The Skeleton Key Chronicles

7 hours ago

For nearly 40 years, nobody has been able to identify a man found along Interstate 81 in Virginia, despite some distinctive clues about who he might have been. He was wearing a shirt bearing the rank insignia of a U.S. Army Specialist E-4, and his eyeglasses looked like the kind issued through veterans programs. Both pointed toward a possible military connection, but investigators could never confirm whether he'd actually served.

On May 27th, 1987, highway workers discovered the man just off the interstate near mile marker 183 in Rockbridge County. Among his belongings was a little black notebook filled with handwritten notes, including information connected to a J.B. Hunt tractor-trailer. That notebook would turn out to be the key to understanding how he ended up there.

Investigators traced the information to a truck driver named John Swartz, who said he'd met the stranger at a truck stop in Wytheville, Virginia. The man had apparently been stranded there for two days and was hoping to go camping. Swartz offered him a ride, and the two traveled to New Jersey, where the stranger helped unload a shipment. Swartz knew him only as Chris, although nobody has ever confirmed whether that was his real name.

The two later headed back toward Arkansas together, but something happened along Interstate 81 in Rockbridge County. Swartz eventually admitted responsibility for the man's death and was convicted in 1988.

And that's what makes this case so unusual. Investigators figured out what happened to the man and who was responsible, but they never learned his name. They couldn't establish where he came from, whether he really was called Chris, or whether the military clues meant he had once served his country.

In February 2026, Virginia State Police renewed their appeal for help identifying him. Nearly four decades later, the man found beside that Virginia highway is still a stranger, even to the investigators who solved his case.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

13 hours ago

In March 1981, Glen Napoleon Burbage flew from his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he was supposed to meet up with the ship he worked aboard. He made it to Atlantic City, but somewhere between the airport and his destination, he disappeared, and his family would spend the next 45 years trying to find out what happened to him.

Glen was 59 years old, a retired Coast Guard officer who had continued working at sea as a merchant mariner. There was nothing particularly unusual about the trip itself, which made his disappearance even more difficult to understand.

On May 22nd, 1981, roughly two months after Glen went missing, boaters discovered an unidentified man in the Atlantic Ocean about a mile off the coast of Atlantic City. Investigators believed he had been in the water for several weeks, but they were unable to identify him. Glen's family was still looking for him, unaware that someone matching the answer to their search had been found so close to where he disappeared. The unidentified man's case continued in New Jersey while Glen's disappearance went unresolved for decades.

In April 2026, New Jersey State Police turned to Ramapo College's Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center for help identifying the man found in 1981. Students and researchers began examining DNA matches and tracing family connections, eventually identifying Glen as a possibility. Investigators worked with authorities in South Carolina to obtain a DNA sample from one of his children, and in July, the results confirmed that the unidentified man was Glen Napoleon Burbage. The discovery was announced publicly in October, more than 45 years after his disappearance.

Glen's son Daniel was 32 when his father went missing. Now, after all these years, the family finally has the opportunity to bring him home for burial in the family plot. But identifying Glen hasn't explained what happened during those final hours in Atlantic City, or how he ended up in the ocean. Those questions are still being investigated.

I wanted to include Glen's story in my Veterans Day coverage because he was a Coast Guard veteran whose family spent more than four decades searching for answers. His identification has finally closed one chapter of that search, even though the circumstances of his disappearance are still a mystery.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

17 hours ago

This Veterans Day, I'm focusing on missing service members and mysterious cases involving people who have served in the military. One of those cases involves Kelly Gravitt, a Purple Heart recipient who disappeared from Hawaii's Big Island more than three years ago.

Kelly served with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and sustained a TBI in 2010 during his service in Afghanistan. By May 2023, he was living in the Pāhoa area of Hawaii, where he was last seen at the age of 34.

The original police bulletin described Kelly walking near Pāhoa Village Road and Kauhale Street around 7 p.m. on May 19th, wearing gray shorts and no shirt.

More recent updates have given an earlier last-seen window of May 12th through May 14th, near Highway 130 and Kaimu-Makena Homestead Road. Kelly was familiar with the Pāhoa and Kalapana areas, including Kehena Beach and Uncle Robert's. He stood approximately six feet tall, weighed 180 pounds, and had distinctive tattoos on his face and neck.

Over the following three years, detectives conducted numerous interviews and followed up on leads. On November 10th, 2026, Hawaii Island police issued another public appeal, asking anyone with information about Kelly to contact Detective Sybastian Keltner.

Kelly would now be 38 years old. More than three years after his disappearance, his family is still waiting for answers. 🕯

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