In 1954, the brutally-decapitated body of Mary Grimes is found on the railroad tracks outside Xenia, Ohio. Then a bizarre rumor begins to swirl: Mary might secretly be alive. But if that’s true… who was the woman on the tracks?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the mystery surrounding Mary Grimes's death?
With all your strength, you jam the long steel rod straight downward, deep into the grassy soil. There's a muffled thud. The rod has hit something hard. Something six feet below the surface. You glance over at the sheriff. He gives you a nod. Dig it up. It takes hours to get there, but eventually, that familiar thud rings out again. The blade of your shovel has made contact.
You brush away the dirt with your hands, uncovering the lid. This could definitely be the one. It's the exact style of coffin she was buried in. But then again, it's the style a lot of people around here get buried in. The sheriff is peering down at you from the edge of the hole. You receive another nod. Pry it open. There's a palpable energy in the air as you take up the crowbar.
The mystery that has plagued this town for so long is at last on the cusp of being answered. But as the lid comes off, your face falls. You know it right away. There are no answers for you here, only more questions. Because Mary Grimes is not in this coffin, and at this point, you have to wonder if she's even dead at all. January 10th, 1954.
The sun hasn't yet risen on the rural outskirts of Xenia, Ohio. In these last few moments before daybreak, all is perfectly silent and still, but now a train approaches from the east. The locomotive's engineer rubs his eyes as he gazes warily out the windshield. He's driven these tracks, from Columbus to Xenia, dozens, maybe hundreds of times over the years.
Chapter 2: Who discovered the body on the railroad tracks?
It's a remarkably uninteresting route, so when he notices something unusual up ahead, a flash of fabric near the tracks, he's immediately on alert. As the train pushes through the morning haze, the scene comes into view. The fabric is a man's pant leg. He's walking briskly away from the tracks, as though he'd been loitering there until the train appeared.
The man keeps his head turned away so that the engineer can't make out his face. Now, this could be because the train's headlights are so blindingly bright. Or maybe it's because the man doesn't want to be identified.
Out of an abundance of caution, the engineer prepares to pull on the cord that'll sound the train's whistle, just to make absolutely sure that this man hears and sees the locomotive, even though he's no longer right next to the tracks. But before he can sound it, something else catches his eye.
More fabric, a pile of it even, lying across the eastbound train tracks, which run directly parallel to the westbound tracks the engineer's train is currently traveling. As he draws closer, the engineer finally realizes it's not a pile of fabric at all. It's the body of a black woman, and her head, or rather, what's left of her head, is positioned squarely across one of the track's metal rails.
Evidently, an eastbound train has already passed through this morning. The engineer quickly initiates the brakes, and the deafening squeal of metal on metal echoes amongst the bare trees. As the train comes to a stop, the engineer jumps from the locomotive to the ground outside. Shivering, he rushes over to the body. He abruptly stops in his tracks once he gets near.
A strange, animalistic sound he's never made before inadvertently escapes his lips. The scene is unthinkably gruesome. The woman's head is almost entirely decapitated from her body. The engineer turns to look for the man that was here just a few moments ago, but there's no one. He listens for footsteps, but he hears only trees creaking in the breeze, in the guttural growl of the train engine.
The man is gone. Later that same morning, 60-year-old Ollie Grimes is in the kitchen of his small home in Xenia, taking in the morning paper. The phone rings, and somehow, deep down, Ollie knows it's about Mary before he even answers it. And calls about Mary are rarely good news. He's been worried about his 32-year-old daughter for some time. Life has been rough on Mary for these past few years.
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Chapter 3: What is Ollie Grimes's reaction to the news about Mary?
First, her husband deserted her and their two children. Last time Ollie heard, the deadbeat was living in Oklahoma. Then, unable to secure welfare and earning a meager weekly salary, Mary was forced to give up her two small boys and place them in children's homes. Mary works the late shift at a supper club, and that's another thing Ollie worries about.
