PA PA - Bedford, 'Mr. Bones' WhtMale 30-35, 585UMPA, 30-06 rifle, gold dental wk, camping equip, Oct'58

[Ann99]

If listing out the elements of Connors murder, and the circumstances if the discovery of the body is "forcing facts" I apologize.

If questioning a bag of random stuff like hardly used camping cookware, poetry books, and contact lenses outweighs everything else we know happened, I apologize for that too.

No need to apologize.
It is an interesting theory but we have very little facts to support one theory or the other. Meaning that he is either Connor or a Mystery Man.
My opinion,
Living in Ohio and hearing of the various rumors, I do not think a body would be taken to PA.
There are many places in SW Ohio that can and do “accommodate” a body.
I know you think a change of jurisdiction is a factor and that is something to consider.
Driving so far with a body and dumping a body so close to a PA State Police barracks is very risky. Also the “staging” with props is time consuming. Not a known habit of the mob
You could be right- I will agree to that possibility. It is a possibility.

BUT, my bet is Mr. Connor is in SW Ohio somewhere…

I think Mystery Man was another person, maybe reported locally (wherever his home may have been) as missing or maybe not.
Missing people still in 2021 are not always taken seriously by certain jurisdictions.
In the 1950’s LE, if notified, may have never reached out beyond a local jurisdiction or not searched at all.
Sad for the mystery man, regardless of who he is.

 

[Ozoner]

If listing out the elements of Connors murder, and the circumstances if the discovery of the body is "forcing facts" I apologize.

If questioning a bag of random stuff like hardly used camping cookware, poetry books, and contact lenses outweighs everything else we know happened, I apologize for that too.

Listing of facts isn't the issue; the commentary that distorts or mis-characterizes those facts is the issue.

 

[lep_98]

Edit: Mistaken post, looks like this might be the wrong Doe...

 

[CCJD]

Edit: Mistaken post, looks like this might be the wrong Doe...

The announcement on FB caught my eye ... then I saw that the "Mr Bones" Othram solved was in Idaho, not our (PA's) Mr Bones.
After 38 years, "Mr. Bones" is Identified

 

[othram]

Oh no! We would love to help with this case too. We will look into it.

 

[Richard]

"Mr. Bones" - Unidentified White Male, 30's,
Skeletal Remains found Oct 1958, Bedford, PA

 

[deadfoot13]

I'm very curious as to why no one has attempted to put a pair of glasses on the artist's rendering? I haven't read anything to indicate that his contact lenses were colored/tinted and not prescription lenses, which says to me that the man needed the lenses to see and not just for cosmetic purposes. I've worn contacts since the early 1980s and even when I've had lenses that I've worn 24/7 for months on end, I still have a pair of glasses to use in the event I lose/tear a lens or need to take them out. I can't fathom someone who is visually impaired setting off on an adventure without being able to see...

I wear glasses more now than I do contacts, and I've had mentioned to me (especially early on when I began to wear them more) that people didn't recognize me right away with glasses because they were used to seeing me without. If this man acquired the contacts in a relatively recent period before his death, then people are probably used to seeing him with glasses and may not recognize him without. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he probably didn't just start needing glasses in his mid-30s and decided to go straight to contacts instead of glasses. Even if he had worn contacts for years, someone had to have seen him regularly in glasses during his lifetime.

I understand that glasses weren't found with his remains, but if he was indeed killed elsewhere and dumped where he was found, his glasses could easily have been lost or thrown out along the way.

 

[Eddie99]

I suppose drawing glasses couldn't hurt.

I've often wondered where they found the contacts. Where they in the skull, or were they in a contact case.

 

[deadfoot13]

There are certainly a number of reasons people aren't reported missing. I would suggest that 2 people witnessing Connor get shot in the head, is a pretty good reason not to file a missing person's report.

To me, this just adds to the list of reasons why it could be Connor.

