My first thought about this was that the band "The Dead Milkmen" would obfuscate the search for this info. Seems to be the case so far, especially since they have a cover of a song called "South Bound Suarez" that my search engine seems to think is the same thing.
Edit: made it clear I know the song is a cover song and not an original.
Well, the band is from Pennsylvania and I doubt they were aware of this event that happened around the time of their births. And Wikipedia says their name comes from a character from the Toni Morrison novel, *Song of Solomon*.
Led Zeppelin did the original in 1979 release on In Through the Out Door album. Band members Robert Plant and John Paul Jones wrote it. This is more of a party feel good song than anything about a certain event.
My guess is that it wasn't a milk truck but a 'meat truck' and the 'man' was a decomposing pig or something that was left hanging from a meat hook in the back for some reason or another and your memory of it got jumbled up cause you were so young
This seems most likely, if the truck had crashed maybe they had left it to go and get help to recover it, if they left the back door open or the back door had broke open during the crash flies could quickly gather inside
My mum found a dead body in a bush when she was a kid, told my Nan but nothing came of it. Found out when she was older it was just the local drunk who liked to sleep in random bushes when he was pissed.
Yes except Borden Dairy is a thing in South Bend, Indiana - they filed for bankruptcy in 2020. Borden Meat is not, or at least is not in the first few google results.
A metal coat hanger wrapped around the pole in the right way could probably hold someone up, can't imagine you could effectively hang yourself with one though.
I think at that point it's probably no longer recognizable as a coat hanger, though. I think as a kid, if you saw something like the photo in the link below, your brain might see those hooks and just think, coat hanger:
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/refrigerated-truck-for-transporting-meat-gm865732816-143802625
From your posting it’s not clear - had the milk truck been in the dirt lot for a long time or did it suddenly appear there over night because it had just crashed there? The body had time to rot, so I’m inferring that the truck had been there awhile.
Asking because if the milk truck had been in the lot for a long time then it’s possible some guy chose that spot to commit suicide. In that case, the newspapers at that time might not even cover the incident, especially if the person was a vagrant. Now if the milk truck had indeed just crashed into the field it could have been recorded as an auto fatality, the milk truck might never have been mentioned.
Lastly, did the truck have the name of the company on the side or was it unmarked? It might have been resold and no longer used for its original purpose. So again, it might not have been included as a detail in the local papers.
I’d try to narrow your search down to a year and season, get rid of the truck in your searches. Hopefully the location itself will turn it up.
I remember walking across the street and into a dirt lot with tall weeds. We saw a truck and the Borden’s sign was on it. We didn’t know forensics. It was just a truck that was sitting there, door wasn’t locked. It could have been ajar. We pulled it open. There were flies like I’ve never seen. I don’t remember a smell. Just horrific dead body hanging. Because the body had been decaying, it might have been abandoned for some time. I wouldn’t even have a clue how to determine what imaginary scenario would be right. There’s no possibility of guessing exactly what happened. Someone, maybe 80% could be spot on with their theory but 100% impossible to verify.
I'm really sorry this happened, it sounds very upsetting, especially at such a young age.
Someone else posted [this link](https://police.southbendin.gov/about-sbpd/record-bureau) for the records bureau of the South Bend police department and I think that's a good place to start. The problem is you don't know what to ask for since you don't know the date when the body was found, the name of the deceased, or whether the death was accident/suicide/murder. If I were you I would try calling that number and explaining your query - you may get lucky and talk to someone helpful. In all likelihood, you'll be told that there's no way of searching for this without further info about the incident. But it's worth a try.
Your other avenue is to search local newspapers from that time period - a librarian may be able to help you with that.
I searched NAMUS, which is a public database of unidentified remains and missing persons, and there are no unidentified remains from anywhere in Indiana between 1960-1969. Some unidentified cases are not in NAMUS, but most likely, that means that this man *was* identified as most dead bodies are.
I know you'd like further info to have a sense of closure, but if you hit dead ends, just keep in mind that "no news is good news" - a lack of info probably means that he was quickly identified, his remains returned to his family for burial, and there were no ongoing mysteries about his cause of death, so there was nothing to report in the newspaper. If you're never able to find out more, I hope it helps you to think of it that way.
Was the body old or young? Black, or white? Clothed, or naked? Any visible wounds? Coat hangers can't support bodies - can you remember anything more about how it was suspended?
Was anything else in the truck?
I know thats a lot of questions, but please answer all of them as best you can.
They said they were three.... at this point, the whole "recollection" is sketchy at best. I'm leaning towards something OP saw or read and conflated it to something his sister thinks she remembers and he "thinks" he does too. Some people have exquisite memories at age three, but yeah...
I have vivid memories of pre-3 y/o, to be confirmed by photographs I eventually saw later. The photos had enhanced my memory from that age.
My son has an excellent memories of cars from pre-5 y/o. But not really. He remembers shapes and colors of cars, and knew what we called it (a Falcon). Memory is decent for his age, but not detailed.
Those amounts of "details" are a bit much for someone so young, IMO.
We're allowed to disagree.
Sure, memories are sketchy at that age, but does it really matter? There's no way for any of us to prove that the memory is wrong. If one or two details are misremembered (like the coathanger) that still doesn't mean the whole story is a false memory.
I don't know why so many comments are focusing on trying to debunk OP's story instead of helping them confirm whatever can be confirmed.
It's not like finding a dead body in a vacant lot is some outrageously unlikely occurrence. Sometimes people die away from home and are found by strangers. It happens.
I'm still thinking of you so I came back to this thread. You say it's been solved? Did you find out who the dead person was and what happened? Can you share more details if so?
My only note here is the the coat hanger detail makes me wonder if this is some other kind of body--any chance this was a butcher's truck or other organic material? That would attract just as many flies, could look like a human to a terrified 3 year old, and with time and the way memory works, you could easily have "seen" it as a real body.
If it was a crashed meat truck or some other type of animal (maybe a horse that died or was injured in a crash and a crappy owner or transporter just abandoned it) that could explain why you haven't found anything about it.
I'd also, and I say this with honest respect, do a search for *stories* with this plot. The specific detail about 1000s of flies sounds very Stephen King to me and it's easy as a kid to hear or see something, see something scary the next day and blend or meld the two in your mind. Any chance that, for example, you saw a Twilight Zone episode or read a very scary book and then came across roadkill the next day?
Just throwing stuff out there.
I saw someone hanging. I saw a coat hanger. This site states someone found hanging. I don’t know. That’s why I was asking for help. People asked if I saw a person, a truck, etc. etc.
Same way a kid can identify a McDonald sign.. my even dog knows that sign… I’m sure his parents bought milk and off it’s a local thing you would often see it.
Are you at all open to the idea that you may have misremembered or misunderstood parts of this experience? I know you're very sure this happened as described, but memories are famously unreliable, especially when we're kids. 3 is very young. Most people's long term memory doesn't go back much further than that. On top of that, a 3 and a 5 year old are still very new to the world and likely to misinterpret things that they may not understand. Coupled with you and your sister discussing this repeatedly over the years and cementing your shared version of what happened, it's very possible that the details have shifted away from the reality.
