#WeirdStories

[theweeklynerdcaz]

New years eve podguyz podcast style. we go deep into 2023 and discuss what happened and the new plans for dominatiing the podcast world one day at a time.

[immortalscares]

This place is definitely not home. 🏠

(Creepy Horror Stories #01: "The Unknown Realm")

[husheduphistory]

Lena Clarke: The Mail, Murder, and Madness of West Palm Beach

It was a Monday evening, August 1st 1921, and Orlando Police Chief E.S. Vestal had an interesting story presented to him. The woman seated in front of his desk was Lena Clarke and she was insisting someone needed to go to a hotel downtown, specifically to room number eighty-seven, and arrest the thief inside. She identified the criminal as Fred Miltimore, and she promised if they went they would find him there. After making a phone call and verifying who she was, there was no reason for Chief Vestal to not believe her. When he sent the officers out he had no way of knowing what was about to unravel.

By all accounts Lena Marietta Thankful Clarke was a completely normal and highly intelligent child. Born in Vermont in 1886 to a well-known theologian, she, her two sisters, and brother moved around frequently until settling in West Palm Beach, Florida. The family was very successful and Lena, who began reading books on philosophy at the age of six, went on to volunteer her time working with the Red Cross, helping at her local church, and selling war bonds. As they grew older one sister became the West Palm Beach City Librarian, the other opened the first flower shop in Orlando, and her brother had a successful career working for the West Palm Beach post office for eight years until leaving in 1918. 1920 should have been a happy time for the family, but the end of the year marked the turning point in the life of Lena Clarke when her brother unexpectedly died.

After leaving the post office in 1918 due to severe hearing loss, her brother took to becoming an amateur taxidermist and a snake collector, losing his life two years into this new pursuit after being bitten by a coral snake on Christmas morning 1920. The loss would have been shocking to everyone, including his former coworkers at the post office. From 1911 to 1913 Clarke’s brother not only worked there, he was also the postmaster and when his predecessor left the job in 1920 the local businesses began to look to the familiar name of Clarke to fill the roll. Lena had already been working at the post office as an assistant, but a petition was written up for her to be appointed the new postmaster for West Palm Beach and soon thereafter thirty-five-year-old Lena Clarke had the job.

Lena Marietta Thankful Clarke. Image via findagrave.com.

Managing the workings of the post office presented many different tasks and  challenges including handling all the mail and postage, war bonds, and money orders, all of which meant there was always a large amount of cash circulating in and out of the building. On July 26th 1921 it seemed it was business as usual when Clarke had two registered mail sacks full of cash sent off to the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, but when the sacks arrived in Atlanta and were opened, there was no cash to be found. Instead of the money, between $31,000 and $42,000 depending on varying accounts, the bank found mail order catalogs cut down to the size of dollar bills. Today’s equivalent of almost half a million dollars was missing.

Understandably, Clarke was one of the first people questioned about the disappearance of the money. After all, she was the postmaster of the West Palm Beach post office where the shipment originated from but she insisted she had no idea what had happened to the money. She went home that night and resumed her life until the following week when she hired a driver to take her to Orlando where she checked into room eighty-seven of the San Juan Hotel.  

What exactly transpired in the hotel is only known to Lena Clarke and Fred Miltimore, but the version of events that Police Chief Vestal was hearing was as strange as it was simple. Lena checked into the hotel under a fake name and met with Miltimore, a former coworker who once worked as a postal worker with Lena and was now the owner of a restaurant in Orlando. She claimed that she suspected her former coworker of the theft of the money that left her post office on the way to Atlanta the previous week and she confronted him about the crime. This was all interesting but Vestal had one very important question, if he sent officers there how did she know Miltimore would still be in the room and not on the run after their confrontation. Clarke told them she knew he would still be there, because she drugged him with morphine before coming to the police station. When officers arrived at room eighty-seven they did in fact find Miltimore, but he was dead with a bullet to the chest and a gun laying beside him.

When the officers returned to the station Clarke was still there and she was immediately questioned about the dead man in her hotel room. At first she denied that she shot him but she eventually admitted to the killing, claiming that it was Miltimore who stole the money from her post office and that he was going to frame her for the crime so she simply did what she had to do and shot him. Within days Clarke was in jail and charged with first degree murder.

