Born: c. 1913
Died: December 29, 1950
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 14, 1976
Skeleton may be man missing since 1950
SARANAC LAKE - The chance discovery of a human skeleton about 25 yards off the Forest Home Road near the Pinehurst entrance yesterday about 11 a.m. opened speculation that it may be the remains of Sid Case missing since Dec. 29, 1950.
State Police from Raybrook headquarters working closely with the BCI and County Coroner Ronald Keough, patiently combed an area 20 feet square searching for clues that would establish the absolute identify of the decayed skeleton.
Tommy Jarnot and Steve Sails, who live along that section of the road, were playing in the woods when they spotted a pair of boots sticking out of the leaves and a whitened bone or two on a hummock within sight of the highway.
The boys felt that it was much more than a pair of boots and ran to tell their parents. Fred Jarnot, Tom's father, a biologist, went to the scene and examined the boots and quickly called the State Police.
The investigative team and coroner roped off the section and began a painstaking probe of the earth surrounding the bones.
A badly rusted 30-30 Winchester rifle was found under the remains. The skeleton's feet were pointing east and the head west. Small tools were employed to gather evidence which included the complete rifle, a partial dental plate, bones, and pieces of clothing which had withstood the assaults of the elements over a long period of time. Investigators Douglass Muldoon and Lt. A. C. Smith probed the area and Investigator T. J. McAuliffe handled the photography assignment for police records. Trooper Bruce Nichols assisted in the problem.
State Police headquarters reported today that they were virtually certain it was Sid Case who was originally reported missing at 6 p.m. on December 29, 1950 by his employer, Ray Brundage. Sid was 37 years old at the time he dropped out of sight, and those inclined to superstitious belief will ponder that he was born on April 13, 1913 and his skeleton found on the 13th of June.
At present the skeletal evidence is being held by the Keough mortuary and may later be sent to Albany for further analysis if necessary. The investigators reported that the remains tally with Sid Case's measurements. The broken leg bone which apparently failed to heal properly was also indicative of the identity. The Winchester rifle, under the remains was buried in a few inches of leaves and chaff, apparently Case had purchased a Winchester at Cheeseman's Sport Store the day he disappeared.
They are currently trying to locate two sisters who are believed living in the Watertown area. He also had two brothers, one of whom died here some year's ago, after working several years at the Miss Saranac Diner on Bloomingdale Avenue.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, June 14, 1976
Puzzles of Time
The consensus of highly unofficial opinion seems to be that the skeletal remains of a human being found on the Forest Home Road yesterday were those of Sid Case.
The Forest Home Road has been the scene of unparalleled tragedy and heartbreak over the years, and the puzzle of Sid Case has long plagued the local populace. If the remains prove to be those of someone else, then another mystery will have been spawned instead of one having been cleared up.
Sid, of course, was well known in the village. He answered the night phone at Brundage's taxi and possessed the usual combination of good and bad habits. He sometimes drove one of the cabs.
And he had problems too. He had enough of them to make him want to erase himself from the blackboard of life. In the first place he had attained the rank of a village character which is not always an enviable niche.
He lacked education
He talked loud and rolled his eyes and probably lacked the schooling that would allow him to rise much higher than answering the phone.
Still, he had enough going for him to put together a life that had some meaning. What tortured mental anguish he may have born remained largely between him and God, and an occasional bartender. The reason he talked loud was to prevent anyone getting a start at picking on him. Both Dick Wilkins and Maurice Mitchell worked with Leo Case, Sid's brother, at McVeety's diner. They remember him as well as anyone.
Sid may have been driven to suicide by unrequited love for a local girl who couldn't envision herself tying the nuptial knot with the night man at Brundage's taxi, a village character and the butt of an occasional joke.
Left a note
Anyway Sid finished his night trick at the cab stand in back of the old Enterprise building, dropped a note on the seat of a parked cab saying he was ending it all, and went over to the Cheeseman Sport Shop in the Berkeley Hotel building.
Cap LeClair, one of the most popular sportsmen around, sold Sid a 30-30 Winchester carbine. Sid put down $5 on the rifle and agreed to pay the rest as he got it. He was wearing hunting boots and Cap figured Sid was going out for a morning's sport.
Sid left the store walking with a distinctive gait that may have stemmed from a broken leg in 1939. Alan Sprague who was having his appendix out at General Hospital that year was in bed near Sid and said that he couldn't handle crutches and toppled over backwards every time he left the edge of the bed.
Since his walk was distinctive along with the rest of him, he was spotted, going out the Forest Home road on the last day of his life, by a milkman driving for A. C. Bartz Dairy
Bones show deformity
The bones that were unearthed near Pinehurst yesterday showed a deformity of sorts apparent even in the extreme condition of decay so the broken leg of 1939 may never have healed properly to begin with.
The State Police are having enough problems putting together the pieces so that they fit snugly and those who knew Sid best are not very clear on his age and the exact date of his disappearance. It is pegged at around 1950.
Why his body was never found is pure conjecture since time had not really deposited a great load of leaves, forest chaff and pine needles over the corpse and the boys who spotted the boots and a few bones were quick to recognize it as a human figure.
