The Bizarre Death of Alfred Loewenstein

this week on the series finale of buzzfeed unsolved true crime we examine the bizarre death of belgian financial tycoon alfred lowenstein what a journey what a journey that is true we were aspiring men back in the day but i'll tell you what we accomplished a lot i have my uh case file here of all the things we solved hang on a second what okay are you kidding me you're trying to poke fun what's going on here on the last episode how long have we you just said we've been at this for a long time five

years five years and he's still still doing this something must have been solved right cheers to the worst detective agency ever assembled i'm proud of everyone in the work we've done here we may not have solved a single case but boy did we have some laughs and boy did we look good while doing it by the way this isn't goodbye because we are going to see you folks back in this office for buzzfeed unsolved supernatural do you think you're going to stop us ghost hunting fat chance all that aside let's strap in and talk about

a funny man who fell out of the sky ryan i hope that you have saved an absolute certified grade a banger for the finale buddy do you think i would do anything less than serve up a certified grade a banker hanger why don't you crack that manila mon frere alfred lowenstein was born in 1877 in brussels not much is known about his early years but he entered the financial world around his 20th birthday yeah people grow up pretty quick in brussels you know that yeah yeah they really sprout up over there i hope you choke

on your coffee lowenstein primarily made his fortune selling stock in a brazilian infrastructure company in belgium france and england to great success eventually lowenstein became one of the richest men in the world despite being considered eccentric and a quote loose cannon in business in 1908 lowenstein married madeleine mizon a beautiful woman from a prominent belgian family and the two had one son together their marriage seemed to be one of convenience instead of love madeleine enjoyed a life of luxury and alfred enjoyed having a beautiful wife the two slept in separate rooms and lived separate lives

with alfred reportedly spending almost all his time thinking either about his business or his only other passion horses i would have loved to have a little horse when i was younger i think any time when someone pop quizzes you and says who do you love more your wife or your horse and you have to take a second or two to think about it and then you still say horse it's strange too because he clearly like it said who do you love more sarah or your cat sarah he passed this guy's like well i enjoy having

a beautiful wife so much that i'll sleep in a different bed and spend all my time with my horse yeah so much that i'll sleep in my barn now i'm actually thinking of a horse kissing you good night that seems pleasant they got those big lips okay the viewers at home can't see this but there's a bunch of buzzfeed producers kind of running around looking frantic now as you're continuing to talk i'll say what i'm gonna say on july 4th 1928 in the early evening at croydon airport on the outskirts of london two black limousines

approached a brand new idling poker f7a 3m owned by lowenstein the plane was outfit custom for lowenstein as a flying office it featured an upholstered chair at the front of the cabin that faced backwards and the plane was equipped with extra soundproofing so lowenstein could speak to his stenographers over the roar of the three 225 horsepower engines between the cockpit and the cabin was a glass partition that allowed for the pilot and mechanic to see what was going on in the back of the plane at the end of the plane was a small windowless door

that led to a washroom with a toilet opposite this lavatory was the only door into or out of the airplane approximately six feet high and four feet wide with a small window that sounds like a nice ass plane it doesn't look good i don't know why but i'm getting like an appetite for what i don't know for luxury i guess i want to be on that plane if i had a plane i could fly to disney world whenever i wanted and that's true that would be at least once a week see your pal mickey mouse

i'd have mickey flying the [ __ ] plane you'd hire mickey oh hi mr bergara you want to go to my home in florida again shut up and land the plane why are you always so mean to me huh and then this is when i roll up the partition [Music] that's enough out of him when the two black limousines stopped seven people emerged for a routine flight to brussels there was alfred lowenstein his valet fred baxter arthur hodgson lowenstein's secretary and reportedly the person closest to the tycoon two stenographers eileen clark and paula baidalon and

the flight crew pilot donald drew and mechanic robert little before boarding the plane lowenstein reportedly stopped at the terminal and made a phone call to canadian financial magnate sir robert holt arranging dinner for the following week a little after 6 p.m with ideal conditions the plane took off a small group of onlookers reported seeing lowenstein smiling and waving from a window as the plane departed funny that uh there is a crowd of people cheering on a super rich man getting onto a plane like he's boarding the [ __ ] titanic or something bye-bye look a

rich man hooray i guess there wasn't tv back there just marvel at well also i find it kind of endearing that he's looking out the window and smiling and waving at that because i feel like if you're one of the richest men in the world you'd probably be like our sour puss or a crap you could be so you'd just be like nose like yeah he's scum out here just just yeah so for him to be like yes i am the richest man in the world bye bye i'm about to take to the sky adios