Headline about the murder of Fred Miltimore frpm the Chicago Daily Tribune. Image via newspapers.com

Due to her job and family Lena Clarke was a well-known figure in West Palm Beach but when she was jailed for murder the only thing that soared higher than the shock was her popularity. Her jail cell became more of a sanctuary, and she decorated it herself with some of the many flowers, gifts, and mail she received while in prison. She was even permitted to paint her cell as she pleased and was given a small typewriter to pursue her writing ambitions, eventually taking up poetry and writing her autobiography that she sold through local newspapers for twenty-five cents each. But, for every person sending her flowers there was also a critic and newspapers took to printing cruel commentary on her appearance:

“Lena Mary Thankful Clarke, if you please, is a queer combination —a bundle of contradictions. In personal appearance and dress she is far from attractive. Her figure is heavy and uncorseted and her clothes smack of the backwoods.

Her shoes are generally without heels and her stockings of cotton. Her skin is very fine in texture but covered with large, disfiguring freckles. Miss Clarke’s only assets in appearance are her hair, which is decidedly Titian and naturally wavy, and her eyes, deep blue in color and absolutely straight and unwavering in their gaze.”

Headline about Lena Clarke writing poetry in prison from the New York Times. Image via palmbeachpast.org.

Despite the criticism she seemed to be rather calm and comfortable for an alleged cold-blooded murderer, but that part of her story changed. Lena recanted her confession, now claiming she never told the police that she was involved in the death of Fred Miltimore and that in reality she was so worried about the missing money that she at one point considered taking her own life. The stress of the situation was so bad that she said she could not remember exactly what transpired between the two the night of the murder. And what of that missing money? That story also changed multiple times. After her initial confession Lena later told Chief Vestal that in 1918 while she was working as an assistant to the postmaster there was a shortage of $38,000. She claimed she had always suspected Miltimore and feared he would somehow blame her for the theft in order to ruin her chance at one day becoming the new postmaster. She then told Chief Vestal that this recent theft of money was her fault, that it was done to cover the lingering debt from the 1918 money that she suspected Miltimore of taking. Somehow, this very convoluted story led up to her being in a hotel room with Miltimore, confronting him about the initial crime and begging him to sign a statement that he was in fact responsible for the 1918 theft which he refused to do before ending up dead. In another version of events given later while she was behind bars, Lena reportedly stated that this recent theft was a standalone crime and that yes money was stolen in 1918 but a man named Joseph Elwell loaned her enough money to cover up the loss. There were some major problems with this story, one being that Elwell could not be questioned because he had been shot and killed in New York City in 1920. Another issue is that the missing money that was replaced in the mail sacks with cut up catalogs a week before the Miltimore murder was traced directly back to Lena and her bank accounts.

The story of a man named Joseph Elwell helping Lena at some point was interesting to the police, not because of Elwell personally, but because it supported a theory of theirs. During the investigation multiple people tried desperately to find “who else” was involved in the crime for a simple reason, they could not believe that Lena had forged this plan and committed murder on her own because they felt very strongly that this could not have been carried out by a woman. Multiple leads were followed trying to rope a male accomplice into Miltimore’s murder but eventually they had to admit there was no evidence. Whatever transpired in room eighty-seven of the San Juan Hotel was committed by Lena and Lena alone.   

Newspaper article showing Lena Clarke and Fred Miltimore. Image via newspapers.com.

The trial of Lena Clarke was bound to be unusual, but what unfolded in the courtroom was outright baffling. Lena’s family came together and hired multiple law firms for their daughter and their defense of insanity was hard to argue with once Lena herself spoke. As she took the stand she placed an item down in front of her, a crystal ball, and she began to tell her bizarre story. In this lifetime, yes, she was Lena Clarke but this was not her first time here, according to her this was her thirteenth life here on Earth.

Those seated in the courtroom listened as Lena gazed into her crystal ball and described in detail her twelve previous lives including when she was the goddess Isis in ancient Egypt, the lifetime that ended when she was eaten by lions, the time where she was friends with Shakespeare and inspired the character of Ophelia, and of course her first life where she was present in the Garden of Eden alongside Adam and Eve when the universe was created. This may have been her thirteenth life, but she also knew it was going to be an eventful one. She already knew she was going to be found not guilty because next for her was serving as the Vice President of the United States before becoming President after the death of the head of the Socialist party President Eugene V. Debs. The subject of Lena’s sanity was part of many conversations about the crime and many, including Miltimore’s daughter, expressed the belief that Lena was “subject to hereditary insanity.”

