Monday, September 23, 2013

The Bones of Gary Hayman

Sixty-one years ago today, on September 23, 1952, Gary Hayman, a nine-year-old boy with autism, vanished from the Ladd School without a trace, never to be found ... almost.

In the afternoon while the children were lined up at the end of class on that fateful day, Gary must have bolted from the school unseen, or so reports suggest. When his teacher realized he was missing, the school's administrators took swiftly to action, rounding up small search parties of attendants and inmates, and blasting three short, sharp blows of the whistle from the smokestack at the power plant on the other side of the campus - a measure taken for all runaways from the institution.

Little did anyone know that this time, however, it would be different. When their search turned up empty-handed that night, so began a long, strange and harrowing story that remains to this day - all but forgotten - one of the most mysterious and tragic events in local history.