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“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we cover the bizarre disappearance of Edward Kaspbrak from 2016.”
“Fairly recent.” Shane commented.
“This case is… kind of confusing to say the least.”
“Oh, I’m titillated.”
“Titillated, that’s what you’re going for?”
“What’s wrong with that. You’ve thrown a hook, and now I’m titillated.”
“Fine, you’re titillated, sure.”
“Exactly, now, go on.”
“Okay, so Edward Kaspbrak, known as Eddie, was born somewhere in Maine on September 3rd, 1976.”
“Somewhere in Maine?”
“Somewhere in Maine.”
“So what,you don’t know where he was born?”
“No, no one knows where he was born, although there are theories, some fairly substantiated.”
“No one knows where he was born?”
“Not really. No one can find confirmation of exactly where he was born, there was a smudge on his birth certificate.”
“That’s… weird.”
“Yeah, and that’s the tip of the iceberg.”
“Interesting.” Shane said, stroking his beard.
“Would you stop it with that beard?”
“What’s wrong with my beard?”
“Everything.”
“Hmmmm.”
“Anyway, not much is known about his life until he’s around twenty two when he starts working as a risk analyst.”
“Sounds fascinating.” Shane said, somewhat sarcastically.
“I mean, maybe to us it sounds boring, but… I don’t know where I’m going with this.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so.”
“Maybe just leave this little bit as a dead end.”
“Will do. Although I think what I’m trying to say is that someone who has a job like a risk analyst seems unlikely to get involved in something weird.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Anyway.”
“Anyway.”
“So Eddie Kaspbrak works as a risk analyst, a successful one at that in New York City, working his way up the chain for years. He is an all around nice person, he is friends with people at the company he worked for all who say he was an all around nice guy.”
“Doesn’t sound too bad.”
“No, not at all. So five years before his disappearance, he marries a woman named Myra.”
“Right?”
“So Myra is…. Well, I’ll get to what Myra is in a little while.”
“Interesting.”
“Anyway, five years pass, and everything seems normal, Eddie lives a normal life, he seems to go to work, hang out with some friends, go home to his wife and just… act normally, until one day out of the blue, Eddie gets a phone call, has a car crash and then leaves New York City.”
“All in one day?”
“All in one day. So his wife is incredibly suspicious, especially when he tells her it was a call from a childhood friend.”
“Why is that-? Oh, because no one knows where he is from.”
“Exactly, including Eddie from that matter. Eddie, whenever asked, gets a blank look in his eyes.”
“Well, I’m fairly sure that’s a logical explanation, head injury?”
“I mean, do head injuries wipe the memories of literally everyone involved, his Mom couldn’t say where he was born either from what I’ve read.”
“That is slightly weird. Maybe they’re covering for something. They’re good actors?”
“Maybe, I have an idea that might come up in my theories.”
“It better not be aliens. I’m fairly sure aliens wouldn’t wipe someone's memories.”
“I’m not telling you.”
“It’s going to be fucking aliens.”
“Can I get on with what I’m saying?”
“Fine.”
“Anyway, so Eddie Kaspbrak leaves New York, and his wife Myra thinks he might be trying to have an affair, but there’s no evidence of that, at all. No one ever saw him look even flirtatiously at a woman or anything. Anyway, he leaves New York and- ”
“Goes missing?”
“No actually.”
“No?”
“Well, I mean he does go missing, obviously, but he gets on a plane, and he lands in Bangor Maine, and heads to a little down called Derry.”
“Derry? Why does that name ring a bell?”
“You might have heard about it before, they have an extremely high child death rate.”
“Child mortality?”
“Kinda, but not natural deaths, child murders.”
“Oh yes, the guy that escaped from a psychiatric hospital right? Killed people in his teens and escaped and they think he killed a ton of others?”
“Yeah, Henry Bowers, that was big news in 2016 when he escaped.”
“I remember the story about it, it was a horrifying read.”
“Yeah.”
“Wait, when did Eddie Kaspbrak go missing?”
“2016.”
“Ryan, I’ve solved it. I’ve solved the case.”
“No, I know what you’re thinking, but in theories I’ll cover why you’re wrong.”
Shane frowned, slumped in his seat slightly and nodded.
“Okay then.”
“Anyway, so Eddie Kaspbrak is seen at a restaurant named the Jade of the Orient in Derry Maine right?”
“Right?”
“But what is suspicious, is the people he is seen with.”
“Who?”
