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The Okefenokee Swamp is one of those places that is so isolated and so forbidding that your imagination can work overtime. However, it is also the type of place where facts can be more compelling than anything that can be imagined.

Throughout history, there have been legends about a tribe of beautiful women, of treasures beyond anyone’s dreams and legends about the misshapen remains of humans that were found. Some of the most horrific stories that have been proven true are of body dumps associated with the terror that people lived with in Phenix City, Alabama. Finally, there is the mysterious disappearance of the World War II planes of Flight 19. Some think that they are in the swamp. I think that all of these stories call for an extra strong cup of coffee and a comfortable place, preferably where your back is to the wall.

Let’s start in the sixteenth century, when Spanish explorers first decided to come up north, away from the dark, forbidding swamps of Florida and entered what is now Georgia. They were told many stories by the local Indians about a very gorgeous and exotic race of women that lived where the water was very deep, back in the gloomy, moss shrouded cypresses, in the wilderness that was a huge swamp. When the Seminole Indians came, they called it the “land of the trembling earth”. We know this as the Okefenokee Swamp.

This mysterious tribe of women, which the Indians called, “Daughters of the Sun”, were said to be beautiful, dark-eyed maidens, who lived on an enchanted island in the swamp that they called Lost Paradise. This may have been what is now called, Billy’s Island.

Being in the middle of the dark, shadowy swamp, there was a lot of speculation about this island, that was always hidden by very thick clouds. Also, out of site in this area, were bottomless lakes that were filled with man eating alligators. Their mission was to protect this tribe of women.

The more dangerous the stories became, the more elusive and enticing these beauties were. This just served to make the Spanish soldiers even more determined to find and conquer them. They marched farther and farther into the dark, uncharted corners of the swamp, intent on finding these Daughters of the Sun. The Spanish dressed in their most gleaming armor so they could impress these ladies. (Imagine, wearing armor in a swamp!) They mounted expedition upon expedition, going deeper and deeper into the black heart of the Okefenokee. Many died and they never found this tribe of females.

Another legend is that about a race of giants that was believed to have once inhabited the swamp. For thousands of years, Native American Indians once lived in the Okefenokee. They left behind 65 low, earthen mounds, where they buried their honored dead. It was on Chesser Island, one of the many islands in the swamp, where evidence of a particular tribe was found.

At this time, the island was still owned by the Chesser family, who had lived there for generations. The story came to light when in 1969, Tom Chesser talked to a reporter from the “Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Sunday Magazine”. He related the story about how, in the 1920s, he had been asked by a professor from a nearby university, if he could excavate a mound that was on the Chesser property. Tom said, “Yes”, and joined in the excavation.

While digging, they found thirteen very unusual skeletons. Some of them were laid across each other, some were placed face down and some were on top of one another. When they were first discovered, all of them were absolutely perfect, like they had fallen asleep. Even their teeth still had some of the shine of life on them.

However, during the dig a couple of big problems came to light. One being that after air touched the bodies, they began to disintegrate. Another was, these skeletons were those of giants! Their jawbones were so large, that they could cover the whole face of a normal size human being. With the bodies being systematically destroyed, the digging stopped.

The Indian mound is still on Chesser Island, which is now under the protection of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. No more excavation is allowed.

Our next story takes us to Phenix City, Alabama, that is across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, Georgia. It is a city that has had a rather unsavory reputation since its beginning in the 1700s, when it was called Sodom. Then later, it was renamed Girard, back in the 1800s and on up until as recent as the 1980s, when it then became known as Phenix City.

This story comes from its gangster days, which started at the beginning of the 1940s, when the good people of Phenix City lived in terror. It is also a time when many missing persons went unaccounted for.

There are several stories that swirl around about body dumps in the Okefenokee Swamp as a way to hide the murdered bodies of enemies. The story I am about to tell you has been documented and is true.

Okefenokee Swamp became a place used for body dumps for several reasons. One was because of its location, far enough away from Phenix City so as not to draw suspicion and next, there was a chain of unsavory gangsters stretching across Georgia and into Florida that would help. Other reasons were that the swamp is very shrouded and inaccessible and finally, the alligators would certainly eat the bodies of these people, thus their remains would never be found. The following account is from a transcript documenting this era in Phenix City. I used letters instead of names because I think I watch too many shows like FBI and don’t want a hit man to show up at my door.

The people that were involved in the criminal activity in Phenix City didn’t discriminate. Both the innocent and guilty, would vanish without a trace. Often, this was when criminal cases reached the point of trial and key witnesses would disappear. Some left on their own, but others were taken. When those who left were never found, it was typical that after a certain amount of time, these high-profile cases were just closed. However, some of those missing did not get away with their lives and when they resurfaced, it was because someone had uncovered their shallow graves or, the waters of the Okefenokee Swamp, had receded enough to allow the human skeletons to be discovered.

A rather famous case occurred in 1944. Three Phenix City gangsters that I will call, A, B and C, were arrested on illegal liquor charges here in Georgia. The case was set for trial that October. However, when time for the trial grew near, no one could find the key witness. This person was a young soldier stationed at Fort Benning, named D.

At one time, he was in a Federal prison for violating military code. To get his sentence reduced, he agreed to work as an undercover informant during the investigation of A, B and C. He wrote a letter to the Federal agents who were investigating the liquor case, but unfortunately, before it could be mailed, it fell into the hands of some criminals in Phenix City. The information in the letter reached the city’s gangsters and they agreed that something needed to be done in order to stop D from testifying about what he knew.