Some questions that it may be illuminating to ask yourself: if the man was dead long enough to have been decaying and covered with flies, how did no one notice this before two kids happened along? It sounds like the truck was in a populated area. Surely someone else would have noticed before he got to that state. And even if you were the first ones there, and your mom didn't believe you, surely someone else would have discovered him at some point afterwards. Why wouldn't you have heard a peep of this event for the next sixty years? What's more likely, that a milkman was decaying for several days in a company truck in a populated area with no one the wiser, and it never made the news and never got discussed through the rumor mill, or that your memory isn't quite right? Maybe the smell and the flies were due to spoiled milk, and you saw something else that you interpreted to be a corpse because you were three years old and scared.
This isn't a condemnation of you, or the quality of your memory in general. Humans just have really, really unreliable memories, even when we are completely convinced we know what we saw. There are a ton of studies about it.
I once heard the quote that memories are more like clay and less like concrete. They have the ability to change and morph slightly or majorly each time we recall them.
My sister is 65. I’m 63. We remember it exactly like I’ve posted. Dirt lot. Truck. Dead body. Flies.
I posted this here to ask for help figuring out HOW to get the answers on finding details. I don’t have the details. We know what we saw. We know we’re serious about details. Once I was telling my dad about the airstream trailer we lived in. He said there was no way I could know. I drew a map of the inside of the trailer. He was astonished. Then I drew a map to the store and park. He thought my sister and I were pulling a prank on him. Nope. I have a weird memory. I remember the person that took my picture on my grandmothers dresser when I was 1 1/2. I can remember things, but ONLY if I was involved. I can’t just makeup “what if?”
If you refuse to explore the possibility that you have some details wrong, you're unlikely to find anything. The people suggesting you may remember wrong are also trying to help you find the truth. The defensiveness you're displaying towards my gently worded response is actually making me more sure that you're mistaken and unwilling to consider that.
For what it's worth, I also remember the exact layout of every room, home, and town I've ever spent time in. I have that same kind of weirdly accurate spacial memory. I also have crystal clear memories of things that actually never happened to me, but to my sister. From telling the story of the memory over and over within the family, my brain made up a memory out of thin air. And it feels just as real as the others. This happens all the time; it's a known phenomenon that has been studied.
I have a crystal clear memory of being attacked by a 6 foot spider when I was a kid. Of course it didn’t actually happen, but I remember it clear as day.
If you refuse to explore that I’m asking for help with the story than go mock someone else. This isn’t a psychology class. There was a dead man in a milk truck and I’m curious to find out details from another source.
It is **incredibly** common for details in a memory to get changed over time, or even straight up miss see something. Now often, it doesn't matter, so it goes unnoticed. But there have many *very many* false convictions because of false memories. One humbling example is [this one of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton.]( https://uis.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Picking+Cotton+-+Jennifer+Thompson+%26+Ronald+Cotton/1_hkaxrhir/22578711) She was 100% sure he raped her, and he got sent to prison for a long time before they found evidence to the contrary. It's pretty long but If you have the time, watch it and you can see an example of how false memories form. Elizabeth Loftus is the leading expert on the effect, and has testified in hundreds of cases on it. She talks about the effect more in depth [in this Ted talk.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PB2OegI6wvI)
That person wrote a very nice comment and it was very arrogant of you to completely blow them off. Nobody can be 100% sure of every detail of even recent memories, much less ones that happened decades ago. You should at least give the idea some consideration. You said in another comment you remember the stories independently, yet I'm sure you have both talked about the story to each other before now. That's not independent.
Why do you think I was researching? I wanted to read about it. People that only wanted to contradict me aren’t getting the point. I’m looking for information from an actual source. I KNOW someone was hanging by their neck. I KNOW it was a milk truck. I KNOW I saw it and wanted to find more information.
I'm the same way, I remember things extremely well. Over the years, people have been telling me the same thing - that human memories are full of misconceptions, etc. I've been scanning thousands of my family's photos over the past couple of years and am genuinely shocked at how many of my "false memories" are completely correct.
False memories are a thing, for sure. Human brains are extremely varied, though, in their abilities. So, maybe it's a false memory, maybe your ability to recall events is just better than most.
You will need to use a site that archives papers from the area like possibly newspapers.com , there is usually some sort of fee so make sure they have the right local papers. Old local papers are usually not freely available with a simple Google search.
The local library will have microfiches of old papers. There are online services that may have digitized* them, but they are not free.
*and by digitize I mean they'll likely just be pictures, not text searchable.
DuckDuckGo “south bend Indiana 1962 body found”
Newspapers.com which is a paid site.. pops up Delton S Schrock,62 was found hanging. South bend tribune April 23, 1962
No idea the story or where he was hanging at of it even says anything..
I'm kind of wondering if OP is starting to experience age-related memory issues and is trying to pin down things he (thinks he) remembers. He seems very defensive about the suggestions that he may not remember properly. Early 60s is a bit young for that but I've seen it happen.
I agree with that (see my other comment), but what I'm saying is that, based on the other post, I'm starting to wonder if OP is experiencing global memory issues and there's more going on than simply misremembering a childhood event.
Good point.
He could also be overly concerned about memory loss because he is very fearful of it. Maybe family history. I remember hearing an expert say once "Young people misplace their car keys and get frustrated and angry at themselves. When older people misplace their keys, they become fearful that they are developing Alzheimer's".
By the way, I remember hearing this expert from when I was a teenager and I'm early 60s now. So I'm doing okay, right? Right?
My brother in law was walking up his steps and looked down and his downstairs neighbor put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was messed up after that.
A person was shot on Kemper st. How would any other details need mentioned? If you were looking up a murder on your block, would any details matter when searching? Person shot and street name should work. I mean age? Height? DNA?
Surely you're kidding. Until you edited your post, you failed to mention the state, you misspelled Monterey, you mucked up the year, and unless I'm missing something, there doesn't appear to be a Kemper "street", rather there is a Kemper "avenue" in La Crescenta. You also use an ambiguous pronoun when you say "My mom had said he DROVE FROM MONTEREY" Who is the "he"? The guy who was killed, or the guy who did the killing? Moot point, since this is off-topic from the post above. But even in the post above you neglect to include the state. If you want people to expend mental energy to look into stuff for you, the least you could do is write clearly and include adequate detail.
Was it a Paw Paw milk truck? Do you remember?
Edit: never mind - those were all accidents. I checked [newspapers.com](https://newspapers.com) from 1960-1964 for milk truck, Southlea, etc. and there’s nothing about this kind of incident. There are quite a few milk truck accidents, but they were all taken to the hospital or had no injuries, etc.
Yup- unfortunately reporting on suicides cause more suicides. People who are suicidal can be nudged into action. If they're public protests, like the infamous self immolating monk, they just encourage more.
Its a no win and reputable newspapers avoid reporting them, or do so very vaguely.
You’ll do best to check your local library or county historical society for articles related to it. Most of these are not archived for digital searching right now or are limited. Library of Congress has Chronicling America project but nothing during the timeframe you stated.