“According to reports from waitresses at the restaurant, and other patrons, he was seen in the presence of Richie Tozier-”
“The comedian?”
“Yes, and Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, the architect, and Beverly Marsh, as well as a local man that worked at the library in Derry, a man named Mike Hanlon.”
“Wait, so we’re meant to believe four extremely famous people just arrived in Derry at the same time to meet a librarian and a risk analyst?”
“That’s what they said they saw.”
“Suspicious. Also I’m just saying there’s no way Richie Tozier knows Beverly Marsh.”
“What? Why?”
“Have you seen his dress sense?”
“Very good point, I can’t imagine a designer letting their friend wear only Hawaiian shirts.”
“Exactly!”
“Anyway, so from there the majority of them go back to the Derry Townhouse, a hotel in the area. The group are apparently later seen walking around the town, but not together.”
“Right?”
“Eddie Kaspbrak is seen near a pharmacy in the town.”
“A pharmacy?”
“Yeah, he had asthma.”
“Okay.”
“Later, they go back to Derry townhouse again, and when Eddie appears in public again that night he has a plaster over his cheek.”
“Why is that important?”
“Some people think he was attacked.”
“Right, go on.”
“Anyway, so the group are seen entering Derry Public Library, and that was the last anyone saw Eddie Kaspbrak.”
“What?”
“Yeah, no one saw him after that.”
“What about the librarian guy? Or like all the famous people? I mean, they must have seen him.”
“So the librarian is attacked and calls the police after he hit a man, the escaped convict Henry Bowers over the head with something that kills him.”
“Right? I mean… if the man was attacking him, go librarian!”
“Yeah, I thought that too. So the police turn up and none of them remember seeing Eddie Kaspbrak there.”
“So a known murderer is in the building, and that was the building Eddie was last seen in. How was he not killed by Henry Bowers?”
“I’ll get to that. Right, so onto the theories.”
“No, no, no. Wait a second. I need to put all this together for a second. So this guy, apparently a super normal guy, has a job as a risk analyst, but he can’t remember where he comes from.”
“Yes.”
“Then he gets married and on a random day goes to a town named Derry with four celebrities.”
“Yes.”
“He’s seen with the celebrities by multiple witnesses, and then he enters a library and disappears.”
“Essentially yes.”
“Was there any indication that any of the celebrities knew each other or knew Eddie Kaspbrak at all? Or this Mike fellow?”
“Ah, so I did look into this, and none of them had ever mentioned an Edward, or an Eddie from what I can find.”
“What about knowing each other?”
“I don’t think so. I tried to see if there were any links between Ben Hanscom and Beverly Marsh because of houses and like designer clothing, maybe she decorated the houses or something, I don’t know.”
“Wait, isn’t she married to Ben Hanscom now?”
“Yes, but at the time there was no indication they knew each other. Beverly Marsh was married to a man named Tom Rogan at the time.”
“What about the others?”
“Well, I couldn’t find any links to tie Richie Tozier to any of them. No mutual friends seen in the press or anything like that.”
“Suspicious.”
“What about Marsh? Maybe she worked with Denbrough on some of his clothing for the books he wrote and the films he helped with?”
“No link there either, I went through pages of people who had done clothing design for movies made of his books, and movies she had helped do clothing for, and none of them.”
“This is weird.”
“Yes, however, there is another thing.”
“Oh?”
“There is no indication where any of these people grew up either.”
“What?”
“No one knows where they grew up, and none of them have talked about their childhood, except Richie who is sometimes loose with the truth in his comedy shows.”
“True, I mean in what 2018 didn’t he make a joke about a killer alien clown he fought in his childhood.”
“Exactly my point.”
“So none of these celebrities or whatever have said where they’re from. Do you think they’re all from Derry Maine?”
“I mean maybe, but if so, why can none of them remember it or talk about it?”
“Shady reasons?”
“I mean… maybe, but it doesn’t seem likely.”
“How would you know? What shady business do you have Ryan?”
“Now are you talking to Ryan… or Ricky Goldsworth?” Ryan asked, eyes glinting.
“Fuck, sorry Ricky, go about your day.”
“That’s what I thought. Just remembered, you don’t tell Ricky Goldsworth what to do.”
Shane gulped.
“Sorry Mr Goldsworth.”
“That’s better.”
“Yes sir.”
“Now. Basically, about two days after going into the library, an official police report was filed by Myra Kaspbrak, and no one has seen Eddie Kaspbrak since.”
“Damn.”
