Eli Cobb; A True Halloween Story

The past is often resurrected by accident. Events in the future can often over shadow events from the past. Thus it is with the case of Eli Cobb. This article fittingly reviews both the past and present results of Mr. Cobb.

In 1929, a local shop keeper disappeared. It was soon discovered, that the last customer had been Eli Cobb. On September 29Th of that year, sheriff Ethel Woodrow decided to pay Cobb a visit. As Woodrow entered the old farmhouse, the smell of decomposition was overwhelming.

As Woodrow entered the kitchen, he ran into a dangling carcass hanging from the rafters. At first, he thought it was that of a deer. It turned out to be Cobb's wife Beatrice. She had been fully dressed out like that of a hunted deer.

In a large back room were the bodies of his three children ages 4, 9 and 12. They were all laid out in bed. However, it was soon discovered that he had used them for hunting practice in his cornfield "maze of death." Cobb was found in the master bedroom. He was dead from a gunshot wound to his head.

Investigators soon found body parts from other human beings throughout the farmhouse. A bowl in the center of the table was from a human head. Body skin had produced a cover for an easy chair. A head, noses and a heart was found in a bedroom hope chest. In the garden was a scarecrow made from a human corpse.

Eight years later on October 1, 1935, an extensive search of the farm property turned up 65 more bodies. Although people were repulsed, Cobb had reached celebrity status. Halloween jokes, songs and stories became popular during the 30's and 40's.

In November of 1938, the farm went up for sale. Shortly after it was bought, the farm house caught fire and burnt to the ground. It was never determined if arson was involved. Eventually all of Eli's farm equipment was sold off. It is said, that a carnival barker exhumed the body of Cobb and displayed it at a country fair for 25 cents a glance. This could never be proved.

On September 29Th of 2002, the property was once again sold for commercial property. Once bulldozers started to work the ground, work was abruptly stopped. Police investigators found another 38 more bodies. The future was catching up with the past. Or, was it? Police thought that the bodies discovered in 2002 were too fresh to be 65 years old. One has to wonder, how many more bodies are still buried on the old Cobb farm. Was Eli the mass killer or was it someone else?

sources; panicfest.com