The Alpha Supper Club is situated in a rough part of town, near the Lone Pine, a seedy roadside tavern where illegal gambling, knife fights, and allegedly prostitution take place. Out in the back of Lone Pine, a woman was murdered some years back, and more recently, a man who worked at the tavern was beaten to death in a separate incident.
Nothing good happens in that part of town, Ollie's convinced. Not that Mary's home life is any better. She's currently living with her boyfriend, a man named William Bird, who is 13 years her senior. Bird has a wicked temper and once threatened Mary with a shotgun. Ollie's always told Mary that her boyfriend was trouble. Well, tried to, anyway. The phone lets out another ring.
Embracing himself for the worst, Ollie picks up the receiver. The voice on the other end asks for George Oliver Grimes. No one has called Ollie by his given name in years. This is gonna be bad news, alright. The voice goes on. They're calling from the Greene County Sheriff's Office.
They believe that Ollie's daughter, Mary, was the one found earlier that morning on the train tracks just outside city limits. Xenia is a small town, so it wasn't difficult to put together an educated guess. Still, though, Ollie's presence is requested at the coroner's office to identify the body. Minutes later, Ollie Grimes is there, looking down at the mutilated corpse on the slab.
Fighting through tears and grief, he positively identifies the body as his daughter, Mary Grimes Wallace. The sight is so ghastly that he quickly looks away. It's all too much. He feels like he's going to be sick. The coroner takes his cue and covers the body back up. Once Ollie regains his composure, he turns to face the other two men in the room, the coroner and Sheriff Clarence Stewart.
Ollie asks the men how it happened. How did his daughter wind up with her head on those tracks? The men take a moment, as though formulating the right way to put it. Finally, the coroner explains that based on his examination, they're considering it a possible homicide. Ollie knows what the possible is meant to mean.
They think Mary committed suicide by laying her head on the railroad tracks just outside of town. And Ollie can't bring himself to disagree with their theory. His daughter had not been in a good mental state for quite some time. Ollie nods sadly and informs the sheriff of an incident from nine days prior, when Mary witnessed a murder.
It happened in an apartment in Dayton, a lover's quarrel gone horribly wrong. The sheriff knows all too well the kind of effect that sort of trauma can have on a person. He asks if Ollie could describe Mary's mental state as of late, to which Ollie admits that she's been depressed.
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Chapter 4: Why is William Bird a suspect in Mary's death?
He mentions the eyewitness report from the train engineer that a mysterious man was seen walking away from the train tracks the moment Mary's body was discovered. When the police arrived on scene and scoured the area for any sign of him, he was gone. Ollie interrupts the sheriff. His eyes lit up with rage. As calmly as he can, he explains that he knows exactly where they can find this man.
Because there's no doubt in Ollie's mind who it is. It's Mary's boyfriend, the one with the bad temper and the loaded shotgun. Sheriff Stewart takes out his notepad and jots down the name. William Byrd. Hey, Nexpo here. As many of you know, Mr. Ballin and Ballin Studios have been a huge help in bringing this podcast to life.
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The image of Ollie Grimes' rage-filled face is all that Sheriff Stewart can think of as he makes his way to Mary's house. He knocks on the front door, and as expected, her boyfriend, William Byrd, answers. Byrd seems shocked by the news of Mary's death. He's even more shocked when the sheriff informs him that he's under arrest. Byrd insists that he's innocent.
He says that Mary came home from work at around 3 in the morning, and which time he went to sleep. Sheriff Stewart isn't buying it, though. He's heard every excuse before. Besides, the picture Mary's father paints of Bird is one of a man capable of great violence. So, Bird is placed in a holding cell. And he waits. Weeks go by. The sheriff finds no concrete evidence linking Bird to Mary's death.
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Chapter 5: What new lead does Sheriff Stewart pursue?
Half the town thinks he let the murderer go, and the other half thinks he's incompetent. But unbeknownst to everyone, he's recently received a tip. And that very tip has led the sheriff to develop a strange theory. He's keeping the details of this theory to himself, but he does let one detail slip out to the community.