1. Not reported missing (they knew he was dead)
2. The physical size of Connor vs. Mr bones. Both very large (I think 95th percentile for that time)
3. Connor shot in head. Bones shot in head
4. Decomposition of Mr bones, aligns with Connor murder.
5. The murder was seen, at the exact 1/2 way point between Lima, and Bedford. (An experienced criminal, would have preferred to place evidence in different states. Which he was.)
6. If the killer didn't realize the victim wore contacts. That goes a long way to explain why there was no contact case, or solutions found with the body. I hasten to add, if this guy WAS some beatnik, disturbed veteran wandering the countryside with biker type clothing, reading 30 year old physics textbooks, and poetry..... how did he clean his contacts?

BBM

When I first started wearing contacts, I had to put little salt tablets in distilled water and soak the lenses overnight, and every week I had to put them in an enzyme solution in a special container.

This article, while a little outdated, indicates that prior to the salt tab method, there was heat involved in disinfecting:

https://www.clspectrum.com/issues/2006/june-2006/20-years-and-beyond-a-brief-history-of-modern-len

History of Lens Care

Originally heat was the only approved method of contact lens disinfection. It was complicated: Patients first used a separate cleaner to clean the lens, which they then rinsed off with homemade saline (more on that later) before placing the lens and saline into a heating unit (plugged into the wall) for disinfection. Additional weekly cleaning with proteolytic enzyme tablets was necessary for these long-life lenses.

Lens wearers made the homemade saline with salt tablets and distilled water — which resulted in increased incidence of bacterial and other infections.

Modern lens care uses all-in-one-bottle technologies: Multipurpose solution products contain surfactant cleaning agents, disinfectants, protein removers and lubricants all in the same bottle for convenience.

 

[haroldchasen]

Oh no! We would love to help with this case too. We will look into it.

Please do. I believe that the items found with the remains as well as the skeleton are in a barrel in Bedford, possibly the state police ? He has not been buried. He also had a canteen if that helps with DNA.
I live about an hour away from Bedford. I’ve always wondered about him.

 

[Richard]

Please do. I believe that the items found with the remains as well as the skeleton are in a barrel in Bedford, possibly the state police ? He has not been buried. He also had a canteen if that helps with DNA.
I live about an hour away from Bedford. I’ve always wondered about him.

When I first posted this case on Websleuths, back in 2005, the skeletal remains had, in fact, been (since 1958) maintained in a cardboard container in an evidence locker. Whether or not they were ever buried is something I cannot answer. Here is what I quoted from a 2001 newspaper article on the subject:

(Quote) So he sits -- bones, mostly -- packed with his belongings inside a 3-foot-tall cardboard drum, locked away in the county sheriff's cramped evidence room, sharing quarters with confiscated marijuana plants and seized weaponry. Or he does for now.

Next week, the Bedford County district attorney goes up against the solicitor for the county sheriff's office. They'll argue in Common Pleas Court whether it's time to bury the remains or cart Mr. Bones' drum off to the local state police barracks for more safekeeping. "This poor guy has been sitting around this long," said Sheriff Gordon Diehl. "Let's finally treat his remains properly. He's a human being.

"But he's also live evidence in an unsolved homicide investigation, District Attorney Dwight Diehl, no relation to the sheriff, argues in court papers."The odds might be against us," said state Trooper Joseph Kovel, the investigator who three months ago inherited the case and its attendant binder of reports typed during the Eisenhower administration... (Unquote)

LINK:

PA - PA - Bedford, 'Mr. Bones' WhtMale 30-35, 585UMPA, 30-06 rifle, gold dental wk, camping equip, Oct'58

 

[Magnum P.E.]

I would like to clarify some things. There was no exhumation of Conner’s parents, and so no DNA comparison was made to them. The DNA tests used could not rule Conner out either. What is reported as a ruleout is actually a “no match”,which is quite a different animal.
Mr. B may be Conner, he may not be. When we get modern DNA testing done, then we will know for sure. CODIS is a powerful and good tool for some purposes, but not the identification of remains.
As I have said before, I looked at hundreds of missing men, starting close to Bedford and moving progressively further away. Conner was the ONLY candidate for which I could not find a disqualification.
Add that to Conner’s killer being seen washing blood out of his sedan delivery vehicle exactly halfway between Lima and Bedford, and the rifle found in Bedford with Mr. B being sold in the town where Conner’s killer lived (Ft. Wayne, Indiana). It is enough to give the most skeptical person cause to say “Hmmm…..”
There are a few other things I know but can’t say. The point is, I didn’t look for reasons to match Mr. B and Chuck Conner, I looked hard for reasons to exclude him. Didn’t find any.
If modern DNA testing is to be done on Mr.B, I hope you all will kick in a few dollars. I know I will.