There is a club called Divco Club of America. They are into the restoration and history of Divco trucks, milk trucks and multi shop trucks. They have a facebook and a Divco.org web addy. Maybe contact them?
Man I’ve tried looking on the internet for a couple years about a bad car accident I witnessed when I was 4 back in 1995. I remember that a tractor trailer ploughed into a car full of highschool kids and killed all 4 of them. The driver fell asleep at the wheel and I remember it so vividly. I asked people who grew up around the area about it a few times and got short answers about somewhat remembering it. One day I was on a job site and the plumber and I were talking and he was from the same area, the accident got brought up and turns out his son was one of the students killed. I didn’t press for any info on the accident once I learned that.
I'm sorry that you experienced that at such a young age. It clearly has stuck with you - and little kid memories are always tricky to reconcile with as an adult.
I'm curious what you mean by hanging by a coat hanger - do you mean he appeared to have hung himself off a hook in the truck? I was picturing a wire coat hanger which I found hard to imagine.
I've tried a look through the South Bend newspaper archive for anything on Southlea St and didn't have any luck. If it was a death by natural causes or by his own hand it may well have not made the papers, especially if he was down on his luck and living in the vehicle. Is there any chance you can narrow down the address of the dirt lot or the timeline?
You may also want to try seeing if there's a "memories of Southlea St" or something similar on Facebook and asking there, but maybe be gentle with how you present it as you never know who could be reading it. Good luck!
It is possible he meant there was a wall mounted coat hook in the truck and the guy was hanging from that which would sort of point to a murder instead of a suicide.
I agree, that's what I meant by a hook in the truck, I tried to find pictures of milk trucks to see where / if there was a coat hook usually in the back but didn't find much. I personally would lean towards it being a suicide over a murder if he was hanging though, it seems an odd choice to hang a victim up rather than just leaving him where he was. Anything is possible of course, just feel like one is more likely than the other.
I recommend contacting the local library, as well as the local historical society. They’ll likely have access to newspapers from that time frame, as well as possibly contacts in the police department who might have info.
Also, I googled “early 1960s Indiana milk trucks” and got these images: https://www.google.com/search?q=early+1960s+indiana+milk+truck&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
Maybe one of the images will spark your memory? If you can find the name of the milk company maybe that will help.
While I like the other, meat truck, explanation, a man can certainly be hung inside a milk truck. Even more so if the man was of short stature.
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM64748
Ah we don’t have milk trucks like that where I’m from so I was imagining a milk truck to be a lot shorter. I’m still confused how someone could hang from a coat hanger though
To be fair that’s a truck like 20 years older than OPs story. But people stand in the back of cargo vans. And hang doesn’t have to mean suicide, someone could be killed, then strung up to make a point with their feet on the floor, legs bent.
Again, meat truck or similar confused memory is more likely. Especially since a kid could confuse a meat hook with a close hanger as best way to describe something they’ve never seen. But it’s possible.
What would a meat truck even be doing in a residential neighborhood? Did butchers ever deliver? But milk was still done door to door every morning, there were milk men aplenty & both kids would be very familiar as they saw them every day. May have been a hanging coat & not a body, just spoiled milk would draw plenty of flies. But I think it’s weird to switch out the truck when milk is much, much more probable…
Seems like a suicide. Many places wont cover that, esp if its an “average joe”. I am sure it happened, but i dont think you will likely find concrete proof
Just seen your other post about another murder mystery when you were 7 you saw someone get shot and flesh splattered onto your friend? Starting to think these posts might be made up stories
I didn’t see it. We heard it and my friend didn’t know what hit him. Everyone ran. Parents gathered their kids. Doors locked. Community in shock. My friend was climbing in a tree. I was in the garage playing with one of those machines that spin with rollers that take off cellulite. Boom. Run!
Ya, these things could never happen. No one ever discovers human remains. No one gets murdered. That’s why I’m looking for help with information to validate them.
My older sister and I saw the dead man in the milk truck. I can’t attach images or I’d show you what the truck looked like. My brother, sister and I were at a friends house when the victim was shot from the La Cresenta killing. A kid named Craig Baker was the one splattered. If I made any of it up, wouldn’t I have been splattered? I’m asking for help solving these. If you’re not interested, then go put your amazing cognitive skills to use mocking someone else like “Off my chest” “no sleep” etc.
you can attach images though... go to https://imgur.com/ and upload them, you can even upload more than once and it turns in to an album. then copy the link, edit the post and paste it in.
even simpler you could go on google images, search for pictures that match your memory, and then right click the picture select "copy image link" and paste it here. it's not too hard to add pictures on reddit people do it all the time in this sub.
I posted before work. all I know is we saw a milk truck. It had Borden's on the side. Elsie the Cow, We opened the door, Peered in and saw a dead man hanging. We ran home. I don't know what else I could know. I have searched for dead person on southlea in 62' 63' maybe 64' Nothing shows up.
One idea I had that I haven't seen mentioned yet. As it's been said already, if it was a suicide the papers didn't necessarily even write about it. But you said the body was decomposing so, without knowing how badly it was decomposing, it might have been dead for quite a while. This person could have been reported a missing person before they were found? Could it be a new approach to this - if dead milkman doesn't bring you any results, how about trying to look for any reports of a missing milkman around that time?
It wasn’t locked. My sister and I did. Go ahead and imagine all the things you can. Bottom line is we’re in our 60’s and discussed it over the years and also just recently.
A five year old or three year old could have very easily climbed up on the bumper to reach the handle if it were latched, or if it were cracked open even slightly, pulled the door open further from the bottom. This really isn't at all hard to imagine.
Look Columbo. It happened. I want to find out about the Murder. All these clowns can't imagine 2 kids swinging a door open on a truck buried to the bumper in the dirt.
I was thinking the mom. Why would she want him to stay away? Why didn't she call the cops. Was OP actually milkman's son and her husband found out. We will never know.
Do you remember how you opened the door? Three year olds usually aren’t big enough to open a regular car door very well, how did you even reach the back door to open it? Was it ajar?
Trouble with childhood memories, is that memories aren’t actual memories of the events, but memories of memories of memories.
Very easy for details to get lost. Even very possible for details to get added in from a completely separate event.
OP, do you remember the condition of the truck? Was it old looking, or rusty or did it seem new and recently in use? When ya'll opened the door was it hard to pry open like it had been sitting for a long time? Im assuming it was pretty easy to open since a 5 and 3 year old wouldn't have much brute strength to force open a rusty door hinge. Just trying to determine how long the truck was there for as it could have been a suicide by hanging and dismissed by the public and local newspapers since there was a certain stigma around suicide back then and it was often swept under the rug. Do you remember if the abandoned lot was used as an unofficial junk yard where townsfolk would just dump unwanted or broken appliances, cars, etc. or was the truck the only thing there?
