In this episode of Under the Pines, we investigate The Shoe Box Murder Mystery, an 1886 Wallingford, Connecticut unsolved murder and cold case in which a man’s torso was found packed inside a wooden shoe box, with arsenic later found in his stomach. It remains one of the strangest and most enduring unsolved true crime cases in Connecticut history.

This is a story about murder, dismemberment, and erasure. The victim was never definitively identified. The killer was never caught. Investigators traced the box from Wallingford to Fall River and then to Chicago, followed false leads, found more remains, and still could not close the distance between evidence and certainty.

We also look at the rumor that grew around the silence: local fire theories, whispers of a Haymarket connection, the well story, Mabel Gage, Shoebox Road, and the way an old unsolved case can drift from record into folklore when time refuses to let it rest.

This episode contains discussion of homicide, dismemberment, and poisoning. Listener discretion is advised.

Sources:The Shoe Box Murder Mystery — Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project — https://connecticuthistory.org/the-shoebox-murder-mystery/
August 8: The Shoe Box Murder of 1886 — Today in Connecticut History — https://todayincthistory.com/2018/08/08/august-8-the-shoebox-murder-of-1886/
The Mystery of the Wallingford Shoebox Murder — New England Historical Society — https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/the-mystery-of-the-wallingford-shoebox-murder/
Wallingford’s 'Shoebox Murder' to be Featured on New Ghost-Hunting TV Show — Wallingford, CT Patch — https://patch.com/connecticut/wallingford/wallingford-s-shoebox-murder-be-featured-new-ghost-hunting-tv-show
Haymarket Affair | History, Aftermath, & Influence — Britannica — https://www.britannica.com/event/Haymarket-Riot
The Anarchists and the Haymarket Square Incident — American Experience | Official Site | PBS — https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/chicago-anarchists-and-haymarket-square-incident/

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