In order to clear out the thick speculation, three psychiatrists were brought into the case to professionally evaluate Lena’s sanity. They were split on their decisions. Two believed she truly was insane, the third believed that she did know right from wrong when she chose to end Miltimore’s life. It only took the jury three hours to decide. On December 3rd 1921 Lena Clarke was found not guilty of first degree murder by reason of insanity and was to be committed to the Florida State Mental Hospital at Chattahoochee. Upon hearing her fate Lena was distraught, stating “I would rather be hung and buried here than go to Chattahoochee.”

Lena entered the Florida State Mental Hospital, but she did not have to mourn her fate for long, in less than two years she was released and she moved back home to West Palm Beach with her sister Maude and their mother. The remainder of Lena’s life passed by quietly. She did work for her church and the Red Cross with her name appearing in various newspaper articles about relief efforts in the 1940s and 1950s and she continued writing poetry and various works on church history. Her name, once emblazoned on newsprint next to words like “murder” and “insanity” remained largely out of the spotlight. She kept to herself, taught Sunday School, and continued to live with family members before passing away in 1967 at the age of eighty-one years old.

Today Lena Clarke lays at rest next to her sister in the Woodlawn Cemetery of West Palm Beach, Florida.

*****************************************************

Sources:

Bisbee daily review. [volume] (Bisbee, Ariz.), 14 Aug. 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024827/1921-08-14/ed-1/seq-7/>

Kleinberg, Eliot. “Florida History: The Story of West Palm Beach’s Murderous Postmistress.” The Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Post, 9 Jan. 2022, www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2022/01/09/lena-clarke-mysterious-murderous-postmistress-west-palm-beach/9084494002/.

Morrow, Jason Lucky. The Murdering Postal Woman, Lena Clarke, 1921, Historical Crime Detective, www.historicalcrimedetective.com/the-murdering-postal-woman-lena-clarke-1921/.

Pedersen, Ginger. “Going Postal, 1920s Style - The Strnage Case of Lena Clarke.” Going Postal, 1920s Style – The Strange Case of Lena Clarke, Palm Beach Past, 30 July 2021, palmbeachpast.org/2021/07/going-postal-1920s-style-the-strange-case-of-lena-clarke/.

Schiefer, Christine, and Em Schulz. A Haunted Road Atlas: Sinister Stops, Dangerous Destinations, and True Crime Tales. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2023.

The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]), 08 Aug. 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1921-08-08/ed-1/seq-3/>

[sliceoflife-stories-blog]

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[greektitaness]

Surrounded By Hooligans

So we were at my friend’s place one time, just chilling and his mum was not at home. 5 pm came in and everyone was like ‘let’s drink tea’, cause we are typical Indians like that. So obviously the guy whose house we were at offers to make it, even though I insist that it’s fine I’ll make it because I don’t trust guys with my food (Speaking from bad experience. I’m not trying to demean any male who can cook. If you are one, please come in my life.) 

Anywho, he’s been in the kitchen roughly for a half an hour and I’m worried, because it definitely doesn’t take that long of a time to make tea. He comes out minutes later with tea for all of us and well the contents of the cup do look like a tea. 

That’s it. 

That is where it’s resemblance to the commonly found drink ends. 

Because one sip of the horrid mixture sets in the realisation that the ‘tea’ tastes like the spice mix that you use for marinating chicken for chicken curry. We were all like ‘What the hell, dude?!’. And he just sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘I did not get any ginger, so I added the pre-made ginger garlic paste.’

[yourdisappointedarms]

“Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.” #hplovecraft #american #author #horror #weirdstories #deathanniversary #practicedying https://www.instagram.com/p/B9woI7uB9wb/?igshid=g2fc35b13ab5

[supersteviegeekout]

Reading a novel is like playing a game where all the choices have been made for you ahead of time by someone who is much better at this particular game. - The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern ~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~ I am a quarter of the way through this book and I'm just as torn as I was when reading The Night Circus. I like the characters, I love the concept, the magic involved, etc., but something about the way the story is laid out is weird for me. I'll still finish it before the end of the year, but this won't be a "fall into it" story for me. Have you read this yet? What did you think? ~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~ #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #bookswelove #bookaholic #amazingseries #booklover #booklife #starlesssea #erinmorgenstern #nightcircus #weirdstories #fantasy #puppylove #snuggletime #sweetpuppy #interestingconcept https://www.instagram.com/p/B6WtAwjHRnY/?igshid=1d2mznydduysf

[ruys]

Hay un bar junto a un callejón al que solo pueden entrar brujas.

