Twenty-one-year-old Billy Stone worked the night shift as a telegraph operator at the Whitby Junction railroad station in Whitby, Ontario, Canada. Just after midnight on December 11th, 1914, Billy extinguished nearly all the lights in the station, as he usually did, leaving only his desk lamp burning.
Suddenly, at around twelve-thirty-seven a.m., a single gunshot echoed through the station, hitting Billy in the chest. The shot didn’t kill Billy immediately, and in fact, he had time to call the local switchboard to report what had happened, though he had no idea who the perpetrator might have been. Sadly, however, by the time help arrived, Billy had succumbed to his wound; the bullet had penetrated his heart.
Authorities determined that Billy had most likely been shot from the waiting room of the train station, and also surmised that robbery had not been the motive, for no money or valuables were taken from either Billy or the station itself. The only other clue found at the scene was a bloody handprint; since Billy’s hands were not bloody, this was believed to belong to the killer.
There were three distinct lines of inquiry as to the motive behind the seemingly random crime. First was that Billy had been killed over an alleged gambling debt; second was that he had perhaps been involved in an affair that had gone wrong. The most persistent theory, though, was that Billy’s father Billy Stone Sr. had killed him, perhaps for an insurance payout. Billy’s father, it should be noted, was apparently so distraught (or guilty) at being perceived as the prime suspect that he took his own life by lying down on the railroad tracks and allowing himself to be run over by a train.
Police were left with absolutely no leads and the case went cold almost immediately. It remains unsolved more than a century later.
Crime Immemorial 