Monsters and Pike Counties

Missouri

Pike County is a county on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Missouri, bounded by the Mississippi River. As of the 2010 census, the population was 18,516. Its county seat is Bowling Green. Its namesake was a city in middle Kentucky, a region from where many early migrants came. The county was organized December 14, 1818, and named for explorer Zebulon Pike. The folksong "Sweet Betsy from Pike" is generally thought to be associated with Pike County, Missouri.

Pike County is said to be the home of Momo (The Missouri Monster). The first reported sightings by the Terry Harrison family, in the 1970s, were traced to various locations throughout the county, especially at Louisiana, Missouri. During 2019, the film production company of Small Town Monsters has released MOMO: The Missouri Monster.

The melodrama that unfolded at Louisiana, Missouri, continued in 2010, regarding the kidnapping of Alisa Maier ~ a granddaughter of the Harrison family. (See here and here.)

Pike County (next to Lincoln County) is well-known for Bigfoot and UFO sightings.

Kentucky

Pike County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2010 census, the population was 65,024. Its county seat is Pikeville. The county was founded in 1821. Pike County was founded on December 19, 1821. The county was named for General Zebulon Pike, the explorer who discovered Pikes Peak. Between 1860 and 1891 the Hatfield-McCoy feud raged in Pike and in bordering Mingo County, West Virginia. On May 6, 1893, Pikeville officially became a city and the county seat.

Hellier is an unincorporated community and coal town in Pike County, Kentucky, United States. A post office was established in the community in 1906, and named for Ralph Augustus Hellier, the head of a Pike County coal mining company.

Hellier was featured in an independent documentary called Hellier. It is a five part series that follows the investigation and research of the Kentucky goblins. Dana & Greg Newkirk, owners of The Travelling Museum of the Paranormal and the Occult, lead the investigation, along with Conner James Randall and Karl Pfieffer.

Hellier can be seen on hellier.tv and YouTube.

Georgia

The famed 1997 Elkins Creek cast is well-known in the Bigfoot community. It was found in Pike County, Georgia. 

According to Cliff Barackman, of the five prints found, the track from which "the cast was obtained [was found] near Double Bridges Road. Elkins Creek is over 8 miles to the north of this road, but apparently in between these two locations are thick woods and not much else. It seems that the southern border of Pike County more or less follows the course of Elkins Creek, so it can be reasonably assumed that it was found somewhere along that stretch north of Sprewell Bluff State Park and Wildlife Management Area."

Ohio

Pike County is a county located in the Appalachian region of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2010 census, the population was 28,709. Its county seat is Waverly. The county is named for explorer Zebulon Pike.

In the Winter of 1987, near a trailer on Chenoweth Fork Road, there was "A tale of a Bigfoot sighting in Pike County," Ohio.

Point Pleasant Museum Fire

Dateline: Point Pleasant, West Virginia - Mason Metro 911 has confirmed the Point Pleasant River Museum is on fire. The call came in at 2:23 pm on Sunday, July 1, 2018. Four towns’ fire departments are on scene. 

This is not the town's Mothman Museum, but the River Museum. This historical museum has Silver Bridge items, including a full-scale bridge at the time of the collapse (December 15, 1967), with replica vehicles on the model. 

The River Museum is located on Main Street in Point Pleasant. The museum has many displays, models, items, photos, and video demonstrations about commercial enterprise and life on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers.
The museum highlights topics such as boat construction, the great flood, stern-wheel steamers, river disasters and the local river industry's contribution to World War II. It also offers a boating simulator, aquarium and a research library.
The upstairs includes a miniature recreation of The Silver Bridge along with historical photos of the collapse and a video presentation on the subject.

The River Museum is located on the same street as the Mothman Museum and Mothman Statue. Its also been affected by increased business during the Mothman Festivals. The River Museum's gift shop has sold many Mothman themed items such as shirts, mugs, pins, postcards, books, DVDs and figurines.
One interesting item that found its home at The River Museum is a taxidermy snowy owl that was killed in the area and made local headlines along with Mothman back in 1966. Along with the owl being on display is a photo and detailed description. Source.