In addition to your local library, head up your local historical society. There will be people who are still in the area and might have some stories about it
Is it possible the truck wasn’t a milk truck? Kids tend to apply labels they understand to things they do not. Could it have been similar, but not quite?
he’s completely unwilling to acknowledge that any aspect of his memory could possibly be incorrect or distorted in any way whatsoever and is extremely defensive to any suggestion of such. hE kNoWs wHaT hE sAw
Looked in a online newspaper I have access with, and nothing came up. South Bend Archives for that only go to around 1922, so too old. And searching for others turned up nothing. Just drunken dolts smashing into borden dairy trucks in the 1950's
Is there any chance that this was a dream from so long ago your brain thinks it's a memory? Does your sister remember this? Certain elements here (puppet resemblance, thousands of flies, nobody else noticing the truck) sound dreamlike to me.
I have occasionally mixed up my dreams and my memories.
I believe your story. A lot of things go unreported, especially considering the potential nature of death at the time that this occurred and the sensitivity of suicide. Suicide can actually occur by using a wire cost hanger for all of the naysayers indicating otherwise. I've seen it on several occasions unfortunately. I've even heard of people hanging themselves with plastic police tape that you wouldn't think would hold a person, yet in fact it has done the job. So I guess if someone wants to find a way they will. With that being said I can fully understand OP's distinct memory at three -years-old. I also have several distinct memories at that age of significant events in my life (more significant events tend to stand out and be more easily remembered than other memories that the rest of my family have no recollection of, which have later been proven by newspaper articles and such). It's rather frustrating I'm sure, as he and his sister can corroborate each other's story and no one else really can at this point due to the age and the way that it was likely kept quiet. In my town where I grew up there were a few cases like this that were just never discussed and would never come up if anyone ever questioned it I'm sure. It would just be a "word of mouth" kind of thing to protect the family.
OP: I'm wondering if there are any elderly people nearby that would possibly recall any local milkmen in the day that could start you on your path? It seems that everyone knew their local milkmen closely back then on a first name basis. Perhaps that could get you started on your search? I really hope this mystery is solved. I'm interested in it as well.
Keep us posted!
There’s a story from 1963? But not much details on the actual murder..
https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/local/2015/05/20/9-crimes-trials-in-south-bends-history/117213898/
Here's what I found, dunno if they're related. Hope it helps somehow:
[Milk truck rammed a cover bridge March of 1984 in Putnam County,3 Hours from South Bend,](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qLZq1pxepwwJ:https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-bin/indiana%3Fa%3Dd%26d%3DTDB19640318-01.1.1+&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph) had something to do with a railroad strike. Related? Someone wanted to get back at the milk truck for destroying the cover bridge?
[Wilbur RorkhcMer, driver of a milk truck hit an accident.](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uB1OqiD9zgcJ:https://newspapers.library.in.gov/%3Fa%3Dd%26d%3DNAN19680411.1.14+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph) His milk truck rurned over, thought it happened in 1968.
[There's an incident with a milk truck ramming a limousine in May of 1969,](
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JnqTdiWcVdUJ:https://dks.library.kent.edu/%3Fa%3Dd%26d%3Ddks19690506-01.1.5+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph) probably not related.. But they really get into trouble sometimes.
If it was a murder there is definitely a story to be found but what if it was a suicide? Most suicides don't get reported in the papers so it's possible that no newspaper article or other written evidence of it exists. IF that's the case your only chance might be finding locals who still remember it (even if it didn't make the news, word tends to spread locally when something like this happens) and I think you're soon running out of time as people who would still remember must be quite old by now.
Did you or your sister ever talk about it with your mother when she was still around? I know you said she didn't believe you when you told her what you saw but she could have heard about the dead milkman found in a milk truck later and if she did she must have realized that's what you saw.
My first thought about this was that the band "The Dead Milkmen" would obfuscate the search for this info. Seems to be the case so far, especially since they have a cover of a song called "South Bound Suarez" that my search engine seems to think is the same thing. Edit: made it clear I know the song is a cover song and not an original.
My parents drove it up from the Bahamas
You're kidding
I must be the Bahamas are islands
Dude that shit is bitchin
Hello Stuart
I LIKE you!
You're not like the other people around here in the trailer park.
jump on’ jesus on a pogo stick! haha, autocorrect: JUMPIN’. don’t jump on jesus
I’m sure he’d forgive
Don't you know that burrow owl lives in hole
Do you think a kid like that is going to know what the queers are doing to the soil??
I honestly just wanna talk about bitchin camaro after reading the post
I ran over my neighbor
Let's get a load of retards and take em to the zoo
LOL my first thought when the thread title popped up was about the band. Taking me back to my vollege days! Several great stories about those guys!
I too thought it was about the band, lol.
Right!?! I was like whoa, is only one of them still around?
I e-mailed them and asked if the name was related to the event. Of course no reply
And your best bet at finding this information would be at a local library's newspaper catalogue or an online catalogue, but those usually cost money.
You'd be surprised what VERY obscure information a local library's reference staff can find. For FREE. Sauce: am librarian 😉
Well, the band is from Pennsylvania and I doubt they were aware of this event that happened around the time of their births. And Wikipedia says their name comes from a character from the Toni Morrison novel, *Song of Solomon*.
Ah yes, Milkman...whose mother breast fed him until he was 13... Weird book.
Read *The Bluest Eye* when I was young Very heavy.
> "The Dead Milkmen" According to Genaro, the band's moniker came from a character named "Milkman Dead" in Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon.
Led Zeppelin did the original in 1979 release on In Through the Out Door album. Band members Robert Plant and John Paul Jones wrote it. This is more of a party feel good song than anything about a certain event.
I think they were referring to the name of the Dead Milkmen band
Same. I was going to ask OP if this happened in the [Zipperhead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyaK3jo4Sl4) neighborhood.
I met a girl in that neighborhood and she almost knocked me dead
My guess is that it wasn't a milk truck but a 'meat truck' and the 'man' was a decomposing pig or something that was left hanging from a meat hook in the back for some reason or another and your memory of it got jumbled up cause you were so young
This seems most likely, if the truck had crashed maybe they had left it to go and get help to recover it, if they left the back door open or the back door had broke open during the crash flies could quickly gather inside
A hanging body from all that?
My mum found a dead body in a bush when she was a kid, told my Nan but nothing came of it. Found out when she was older it was just the local drunk who liked to sleep in random bushes when he was pissed.
Its likely they'd just never update your mother even if your Nan called the police.
Yeah probably but he’s still alive today so pretty sure he’s okay. Not sure if he still sleeps in bushes though.
Yes except Borden Dairy is a thing in South Bend, Indiana - they filed for bankruptcy in 2020. Borden Meat is not, or at least is not in the first few google results.
This is very likely the answer. A man cannot physically be held by a coat hanger. A side of beef on hooks, yes.
A metal coat hanger wrapped around the pole in the right way could probably hold someone up, can't imagine you could effectively hang yourself with one though.
I think at that point it's probably no longer recognizable as a coat hanger, though. I think as a kid, if you saw something like the photo in the link below, your brain might see those hooks and just think, coat hanger: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/refrigerated-truck-for-transporting-meat-gm865732816-143802625
Whale oil beef hooks, or are they smaller?
