Illustration by Joe Ciardiello.
In the midst of the Great Depression, a series of ghostly and mysterious thefts flummoxed the Los Angeles Police Department. In November of 1931, $11,000 went missing from a safe at the Owl Drug Company, with no sign of breaking and entering. Then a safe was emptied in a nearby clothing store. Over the next few months, blankets, typewriters, and other items disappeared from stores in the neighborhood without a trace.1
Books in Review
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The police had no witnesses, no leads, no suspects, and no idea what was going on until the following winter, nearly a year and a half later. In February of 1933, they surveilled a store for nine nights straight. On the final evening, an officer saw an arm emerge from a small hole in the floor and reach for the lock on a nearby trapdoor. The officer tried to grab it, but the phantom limb pulled back just in time and vanished underground. The police decided to search the basement and, amid all the