peasants the plane reached a cruising altitude of 4 000 feet and started heading towards belgium according to the accounts of those on board shortly after crossing the english channel coastline lowenstein set down a book he was reading and got up he walked to the back of the plane towards the lavatory smiling and exchanging some words with hodgson on the way after 10 minutes lowenstein had not returned after discussing with hodgson baxter approached the lavatory door and knocked hearing no response he opened the door to reveal nothing lowenstein was gone he flushed himself down the toilet

he went to narnia i can't imagine like if i was like if me and the crew and unsolved run our private jet like we used to fly to our locations and then uh i opened the door and you're not there yeah i don't even know what my reaction would be i think you would laugh maybe i would what would your reaction be if you opened the door and i was just not there i think i might genuinely laugh because obviously sad ryan bergara is gone that's true but at that point it's like well it's a

fork on conclusion yeah i guess we have to have a good laugh about the fact that he disappeared down a toilet hodgson wrote a note explaining the situation and passed it to the pilot at that point the nearest airport was about five minutes ahead on their current heading at saint-engelwer france drew however instead throttled back and landed on a beach covered in tall sand dunes and unknown to them under the control of the french military shortly after 7 30 the passengers now six of them emerged from the plane and waited for someone to find them

what is going through this pilot's mind to not just continue forward literally five minutes and instead turn the plane around and be like i'm gonna land on this beach is his thinking like well i'll go to where he may have jumped out maybe but wouldn't you still go back to just land at the airport get more people to come help you instead of being like i'm gonna land on this beach and swim after him yeah but also like are people making logical decisions at this point if someone has disappeared from your plane i mean that's

like sorcery i'd be like i don't know well let's turn around and find the nearest spot to where he may have jumped out feel like you trained for that as a pilot you train for someone taking a spooky dookie and disappearing out of the back you don't train for somebody taking a spooky dookie but you do train for unforeseen circumstances or pressure and if your one reaction to something that's not even immediate danger to you is beach weird meanwhile at fort mardik lieutenant markay of the first battalion dispatched a party to arrest whoever had just

landed on his beach back at the guard room the passengers were questioned by markay and then later by police the next day markay told the daily express that while the passengers admitted they'd lost their employer somewhere over the channel it took a half an hour for them to reveal lowenstein's name both stenographers had been crying hodgson was sweating excessively and baxter's teeth were chattering markay emphasized that he believed their story saying quote it could not have been play acting it would have been impossible for those on the aircraft to have acted as they did if

m lowenstein had not met with some terrible fate end quote i'm gonna go out on a lamb and say that market not the best interrogator or a good judge of when someone's lying because if someone's trying to tell me what happened in a possible murder case and their teeth are chattering and they're sweating excessively while others are crying i think these are all stress responses can we pass judgment on these just do a little test here yeah hey dude what was the name of the guy hey what's the name of the guy just tell me

the name of the guy who fell off the airplane hey calm down calm down now tell me the name it's okay it's okay son tell me the name that's only 20 seconds 20 seconds in 30 minutes of that he's gonna grind his teeth to death that's crazy yeah get this man a night guard less than 24 hours after the plane landed on the french beach all french inquiries were suddenly abandoned since the incident had allegedly occurred outside their three-mile territorial limit the french argued they didn't have jurisdiction to investigate british and belgian officials took the

same stance any crime if one even occurred apparently took place over international waters and no nation was in a rush to claim it that's [ __ ] smart i just think it's funny that this man fell from the sky and no government's like i don't wanna [ __ ] no one gives a [ __ ] about this fancy man in the sky it's kind of sad with no government willing to investigate there was seemingly only one person on earth who was motivated to get to the bottom of what had happened to alfred his wife madeline

i was really hoping he'd say his horse he was gone on the phone and was just like he's asking questions here at the post office you see your neighbor she's all you know she's got one like one of those black yeah the sarah winchester and you're like yo are you okay what happened and she was like my husband got sucked into a toilet what sorry i didn't mean to laugh could you excuse me for a sec he died doing what he loved according to belgian law without a body there could be no death certificate without

a death certificate there could be no reading of the will and without the reading of a will lowenstein's estate would be locked up for at least four years madeleine needed a body and she let french authorities know a reward would be given to anyone who found it meanwhile newspapers had a field day publishing rumors that turned the story from odd to straight up bizarre the exchange telegraph reported a french fisherman saw a parachute descend over the channel the night of lowenstein's disappearance as well as a yacht racing out to meet it the new york times

