Hello all. I am new here but am none the less a massive "Unsolved Myteries" junkie.

I was curious if anyone remembers the case of a man that was found dead in a church pew. I think he had maybe taken poison. They were never able to identify him. I don't think he had anything on him (maybe a note of some kind?) I think it might have been somewhere like Montana or Colorado or Idaho perhaps?

Anyway, i tried searching for this case but didnt come up with anything as I know so little about the details of it that finding search keywords was near impossible.

I think the last time I saw this case was in the mid 90's but it really stuck with me.
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Hello all. I am new here but am none the less a massive "Unsolved Myteries" junkie.

I was curious if anyone remembers the case of a man that was found dead in a church pew. I think he had maybe taken poison. They were never able to identify him. I don't think he had anything on him (maybe a note of some kind?) I think it might have been somewhere like Montana or Colorado or Idaho perhaps?

Anyway, i tried searching for this case but didnt come up with anything as I know so little about the details of it that finding search keywords was near impossible.

I think the last time I saw this case was in the mid 90's but it really stuck with me.
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It's been a while since I watched that segment but I think he had ingested cyanide. There was never an update to this case, at least not to my knowledge. They held a service for him but nobody knew who he really was. He didn't have any ID or anything that could make them identify him.

Welcome to the board btw! :wave:

The resident Montana girl pokes her head out of her law books long enough to say, "Not in Montana... Sorry." :D

I don't think they ever did identify this individual. :(

And yes, welcome to the boards! :)

I have been dying to know if this guy was ever identified. Several months ago I found an email address of the church where he was found and emailed them asking about a resolution but never heard back.

He was never identified.

He had the name of "Wm. L. Toomey" on a letter he wrote with the cash for his funeral, but that was later attributed to the name for litergical garments, so an obvious fake.

There was some thought that the man who committed suicide may have murdered a priest and then felt guilty for doing so. (Do a search of this site and you will find more info.)

Another weird case because you would think someone would be missing a son/friend/brother/husband that would be able to link up with that guy. Weird.

This is another case that I feel if they would have showed a pic of the victim, he may have been id'd. C'mon now, what could possibly be worse than the steamer trunk corpse!

I don't know.... death by cyanide might not be pretty.

This IS the guy who ingested the cyanide pills, right? :)

I don't know.... death by cyanide might not be pretty.

This IS the guy who ingested the cyanide pills, right? :)

You got it, sister...

Thanks for the welcome to the boards. Does anyone remember what type of church it was?

Thanks for the welcome to the boards. Does anyone remember what type of church it was?

I dunno but my man who was ushering people to their seats looked like yoda. So maybe its the Southern Colorado First Church of the Jedi?

I absolutely love that guy. I love that he's such an aged man and he's accompanying his mom to church. Thats so awesome, I want to be doing that when I'm 188. I love how when his mom discovers the body, she kicks it, then waves her son yoda over to see. He then, as he informs all of us, tells his mom "Take care of it, I will."

After which he promptly runs and asks the next person he sees to do something about it.

This is another case that I feel if they would have showed a pic of the victim, he may have been id'd. C'mon now, what could possibly be worse than the steamer trunk corpse!


I had, thank goodness, forgotten all about our friend in the steamer trunk, until........now! The eyeball popping out still makes me sick to my stomach. Ugggggghhhh

I have been dying to know if this guy was ever identified. Several months ago I found an email address of the church where he was found and emailed them asking about a resolution but never heard back.

Why don't you just call the church up? You know some people don't open all their e-mail or it could've been deleted (accidentally or intentionally).

This is another case that I feel if they would have showed a pic of the victim, he may have been id'd. C'mon now, what could possibly be worse than the steamer trunk corpse!

Yeah, they've done that with dead victims before. They show a cleaned up photo of their face so the public can help I.D. them.

I wonder why they never did that in this case???

They could've discovered his identity by now if they did.

does anyone remember what year this happened in?

does anyone remember what year this happened in?

I would have to re-watch the segment, don't know off the top of my head. One of my favs though. Why not show a picture???? I just can't get over it!

Can't be any worse than your avatar joshypiano ;)

I think this happened in 1982.

Does anyone know of any missing persons page for this case? maybe doenetwork or charleyproject?

Actual photograph of real dead Boise John Doe here: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/57edac4c/pols_feature-30412.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story%3Foid%3Doid:275319&h=210&w=300&sz=37&hl=en&start=50&tbnid=Ez0Otzfne4pQ5M:&tbnh=81&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBoise%2BJohn%2BDoe%26start%3D40%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Never identified.

wow thanks I never knew any of that. I have searched all over for more info on this case but could never really come up with much. I was always drawn to it for some reason.