Snowy Owl Picture:

This picture was taken on 12-22-1966 and is the owl described in Jeff Wamsley's book, Mothman: Behind the Red Eyes. The owl had a wing spread of 5 ft. and was 2 ft. tall. The owl was shot by Ace Henry on his farm at Gallipolis Ferry, WV. The boys holding the owl are Rocky sturgeon, Barry Henry and Kim Henry.

The fire was fought in mid-90-degree temperatures. Several firefighters had to be sent to local hospitals for heat-related treatment.

By late Sunday night, the fire had been exhausted.

Preliminary investigations found the fire began in the third floor attic, and spread to the second floor (where the Silver Bridge replica and historical photos of the 1967 collapse were housed).

The three theories for the origins of the fire being explored were (1) lightning, (2) electrical, and (3) human - squatters burning candles.

Rumors that the building "burned to the ground" appear to be exaggerated.

What happened on this date: July 1st?

On July 1, 1981, Rome, Ohio, several eyewitnesses reported two black forms with red eyes, coming out of a fog and moving across a field. One of the witnesses fired at one of the forms, it fell on the ground, and began screaming. Both forms ended up disappearing into the wood line. Four objects in the sky, as large as huge oil tanks, were also seen. This was part of the famous "night siege" reported by Dennis Pilichis.

John A. Keel, author of The Mothman Prophecies, would passed away on Friday, July 3, 2009, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, after months in a nursing home near his Upper West Side apartment in New York City.

Fayette Factor Marches On

High levels of Fayette Factor incidents give a sense that strangeness is all around. This Twilight Language blog only recently pointed to "The Fayette Factor & Trump Rally Incidents," as well as other recent happenings (1, 2, 3). Here are a few more filling my Fayette file.

(1) Mad Cow mania

The operating rooms at the Washington Regional hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas,  have been shutdown due to Mad Cow's disease.

Health inspectors have confirmed a preliminary diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a degenerative brain disease, at Washington Regional Medical Center, the hospital confirmed.
All operating rooms were closed down Wednesday [March 16, 2016] and surgical procedures were postponed. 40/29 News has reached out to WRMC for an update, but they have not returned our messages. The diagnosis follows a procedure done on February 15th and the lab results were received Wednesday morning.

(2) D.C. Metro Shutdown

The Lafayette Park area Metro cable fire resulted in a major shutdown of Washington D.C.'s subway system for March 16-March 17, 2016.

The investigation into [March 14, 2016's] cable fire at McPherson Square is ongoing,” [Metrorail General Manager Paul J.] Wiedefeld said [to the Washington Post]. “As a preliminary matter, the conditions appear disturbingly similar to those in the L’Enfant incident of a year ago, and our focus is squarely on mitigating any risk of a fire elsewhere on the system.

McPherson Square is a square in downtown Washington, D.C. Adjacent buildings include the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Lafayette Building housing the Export-Import Bank, the 15th Street financial district, and numerous hotels. It is one block northeast of Lafayette Park. It is served by the McPherson Square station of the Washington Metro. This is the main station to access the White House, and the Vermont Avenue exit is directly underneath the Department of Veterans Affairs building.

(3) New body found in location where many have been recovered

The New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville, West Virginia.

West Virginia State Police said on March 11, 2016, that the discovery of human remains and personal possessions found near the New River Gorge Bridge at Fayetteville, West Virginia, could solve an 18-year-old mystery: the disappearance of a Virginia Tech graduate student.

The remains were found in a heavily wooded area Thursday [March 10, 2016] along with Robert L. Kovack’s driver’s license, a college ID and car keys, State Police Sgt. Kenneth Tawes told The Roanoke Times.
The 24-year-old from Rivesville, West Virginia, disappeared Sept. 18, 1998, while he was on his way to a West Virginia University-Maryland football game in Morgantown....More than four dozen bodies have been recovered below the bridge since Kovack’s disappearance 18 years ago, Tawes said. The most recent was a suicide at the same spot six months ago, he said.

Fayette County Train Derailment

The synchromystic "Fayette Factor" has struck again.

