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On April 21, 1980 unheralded Rosie Ruiz was the first woman to cross the finish line in the prestigious Boston Marathon. Her apparent victory in record time was immediately suspicious. First, everyone assumed Jacqueline Gareau was the leading female. Nobody saw Gareau lose the lead in the race at anytime after the eighth mile. Furthermore, Ruiz's running shoes were barely scuffed and she was hardly perspiring in the unseasonably warm weather. Two Harvard University students signed affidavits stating they saw Ruiz illegally enter the course just a few hundred yards from the finish line. Ruiz denied the accusations and maintained she had run unnoticed among a pack of male runners. Few people believed her story and she was subsequently disqualified after an investigation. To this day Ruiz has stubbornly refused to return her winner's medal, so Gareau was given a larger medal. Twenty five years later Gareau was ceremoniously allowed to break the tape--a thrill that Ruiz deprived her from experiencing in 1980. Ruiz had qualified to run in Boston by finishing the 1979 New York City Marathon with a decent time, but investigators discovered she had cheated there too. (She left the course after a few hundred yards, took a subway train to an area near the finish line, illegally re-entered the race and finished 26th.) Ruiz promised to prove her innocence by winning the 1980 New York City Marathon. She never showed up.
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Rosie
Ruiz
cheater
Boston
Marathon
Added: 30th November 2007
Views: 402
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
 
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One of the most intriguing missing persons cases is that of Toronto theatre magnate Ambrose J. Small. Small was last seen alive on December 2, 1919 after selling his theatre chain for $1 million dollars--a fantastic sum in those days. He lunched with his wife Theresa at the King Edward Hotel, gave her the check to deposit in their bank account, bought some newspapers from a young street vendor--and vanished forever. Small's disappearance was not reported to the police by his wife for nearly two weeks, leading to speculation that she was involved. Theresa was well known in Toronto for her charitable deeds and was used to Ambrose vanishing without warning for extended periods while away on gambling binges. To spare Theresa embarrassment, the Toronto Police did not formally announce Small was missing until his disappearance was reported in the Toronto Star in January 1920. Small had made his fortune in the theatre business staging low-brow plays often with risque themes. After his disappearance it was discovered that Small had a secret 'love nest' above his Grand Opera House in Toronto where he often 'entertained' chorus girls. Not long after Small vanished, his bookkeeper John Doughty vanished too with $105,000 in bonds taken from Small's safe deposit box. Doughty was later found in Oregon and arrested for theft. He was given a five-year prison sentence. Despite international headlines and a $50,000 reward, no trace of Small was ever found. An elderly Grand Opera House employee claimed to have overheard a violent argument between Small and Doughty on the afternoon Small vanished. The case was officially closed by Toronto police in 1960. Modern investigators recently found a memo written by an investigating officer in 1936, a year after Theresa died. The memo stated there was ample evidence that Ambrose Small had been murdered and that both Theresa Small and John Doughty were guilty of the crime--indicating that the Toronto Police were somehow involved in a major cover-up. The ghost of Ambrose Small is said to haunt one of his old theatres in London, Ontario.
Tags:
Ambrose
Small
disappearance
Added: 15th December 2007
Views: 201
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Brass knuckles and a pistol holster that were in Jack Ruby's possession at the time of his arrest after he murdered Lee Harvey Oswald were presented along with other historical documents and memorabilia connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy during a press conference in Dallas today. Long-hidden items and documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy were revealed for the first time after spending nearly two decades locked inside a courthouse safe. Dallas County DA Craig Watkins presented the articles at a Presidents' Day news conference while standing next to brown and white file boxes stacked in a pyramid.
The items include a purported transcript between Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald's killer, nightclub owner Jack Ruby; a leather gun holster that held the weapon Ruby used to shoot Oswald; brass knuckles found on Ruby when he was arrested; and a movie contract signed by then-Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade.
Watkins said investigators told him about the contents of the blue, two-door safe shortly after he took office in 2007. 'And every DA up until the new administration decided that they wanted to keep it secret,' he said. But he decided 'this information was too important to keep secret.' One of the most intriguing items was the typed transcript of an alleged conversation between Oswald and Ruby. The transcript - which hasn't been examined by experts and has already been called farfetched by some - includes talk of killing the president at the behest of the Mafia.
Tags:
jfk
assassination
jack
ruby
historical
documents
memorabilia
Added: 18th February 2008
Views: 224
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Posted By: Naomi |
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