Mystery: What happened to the heads?

In trying to re-tell the stories of Aurora Police Chief Frank Michels’ investigation into Warren Lincoln, I ran into a lot of unanswered questions.

Since Lincoln told police lie after lie after lie, we’ll never really know exactly why, when or how the murders were committed. Lincoln took those answers with him when he died in 1941.

But there’s one mystery that could theoretically be solved today: What happened to the cement blocks that were used to seal the heads of Lina Lincoln and Byron Shoup — the evidence of Lincoln’s crime?

The discovery of two cement blocks with the victims’ heads inside was the topper on what had already been a sensational and truly bizarre murder mystery. The fact that Lincoln said he had used the blocks to prop up his front porch fit right in with the madness.

In the Jan. 27, 1924, edition of The Aurora Daily Beacon-News, undertaker Arthur Chown is seen happily holding up the two skulls for a photographer — they were presumably later buried at Lina and Byron’s graves in Mount Pulaski.

But on June 8, 1934, a small story appeared in the paper about the blocks.

According to the story, the prosecutors had held the blocks in the sheriff’s office since the trial.

Jack Holslag, an enterprising member of the Aurora Historical Society, asked for the blocks, and Judge Frank Shepherd granted a court order for the transfer.

Two days later, the paper followed up when the blocks were sent to the public library where, the story says, they would remain on permanent display. According to the paper, the blocks were still in “good condition” and pieces of hair could still be seen trapped in the blocks. (Personal note: Ugh.)

“The features of the two (people) left a perfect ‘death mask’ in the cement,” the story said. “They will hereafter be the property of the historical society, a lasting and gruesome souvenir of Aurora’s most unusual murder case.”

But current Aurora Historical Society Senior Curator Dennis Buck (who was extremely helpful in giving me access to their archives and photos) said 73 years later, the blocks have once again disappeared.

“I don’t doubt that it was offered and wouldn’t for sure say that it wasn’t accepted at some point,” Buck said this month. “But it’s definitely not here now.”

Buck has been with the Historical Society 11 years and Executive Director John Jaros has been there more than 20 — neither of them has ever seen the blocks. And before Buck, former Curator Elizabeth Carlson re-organized the entire collection.

“Almost everything got moved at some point. She had her hands on every piece in the collection,” Buck said. “She never found anything like that, and was very grateful.”

Buck says the Historical Society doesn’t have any paperwork showing the blocks were accepted.

“Maybe the then-curator declined for reasons of taste,” he said. “The short answer is, we don’t know.”

Perhaps someone out there knows what happened to Aurora’s most notorious, most outrageous and most disgusting pieces of evidence. Drop me an e-mail at mhanley@scn1.com if you have more information.

But Buck said even eight decades after the murder, housing the blocks could still be a touchy subject.

“I don’t know whether we would accept it or not,” Buck said. “That would generate an interesting discussion.”