A freight train in Fayette County, southern West Virginia, carrying crude oil derailed on February 16, 2015. The derailment caused an explosion that set at least one house on fire. The man in the residence, identified as Morris Bounds, escaped in his bare feet without serious injury. This took place near Mount Carbon, described as being along WV Route 61, near Armstrong Creek Road. This area is also known as Powelltown Hollow.

Several of the train cars spilled into the Kanawha River, east of Montgomery, and caught fire, prompting an evacuation order for a mile-and-a-half around the area where the train skipped the tracks, according to NBC affiliate WSAZ.

No injuries have been reported, according to the Fayette County Sheriff's Department. The Fayette County Fire Department responded to the scene, the sheriff's department said.

At the other end of the Kanawha River, 80 miles away, is Point Pleasant, a city in and the county seat of Mason County, West Virginia, USA, at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. The town is known for sightings of Mothman in 1966-1967, and the collapse of the Silver Bridge on December 15, 1967.

The Kanawha River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the State of West Virginia.

Fayette County was created by Act of the Virginia General Assembly, passed February 28, 1831, from parts of Greenbrier, Kanawha, Nicholas, and Logan counties. It was named in honor of the Marquis de la Fayette, who had played a key role assisting the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Virginia previously had a Fayette County, which was lost to form the new state of Kentucky. Accordingly, in the State records of Virginia, there will be listings for Fayette County from 1780–1792 and Fayette County from 1831-1863. Neither location is still located in Virginia and despite naming a county after him twice, Virginia no longer has a county named for the Marquis de la Fayette.

Fayette County was home to a disastrous mine explosion at Red Ash in March 1900, in which 46 miners were killed.

For more on the "Fayette Factor," see here.

Clinton and Fayette Factors Kick Off New Year

Could this been #42's year?

The year has begun with a bang ~ especially as linked to the Fayette Factor.

Fayette County, Georgia 

First up, on January 1, 2014, at approximately 4:17 AM, Chief McCollom, 57, called the Fayette County (GA) 911 center to report he had shot his wife, Margaret McCollom, 58, in their home at 103 Autumn Leaf in Peachtree City. First responders were dispatched to the McCollom home and Ms. McCollom was airlifted to the Atlanta Medical Center to be treated for her injury.

 

The GBI has released the recording of the 911 call from Chief William McCollom to the Fayette County 911 center.

It was initially reported that the chief shot her two times, according to the 911 recording, but authorities now say she was shot just once.

The story is a bit more complicated that initially thought. See "Tangled marriage-go-round revealed as Georgia police chief and 'wife' he critically shot were DIVORCED 15 years ago - and he was married to a Florida RABBI until last year when she claimed he cheated."

Lafayette High School

Then it broke on January 2, 2015, that newly convicted billionaire pedophile, Jeffery Epstein has been linked to Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, Gerald Edelman, Murray Gell-Mann and Stephen Hawking, and Manhattan-London society figure Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late media titan Robert Maxwell.

Epstein, 61, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Brooklyn’s Lafayette High School and excelled at mathematics. This helped him secure job in his early 20s as a maths teacher at the exclusive Dalton School, a private college located on New York’s Upper East Side.

"Epstein reportedly flew Tucker and Spacey to Africa on his private jet as part of a charitable endeavour. Clinton, meanwhile, flew on multiple occasions in the same plane to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James, between 2002 and 2005 as he developed his philanthropic post-presidential career. It would later be alleged in court that Epstein organised orgies on that same private island in the US Virgin Islands," says one source, based on the court records.

Fayette County, West Virginia

On the afternoon of January 2, 2015, a serious accident in Fayette County, West Virginia, had shutdown Route 19. The 911 dispatchers reported three cars were involved in an accident on Rt 19 North at the Glen Jean exit.

There were other news from the netherworld of the Fayette Factor, including from...

Lafayette, Colorado: "Body found on New Year’s Day marks second found in Lafayette during holiday season."

Fayetteville, Arkansas: "Miller Williams, a Fayetteville resident, long time University of Arkansas professor and inaugural poet for President Bill Clinton, died on Thursday [January 1, 2014] after battling Alzheimer’s disease for the last several years," wrote the Fayetteville Flyer. His daughter is the famed singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams.