Now the hit men, E and F come into the picture. They worked in a shipyard in Brunswick, Georgia. Their favorite way to spend a weekend was to go to Phenix City, steal what money they could, to support their morphine habits.

E and F saw A, B and C setting at a table in a Phenix City saloon. They went over and joined them. As the three hoods laid out the story of D, E told them that he knew this soldier and that they used to be friends. C told E and F that they could earn $1,000 each if they could make D “disappear.” Then, when they delivered the dead body, they would get the money.

Right away, E got in touch with D and invited him to come to Brunswick for a weekend. D was to meet him about half way, in Fitzgerald, Georgia. When he arrived, the men started taking a lot of drugs. This is when E gave D a fatal shot of morphine. As soon as the deadly drug went in, D collapsed and died.

Now, E and F had to take the body to where C was waiting, at the Georgia/Florida state line. Here, they would show C the soldier’s body and they would be paid. However, E and F had been taking a lot of drugs, too, and were in a state of paranoia. They thought that D had started to talk! To be sure he was dead, they put a mirror up to his face, confirming that there were no signs of life. Then they thought, what if the soldier wasn’t dead and he came to, while they were driving. They could be caught by the police or worse, the gangsters would think that they could not keep up their end of the bargain.

With these thoughts, the two men rolled the dead body into an old Army blanket and put him in the backseat of their car. Now, they headed for the Georgia/Florida line. However, just before they got there, E’s paranoia struck again. This time, he thought that the body was moving. Shaking, he told F to pull over. E now gave the solider another lethal dose of morphine.

Satisfied that he was dead, they drove on for several hours before they pulled into a swampy, wooded area at the state line and took the corpse from the backseat. They hid the body under a thick growth of underbrush and went to get C, so he could see that the soldier was dead. C was satisfied and he told the two hit men to get rid of the body in the Okefenokee Swamp. C then took out a wad of cash and paid the men for their murderous deed.

A short time after this murder and body dump, E and F would be involved in another crime, but this one was very personal.

F married a girl from Columbus, Georgia, named W. She was a beautiful widow who had two small children. She hadn’t been married to F more than a week when she discovered some documents and stacks of cash. She then began to question him about what he was doing when he went to Phenix City. Then, she made the huge mistake and threatened to tell the police about what she found. F told her that if she did, it would be the last thing she would ever do.

Later that day, a violent argument broke out between F and W, as they were driving through town with E in the back seat. As the argument began to get violent, W saw a policeman standing in a nearby parking lot. She grabbed at the door handle and said she was getting out of the car and going to tell the policeman everything that she knew.

Now, there was dead silence. F glanced in the rearview mirror at E, who then hit W over the head with a soda bottle, knocking her unconscious. They drove her out of town and strangled her. Then, they took her body across Georgia and into the Okefenokee Swamp. Here, they threw her body into the black, murky waters. Her body was not found.

Years later, in 1948, both E and F were arrested on drug charges in Florida and sent to prison. While in jail, the men bragged about working for the Phenix City mafia and about getting away with murder, to their inmates. The Florida Sheriff happened to over hear all this and notified the Georgia police department. Now the two were brought from the prison that they were in, to one in Georgia. The Georgia investigators took over and questioned the two. They confessed.

What remained of the bodies of D and W were recovered. E and F were sentenced to life in prison. Authorities were sure that there were more bodies dumped into the swamp. However, it is a huge area and without the kind of equipment that we have today, it would be virtually impossible to find them.

My final mystery involves a squadron of five TBM Avenger aircraft that took off on a routine training mission on December 5, 1945, from the Naval Air Station at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, never to be seen again. The weather was fine, skies clear, but ninety minutes into the flight, the situation went very wrong. One of the pilots radioed the tower that they could no longer see land and were off course. They were supposed to be going north, along the Florida coastline.

Then a strong storm that was centered over Georgia came into the mix. Thirty minutes later the final transmission came in, “We are completely lost!”. Thus, Flight 19 became known as the Lost Patrol.

There were fourteen men on these planes with four of the pilots still in training. On board the lead plane, the compass stopped working. No one knows for sure where they went down. During those last thirty minutes, spotty transmissions placed them anywhere from over the Atlantic Ocean in what is called the Bermuda Triangle, to being in the Gulf of Mexico, then to being over land and heading north towards Georgia and the Okefenokee Swamp.

There was a massive search involving 238 planes, many Coast Guard and Naval surface vessels as well as the aircraft carrier USS Solomon. They combed the entire area off the Florida coast and in the Bermuda Triangle area. No bodies or debris was ever found.

Many theories about where the planes went down have been investigated throughout the following decades, with no success. This leads one to think that maybe they are looking in the wrong place. Maybe the flight didn’t go down in the Atlantic Ocean. Then, in 1992, debris was found on the eastern edge of Okefenokee Swamp.

When you calculate the statistics of how much fuel they would have had at the last transmission and where they were headed, there are few other options than to think that Flight 19 went down in the Okefenokee. Now the conditions in and around the Swamp are not those that make searching for something easy. Also, there is the fact that most of the Okefenokee is a National Wildlife Refuge. Only about two percent is available to search. Plus, the people who knew the swamp the best no longer lived there and probably were not alive. After several tries, nothing was found.

However, there still are treasure hunters out there and the area that is accessible in and around the swamp, is a top priority for searching. Also, with technology getting better and better, sometimes it is not necessary to even be on the ground and near what you are searching for.

I still have more adventures in the Okefenokee Swamp to share with you. This time we will become friends with the gators. See you next week.