In November 1947, the remains of six people were found among debris scattered across Logan County Arkansas’ Magazine Mountain. They were quickly confirmed the crew members of a crashed B-25.

The partial remains of another man were found in the terrain in April 1970. With his identity and cause of death still unknown, the Mangled Man of Magazine Mountain is the Razorback State’s longest-standing unidentified remains case.

AKA The Magazine Mountain John Doe

Situated within the Ozark National Forest, Magazine Mountain encompasses the highest point not only in Arkansas but in the U.S. Interior Highlands.

While they were picking poke sallet, a common wild green in the Ozarks, on April 15, 1970, Mr. and Mrs. F. J. Swilling and a friend came upon a nude lower human torso atop a brush pile along a tree stump near an old rock quarry and gravel pit about three miles down the mountain’s south side near State Highway 309.

A police and volunteer search of the mountain produced no additional body parts, i.e. the head, arms, lower legs, and upper torso, or any clothing, jewelry, or other belongings that could help identify the body.

Magazine Mountain

A plastic bag near the remains and four other bags on the mountain’s north side about five miles away all contained human blood and light brown hair. Some also housed flesh fragments, and one held human intestines and other entrails. All of the bags had been torn into by animals.

On April 19, four days later, a dog was reported seen walking with what looked like a human arm and hand in its mouth, but the hound could not be tracked.

Reports of other human body parts found nearby also produced no leads. An object resembling a human heart was found near a Booneville sawmill, thirty-five miles west of Magazine Mountain, and a possible human arm was found near Midway, one-hundred-sixty-five miles to the northeast.

The Arkansas State Crime Lab determined the torso was that of a white male weighing approximately one-hundred-eighty to one-hundred ninety pounds who was between thirty to forty-years-old (although some modern databases list the age range as between twenty to seventy-years-old.) His body flesh appeared to have been cleanly bisected with a knife and a saw had been used to cut through the bone. Brown pubic hair mixed with gray strands was on the torso, which had been cut just above the naval and roughly six inches down the thighs.

The man was believed to have been killed roughly two days earlier, probably, but not proven, to have been murdered. Identifications through fingerprints or dental records could not be made because the hands and teeth were not found. A composite of his appearance could also not be produced because his skull was not recovered.

No local missing persons reports were matched to what information could be gleaned of the unknown man. A mental patient’s claim of having murdered him was dismissed, all members of several hippie groups seen on Magazine Mountain in the days beforehand were cleared of any involvement in the man’s death, and a similarly cut human torso found in California could not be connected to that found on the mountain.

The man’s partial remains were buried at Paris, Arkansas’ Oakwood Cemetery, approximately fifteen miles south of Magazine Mountain. His headstone was marked “Unknown Male 1970” (one source says it read “Unknown Male, Discovered on Magazine Mountain.”)

The remains were exhumed several months later for comparison to the similar mutilation of a murder victim in Little Rock, just over a hundred miles southeast of the mountain. The bodies were found to have been dismembered in different manners and any connection between the two decedents was dismissed.

The Magazine Mountain John Doe’s remains were not returned to Oakwood Cemetery, and their current location, as far as I could find, has not been made public.

No useable DNA has yet been successfully obtained from the partial remains. Modern testing methods such as genetic genealogy or isotope analysis could potentially identify the man if the rest of the remains could be retrieved. Some believe that although they were not found during the searches, they could still potentially be discovered on the mountain.

If you have information relating to the identity of The Logan County Arkansas John Doe, AKA the Magazine Mountain Joe Doe, please contact the Logan County Sheriff’s Office at 479-963-3271 or the Arkansas State Police Cold Case Unit at 501-618-8000 or email at [email protected].

 

Drawing Of The Unknown Man’s Original Gravestone

remains, three public officials were abducted near Magazine Mountain and ultimately shot by two escaped prisoners. Forty-two-year-old Marvin Richie, the town marshal of (the town of) Magazine, roughly thirty miles west of the mountain, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Park Ranger Opal James, died.

Twenty-seven-year-old Park Ranger David Small survived.  He died in 2009 at age fifty-nine.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46177066/marvin_eugene-richie

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18740679/opal-lee-james

               

Left to Right: Marvin Richie, Opal James, David Small

Twenty-nine-year-old Paul Ruiz and twenty-seven-year-old Earl Van Denton were each serving life sentences, Ruiz for armed robbery, Van Denton for murder, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. They had escaped on June 23 and were captured in Portland, Oregon on July 8.

The duo are believed to have killed five other people, one of whose remains have not been found, across Oklahoma and Louisiana during their two week spree. They were tried for the Arkansas murders and, after exhausting all of their appeals, were executed by lethal injection at Lincoln County’s Cummins Unit in January 1997.

Paul Ruiz And Earl Van Denton

An overlook at Blue Mountain Lake, sitting in the valley at the base of Magazine Mountain, was named the Opal L. James Memorial Lookout.

Mount Magazine From The Opal James Overlook

Opal James is the only Army Corps of Engineer Park Ranger killed in the line of duty.

A Plaque Commemorating Opal James

SOURCES:

• AY (About You) Magazine
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas
• Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• Resident News Network
• Southwest Times-Record (Fort Smith, Arkansas)
• Today In Fort Smith