The first notable celebrity death of 2015 was Mario Cuomo, and the name mentioned in most of his obituaries was former Fayetteville, Arkansas' Bill Clinton. Cuomo's dropping out of the running for president in 1992 resulted in the opening for Clinton's successful campaign. See CNN's "Cuomo and Clinton: A complicated, but mutually beneficial, relationship."

The Clinton House is a house in Fayetteville, Arkansas built in 1931. The house is the first home of Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham while they both taught at the University of Arkansas School of Law. The home also witnessed the marriage of Bill and Hillary in the living room in 1975. Bill Clinton is tied to the Fayette Factor.

Does it seem that there might be a background Bill Clinton factor, too, this year?

A sort of 'n sync thing seems to be happening with #42.

Piccard/Picard, Star Trek, Borg, Bane and the Dark Knight Links to Wheeling-Bridgeport Events

There was another gun attack against a Federal today, allegedly by a lone shooter. In late news, a bomb threat has been linked to it. Why did it all bring to mind Star Trek?

Thomas Piccard, or Thomas Picard, a former Wheeling, West Virginia police officer, was identified as the gunman who fired shots at the Wheeling Federal Building on Wednesday, October 9, 2013, before being killed by police officers. Law enforcers said the shooter was 55-year-old Thomas J. "Tom" Piccard of Bridgeport, Ohio. He retired from being a police officer in Wheeling in 2000.

Piccard fired multiple rounds into the federal building during the afternoon before he was shot dead by a policeman. A court security officer also shot the gunman.

A security guard suffered minor injuries when Piccard fired an estimated 20 rounds into the building at 2:30 p.m. City resident Carla Webb Daniels said she saw the man reload his assault rifle and then fire at a nearby YWCA. She said he fired between 25 and 30 rounds.

Piccard began firing from a Chase bank parking lot across from the federal building. He was observed in the parking lot very quickly after the first shots were fired.

Authorities identified the gunman first as Thomas Picard, later with the surname Piccard, who died at a local hospital. U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld said he was a former Wheeling police officer.

An unidentified store manager said it sounded like the shooter used two different weapons. At a news conference late Wednesday, Piccard was said to have been armed with an assault weapon and a handgun.

The building houses the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, along with regional offices of the Social Security Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the General Services Administration.

Investigators were searching Piccard’s home in hopes of determining a motive and if he acted alone.

Officials said it was too early to tell whether Piccard was targeting anyone in the building or what his motive may have been. Asked if the gunman had any beef with the U.S. government, authorities said, “We’re really digging hard at this point to find out.”

The building houses a variety of courtrooms and related offices, including judges, prosecutors and law enforcement.

Although reportedly living in Bridgeport, Ohio, at the time of the shooting, Piccard was a former Wheeling resident (see obituary of his mother, Nancy Joan Borchert Piccard Griffiths, here).

Reporter Glenn Bolich noted that police, FBI and the Allegheny County bomb squad were on scene Wednesday night in Bridgeport, Ohio. The bomb threat is related to the Wheeling shooting, he said.

Tom Piccard, the shooter, had a "threatening" note in Latin scrawled on side of his trailer, reports Glenn Bolich, WTOV9-Steubenville, Ohio.

Andrew W. Griffin, editor of Red Dirt Report, shares this:

According to The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register, "scrawled on the exterior of a trailer in Bridgeport (Ohio) is a variation of the following phrase, in Latin: 'Abandon hope all ye who enter this place.'"
That of course is from Dante's Inferno and in Latin is: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

Pretty grim, it would seem.

We have more to learn about Thomas Piccard, it would seem.

