For fans of the Somerton Man, there would seem to be no obvious end to the list of similar puzzling cold cases to snoop around. One I found recently first properly surfaced in October 2005 in an article by Carol Smith in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called “The cipher in room 214” (though in the sense of a non-person ‘cipher’, rather than a cryptographic cipher).
This is the case of the woman who put her name down as ‘Mary Anderson’ when she signed in to Seattle’s Hotel Vintage Park on the 9th October 1996. As Smith wrote:-
“She made no phone calls. Ordered nothing from room service. Instead, in some unknown sequence, she put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, applied pink Estée Lauder lipstick and combed her short auburn hair. She wrote a note on hotel stationery, opened her Bible to the 23rd Psalm and mixed some cyanide into a glass of Metamucil.
Then she drank it.“
The note said:
“To whom it may concern: I have decided to end my life and no one is responsible for my death. Mary Anderson.
“P.S. I have no relatives. You can use my body as you choose.“
Like our acquaintance from a certain South Australian beach, the woman had no identification – no keys, no credit cards, no tags on her luggage, no fingerprint match. The name, New York address and phone number she had given were all false. And every tiny cluette, as with the Somerton Man, subsequently led the investigation nowhere.
To read more, there is a Doe Network entry, and – as you long-numbed Netizens doubtless already expected – a Mary Anderson cold case Facebook page, where recent postings highlight the suggestion that she may have been Mary Corinne Amos.
Though this is a possibility web researchers have long looked at, it all feels quite strange to me. Surely dental records and/or autopsy photographs should be able to rule this out or in very quickly? But this seems never to have happened, there’s no clear reason why not.
By way of comparison: in 2014, thanks to the Doe Network, a different Mary Anderson (Mary Lynn Anderson) was identified after three decades, closing an equally long-standing cold case. But it doesn’t seem obvious to me why Mary Corinne Amos hasn’t yet been forensically tested against the Room 214 ‘Mary Anderson’: so perhaps I’m missing something.
I don’t know: even though the ‘Mary Anderson’ and Somerton Man cold cases share similar problems of ‘taglessness’ (for want of a better word), I find the latter extremely hard to accept as a suicide. And that’s not because of a lack of suicide note (which are normally left in only a minority of instances), but rather because of a lack of… a whole load of different things. His death seems neither pre-planned, nor deliberate, nor misadventurous, nor even opportunistic. In that respect, the two cases seem to me to be worlds apart.
PS: when I tried to find ‘Mary Anderson’ on NamUs, I got absolutely nowhere: the cold case seems to have dropped off NamUs’s database. 🙁
Perhaps there’s a tendancy for us to read way too much mystery where there is even a hint, but her possessions certainly seem odd:
“The woman’s miscellaneous belongings — velor outfits, shoes, slippers, black leather gloves, leather purse, Estée Lauder cosmetics, toothpaste, perfume, Metamucil, Crystal Light, pantyhose, a kitchen bowl, and an iron — were packed in several luggage bags.”
I assume by “Iron” most of the English-speaking world mean an iron for pressing clothes (not a “curling iron” or something similar) [although I did once have a teacher who used to insist “…the Americans, who never learnt to speak English properly….” so perhaps all bets are off]
either way, the Iron and Bowl are a curious thing to be carrying to a hotel – surely hotels generally provide an iron that’s usually sufficient for guests, and I would think a serviced appartment (or a hotel that offers a kitchen) would likely have bowls for eating and food preparation.
Intuitively, I’d reason that these were brand new from a shopping exhibition (they seem odd wares to buy on a holiday, but it’s possible), but why would you be buying new things when you’re about to end everything – and the note and the “Lord is My Shepherd” (along with having some cyanide and (presumably) and the crystal light (which seems to be some sort of cordial) to disguise the flavour (and it’s sort of odd then that metamucil was used instead). It also seems odd to book 2 nights when 1 would do (I know there’s a lto of variants of cyanide, but I thought it was relatively fast acting, so there’s no hope of being revived with an antidote after 24 hours let alone 48). The lipstick seems a strange thing to even think about let alone do when you’re so miserable that you’re considering suicide (although perhaps there’s some instinct about dignity or something) – but it almost suggests waiting for visitors. Then there’s the note – which is very frank and pragmatic – something which again (at least to my mind) points away from someone who had to make sure they had lippy on for the person who found them – unless there’s some cyanide side-effect that blues the lips or something (but even then that seems remarkably thought out for someone who wants to go night-night).
Then again, people do wierd things, and we tend to over-analyse the mundane with a view to make things more interesting – so maybe it is exactly as the authorities have concluded.
Hello,
There is two things I find weird in this case :
1. Why if there is no word for eventual family, does she wrote “no one is responsible for my death” ? Who cares about her death if there is nobody after her ?
The hand who write the note wanted nobody search the thruth.
2. Anderson is a very common last name in US (as I believe). Is it possible she used a anagram ? It’s more easy to use a false identity with true element.