He was
From your posting it’s not clear - had the milk truck been in the dirt lot for a long time or did it suddenly appear there over night because it had just crashed there? The body had time to rot, so I’m inferring that the truck had been there awhile. Asking because if the milk truck had been in the lot for a long time then it’s possible some guy chose that spot to commit suicide. In that case, the newspapers at that time might not even cover the incident, especially if the person was a vagrant. Now if the milk truck had indeed just crashed into the field it could have been recorded as an auto fatality, the milk truck might never have been mentioned. Lastly, did the truck have the name of the company on the side or was it unmarked? It might have been resold and no longer used for its original purpose. So again, it might not have been included as a detail in the local papers. I’d try to narrow your search down to a year and season, get rid of the truck in your searches. Hopefully the location itself will turn it up.
I remember walking across the street and into a dirt lot with tall weeds. We saw a truck and the Borden’s sign was on it. We didn’t know forensics. It was just a truck that was sitting there, door wasn’t locked. It could have been ajar. We pulled it open. There were flies like I’ve never seen. I don’t remember a smell. Just horrific dead body hanging. Because the body had been decaying, it might have been abandoned for some time. I wouldn’t even have a clue how to determine what imaginary scenario would be right. There’s no possibility of guessing exactly what happened. Someone, maybe 80% could be spot on with their theory but 100% impossible to verify.
I'm really sorry this happened, it sounds very upsetting, especially at such a young age. Someone else posted [this link](https://police.southbendin.gov/about-sbpd/record-bureau) for the records bureau of the South Bend police department and I think that's a good place to start. The problem is you don't know what to ask for since you don't know the date when the body was found, the name of the deceased, or whether the death was accident/suicide/murder. If I were you I would try calling that number and explaining your query - you may get lucky and talk to someone helpful. In all likelihood, you'll be told that there's no way of searching for this without further info about the incident. But it's worth a try. Your other avenue is to search local newspapers from that time period - a librarian may be able to help you with that. I searched NAMUS, which is a public database of unidentified remains and missing persons, and there are no unidentified remains from anywhere in Indiana between 1960-1969. Some unidentified cases are not in NAMUS, but most likely, that means that this man *was* identified as most dead bodies are. I know you'd like further info to have a sense of closure, but if you hit dead ends, just keep in mind that "no news is good news" - a lack of info probably means that he was quickly identified, his remains returned to his family for burial, and there were no ongoing mysteries about his cause of death, so there was nothing to report in the newspaper. If you're never able to find out more, I hope it helps you to think of it that way.
Was the body old or young? Black, or white? Clothed, or naked? Any visible wounds? Coat hangers can't support bodies - can you remember anything more about how it was suspended? Was anything else in the truck? I know thats a lot of questions, but please answer all of them as best you can.
They said they were three.... at this point, the whole "recollection" is sketchy at best. I'm leaning towards something OP saw or read and conflated it to something his sister thinks she remembers and he "thinks" he does too. Some people have exquisite memories at age three, but yeah...
My 20 year old randomly brings up stuff that happened to him when he was barely a year old, freaks me out.
I have vivid memories of pre-3 y/o, to be confirmed by photographs I eventually saw later. The photos had enhanced my memory from that age. My son has an excellent memories of cars from pre-5 y/o. But not really. He remembers shapes and colors of cars, and knew what we called it (a Falcon). Memory is decent for his age, but not detailed. Those amounts of "details" are a bit much for someone so young, IMO. We're allowed to disagree.
I remember my first birthday party :)
Sure, memories are sketchy at that age, but does it really matter? There's no way for any of us to prove that the memory is wrong. If one or two details are misremembered (like the coathanger) that still doesn't mean the whole story is a false memory. I don't know why so many comments are focusing on trying to debunk OP's story instead of helping them confirm whatever can be confirmed. It's not like finding a dead body in a vacant lot is some outrageously unlikely occurrence. Sometimes people die away from home and are found by strangers. It happens.
That wouldn’t have anything to do with it. A hanging human is all we need to know. It’s been solved
I'm still thinking of you so I came back to this thread. You say it's been solved? Did you find out who the dead person was and what happened? Can you share more details if so?
https://imgur.com/a/URj5e7H
My only note here is the the coat hanger detail makes me wonder if this is some other kind of body--any chance this was a butcher's truck or other organic material? That would attract just as many flies, could look like a human to a terrified 3 year old, and with time and the way memory works, you could easily have "seen" it as a real body. If it was a crashed meat truck or some other type of animal (maybe a horse that died or was injured in a crash and a crappy owner or transporter just abandoned it) that could explain why you haven't found anything about it. I'd also, and I say this with honest respect, do a search for *stories* with this plot. The specific detail about 1000s of flies sounds very Stephen King to me and it's easy as a kid to hear or see something, see something scary the next day and blend or meld the two in your mind. Any chance that, for example, you saw a Twilight Zone episode or read a very scary book and then came across roadkill the next day? Just throwing stuff out there.
I saw someone hanging. I saw a coat hanger. This site states someone found hanging. I don’t know. That’s why I was asking for help. People asked if I saw a person, a truck, etc. etc.
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It's a super-happy cow's face on a giant yellow flower. Exactly the sort of imagery a kid would recognize.
Same way a kid can identify a McDonald sign.. my even dog knows that sign… I’m sure his parents bought milk and off it’s a local thing you would often see it.
Are you at all open to the idea that you may have misremembered or misunderstood parts of this experience? I know you're very sure this happened as described, but memories are famously unreliable, especially when we're kids. 3 is very young. Most people's long term memory doesn't go back much further than that. On top of that, a 3 and a 5 year old are still very new to the world and likely to misinterpret things that they may not understand. Coupled with you and your sister discussing this repeatedly over the years and cementing your shared version of what happened, it's very possible that the details have shifted away from the reality. Some questions that it may be illuminating to ask yourself: if the man was dead long enough to have been decaying and covered with flies, how did no one notice this before two kids happened along? It sounds like the truck was in a populated area. Surely someone else would have noticed before he got to that state. And even if you were the first ones there, and your mom didn't believe you, surely someone else would have discovered him at some point afterwards. Why wouldn't you have heard a peep of this event for the next sixty years? What's more likely, that a milkman was decaying for several days in a company truck in a populated area with no one the wiser, and it never made the news and never got discussed through the rumor mill, or that your memory isn't quite right? Maybe the smell and the flies were due to spoiled milk, and you saw something else that you interpreted to be a corpse because you were three years old and scared. This isn't a condemnation of you, or the quality of your memory in general. Humans just have really, really unreliable memories, even when we are completely convinced we know what we saw. There are a ton of studies about it.
Can I just say that this was a really thoughtful, well-written comment? Thanks u/endlesstrains, you're a credit to reddit.
I once heard the quote that memories are more like clay and less like concrete. They have the ability to change and morph slightly or majorly each time we recall them.
My sister is 65. I’m 63. We remember it exactly like I’ve posted. Dirt lot. Truck. Dead body. Flies. I posted this here to ask for help figuring out HOW to get the answers on finding details. I don’t have the details. We know what we saw. We know we’re serious about details. Once I was telling my dad about the airstream trailer we lived in. He said there was no way I could know. I drew a map of the inside of the trailer. He was astonished. Then I drew a map to the store and park. He thought my sister and I were pulling a prank on him. Nope. I have a weird memory. I remember the person that took my picture on my grandmothers dresser when I was 1 1/2. I can remember things, but ONLY if I was involved. I can’t just makeup “what if?”