Red Dirt Report's Griffin made these further observations, in comments directly to me, after reading an earlier version of this posting:

The city where Piccard's actions took place - Wheeling, West Virginia (Wheeling is 98 nautical miles upstream, on the Ohio River, from Point Pleasant, West Virginia) - was noted rather frequently in one of my favorite TV shows - Northern Exposure (1990-1995). One of the show's stars was John Corbett, who played the philosophy-espousing deejay and motorcycle outlaw Chris Stevens. His character was from Wheeling and actor Corbett also is from Wheeling. Chris was known to quote from Dante while on the air.In a fascinating 1994 episode of Northern Exposure, titled "Una Volta In L'Inverno," shopkeeper Ruth-Anne tries to learn Italian so she can read Dante's Divine Comedy in its original language. Chris, meanwhile, is trying to help sunlight-deprived trapper Walt get off his "light visor" using "tough love," the way he used tough love for a codeine-addicted, gun-toting friend back in Wheeling. Actor John Corbett was born May 9, 1962. 697 years earlier, to the day, Dante Alighieri was born.

One more thing about the aforementioned Northern Exposure episode "Una Volta L'Inverno." I just rewatched it this morning and something caught my attention. During a scene where Cicely's mayor is trying to rally the townspeople to help her rid the streets of annoying herds of caribou, former Wall Street banker-turned-trapper Walt (wearing a visor to fend of SAD - seasonal affective disorder, being they live in Alaska) blurts out: "Rattle their soundsystems. Low-range harmonic waves. 100,000 hertz, say. Transmit in three second bursts. They don't like that kind of thing. Mess with the head, the body follows."The mayor dismisses the idea, while Wheeling native Chris Stevens looks across the table at Walt a bit bemused.

News reports note that Piccard lived in the "Presidential Estates" housing addition in Bridgeport, Ohio (across the Ohio River from Wheeling, W'Va.) and that he lived on Johnson Street. Google Maps shows the Presidential Estates as featuring street names of 20th century presidents - Eisenhower, Nixon, Hoover, Kennedy and, of course, LBJ. However, the main street leading into the housing addition is Adams Drive. John Adams, presumably? Of course LBJ rose to power in the wake of JFK's assassination, a tragedy that took place 50 years ago next month.

(Northern Exposure's Chris Stevens, of course, is not the same Chris Stevens who was the U.S. Ambassador of Libya who was murdered when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked on September 11, 2012.)

Matt Bell sends along this thought: "I read 'Wheeling' and I hear Shelby Downard say, in his idiom (something like), 'Over at Wheeling, West Virginia...that's where you have your shrine of Osiris.'"

The Name Piccard/Picard

The name Picard is familiar-sounding today because of the Star Trek character, Jean-Luc Picard.

In late 2366, Starfleet Captain Jean-Luc Picard is assimilated into the Borg and his Borg designation is give as "Locutus of Borg" (pictured).

Memory Alpha points out:

As for the name Locutus, Michael Piller termed it as "a name which I got out of the dictionary about language – I think it's a Latin word for language." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 23, p. 17) Locutus actually means "having spoken" or "he who has spoken" in Latin, still an appropriate name for one serving as spokesman.

In many of the recent Washington D. C. violence incidents, you will have noted an underlying theme of voices in people's head, hearing voices, being controlled, and related behavioral descriptions. A fictional theme of the Borg in Star Trek was one of the control of the individual for the well-being and support of the hive. 

Piccard and/or Picard is a surname meaning a person from Picardy, a historical region and cultural area of France.

This interesting surname [of Picard] can have two possible origins, both French. It can be locational and refer to someone from Picardy (Picardie) in Northern France and Normandy or else be derived from a French personal name compounded of "Pic" and -"hard" composed by analogy with Richard, in which form it was to give rise to the variant surname Pitcher. A form of the personal name Pickard is found in England as early as the 12th Century as Paganus filius (son of) Pichardi from the "Pipe Rolls from Hampshire" (1160). The surname has also emerged in records by this time (see below); a John Pikart was recorded in the Huntingdonshire Hundred Rolls (1279). In church records for Yorkshire one Agneta Pickard is noted as marrying Edwardus Bruce at Farnham on November 5th 1577. A later marriage was that of Bridget Pickard to John Grenup at Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York on May 9th 1626. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Pichard, which was dated 1169, in the "Pipe Rolls of Hampshire," during the reign of King Henry 11, known as "The Builder of Churches," 1154 - 1189. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling. Source.

