A Dry Book at the Bottom of a Flooded Cistern: The Marcia White Case

A Dry Book at the Bottom of a Flooded Cistern: The Marcia White Case

A leather address book was found four feet below the waterline of a residential cistern and came out completely dry, pages unwarped and ink intact-an impossible object that set off a quiet wartime inquiry. Who did the dry book protect, and why would someone try to hide a missing payroll clerk’s contacts beneath standing water?

In this episode, we lay out the sequence of discoveries, the key interviews, and the details recorded in the inquest officer’s green composition notebooks to follow how that book connects to a nine-day disappearance. Was the man with the cloth-lanyard ID who asked about Marcia’s Tuesday schedule the key to what the book was meant to conceal?

Person: Marcia White
Age: 26
Date missing: September 1, 1943
Location found: cistern on Dellwood Court, Portsmith, Virginia
Witness/Investigator: Jean Larsen

- The address book contained roughly eighty entries, almost all in the Carolinas.
- Marcia paid $7 monthly rent and paid three months in advance for 14 Dellwood Court.
- From Feb 1942 through Aug 1943, Marcia bowled every Tuesday at 7:00 PM and returned by about 10:00 PM for 78 consecutive Tuesdays.
- Landlady Eunice Dobbs reported a sandy-haired man, approx. 35 years old with a cloth-lanyard naval contractor badge, asked at the back door on August 28 for Marcia and what time she came home on Tuesdays.
- The leather address book was recovered by well-and-septic contractor Donald Lawson on September 14, 1943, four feet below the waterline and found completely dry.

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