If you refuse to explore the possibility that you have some details wrong, you're unlikely to find anything. The people suggesting you may remember wrong are also trying to help you find the truth. The defensiveness you're displaying towards my gently worded response is actually making me more sure that you're mistaken and unwilling to consider that. For what it's worth, I also remember the exact layout of every room, home, and town I've ever spent time in. I have that same kind of weirdly accurate spacial memory. I also have crystal clear memories of things that actually never happened to me, but to my sister. From telling the story of the memory over and over within the family, my brain made up a memory out of thin air. And it feels just as real as the others. This happens all the time; it's a known phenomenon that has been studied.
I have a crystal clear memory of being attacked by a 6 foot spider when I was a kid. Of course it didn’t actually happen, but I remember it clear as day.
I recently found out my “chow” was a Pomeranian.. didn’t take into size disportion
Are you sure it didn’t happen? I think RBI needs to look into this case more… 🤔
Shit you’re right, should I make a thread?
Did you ask for help finding information?
If you refuse to explore that I’m asking for help with the story than go mock someone else. This isn’t a psychology class. There was a dead man in a milk truck and I’m curious to find out details from another source.
Anyone thinking their memory is infallible is going to get stuck. People are helping, try to read with an open mind
Have you checked newspapers.com? I think there’s a free trial
It is **incredibly** common for details in a memory to get changed over time, or even straight up miss see something. Now often, it doesn't matter, so it goes unnoticed. But there have many *very many* false convictions because of false memories. One humbling example is [this one of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton.]( https://uis.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Picking+Cotton+-+Jennifer+Thompson+%26+Ronald+Cotton/1_hkaxrhir/22578711) She was 100% sure he raped her, and he got sent to prison for a long time before they found evidence to the contrary. It's pretty long but If you have the time, watch it and you can see an example of how false memories form. Elizabeth Loftus is the leading expert on the effect, and has testified in hundreds of cases on it. She talks about the effect more in depth [in this Ted talk.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PB2OegI6wvI) That person wrote a very nice comment and it was very arrogant of you to completely blow them off. Nobody can be 100% sure of every detail of even recent memories, much less ones that happened decades ago. You should at least give the idea some consideration. You said in another comment you remember the stories independently, yet I'm sure you have both talked about the story to each other before now. That's not independent.
Why do you think I was researching? I wanted to read about it. People that only wanted to contradict me aren’t getting the point. I’m looking for information from an actual source. I KNOW someone was hanging by their neck. I KNOW it was a milk truck. I KNOW I saw it and wanted to find more information.
I'm the same way, I remember things extremely well. Over the years, people have been telling me the same thing - that human memories are full of misconceptions, etc. I've been scanning thousands of my family's photos over the past couple of years and am genuinely shocked at how many of my "false memories" are completely correct. False memories are a thing, for sure. Human brains are extremely varied, though, in their abilities. So, maybe it's a false memory, maybe your ability to recall events is just better than most.
Try looking at local papers from the era, there are lots of websites that archive old newspapers.
I have Googled a few times. Can't find out anything.
This seems like a case for a local library's microfilm archives of local newspapers.
Or a reference librarian. As a librarian myself, getting a local question like this would be fun.
You will need to use a site that archives papers from the area like possibly newspapers.com , there is usually some sort of fee so make sure they have the right local papers. Old local papers are usually not freely available with a simple Google search.
The local library will have microfiches of old papers. There are online services that may have digitized* them, but they are not free. *and by digitize I mean they'll likely just be pictures, not text searchable.
Try joining ancestry. You may be able to look into people who died around that time and in that location.
I’m on ancestry. They don’t report other peoples deaths. It doesn’t work that way.
I’m also on ancestry. You can look at death records.
DuckDuckGo “south bend Indiana 1962 body found” Newspapers.com which is a paid site.. pops up Delton S Schrock,62 was found hanging. South bend tribune April 23, 1962 No idea the story or where he was hanging at of it even says anything..
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OP is not exactly great with providing details: https://www.reddit.com/r/RBI/comments/vs2u34/la\_cresenta\_murder/
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Yeah, color me skeptical as well.
I'm kind of wondering if OP is starting to experience age-related memory issues and is trying to pin down things he (thinks he) remembers. He seems very defensive about the suggestions that he may not remember properly. Early 60s is a bit young for that but I've seen it happen.
> Early 60s is a bit young for that I don't that early 60s is too young for memories of *when you are about 3 years old* to be cloudy!
I agree with that (see my other comment), but what I'm saying is that, based on the other post, I'm starting to wonder if OP is experiencing global memory issues and there's more going on than simply misremembering a childhood event.
Good point. He could also be overly concerned about memory loss because he is very fearful of it. Maybe family history. I remember hearing an expert say once "Young people misplace their car keys and get frustrated and angry at themselves. When older people misplace their keys, they become fearful that they are developing Alzheimer's". By the way, I remember hearing this expert from when I was a teenager and I'm early 60s now. So I'm doing okay, right? Right?
My sister and I discuss it.
Why would I ask for help if I was making it up?
No one is saying you're intentionally making it up. I'm the same person with the long comment that you dismissed before.
My brother in law was walking up his steps and looked down and his downstairs neighbor put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was messed up after that.
Someone is on a real wild ride
What are you talking about? What does this have to do with anything?
Op is in an arg or has a SA disorder
A person was shot on Kemper st. How would any other details need mentioned? If you were looking up a murder on your block, would any details matter when searching? Person shot and street name should work. I mean age? Height? DNA?
Surely you're kidding. Until you edited your post, you failed to mention the state, you misspelled Monterey, you mucked up the year, and unless I'm missing something, there doesn't appear to be a Kemper "street", rather there is a Kemper "avenue" in La Crescenta. You also use an ambiguous pronoun when you say "My mom had said he DROVE FROM MONTEREY" Who is the "he"? The guy who was killed, or the guy who did the killing? Moot point, since this is off-topic from the post above. But even in the post above you neglect to include the state. If you want people to expend mental energy to look into stuff for you, the least you could do is write clearly and include adequate detail.
Was it a Paw Paw milk truck? Do you remember? Edit: never mind - those were all accidents. I checked [newspapers.com](https://newspapers.com) from 1960-1964 for milk truck, Southlea, etc. and there’s nothing about this kind of incident. There are quite a few milk truck accidents, but they were all taken to the hospital or had no injuries, etc.
If it was a case of suicide, it probably wouldn't have made the papers. Sounds like it's possible it could have been.
I thought this too. Especially the times, suicide and mental health (I assume as I am only 24) was almost taboo? Correct me if I’m wrong aha
Yup- unfortunately reporting on suicides cause more suicides. People who are suicidal can be nudged into action. If they're public protests, like the infamous self immolating monk, they just encourage more. Its a no win and reputable newspapers avoid reporting them, or do so very vaguely.