ran a source's claim that a car had met the plane on the beach and driven lowenstein off another story said lowenstein was never on the plane to begin with and one french newspaper even claimed the eccentric millionaire was having an affair with a female inmate at a local insane asylum and the two had eloped despite no shortage of rumors a full two weeks passed with no sign of lowenstein they're really connecting the dots here with like i saw a parachute fly out of the sky well i saw a boat meet a parachute well i saw

a man get off a boat and get in a car well i saw a man get out of a car and get on a horse why saw that horse go eat some hay yeah they're treating this like an improv exercise they're just building one sentence at a time i do love the idea that he parachuted off and landed on a [ __ ] yacht like tommy cruz that's pretty cool only thing better would be just directly on a horse legs you know wide open and just home baby on july 19th in a swell about 10

miles from cap grenade france skipper jean-marie bugrun and companion louis legree discovered a decomposing body clad in silk underwear silk socks shoes and a watch they hauled the corpse aboard and read the name engraved on his watch strap alfred lowenstein we should all be so lucky to end up as a decomposing corpse covered in silk one thing that's interesting about this the body actually smelled so bad that instead of keeping it on the boat the sailors wrapped his body up in a sail tied it aligned to it and threw him overboard and towed it back

too short it'll keep the forensics uh yeah dude good shape that'll really help the autopsy later be you get the [ __ ] out of here the lowenstein family arranged for a private autopsy the autopsy took an unusually long time with the official report released more than two months after his death on september 10th the doctor found a large wound in lowenstein's stomach and that every bone in his body was broken the report also noted lowenstein was still alive when he hit the water the final cause of death was ruled to be a fall of

4 000 feet that just shows you the marvel that is the human body for every bone in your body to break and you just not to like explode into like a vapor yeah i guess it kept it all together huh i just can't imagine the sensation of picking up a body that had nothing but broken bones but also it's been in the ocean for a bit so that skin like you ever seen a blob fish yeah like a fish it's like a little translucent yeah i mean i hope that as soon as you you know

smack into the water you're you know you're out done but i i'm imagining him just rocketing toward the water and being like well maybe this won't be so bad and then with a body found but practically no official investigation into what happened it's time for us to jump into theories about what exactly happened to alfred lowenstein our first theory is the official reported cause that while trying to go to the bathroom alfred lowenstein accidentally opened the wrong door and fell out of the plane by the way pretty funny two flush handles on the toilet right

next to each other whoo that was one hell of a [Laughter] the new york times reported that in the weeks leading up to the fateful flight lowenstein was growing increasingly absent-minded stating that those around him quote had been noticing that he would blunder through wrong doors in his home or offices while his mind was occupied with grandiose schemes of speculation end quote an accidental fall became one of the most popular theories partially because that's the story everyone on board stuck to how did no one on board notice though if that was what happened you're asking

the questions we're going to get to it okay i just think it's funny that like the main theory is that people were like yeah that sounds like alfred just walking through doors it's just that's probably what happened when either of us dies will be like ah they were an idiot yeah that guy was a real dumbass checks out i just can't imagine a bigger whoopsie in my entire life at an inquest conducted in brussels before the body was found the pilots drew and the mechanic little told the judge that as they flew the plane back

to england both men went to the back and were able to easily open the plane's entry and exit door while neither of the men were under oath at the time there were no other qualified witnesses to speak on the matter and the judge had to take them at their word outside of drew and little however most of the aviation world considered this explanation ludicrous no one had ever ever been known to have fallen out of such a door to start the door to the plane and the door to the washroom looked nothing alike the airplane

door had a window while the bathroom door for obvious reasons did not the weekly magazine aeroplane published the popular opinion that quote everyone who knew the machine agreed that the door never opened by accident end quote the uk air ministry's chief inspector major jpc cooper examined the door of the plane and found it to be imperfect working order making an accidental opening even less probable one royal air force pilot officer george tyrell told the toronto daily mail and empire why such an explanation would be absurd quote even if a man could get the door open

a super strong man as soon as the pressure was released the door would slam shut furthermore as soon as the outside door was opened the slightest bit everyone inside would be aware of it a blast of wind would blow through the cabin end quote none of the other passengers reported noticing any wind or noise yeah that's my hang up there you would very clearly notice that that's true this is maybe one of the things that movies does get right anytime there's any kind of opening in a plane it's like napkins napkins yeah and everyone's like

what probably hear it too you'd probably hate it napkins napkins hey wait a minute there's also a loud noise why are you so concerned with the napkins well that's what you notice first because there's napkins everywhere or a person flying around i don't know someone goes like ooh yeah that's always funny yeah i just think that it seems like it would be hard to get the door open to begin with and even if it did get open everyone would notice so while lowenstein was generally considered to be physically strong he had been sick with rheumatism