“I say an official report, as she tried to file it as soon as he left, but considering he had told his wife he was leaving, there was no reason to be suspicious.”
“But after two days?”
“After two days no one had heard from him, at least no one Myra or Eddie knew in New York, and that seemed suspicious, so the police said they’d file it.”
“Ah okay, I mean if he left of his own volition though?”
“I don’t know how the police think!”
Wheeze.
“True. You definitely don’t have the mind of a detective or an officer.”
“Hey fuck you.” Ryan said with a grin.
“I’m right.” Shane said, fake smugly.
“Now to the theories.” Ryan said after a moment, breaking the slight silence.
“Go on.”
“So the first theory, as you’ve said, is that Henry Bowers the murderer, killed Eddie.”
“Yeah, I mean it makes sense.”
“Yes, but the timeline doesn’t line up. Henry Bowers, was killed, according to the camera showing him entering the library, around half an hour before Eddie Kaspbrak was seen entering.”
“Wait, so he entered the library and that was caught on camera, but his death wasn’t? Erased tapes?”
“No, I mean there’d be no reason to, I mean it would have been self defence, especially as it was well known Henry Bowers was a racist, and Mike Hanlon is a black man.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. People in the town remember Henry harassing Mike when he was younger too.”
“Jesus, okay. So why wasn’t his death on tape?”
“He attempted to kill Mike Hanlon, according to the police report, in Mike’s flat above the library.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Anyway, so Henry Bowers entered, and was killed before Eddie entered.”
“Yeah, so was Eddie seen entering the library?”
“Yes, but not leaving.”
“Were the others seen leaving?”
“No, he likely left through the back exit, as did others.”
“Right. So it wasn’t Henry Bowers.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“So, the second theory is that Eddie left Derry, and went back home to Myra.”
“Right?”
“After Eddie went missing, the police spoke to a lot of people who knew Eddie, as well as Myra, including many of Eddie’s work colleagues.”
“Okay?”
“According to them, Eddie’s marriage to Myra was not happy, and a lot of them were extremely concerned that Eddie was being abused by his wife Myra.”
“Fuck.”
“According to his work colleagues, the ones who had met Myra called her a possessive, manipulative and definitely emotionally abusive. No one was quite sure if there was physical abuse.”
“Shit, fucking abuse… more needs to be done to help people being abused.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“It’s so difficult, especially as there’s still a toxic thing around men being abused, many being scared to talk about it.”
“It’s terrible.”
“It is.”
“Anyway yes. So at first, there was an assumption that Eddie maybe had left, trying to escape the marriage, so the police tracked his cards. There was the purchase of a room at the Derry Townhouse, and a couple of restaurants in the area, but nothing after that. There was no evidence he had taken out a large amount of money either, so if he was hiding, someone else was paying for him.”
“I mean if his friends are celebrities?”
“Yeah, but hiding that from the photographers?”
“Good point. So it doesn’t seem as if he left Derry.”
“Or, if he did he didn’t stop anywhere on the way. The police interviewed Myra Kaspbrak, and she did come across as a rude, manipulative and overbearing person, leading a few police officers to wonder whether she had killed him. They managed to get a warrant, and searched their apartment in New York.”
“And?”
“Nothing. They couldn’t find any traces of enough blood to say he had been killed there. There was a lot of medication in the apartment, leading police officers to think maybe she had killed him that way.”
“But?”
“Nothing seemed to come of it. There was some missing from when it seemed Eddie had gone to Derry, but not enough to have killed the man.”
“Jesus. So Myra was ruled out as a suspect?”
“She was. There was evidence that she was a horrible partner, but nothing that suggested that she killed him.”
“Jesus.”
“I know right. So the third theory is that it was a cover up.”
“What, a police cover up?”
“No, a cover up by the celebrities.”
“What reason would they have to kill the man?”
“So, the theory on this one, a very popular one online, is that everyone mentioned, the six people were involved in some sort of cover up from when they were younger.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the theory is that when they were kids, they might have got into some dodgy stuff in Derry, along with a man named Stanley Uris, according to someone online called Greta Keene, who had photos of them all in a middle school yearbook.”
“This Greta Keene, does she have proof they did anything dodgy?”
“No, and from responses she was a bully in middle school, especially against Beverly Marsh.”
“So she might have just been trying to shit on her for getting successful?”
“It seems so. There’s no evidence at all that any of them did anything dodgy, but it doesn’t mean that they didn’t, you know?”
“No offence to anyone from there, but this town seemed really fucked up.”
