In the winter of 1951, a chilling discovery was made in an abandoned mine shaft just west of downtown Joplin, Missouri, bringing a gruesome end to the search for the missing Mosser family. Among the victims was five-year-old Gary Carl Mosser, a young boy whose life was tragically cut short. The bodies of Gary, his parents Carl and Thelma Mosser, and his two siblings, seven-year-old Ronald and three-year-old Pamela Sue, were found floating in the watery depths of the 102-foot deep shaft.
The family, who had been missing for approximately ten days, had met a brutal fate. While his father and older brother had been shot in the head, it appeared that young Gary and his little sister had been beaten to death. His mother, Thelma, was found bound, beaten, and gagged. The grim scene suggested that the family had been murdered elsewhere before their bodies were transported to the remote mine shaft and discarded. The discovery of dim car tracks near the boarded-over shaft supported this theory. Although all the victims were clothed, the shoes of both Mrs. Mosser and young Gary were missing.
The prime suspect in this horrific crime was a 22-year-old Joplin desperado named Bill Cook. In a turn of events that brought a swift resolution to the manhunt, Cook was captured in Mexico on the very same day the Mosser family's bodies were recovered. While police and FBI agents were certain of the victims' identities and the brutal nature of their deaths, the sheer horror of the crime led some officials to question whether Cook could have acted alone in the mass murder and the subsequent disposal of the five bodies. An investigation was considered to determine if he had an accomplice. However, a coroner's jury ultimately concluded that the Mosser family had been shot to death by a 'party or parties unknown.' The bodies of the entire family were then sent to Atwood, Illinois, for burial.