Intriguingly, the cloned "son" of Picard, named Shinzon, in 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis, was played by actor Tom Hardy, who was Bane in 2012's The Dark Knight Rises. For more on Bane lexilinks, see here.

(Enki H/T for word of initial shooting.)

Name Game: Hurricane Sandy, Point Pleasant, and Mothman

It seems strange that a frequent focus today for the Weather Channel's broadcasts of their seemingly near-death assignment for Al Roker was at the ill-faithed named location of Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

Yes, of course, the Mothman sightings were in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, not New Jersey. But the name game is the name game.

The New Jersey site served as the fictionalized version of the town for the setting of a short-lived 2005 television show, Point Pleasant. With shades of Twin Peaks, the melodrama began when a young girl named Christina washes up on the shore near Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey during a violent storm.

During a violent storm.

Let's hope that Hurricane Sandy does not visit death upon any Point Pleasants, whether in New Jersey or West Virginia.

Another area of some attention has been Montauk Point, New York. Montauk Monster, anyone?

Another Aurora Copycat? Or Overreaction?

The name Alemar is of Arabic origin, meaning "coated in gold." 

Alemar is a form of the Spanish name Alamar.

West Virginia law enforcement authorities feel they had a potential domestic terrorist on their hands on Monday, August 20, 2012, and several media outlets used the phrase "Aurora copycat" in their headlines. The incident unfolded in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

The Journal of Martinsburg noted:

A man wearing body armor and armed with an AR-15 training rifle, two knives and several unloaded magazines was arrested...after he was seen running in the area of Bulldog Boulevard, police said.
At about 7:17 a.m. [on Monday, August 20, 2012], the Martinsburg Police Department received several calls in regards to an individual running and carrying a rifle near the area of Bulldog Boulevard and Raleigh Street in Martinsburg.
"One of our primary concerns was that he was sighted in the general proximity or area of the high school on Bulldog Boulevard and we also believe that's what generated a lot of calls," Detective Lt. G.B. Swartwood said.

Officers responded to the scene and located the man, later identified as 23-year-old William Everett Alemar, of South Raleigh Street, near the intersection of Silver Lane and Raleigh Street. When Patrolman M. Jones, Patrolman C.M. Richmond and Patrolman First Class E. Herb encountered the individual, he was dressed in full military desert camouflage and a ballistic vest and with what appeared to be an assault rifle across his chest, police said.
All three officers engaged Alemar at gunpoint and ordered him to his knees to be taken into custody.
"The subject was then ordered to lie prone on the ground and the officers secured his weapon an AR-15(M-4) training rifle. The suspect also had two knives and several unloaded magazines, (and) his ballistic vest also contained ceramic panels to make it more bullet resistant," a police news release said.

The entire news item can be read here.

Alemar was charged with "committing a terroristic act under 61-6-24 subsection (b) and subsection (d) of the West Virginia State Code."

Police executed a search warrant at Alemar's apartment, located at 1013 S. Raleigh Street in Martinsburg. The department utilized a Loudoun County, Va., explosive detection K-9 due to concerns regarding the possibility of explosives. No explosives were located, but more military equipment and a pistol were located and seized as evidence, police said.

Stephen Alemar told The Hagerstown Herald-Mail that he believes his 23-year-old son, William Alemar, was just trying to stay in shape for his next military assignment when he was arrested near two Martinsburg schools on Monday. The younger Alemar is a member of the Virginia National Guard who served a tour of duty in Iraq.

The Octopus: The Secret Government and Death of Danny Casolaro (1996) by Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith, details the strange and mysterious death of Danny Casolaro, who was an American freelance writer who came to public attention in 1991 when he was found dead in a bathtub in Room 517 at the Sheraton Hotel, Martinsburg, West Virginia. Casolaro's wrists were slashed 10–12 times, and Thomas and Keith write that the death was a "fake suicide."

"Martinsburg was founded in 1778 by General Adam Stephen who named it in honor of Colonel Thomas Bryan Martin, a nephew of Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron....In 1863, Isabelle 'Belle' Boyd, a famous spy for the Confederacy, was arrested in Martinsburg by the Union Army and imprisoned, according to what you can read here.  For more on Bell, click on "The Bell Name...."