Pero no todas las brujas: solo las que han descifrado al perro que vive en el callejón.

Descifrar al perro que vive en el callejón significa hablar con él y que luego de esa charla él voluntariamente te entregue su collar. Ese collar es tu acceso al bar.

El bar se llama Sweet Liberty, y aunque es invisible para las personas normales, quienes sin importar la hora del día solo pueden ver un local abandonado, vende cerveza y licor, y tiene amenidades como rocola, dardos y banda de covers los viernes.

[changterhune]

EPISODE 17 of TRIBAL MALFUNCTIONS is up now. Dig in. Things getting crazy!!! Link in bio! #tribalmalfunctions #podcast #cyberpunk #scifi #sciencefiction #stories #gangs #guns #thrillers #sfpodcast #sfstories #episode #weirdstories (at Scarborough, Maine) https://www.instagram.com/changztagram/p/BxGSqmOHoAF/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1d92thdncxliz

[jmgrimes-robison78]

I used to be a sponsored skater in San Francisco up into me early 20s! I was a rarity because this Sport didn’t have a lot of girls. one artist did my portrait of me on a longboard 🛹 I sadly do not remember her name I always wished to find her again. I was in a bad motorcycle crash and she came to my house and brought it to me. It really looks like me when I was younger. I have had it for 20 years now that is crazy to me lol now for #themoreyouknow post for today short history of the Longboard 🛹: Long before Tony Hawk or Christian Hosoi began carving up half pipes, there were #longboards. Longboarding originated in #Hawaii in the 1950s, where surfers customized their #skateboards, giving them longer decks and larger wheels to mimic the rolling motion of waves and balance required by #surfing.#funfact #funfacts #history #learnsomething #learnsomethingnew #weirdfacts #funfactswithjenice #mythandlegend #historyablastfromthepast #historyfacts #foodforthought #neverstoplearning #weirdstories #weirdhistory #learn and I always #blameitonthebuttercat #ooak #art #customskateboards #madeinsanfrancisco #sanfranciscoartist #oldschool #skatergirl #originalskateboards https://www.instagram.com/p/BwLrnEOBkIb/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1nh25j8zikndm

[immortalscares]

I hate nightmares. 😤 #DontWantThem #DontNeedThem

[grim-chi-blog]

Misconceptions

Me and my brother were going out to buy food because we need it. This random person said while we were passing them ‘awwww father and son’. And I was just there like WHaaaaaa, hold up

A) that’s my brother

B) I’m a girl

C) we’re like six years apart that means he’d have to had been six when he had me

So I was just there really confused and in my head I was just like ‘the frick’

[coffincuties]

Have you ever done it...in a coffin before? ⚰️🎉💉💉💉 coffincuties.com #coffincuties #getdown #coffinlife #sundayfunday #ghoul #lust #weirdstories #spooky #whatif

[illuminationsfantastic]

Next up from our Halloween/Horror Issue is this comedic tale from Philip J. Palacios. . Link in bio or www.IlluminationsFantastic.com . Artwork by @kennidesigns . #horror #horrorfiction #fiction #comedic #comedy #writing #dates #weirdstories #shortstories #strangetales #shortstory #halloween #scarystories #scarystory #zombies #october #fallseason #fallseason🍁 #autumn #autumnvibes🍁. 🎃 (at Nashville, Tennessee) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGK5XSgBqEM/?igshid=yucxpw5q3kh1

[killer-fun-podcast]

BONUS LIVE - Sept. 24, 2020

[juanmiguelidiazabal]

Hace unos días recibí mi ejemplar de #weirdstories editado por @editorialofidia Todavía no lo leí, pero me gustó mucho la encuadernación. Además, es refrescante ver una editorial argentina publicando libros en inglés. https://www.instagram.com/p/CDeIZeDFFBW/?igshid=qk5ccjtd7etg