 

[Eddie99]

Magnum,

If I remember correctly (it's been a while).

I looked for matches too, never found anything on namus. There were only a few men over 6'3" listed

Then one day I was Googling around and a new namus profile popped up in the results.
As I read the profile, I stood up from my chair.

I went to WS, and I saw your post about finding someone previously unlisted. I knew that you must have been referring to Connor.
About an hour of searching - I pieced together as much as I could about the situation.

Ft. Wayne connection.
The unusually large size.
Shot with a rifle
Shot in the head with a rifle.
Cadiz Ohio:
Not only the location, but the guy writing the license plate down on the shed door)
Which gave credence to the witness seeing blood soaked rags.
The lack of transportation linked with victim.

It just all fit. Everything just fit.

Then when they said no match, in my mind I thought the dna was run on the bones & parents. Even then, I remained convinced you figured it out. And there must be something off in the family tree.

Then I learned there was no testing. And what "no match" meant.

I think you did a great job running this down,
And I will bet everything in my pocket that you will be proven correct.

I would also bet the farm that RF had connections to that area.

Lastly. I would consider a wager that,

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Magnum,

If I remember correctly (it's been a while).

I looked for matches too, never found anything on namus. There were only a few men over 6'3" listed

Then one day I was Googling around and a new namus profile popped up in the results.
As I read the profile, I stood up from my chair.

I went to WS, and I saw your post about finding someone previously unlisted. I knew that you must have been referring to Connor.
About an hour of searching - I pieced together as much as I could about the situation.

Ft. Wayne connection.
The unusually large size.
Shot with a rifle
Shot in the head with a rifle.
Cadiz Ohio:
Not only the location, but the guy writing the license plate down on the shed door)
Which gave credence to the witness seeing blood soaked rags.
The lack of transportation linked with victim.

It just all fit. Everything just fit.

Then when they said no match, in my mind I thought the dna was run on the bones & parents. Even then, I remained convinced you figured it out. And there must be something off in the family tree.

Then I learned there was no testing. And what "no match" meant.

I think you did a great job running this down,
And I will bet everything in my pocket that you will be proven correct.

I would also bet the farm that RF had connections to that area.

Lastly. I would consider a wager that,

Hi Eddie, CODIS would actually have worked to say yay or nay if Conner’s parents’ remains had been tested, but not with the relatives who were. Conner wasn’t listed in any missing person database, I found the news story of the infamous “Bodyless Murder Trial” in a search. We got Ohio to put him into NamUS and that’s where you saw him. I tried very hard to find a reason he could not be Mr.B but couldn’t.

I don’t know if Conner is Mr.B, but if he isn’t he ought to be!

 

[Eddie99]

I'm wondering why they don't exhume the parents? That's seems odd to me they haven't done this. I realize everyone involves is gone now, but they were still people.

I want to clarify. When I read your initial WS post, I figured that he ended up on namus as a result of your research.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

I'm wondering why they don't exhume the parents? That's seems odd to me they haven't done this. I realize everyone involves is gone now, but they were still people.

I want to clarify. When I read your initial WS post, I figured that he ended up on namus as a result of your research.

Eddie I think it would take a close relative to go to a judge and request it, and I don’t know who would bear the cost of the court proceedings and the exhumation itself. That is why closest living relatives are used, a cheek swab is much cheaper and faster, and no court order is required.
Maybe someone who knows more about exhumations than I do can comment.

 

[mikkismom]

No need to exhume the parents. Charles Conner has living relatives.

 

[Eddie99]

How do you know that, Mikismom?

 

[mikkismom]

How do you know that, Mikismom?

The mystery of ‘Mr. Bones’ - The Lima News

 

[John/Jane Doe]

Information on Charles Conner.

Charles Conner – The Charley Project