Unknown grave in Nevada cemetery still a mystery

It may have started off innocently enough, a well dressed young couple step off the train in a small town. However, in short order they began to argue and soon they are fighting vigorously as they walk down the tracks into the darkness. Several days later, the woman's body was found alongside the railroad tracks. The body was badly decomposed and officials are not positive how she died but suspect foul play, an autopsy later confirmed this. However, no one was able identify her and officials were at a loss at to what to do with her. Sound like a episode of "C.S.I.?" It could be, but in this case it is Vernon County's own unsolved murder mystery: The Unknown Grave of Ellis. According to a Dec. 1, 1888, article in the Nevada Daily Mail, the body of a young woman was found in a hazel patch near Ellis, once located where the railroad tracks cross Highway 43, on April 21, 1877. The woman had died from either a blow that had broken the skull over her right temple or a Navy pistol ball that entered her forehead and was later removed from the back of her skull. No identity was ever established for the mystery woman and her body was buried near where it was found. However, this unknown victim of tragedy was not lost. For many years Katy Railroad employees tended this lonely grave and even today it is not forgotten. For more than 100 years the Unknown Grave of Ellis, located about 200 yards to the east of where Highway 43 crossed the Katy railroad tracks, was a local legend, mused about in coffee shops and the occasional newspaper article. In the late 1980s a story ran in "Cappers" magazine about Geneva Fuchser's grandmother, Conradina Heidtmann. Fuchser claimed that information obtained through a psychic reading revealed that her grandmother, who disappeared in 1910, was the mysterious woman buried in the Unknown Grave. During the 1990s it came to national attention when the NBC TV program "Unsolved Mysteries" came to Vernon County to feature a segment on the Unknown Grave and Fuchser's claim. Despite the discrepancy of the time of Fuchser's grandmother's disappearance and the original Daily Mail story on the incident there was a questionable photo published in "Cappers" which shows Fuchser placing flowers on the grave. Also shown in the photo is a hazy mist, which the caption said Fuchser claims is the spirit of her grandmother. Conradina Heidtmann is not the only name offered for the resident of that lonely grave. A Nevada Daily Mail article from 1888 states that the Fort Scott paper listed the name of the murdered woman as Lula King but this claim is furiously denounced by the Mail without offering any evidence to the contrary. Some speculated that this animosity to any Fort Scott opinion was due to continuing border tensions carried over from the Civil War. Besides the questionable photo of the Unknown Grave published in "Cutters" there are several other ghost stories related to the site. Julie Strassman, of the Cottey College Spectrum said rumor had it, that flowers on the grave would change color overnight but her research proved that claim false. In addition, some have claimed that photographs of the grave show the image of the slain woman resting on top of it, but photographs show that claim has also turned out to be fictitious. Regardless of whether or not the Unknown Grave is haunted it is a solemn place. The ring of rocks marking the grave have long since sunk into the earth and the head and footstones are unmarked and covered with lichen. If not for the area being freshly mowed, the faded plastic flowers and the single dead rose, this isolated grave along a rusty set of railroad tracks would gradually fade from memory and vanish into history.