The Wheelchair at Dawn: Why Her Shoes Were Dry

The Wheelchair at Dawn: Why Her Shoes Were Dry

A woman sits upright in a wheelchair at the surf line, hands folded, heels placed together on the footrests six inches above freezing water - and the shoes are completely dry. Something impossible happened inside a locked institution that morning; what drove someone to wade into forty-eight-degree surf to set shoes on a chair, and why would that question take nine years to answer?

In this episode, we follow the discovery at Harrow Point, the records and routines at Aldermere Sanatorium, and the small absences that became the case's first clues, asking how a patient logged as "resting, settled" at 10:04 p.m. was found in the cove by dawn.

Person: Rachel Barrett
Date: November 13, 1911
Location: Harrow Point cove, Maine
Facility: Aldermere Sanatorium
Attendant: Emily Schmidt

- The birdwatcher Valerie Slater saw the wheelchair and woman at 7:30 a.m, on November 13, 1911.
- Rachel Barrett had been admitted to Aldermere on November 2, 1911; intake form number 14 listed "nervous exhaustion."
- Barrett was 56 years old and assigned to Room Seven on the second floor.
- The last bed-check entry by Emily Schmidt reads "Barrett, R. - Room 7 - ten-oh-four p.m. - resting, settled."
- Night porter George Aldiss found five wheelchairs in storage where there should have been six the morning of November 13; the storage door and frame showed no damage.

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