Maybe her name is something like : Mandy Arreson, Anna Drysomer, Maryna Sonder, Sandra Romney, Sandra Monrey, Mayra Donners, Maryanne Dors, Randy Ramones, Sandy Amerron, Dana Rymerson ?
I do not understand why people assume that because an individual has chosen to end their own life that means they don’t care about their personal appearance.
I believe Metamucil is/was given to patients undergoing chemotherapy. Could she have been undergoing chemotherapy for terminal cancer?
Perhaps she wished to choose the time and manner of her death. To make herself look as pretty as possible and die with some dignity rather than allowing nature to take it’s course.
(see Terry Pratchett: Choosing to die.)
There are other mysterious, tagless, deaths. The most famous, of course, is the Isdal Woman.
Then there’s Peter Bergmann (a pseudonym), whose body was found near Sligo.
Finally, there’s Emmanuel Caillet, who died near the summit of Ben Alder. That was his real name.
I’ll leave you to make up your minds about which of these were suicides.
Removal of labels does make identification more difficult, but people remove labels from clothes for other reasons.
(PS: I had posted URLs for these, but my post was rejected as spam.)
Perhaps post-mortem photographed details such as what appears to be a circular (ring shaped) bruise around her left eye (orbit). Also it seems, from that same photograph, that eyebrow penciling may have been applied more heavily on her left brow. So, perhaps it was not she who applied the makeup before committing suicide. Also was any other handwritten material found near her?
A most likely scenario would be that she was a lover of a very wealthy (or well-known, prominent) person. So, if it was murder, could it be her lover ‘whodunnit” or maybe another one of the lover’s wives or girlfriends?
Note that I don’t refer to sex of, or sexual orientation of, the lover (if there was one).
Donald: thanks for the comment – the site should say that if you want to leave a link, replace the first ‘:’ and the last ‘.’ with spaces and I’ll add them back in when I approve the comment. 🙂
PS: as a programming aside, I meant to send you this a few days ago: http://www.tentimesmanifesto.com/ 🙂
Crystal Lite is/was a fruit flavored powdered drink mix — similar to Kool Aid. Crystal Lite was touted as being an energy boost. I’m not sure if it was sweetened with sugar or saccharin (artificial sweetener).
As far as dental records can be used for identification (in the US, anyway) billions of ’em! Just as the US has national data base for missing persons, child abductions, murder suspects, hit and run photos for both victim and suspect, illegal immigrants (and the persons who sell false ID to them) , w-e-l-l — take your pick!
Coroners are still most likely to produce positive ID’s. In the last twenty years or so, when coroners get a badly decomposed person, they are now able to reproduce the facial features of the skull — to a pretty good likeness. And, if there is a full skeleton, they can search for even nicks and scratches, signs of bone disease or old injuries…….
The large (?) ‘kitchen bowl’ probably was her ‘bathing bowl’. She probably would have packed her make-up, lotions, and meds into it, and packed the whole collection into her suitcase.
Having been on the run (with my two children) I had to pack all of our clothing, and one favorite personal item/toy/book for each of us — into a small metal footlocker. The bus system would only allow one piece of luggage weighing no more than thirty pounds. Pets, of any kind, were not allowed on buses. So, on an earlier occasion, by train, the conductor offered to feed and water our beloved cat — and transfer her, with us, to the next transfer train. (He did so.)
So, I wonder if our mystery woman may have been running a similar course to mine. Bus or train? Would airplane travel have been available to her?
RE the NamUs DB….I camree across a forum thread where they’d been discussing this case quite thoroughly (some 600 odd posts).
They’d apparently lobbied to have it listed on NamUs, and it had been promised, but every few years there’s a comment in the thread saying “not listed yet”
It’s got all the normal forum repetition, speculation and everything you’d expect, but if you anyones interested:
www websleuths com/forums/showthread.php?48613-WA-Seattle-WhtFem-159UFWA-33-45-Suicide-in-Hotel-Alias-quot-Mary-Anderson-quot-Oct-96
Nick, These cases are scarily common place. Five years later in the same state (where i live) Lyle Stevik another unknown person killed themselves in a rented room.
With regards to the Crystal Lite, I suspect it was used to make the Metamucil taste better. I have never tried either but I am told Meatamucil doesn’t exactly taste very nice.
Per Donald and Tyler, I’m intrigued by the Isdal Woman, Peter Bergmann, and Lyle Stevik cases. Annadale Jane Doe, Joseph Newton Chandler III, and Lori Erica Ruff are also interesting and in a similar vein.
I’ve also followed the case of Benjamin Kyle, an unidentified amnesia victim for several years. There was an announcement a couple of weeks ago stating that his identity had finally been discovered, and he will release it publicly after meeting with his long-lost family.
If there is any of her DNA she can be entered into some sort of DNA search pool.
Yes her DNA is being processed in order to identify her or to find a relative of her.