He now believes that there's a car submerged in the muddy water at the bottom of the quarry just outside Xenia. And inside that car is evidence that'll help him solve the Mary Grimes Wallace mystery. It's March 26th, 1954. Sheriff Stewart watches a professional diver suit up. One of the sheriff's deputies rows the diver out to the middle of the quarry. The rowboat stops.
The diver jumps into the frigid water and begins his descent to the murky depths below. Sheriff Stewart is not alone on the shore. A crowd has gathered. Hundreds of spectators are on site. People from Xenia and surrounding towns. Mary's decapitated body is all anyone's talked about for these last two months, and so they all stand riveted, waiting for the diver to surface.
Perhaps no one's more anxious in this moment than Sheriff Stewart. He's desperate to score a win, to avoid humiliation. He spots a reporter making his way through the crowd. The last thing he needs is some newspaper man distracting him while he's focusing on what's happening out in the quarry. The reporter approaches and asks for a statement.
The sheriff directs the reporter to a deputy standing close by. The deputy's already been briefed by Sheriff Stewart. He knows that Stewart's strange theory must remain a secret, at least until they find more evidence. But there are some details he can offer up on the record. The deputy explains that they believe that there's an old Plymouth sedan at the bottom of the quarry.
The sedan once belonged to a man named Robert Betts, another local African-American who was brutally murdered in 1951. After Betts was killed, his Plymouth disappeared and was never seen again. Well, until today. At least, that's the home of the Greene County Sheriff's Department. The reporter wants to know what the connection is between Robert Betts and Mary Grimes Wallace.
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of the car in the quarry?
Yet all the deputy can disclose is that Betts worked as a janitor at the Lone Pine, the Seedy Tavern next to the Supper Club, or Mary worked as a cook. He has to keep any other information under wraps. But if they find what they think they're going to find in that Plymouth, Mary's case will break wide open.
We're talking explosive revelations, perhaps multiple arrests, and there will be many people, perhaps even people standing in this crown today, who will have to answer for why they didn't come forward earlier and volunteer information. The reporter's scribbling fast on his small notepad. He's completely buying this secret theory angle, but Sheriff Stewart isn't so sure anymore.
As he listens to the deputy talk, he begins to doubt the legitimacy of the tip he received. He squeezes his eyes closed and prays that the diver comes back with something good. Bubbles break on the surface of the quarry near where the diver went in. The sheriff, the deputy, and the reporter all crane their necks in anticipation. A hush falls over the crowd.
At last, the diver emerges from the water, and in his hands, he has nothing. There's no car in the quarry at all. The dive, the search, it's all a bust. Inside, Sheriff Stewart is seething. He's irritated at himself for revealing anything to the public before they had actual proof. He was just so hopeful and so determined for the people of his county to not think of him as a joke.
And now he looks like an even bigger fool than ever. What was it about this case that makes it so hard to solve, he wonders. It's as though the harder he tries to find answers, the further from the truth he gets.
1959 five years after william bird's girlfriend mary grimes wallace was found dead on the train tracks her head nearly severed from her body bird sits at the bar inside the lone pine tavern nursing a beer the tavern's lights are dim and the music is loud the place is packed some are here looking for action others looking for trouble William, though, just wants to have a drink alone.
But he's never really alone. Not in and around Xenia, at least. A woman sits down next to Bird. She casts a glance in his direction, and immediately a look of disgust comes over her face. Bird knows the expression well by this point. She recognizes him. Everyone here does. The woman immediately leaves to find another place to sit.
Bird was never formally charged in connection with Mary's death, but he was held in county jail for a month. That alone ruined his reputation. Every day since, he's had to endure the whispers of passers-by. He knows what they all think of him. But now, a man sits down on the empty stool next to Bird. He doesn't give the typical disapproving side-eye, and he doesn't glance around for a new seat.
Instead, he turns to Bird and asks him if he heard the rumor going around town. Bird has no idea what the man is talking about. And so, the man proceeds to tell him that Mary was recently seen by someone in Cincinnati, alive. Unable to believe what he's hearing, Bird asks the man to repeat what he just said. The man obliges. People are saying that Mary Grimes might not be dead after all.
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