Four centuries ago, English poet John Donne wrote “no man is an island.” While those words may be true, Carey Stanton was the man on an island, as the eccentric but respected caretaker and only domiciled resident of California’s Santa Cruz Island. A discovery made two-and-a-half years after his 1987 death, however, left many wondering if the former doctor had done something dastardly.
Dr. Carey Stanton
Encompassing approximately 62,000 acres stretching twenty-two miles long and two-to-six miles wide, Santa Cruz Island, roughly twenty-fives miles offshore from Ventura, is the largest of California’s eight Channel Islands. During Dr. Stanton’s fourteen-year stewardship, it was the largest privately owned island in the continental United States.
Map And ESA (European Space Agency) Image Of Santa Cruz Island
Carey Stanton’s father, Edwin, a wealthy Los Angeles businessman and oil man, purchased 90% of Santa Cruz Island for $1 million in 1937. After the sheep that had been raised on the island became feral, they were removed and the enclave was converted into a cattle ranch.
Edwin Stanton
Carey Stanton graduated from Stanford University in 1944 and from the school’s medical school in 1947. He practiced as an internist and pathologist in New York City for ten years before returning west to run the cattle ranch after his father’s health worsened.
Carey never married.
Eighteen-Year-Old Carey Stanton
Edwin Stanton died in 1963. Three years later, with his widow Evelyn and Carey’s support, the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) established the Santa Cruz Island Field Station as a research reserve providing access, assistance, and facilities for archaeological students and researchers.
Following his mother’s death in 1973, Carey assumed control of the island/ranch until selling it to the Nature Conservancy, based in Arlington, Virginia, in 1978. The private non-profit organization leased the land back to him under a thirty-year contract which permitted him to continue to live on the island.
In 1985, Dr. Stanton established the Santa Cruz Island Foundation, a non-profit public benefit corporation devoted to preserving the atoll’s cultural history.
The Doctor Sells, But Stays, On the Island
On December 8, 1987, Dr. Carey Stanton died of a heart attack at age sixty-four. He left Santa Cruz Island to the Nature Conservancy.
The Man On The Island’s Day Is Done
The Nature Conservancy soon ended the island’s cattle operations and began working with the Santa Barbara County’s Agricultural Commission and other environmental agencies to preserve the Island.
In searching Santa Cruz Island for old and potentially harmful pesticides on April 27, 1990, nearly two-and-a-half years after Dr. Stanton’s death, California Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Joe Karl made a surprising discovery.
A sealed copper box sitting in a seed cabinet stored in a nineteenth-century wooden shed contained multiple bones confirmed by Santa Barbara County Chief Deputy Coroner Larry Gillespie as cremated human remains. Such copper boxes were used to hold cremains both before and after World War II, though the practice was discontinued during the war due to a copper shortage. It could not be determined where the box originated or when the cremation occurred.
While Santa Cruz Island had largely been Dr. Stanton’s private domain, other people dwelt and worked there, including UCSB employees and scientists as well as workers from The Nature Conservancy. None had any knowledge of the remains in the shed.
Stored In The Shed
Also in the box were a snap-like clothing fastener, multiple false teeth, and a small diamond-studded platinum eternity or wedding ring. The snap was typical of those used in the 1920s-1940s while analysis of the false teeth’s polymer blends determined they were probably manufactured in the 1950s, but could have been produced as recently as the 1980s. The ring is believed to be platinum, because gold tends to melt at cremation temperatures, while platinum does not.
Scattered across the box were metal nails, screws, and staples, all items that survive the heat during the cremation process and which were believed to be parts of a coffin.
Tests on the bone fragments determined they were those of an at least fifty-year-old woman, likely older, who suffered from arthritis. UCSB Forensic Anthropologist Dr. Phil Walker believes the woman was cremated sometime during the 1950s or 1960s.
Foul play is not suspected in the woman’s death. One journalist theorizes she was the mother of a mid-century island ranch worker who intended to bury or scatter her remains on the island but never did so.
I do not believe any computer of sculpted renderings of how the woman may have appeared have been produced.
Items Found In The Shed
Those associated with him do not Dr. Stanton knew of the bones in the shed or had anything to do with the woman’s death. It is not known if he knew the woman.
Did The Former Pathologist Know Of The Bones?
Dr. Carey Stanton established the Cemetery of the Holy Cross, a private graveyard exclusively for those intimately associated with Santa Cruz Island. He had his parents’ bodies exhumed, cremated, and reburied in the cemetery and was also interred there following his death.
The Stanton family plot in the cemetery still contains his parents, brother, paternal grandparents, paternal uncles, several other relatives, and two island workers.
Monolithic Statue Of An Angel And Child
Marks The Collective Graves Of The Stanton Family
The unmarked grave of the unidentified woman interred with a single cross also lays outside the ranch chapel.
Cemetery Of The Holy Cross
Santa Cruz Island
Carey Stanton’s older brother, United States Army First Lieutenant Edwin Stanton, Jr., served in World War II and died at age twenty-six on July 11, 1944, during the Normandy Invasion of France. Per Carey’s wishes following his 1987 death, the Santa Cruz Island Foundation moved his brother’s remains to the Holy Cross Island Cemetery.
Edwin Stanton, Jr.
The grave of Edwin Stanton, Jr. was originally a cenotaph only. When his remains were relocated, many personal item placed in the cenotaph by Carey Stanton were found, including Edwin’s diploma, silver spurs, and his father’s track and war medals.
Edwin Jr.’s Retrieved Keepsakes
SOUCRES:
- Los Angeles Times
- Santa Barbara Independent
- Santa Cruz Island Foundation
- Unsolved Mysteries
- Ventura County Star
I wish the mystery remains would be shared with a genealogical DNA company to investigate who this person is. Othram company comes to mins.