The Skeleton in the Boat House
In the 1970’s, Emery Kolb, the photographer who met Glen and Bessie Hyde, passed away. When relatives were cleaning out his house, the found a complete skeleton of a human man laying in a canoe in his boathouse. The skeleton was a white man who was over 6 feet tall. He was killed by a single bullet to the head. Everyone believed that fifty years after their disappearance, they finally found the body of Glen Hyde and that Emery Kolb must have murdered him. Newspapers began to report the story, speculating what may have happened.
However, when scientists compared photographs of Glen to the skull from Emery Kolb’s boathouse, they realize that their facials structures are drastically different. This man is not the body was Glen Hyde. So…then, who was it? Was Emery Kolb a murderer? If so, why was he storing the body in his boathouse?
Even though the body does not match Glen Hyde, it still makes Emery Kolb a much more sinister character to people. Some believe that he still killed Glen Hyde, and that his motive was that he was in love with Bessie. He wanted her so badly, he was willing to kill Glen. However, people who knew Emery Kolb personally know that this is false, and they were shocked that he would have a literal skeleton in his closet.
The most romantic, and probably the most plausible theory is that one of the Hydes fell into the frigid waters of the Colorado River, and the other jumped in after in an attempt to save their love. Hypothermia would have set in very quickly, and without life jackets, they would have been swept up in the rapids and carried down the river. The boat was sturdy, and gently floated into the next natural harbor. Since it had been a month since they disappeared, their remains would have been eaten by fish, and scattered in the waters of the Grand Canyon.
It’s very possible that no one will ever know the true story of what really happened to Glen and Bessie Hyde, and that it will remain an unsolved mystery.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
Grand Canyon Adventures Glen and Bessie Hyde. National Geographic. 2011
The Mysterious Disappearance of Glen and Bessie Hyde. Medium. 2020
Glen and Bessie Hyde. Unsolved Mysteries.
The Kolb Skeleton. Unsolved Mysteries.
What Really Happened to Bessie and Glen?. LA Times.
The Intriguing Disappearance of Glen and Bessie Hyde. Medium. 2019
The Unsolved Grand Canyon Disappearance Of A Couple On Their Adventurous Honeymoon. Ranker. 2019
The Grand Canyon’s Lost Honeymooners. History of Yesterday. 2019