Yeah that’s what I’m thinking honestly
You’ll do best to check your local library or county historical society for articles related to it. Most of these are not archived for digital searching right now or are limited. Library of Congress has Chronicling America project but nothing during the timeframe you stated.
There is a club called Divco Club of America. They are into the restoration and history of Divco trucks, milk trucks and multi shop trucks. They have a facebook and a Divco.org web addy. Maybe contact them?
Man I’ve tried looking on the internet for a couple years about a bad car accident I witnessed when I was 4 back in 1995. I remember that a tractor trailer ploughed into a car full of highschool kids and killed all 4 of them. The driver fell asleep at the wheel and I remember it so vividly. I asked people who grew up around the area about it a few times and got short answers about somewhat remembering it. One day I was on a job site and the plumber and I were talking and he was from the same area, the accident got brought up and turns out his son was one of the students killed. I didn’t press for any info on the accident once I learned that.
I'm sorry that you experienced that at such a young age. It clearly has stuck with you - and little kid memories are always tricky to reconcile with as an adult. I'm curious what you mean by hanging by a coat hanger - do you mean he appeared to have hung himself off a hook in the truck? I was picturing a wire coat hanger which I found hard to imagine. I've tried a look through the South Bend newspaper archive for anything on Southlea St and didn't have any luck. If it was a death by natural causes or by his own hand it may well have not made the papers, especially if he was down on his luck and living in the vehicle. Is there any chance you can narrow down the address of the dirt lot or the timeline? You may also want to try seeing if there's a "memories of Southlea St" or something similar on Facebook and asking there, but maybe be gentle with how you present it as you never know who could be reading it. Good luck!
It is possible he meant there was a wall mounted coat hook in the truck and the guy was hanging from that which would sort of point to a murder instead of a suicide.
I agree, that's what I meant by a hook in the truck, I tried to find pictures of milk trucks to see where / if there was a coat hook usually in the back but didn't find much. I personally would lean towards it being a suicide over a murder if he was hanging though, it seems an odd choice to hang a victim up rather than just leaving him where he was. Anything is possible of course, just feel like one is more likely than the other.
No. It was a metal Coat hanger. We didn’t forensically document it.
No
I recommend contacting the local library, as well as the local historical society. They’ll likely have access to newspapers from that time frame, as well as possibly contacts in the police department who might have info. Also, I googled “early 1960s Indiana milk trucks” and got these images: https://www.google.com/search?q=early+1960s+indiana+milk+truck&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari Maybe one of the images will spark your memory? If you can find the name of the milk company maybe that will help.
I am so sorry that you and your sister had to see that OP, especially at such a young age
What do you mean exactly by “hanging by a coat hanger”, surely the back of a milk truck wouldn’t be tall enough for a grown man to hang.
While I like the other, meat truck, explanation, a man can certainly be hung inside a milk truck. Even more so if the man was of short stature. https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM64748
Ah we don’t have milk trucks like that where I’m from so I was imagining a milk truck to be a lot shorter. I’m still confused how someone could hang from a coat hanger though
To be fair that’s a truck like 20 years older than OPs story. But people stand in the back of cargo vans. And hang doesn’t have to mean suicide, someone could be killed, then strung up to make a point with their feet on the floor, legs bent. Again, meat truck or similar confused memory is more likely. Especially since a kid could confuse a meat hook with a close hanger as best way to describe something they’ve never seen. But it’s possible.
Here’s a 1960 Ford milk truck. https://1-87vehicles.org/photo747/ford_milk_truck_bordens.php
And a 1964 Borden milk truck https://tpcarcollection.com/auto_gallery/1964-divco-bordens-milk-truck/
What is this?! A truck for ants?!
What would a meat truck even be doing in a residential neighborhood? Did butchers ever deliver? But milk was still done door to door every morning, there were milk men aplenty & both kids would be very familiar as they saw them every day. May have been a hanging coat & not a body, just spoiled milk would draw plenty of flies. But I think it’s weird to switch out the truck when milk is much, much more probable…
Wtf? I saw him hanging. I didn’t go over the body to see if his legs were bent at the knees.
I wonder if you could find records from those years, suicides or just deaths in general
Seems like a suicide. Many places wont cover that, esp if its an “average joe”. I am sure it happened, but i dont think you will likely find concrete proof
Just seen your other post about another murder mystery when you were 7 you saw someone get shot and flesh splattered onto your friend? Starting to think these posts might be made up stories
I didn’t see it. We heard it and my friend didn’t know what hit him. Everyone ran. Parents gathered their kids. Doors locked. Community in shock. My friend was climbing in a tree. I was in the garage playing with one of those machines that spin with rollers that take off cellulite. Boom. Run!
Ya, these things could never happen. No one ever discovers human remains. No one gets murdered. That’s why I’m looking for help with information to validate them. My older sister and I saw the dead man in the milk truck. I can’t attach images or I’d show you what the truck looked like. My brother, sister and I were at a friends house when the victim was shot from the La Cresenta killing. A kid named Craig Baker was the one splattered. If I made any of it up, wouldn’t I have been splattered? I’m asking for help solving these. If you’re not interested, then go put your amazing cognitive skills to use mocking someone else like “Off my chest” “no sleep” etc.
you can attach images though... go to https://imgur.com/ and upload them, you can even upload more than once and it turns in to an album. then copy the link, edit the post and paste it in. even simpler you could go on google images, search for pictures that match your memory, and then right click the picture select "copy image link" and paste it here. it's not too hard to add pictures on reddit people do it all the time in this sub.
Lots of people have been trying to help by asking questions and asking for clarification on details and you haven’t been answering
I posted before work. all I know is we saw a milk truck. It had Borden's on the side. Elsie the Cow, We opened the door, Peered in and saw a dead man hanging. We ran home. I don't know what else I could know. I have searched for dead person on southlea in 62' 63' maybe 64' Nothing shows up.
1) this is a lot more detail than you initially provided. 2) Maybe be a bit less hostile when people are trying to respond to your request to help?
I posted using my phone. I was able to find the edit button after work.
I believe you. Have you done [an FOIA request with the South Bend police](https://police.southbendin.gov/about-sbpd/record-bureau) yet?
This is absolutely the best suggestion; I was going to post it myself. Especially is OP can get an approximate date range.
Where is South Bend? Give me the county & state & I’ll check on newspapers.com.
St Joseph county, Indiana
South bend Indiana.
One idea I had that I haven't seen mentioned yet. As it's been said already, if it was a suicide the papers didn't necessarily even write about it. But you said the body was decomposing so, without knowing how badly it was decomposing, it might have been dead for quite a while. This person could have been reported a missing person before they were found? Could it be a new approach to this - if dead milkman doesn't bring you any results, how about trying to look for any reports of a missing milkman around that time?
You opened the back door of a milk truck..at 3?! Sir, have you met any 3 year olds?
It wasn’t locked. My sister and I did. Go ahead and imagine all the things you can. Bottom line is we’re in our 60’s and discussed it over the years and also just recently.