in the days leading up to the flight physically weakening the tycoon however even if lowenstein had been in tip-top shape it's hard to imagine him accidentally opening the door norman w ray a reporter from the evening standard conducted some experiments on a similar aircraft and while in flight couldn't get the door to budge even when he quote lurched heavily against it end quote rey even used a brace to thrust against the door with all his weight and still only managed to crack the door open about three inches brave man to do a testing i was

about to say that is a dedicated reporter to be like all right let's see if i can actually open this door take me up all right we have 4 000 feet here we go it's just just charging just charging at it i mean i'm sure they had them harnessed or something but still scary even still and also goes to show accident probably not likely our second theory is that alfred lowenstein killed himself by leaping from the plane while not everyone who dies of suicide has an obvious outward reason for killing themselves some point out that

lowenstein was in a bit of financial trouble at the time of his death owing money to various people it does seem a bit odd however that lowenstein would have stopped by the airport terminal before the flight to make dinner plans for the next week if he was planning on killing himself that day further after the plane landed on that french beach mechanic robert little picked up a set of notes lowenstein was reportedly writing on the plane before his death the notes were about money's owed and upcoming business dealings active plans for the future and far

from what anyone would consider a suicide note of course this theory also suffers from the same flaws as the accident theory specifically the fact that most agree it would be physically impossible for lowenstein to open the door himself all the descriptionary stuff about like oh he made plans and he didn't show signs or there was no note that doesn't matter the fact is there's no way he could have done it anyway exactly and if he somehow went real man of steel opened the door everyone would be like hey i think al just fell out of

the sky yeah which means we'd turn our little beams of justice to the murderous toilet no to the crew oh yes with accident and suicide both physically unlikely it's time we look at the third theory that alfred lowenstein was murdered many point out that while it appears impossible for one man to have opened the door mid-flight it was shown that two men working together could manage it there is also no shortage of peculiar behavior on behalf of the other passengers that could indicate underhanded dealings for instance why did the plane land on the beach instead

of at the nearby airport one of lowenstein's obituaries mentioned that he never read books so why did the passengers insist he had been reading before getting up was he reading or making notes about his business dealings finally as lowenstein was known to never drink why did the coroner find alcohol in his system what if he was trying to get into reading that's true just because i'm not a reader now doesn't mean i can't be later i say you know let's champion him for cracking a spine on a little uh literature and the alcohol thing well

look maybe he wanted to get into drinking maybe he wanted to be an alcoholic yeah rude contributing to this theory is the story mechanic robert little told his wife julie little before his death according to julie roberts said that he had been at the controls at the time of the disappearance before lowenstein got up robert saw lowenstein remove his jacket collar and tie stand up and seemingly gasp for air robert told his wife he suspected lowenstein had been poisoned or he's one of those people you know who really likes to get pretty bare when they

take a dump have you ever done that i have taken a gnarly dump where you where you just had to take all your all your clothes off because you've ruined no no because you're just sweating you're just like what talking oh god this is tough so you've never been in the process of taking a particularly gnarly dump so uncomfortable and it hurts so much you just start taking your clothes off absolutely not i've done that we saved this topic for the very last episode because if we had done it sooner we would have gotten canceled

that's fair if lowenstein was murdered there's also the question of who was behind it so let's get in to the suspects our prime suspects are obviously the people on the plane specifically the pilot drew and mechanic little their behavior was the most suspicious of the group while little said that he was flying when lowenstein first got out of his chair he reportedly passed the controls over to drew when it became clear lowenstein was missing drew was therefore who landed the plane on the beach instead of at an airport it's also unclear why neither little or

drew didn't use the radio to notify anyone that a passenger had seemingly fallen from the plane drew also gave contradicting stories about whether he had turned the plane around to search for lowenstein before landing it is a little weird that they didn't radio anyone like hey dude fell out of our plane that's embarrassing though i mean at that point it's up to you to make sure everyone's safe that's true they are your responsibility and if someone gets sucked through a toilet then i want to make sure that we do our due diligence and make sure

they're not you know playing a little funny game of hide and seek yeah yeah it's a red mark on your ledger a person [ __ ] wiley coyotes out of your plane in rockets to his death i guess that's a good point but the beach thing is still weird to me don't understand that not being able to really get your story straight is also interesting as well for little's part while he discovered the notes lowenstein had been making on the plane he never handed them over to authorities some speculate this was because the notes would

