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In January, 1956, a man from Brooklyn,
New York reported to police that his brother, Martin Zywotho, who he
believed was searching for the Lost Dutchman
Mine, had been missing for
several weeks. A month later, the missing man’s body was found with a
bullet hole above his right temple. Although his gun was found under the
body, the death was ruled suicide.
In April of 1958, a deserted campsite
was discovered on the northern edge of the mountain. At the campsite were
a bloodstained blanket, a Geiger counter, a gun-cleaning kit, but no gun,
cooking utensils, and some letters, from which the names and addresses had
been torn from. No trace of the camp’s occupant was ever found.
In 1959, two men by the names of
Stanley Hernandez and Benjamin Ferreira, thought they had found the
“jack-pot.” However, what they actually discovered was pyrite, more often
called “Fool’s Gold.” But, these two were sure they had found the elusive
mine. Whether out of greed or, some kind of dispute over how they would
handle their new found wealth, Hernandez killed his friend Ferreira.
That same year, Robert St. Marie, who
was attempted to drill a hole all the way through Weaver’s Needle, was
killed by prospector Edward Piper. Two months later, Piper was found dead.
The cause of death was said to have been a "perforated ulcer."
Two more men who were hiking in the
Superstitions that year became involved in some kind of dispute. Lavern
Rowlee was shot by Ralph Thomas, who reported that he had been attacked by
Rowlee and shot the other man in self-defense.
In October 1960, a group of hikers
found a headless skeleton near the foot of a cliff on Superstition
Mountain. Four days later, an investigation determined it belonged to an
Austrian student named Franz Harrier.
Five days later, another skeleton was
found, which was identified the next month to be that of William Richard
Harvey, a painter from San Francisco. The cause of death was unknown.
In January, 1961, a family picnicking
near the edge of the mountain discovered the body of Hilmer Charles Bohen
buried beneath the sand. Bohen was a Utah prospector who had been shot in
the back.
Two months later, another prospector
from Denver named Walter J. Mowry was found in Needle Canyon. His
bullet-ridden body was removed to the coroner’s, who ruled it a suicide.
Five days later, another skeleton was
found, which was later identified as William Richard Harvey, a painter
from San Francisco. The cause of death was undetermined.
In the Fall of 1961, police began
searching for a prospector by the name of Jay Clapp, who had been working
on Superstition Mountain on and off for a decade and a half. Clapp had
been missing since July. After a thorough search, the hunt was called off.
Three years later his headless skeleton was finally discovered.
In 1963, a man named Vance Bacon, also
working to tunnel through Weaver’s Needle, fell to his death. Allegedly,
there were rifle shots and indications of foul play.
The follow year, brothers, Richard and
Robert Kremis, were found dead at the bottom of a high cliff. That same
year, an elderly couple was found murdered in an automobile.
In 1970, a seasoned prospector named
Al Morrow was killed by a boulder that fell into a tunnel that he was
digging.
In 1973, Charles Lewing shot Ladislas
Guerrero at a mountain campsite. Lewing claimed self-defense.
In 1976, a prospector named Howard
Polling was found dead of a gunshot wound. The following year another man
named Dennis Brown, was also found dead of a gunshot wound.
In 1978, a man named Manuel Valdez was
murdered in the Superstitions.
Two years later, in 1980, the skeleton
of a man named Rick Fenning's skeleton was found.
In 1984, a prospector named Walt
Gassler, who had been searching for the Lost Dutchman for most of his
life, was found dead in the Superstitions. In his pack was gold ore, later
discovered to be identical to that of the rich ore Jacob Waltz had found
earlier.
Are these many deaths part of the old
Apache
curse? Does the Lost Dutchman Mine really even exist, or is it nothing
more than a “tall tale” perpetuated throughout the years? Scientists say
that the Superstition Mountains don’t contain the type of mineral deposits
that produces gold. So, if any of the earlier tales of gold founds are
true, where did it come from? Some historians believe that any gold found
in this rugged terrain was probably hidden there, perhaps even having been
the fabled lost Aztec treasure.
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