With Your Afternoon Espresso
There’s a rumor going around my high school that occasionally I’ll sneak up behind a particularly zoned-out student and pretend to cut their hair. Of course, I never would. And of course, that’s just a rumor, although the alleged site of me ssshhhhing the classroom while reaching for a pair of scissors is surely funny.
If such a tale were true, however, then one might assume I took inspiration from a particular urban legend hailing from Mississippi.
The First Victims
Mary Evelyn Briggs and Edna Marie Hydel thought they were safe within the confines of the convent they were staying at. This was a place of the Lord, after all. A peaceful night’s sleep should be expected. That is, unless, an unidentified person creeps in through your window in search of havoc to wreak.
Briggs was the only one of the pair who got a look at the intruder, describing him as “a kind of short, fat man.” He had a shiny object in his hands, what we can now deduce to be a pair of scissors. While playing with Briggs hair, the man told her to stay quiet and he attempted to steal another lock for his presumed collection.
Naturally, Briggs let out a scream and the man disappeared out of the window and out of her life. Yet each of them would be missing some of their hair, and they weren’t the only ones.
Panic Around Pascagoula
With a strict lights-out policy brought on by the country being at war with the Axis Powers of World War II, the conditions were ripe for some tom-foolery. Due to a nighttime curfew, the town would descend into darkness, allowing for the phantom barber to creep out of the shadows for his nasty work.
More victims were to follow. A Mrs. R.E. Taylor recalled awakening to a horrible smell in the middle of the night. Of course, she checked her head and some hair was missing. She must have not nailed her windows shut, like much of the town had.
Working men stopped taking night shifts in order to be home for their loved ones. Firearm permits skyrocketed. The police even offered a cash reward which would be worth over $5,000 today. Yet, the haircuts continued.
A Suspect
Eventually, a mid-50 year old German chemist was arrested for a previous attack on the Heidelberg family; one which included a physical beat down via an iron pipe, not the typical scissor assault the town had gotten used to.
William Dolan was charged with attempted murder and naturally, police found scissors and collections of hair at his house. All the signs seemed to be pointing towards Dolan as the scissor bandit, and he was convicted for the crime.
Yet Dolan maintained his innocence. He even appealed to the state governor and insisted on taking a polygraph test, something seen at the time as scientific and reliable. Still, the governor had been convinced of his innocence and ultimately granted Dolan his release after he spent three years in prison.
It Gets Weirder
After his release, Dolan moved out of Pascagoula. The German sympathizer signed over all of his assets to his wife and simply fell off the grid. Shortly thereafter, a body showed up in the Mississippi River and the Dolan family was called in to identify it.
Every family member who saw the body confirmed that it was indeed Dolan. The scars and tattoos on the body apparently were a match. Therefore, Dolan’s body was buried in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Before the burial, however, fingerprints magically appeared at a nearby FBI office. The prints belonged to Dolan and when the FBI tested them with the cadaver they only confirmed that the body was indeed not Dolan’s. In fact, the prints came from California after an arrest of someone claiming to be Dolan was made.
To boot, Dolan had taken out an insurance policy right before he left Mississippi. What’s more, he directed all payments to be made towards his wife. Knowing this, his wife attempted to claim the policy but the insurance company refused, knowing that the body buried in Bay St. Louis was not Dolan’s. The mystery lives on.