“Remind you of Ken Rex McElroy?”
“Kind of, but it’s more than one person in this town. Seems like most of the town itself.”
“Very true.”
“So wait, who is this Stanley Uris?”
“Stan Uris was an accountant in Georgia, married to a woman named Patty Blum. He commit suicide in 2016, around four or five days before Eddie disappeared.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yes. Apparently he went for a bath and his wife found him around forty five minutes later dead with a razor near his shoulder, and the word ‘IT’ written on the wall in his own blood.”
“What the fuckkk?”
“Interviews after his death call him a great accountant, a quiet man, a great friend, and there were many people from a bird watching club he was part of.”
“A bird watching club? He doesn’t seem the type to be involved in anything dodgy either.”
“No. There were no discrepancies in his work, and according to his wife they did puzzles for fun on most nights. The night he died, he was doing a bird jigsaw puzzle when he got a phone call.”
“Wait, like the one Eddie Kaspbrak got?”
“Exactly, and it was traced to Derry, Maine.”
“What the fuck is this? So what, it seems that these people might have been involved in something dodgy, and then for some reason they got called back into it?”
“Maybe. However, according to Greta Keene, who seems to be the only person who is still in the town that remembers them, Beverly Marsh left Derry when she was thirteen.”
“Where did everyone else go?”
“I mean, a lot of them died, and many moved away I imagine, just to be safe.”
“Right of course. So before age thirteen these kids were meant to be what… doing something dodgy?”
“I mean, it doesn’t seem likely, but Henry Bowers was apparently 14/15 when he killed many many children.”
“Jesus fuck.”
“I know.”
“So the theory is?”
“Yes, sorry. The theory is that the group were involved in something dodgy when they were younger, and they were called back by Mike for something to do with it. Stanley Uris didn’t want to get involved and killed himself to get out of it, and perhaps Eddie Kaspbrak had doubts and was killed by the others when he tried to back out.”
“I mean, surely the police spoke to the others seen with him?”
“They did, although it was difficult because of jurisdictions and the like. Apparently all of them gave the same story that Eddie was in a house that collapsed in Derry, 29 Neibolt Street.”
“I mean, did they check?”
“They did, kind of. From what I could find, the house was built on top of a well, and has been dilapidated and falling apart since at least the eighties, if not earlier.”
“Who the fuck builds a house on top of a fucking well?”
Ryan wheezed.
“Not a clue, but the idea that Eddie just happened to be wandering around a dilapidated house doesn’t line up with his personality at all, especially considering he was a risk analyst, and no one he worked with, or was friends with in New York could see him doing that.”
“Especially with four celebrities.”
“Exactly. So although I don’t really want to say anything, I don’t fancy getting sued…”
“Yeah, me neither, but it does seem as if-”
“Careful-”
“It seems a little fishy, that’s all.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that the final theory?”
“No.”
“Jesus, I can just imagine how bad this is going to be.”
“The final theory, a popular one on reddit, is that the killer alien clown that Richie Tozier talked about in his show, was real, and it led them all down to Neibolt Street and killed Eddie by stabbing him through the chest there.”
“No. No. No. No. No. Who the fuck came up with this theory?” Shane said, laughing.
Ryan wheezed again.
“The name of the user was DontCallMeEdsLover.”
“What the?”
“No idea, but the user seems to think it is real.”
“Then the user is fucking insane.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“To sum up, in 2016, Eddie Kaspbrak went missing after being seen in Derry Maine, where he might have come from, with four celebrities, and a man named Mike Hanlon. No one seems to know what happened to him other than him apparently being in an old dilapidated house, although that seems doubtful, especially as there’s no proof that was the case. The investigation has been closed, as there has been no evidence in at least two years, but the Derry chief of police has said he will investigate claims and evidence that come forward.
“What’s your thoughts overall Ryan?”
“I think you know, but I don't think I should say it.”
“Yeah, think I’m with you on that one buddy.”
“The disappearance of Edward ‘Eddie’ Kaspbrak has been one that has confused police, people who knew him, and fans of the celebrities apparently interacted with since 2016. One thing we do know is that he is missing. However, the case of Eddie Kaspbrak will for now, remain… unsolved.”
“That was a real doozy Ryan.”
“Yeah… yeah it was.”
“Also fuck whoever came up with the alien clown theory.”
"Yeah, I call bullshit. Doesn't pass the Ryan Bergara sniff test."
"I've said it before, I'll say it again, I don't trust that test one bit."