rule out suicide an option he wanted authorities to keep as plausible to steer attention away from the theory of murder there's also their testimony given to the belgian judge stating they were able to open the door while flying back to england an assertion most people claim must have been a lie if drew and little or anyone else on board for that matter was responsible for shoving lowenstein off his plane the rest of the passengers would have all had to agree to keep their mouths shut or have been in on it if that's the case william

norris author of a book about this case the man who fell from the sky argues someone likely paid everyone off the question then becomes who i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that i do think he was murdered it seems to be the only thing that makes sense to me he couldn't have accidentally opened the door he couldn't have done it himself and these two numb schools had said that they were able to open the door easily when that's been proven impossible but the thing is if these two guys did it i

do feel bad for everyone else on the plane because now they're kind of just like well or they're all in on it it's got to be tough to find six people who are that willing to completely abandon their morals also one of them uh hodgson who's the secretary was also one of his closest friends so that's something else that kind of factors into the calculus of the situation i mean we've discussed this before i think friends can be moved to murder each other if it pushed our first suspect is madeleine lowenstein though madeleine would benefit

financially from her husband's death their relationship appeared to be by all accounts amiable madeleine was freely reaping the benefits of her husband's wealth while he was alive with seemingly no demands placed upon her i mean you know she's stuck at home with that horse that he loves so much that's true that's got to grind away at you yeah but she had a pretty good life they had separate bedrooms so she didn't really have to deal with that much and she did live a life of luxury and i would imagine the whole just headache of getting

the body found and having to get that will i mean you could just poison him on the ground too that's true much easier yeah the other group of suspects who would want lowenstein dead are various business competitors and associates lowenstein's financial ties were complex and vast and there's no shortage of people who would have had an interest in seeing lowenstein dead perhaps the most suspicious are major albert pam and mr frederick sarvassi these two men along with lowenstein were the three major stockholders of a company called international holdings without lowenstein in the picture pam and

sarvassi would see serious financial gain while the stock crashed after lowenstein went missing if someone had advanced knowledge of his demise they could have stood to seriously profit indeed after lewinstein's death author norris found that pam and sarvasi announced a profit from quote transactions of a special nature end quote of over 13 million dollars the current day equivalent of 200 million dollars a lot of money it is a lot of money and when you're dealing with especially a wacky case like this you could kind of you know return to the standbys of crime which is

follow the money i mean anyone who has ties to a company called international holdings yeah i'm gonna guess the primary uh function of that company is to murder people sounds shady as hell i like this this one a lot actually yeah like i said he's a super rich man so like you said complex and vast it's got a lot of strings tied to a lot of nefarious people no doubt if they made the equivalent of 200 million dollars off of this then they could have paid everybody on the plane fair amount they probably already had

a lot of money we'll give you each 5 mil now this may mean nothing i do want to say that the rest of the people on board did live comfortably after not like outrageously they weren't they got to keep up appearances and such how much would it take to buy you i honestly don't think i would receive money for the death of my friends no i don't think i wouldn't do it 20. i wouldn't do it 100 i'll take it that's i thought i'm actually honored that it would take 100 mil for you it would

take 100 to not give me away 100 but you know what though i would let them pay me off and then i would thwart their plan oh but then they'll kill you no they won't why not because we teamed up oh can we [ __ ] kill them bro you know what happens when you [ __ ] mess with the stool boys you get covered in [ __ ] that's right you don't stepped in it as lieutenant markey of the french first battalion watched that poker f7a3m touched down on the sandy beach almost 100 years

ago he couldn't have known the mystery that was waiting on board one of the richest men in the world either by accident suicide or murder was dead and six suspiciously acting employees were the only ones who could shed any light on what had happened with all of the passengers now dead it appears that however alfred lowenstein ended up plummeting to his death over the english channel will remain unsolved the last time the last rap up there for a true crime buzzfeed unsolved got a shiver down must behind but what do you think happened ryan what's

your final verdict i do think it was murder but if the pilots were the ones who did it then who was i guess you could put the plane on autopilot all of the theories seem unlikely here so this is really one hell of a case to land on unfortunately for him yes he did land can i can i throw one out there sure aliens that's right that's right a little gift for the old birdmeister i'm putting all my chips on aliens that's right i think a little flying saucer zipped up pulled alongside that plane i

think the little grays came out and said hi i hear you're rich and went suck them out of the bathroom you know shove their hands up his ass or whatever they do and then [ __ ] him out into the ocean took his clothes too yeah because they were like these are sweet silk huh you know what here's my chips putting them all in as well it's aliens holy [ __ ] we solved it we done solved it we solved it we [ __ ] we did it [Music] you