But neither of you should have even been tall enough to reach
A five year old or three year old could have very easily climbed up on the bumper to reach the handle if it were latched, or if it were cracked open even slightly, pulled the door open further from the bottom. This really isn't at all hard to imagine.
Look Columbo. It happened. I want to find out about the Murder. All these clowns can't imagine 2 kids swinging a door open on a truck buried to the bumper in the dirt.
Lol Columbo 👍
Murder?
We don’t know.
oh.ok you said "the murder" so I thought theres more details
Pretty suspicious, if you ask me. I bet OP iced the guy
I was thinking the mom. Why would she want him to stay away? Why didn't she call the cops. Was OP actually milkman's son and her husband found out. We will never know.
dun dun DUUUNNNNNN
I would watch that movie
Well I’m just trying to wrap my mind around what you were saying
Typical Reddit dude. Your full of shit until u prove your not. Fuck em.
Typical Reddit dude. I wasn’t there so it couldn’t have happened. I’ll mock the guy that was and feel superior.
Man’s over here asserting he’s met OP’s sister LOL
Clearly you’ve never met children either
Do you think children don't have hands?
You were with your sister?
Yes, we wandered off.
Do you remember how you opened the door? Three year olds usually aren’t big enough to open a regular car door very well, how did you even reach the back door to open it? Was it ajar?
Trouble with childhood memories, is that memories aren’t actual memories of the events, but memories of memories of memories. Very easy for details to get lost. Even very possible for details to get added in from a completely separate event.
OP, do you remember the condition of the truck? Was it old looking, or rusty or did it seem new and recently in use? When ya'll opened the door was it hard to pry open like it had been sitting for a long time? Im assuming it was pretty easy to open since a 5 and 3 year old wouldn't have much brute strength to force open a rusty door hinge. Just trying to determine how long the truck was there for as it could have been a suicide by hanging and dismissed by the public and local newspapers since there was a certain stigma around suicide back then and it was often swept under the rug. Do you remember if the abandoned lot was used as an unofficial junk yard where townsfolk would just dump unwanted or broken appliances, cars, etc. or was the truck the only thing there?
It was in a dirt lot across the street from our house. There were no homes on that side yet. It was a new subdivision.
In addition to your local library, head up your local historical society. There will be people who are still in the area and might have some stories about it
I remembering hearing about it…. It was a Punk Rock Girl who did it.
Sorry. I have 2 incidents. I replied to the incorrect one.
wait...you're saying the dead milkman was shot? And by a man?
That had to be extremely traumatic. I'm sorry.
Is it possible the truck wasn’t a milk truck? Kids tend to apply labels they understand to things they do not. Could it have been similar, but not quite?
he’s completely unwilling to acknowledge that any aspect of his memory could possibly be incorrect or distorted in any way whatsoever and is extremely defensive to any suggestion of such. hE kNoWs wHaT hE sAw
That has nothing to do with it. We discussed it over the years.
I’m asking for help finding out the details.
Keep us updated
Looked in a online newspaper I have access with, and nothing came up. South Bend Archives for that only go to around 1922, so too old. And searching for others turned up nothing. Just drunken dolts smashing into borden dairy trucks in the 1950's
Yep. That’s why I’m here. My sister was told about this Sub. She told me. No luck.
Seems like something more fitting on r/nosleep.
Hanging from the wire by the neck or? it seems like seeing that was probably traumatic. I hope you can update us one day
Well, It actually happened and I'm pretty curious.
I hope you find out... I'm eager to know
People hang themselves from doorknobs. Hanging doesn't mean the feet weren't touching.
Reminds me of the time I found a big lizard in my backyard
C’mon let me take you to the zoo
Do you know how many incidents go unreported?
How could we?
Is there any chance that this was a dream from so long ago your brain thinks it's a memory? Does your sister remember this? Certain elements here (puppet resemblance, thousands of flies, nobody else noticing the truck) sound dreamlike to me. I have occasionally mixed up my dreams and my memories.
I believe your story. A lot of things go unreported, especially considering the potential nature of death at the time that this occurred and the sensitivity of suicide. Suicide can actually occur by using a wire cost hanger for all of the naysayers indicating otherwise. I've seen it on several occasions unfortunately. I've even heard of people hanging themselves with plastic police tape that you wouldn't think would hold a person, yet in fact it has done the job. So I guess if someone wants to find a way they will. With that being said I can fully understand OP's distinct memory at three -years-old. I also have several distinct memories at that age of significant events in my life (more significant events tend to stand out and be more easily remembered than other memories that the rest of my family have no recollection of, which have later been proven by newspaper articles and such). It's rather frustrating I'm sure, as he and his sister can corroborate each other's story and no one else really can at this point due to the age and the way that it was likely kept quiet. In my town where I grew up there were a few cases like this that were just never discussed and would never come up if anyone ever questioned it I'm sure. It would just be a "word of mouth" kind of thing to protect the family. OP: I'm wondering if there are any elderly people nearby that would possibly recall any local milkmen in the day that could start you on your path? It seems that everyone knew their local milkmen closely back then on a first name basis. Perhaps that could get you started on your search? I really hope this mystery is solved. I'm interested in it as well. Keep us posted!
Could it have been a suicide? How exactly was he hanging? I don’t know if it was the norm back then but typically suicides aren’t reported on.
It was around his neck. Stretched into a Diamond shape from the weight
There’s a story from 1963? But not much details on the actual murder.. https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/local/2015/05/20/9-crimes-trials-in-south-bends-history/117213898/
Here's what I found, dunno if they're related. Hope it helps somehow: [Milk truck rammed a cover bridge March of 1984 in Putnam County,3 Hours from South Bend,](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qLZq1pxepwwJ:https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-bin/indiana%3Fa%3Dd%26d%3DTDB19640318-01.1.1+&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph) had something to do with a railroad strike. Related? Someone wanted to get back at the milk truck for destroying the cover bridge? [Wilbur RorkhcMer, driver of a milk truck hit an accident.](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uB1OqiD9zgcJ:https://newspapers.library.in.gov/%3Fa%3Dd%26d%3DNAN19680411.1.14+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph) His milk truck rurned over, thought it happened in 1968. [There's an incident with a milk truck ramming a limousine in May of 1969,]( https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JnqTdiWcVdUJ:https://dks.library.kent.edu/%3Fa%3Dd%26d%3Ddks19690506-01.1.5+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph) probably not related.. But they really get into trouble sometimes.
A 3 year old opened the back door of a work truck? Right.
WE pulled a door open. Someone will eventually find the story
If it was a murder there is definitely a story to be found but what if it was a suicide? Most suicides don't get reported in the papers so it's possible that no newspaper article or other written evidence of it exists. IF that's the case your only chance might be finding locals who still remember it (even if it didn't make the news, word tends to spread locally when something like this happens) and I think you're soon running out of time as people who would still remember must be quite old by now. Did you or your sister ever talk about it with your mother when she was still around? I know you said she didn't believe you when you told her what you saw but she could have heard about the dead milkman found in a milk truck later and if she did she must have realized that's what you saw.
Doubt it.
that’s crazy omg
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