still more to it.
The most puzzling was why this all seemed to start with the Loretto Academy on the Canadian side. The arsonist seems to have set three fires around it and it was itself the site of a historic fire. But it was far away from where he lived and across the border.
Then there were the relationships between the fires. There were three definite kinds. 1) the numbers in the date of the fire. 2) the number of days between fires and, 3) the name relationships, particularly Mill. What was interesting is how the three kinds of relationships are woven together.
Then there was the mystery of why there was a bridge adjacent to or near to so many of the fires, usually over water but sometimes over rail tracks. What did this mean? Since everything else about this seems to be loaded with meaning, this must mean something.
Finally there was this "just down the street" pattern that was seen in so many of the relationships between the fires.
But the answer is simple. The arsonist was trying to tell us, in the form of these complex clues, that he had a Scottish name.
The most famous place in Scotland is the Royal Mile. Edinburgh Castle, where the king originally lived, is at one end and Holyroodhouse Palace, which was built later and was the royal residence until Scotland joined Britain in 1707, is at the other end. The Royal Mile is just over a mile.
In the following image, from Google Earth, the red line at the left is Edinburgh Castle and the line at the right is Holyroodhouse Palace. The Royal Mile is the street that runs between the two.
This is a pic that I took of along the Royal Mile, from the western end near the castle looking eastward.
Edinburgh Castle, the original center of Scotland, is on an elevation above it's surroundings. Three images from Google Street View.
The Loretto Academy, although not a castle or fortification, is also on an elevation in a very similar way. This, along with the site of the Burning Spring Wax Museum and the Mount Carmel Shrine is on the highest elevation in Niagara Falls just as Edinburgh Castle is on the highest elevation in Edinburgh. The Loretto Academy represents Edinburgh Castle. The building to the upper left, with the red roof, is the Mount Carmel Shrine. Image from Google Street View.
INFLUENCES
There was a major urban fire in Lockport on December 22, 1960, during Christmas shopping. The arsonist would have been in his early teens at the time. I think he was influenced by this fire and the fires described above in downtown Niagara Falls NY and Toronto were attempts to replicate it, by getting the fire to spread from one building to another.
One thing that I have never seen written about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in 1963, is that, not far from the site of the assassination, lived an eight-year-old boy named John Hinckley Jr., who would later attempt a presidential assassination himself. Right in the middle of the extensive Niagara County arson fires of 1976 lived an eight-year-old boy named Timothy McVeigh.
For more about crime see "Insights Into Major Crimes", September 2024.
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