Resurrection Mary
Drivers near Chicago tell of a young woman in a white dress who asks for a lift, then vanishes beside a cemetery gate.
What was reported
Resurrection Mary is Chicago's best-known vanishing hitchhiker. Since the 1930s, drivers on Archer Avenue, in suburban Justice, have told of picking up a young blonde woman in a white party dress, sometimes after meeting her at a dance hall. As they pass Resurrection Cemetery, she asks to be let out, or simply vanishes from the car.
In a well-known report from 1976, a passing driver said he saw a girl locked inside the cemetery gates, and two bars were later found bent, with what looked like scorched handprints.
Explanations offered
Folklorists recognise the vanishing hitchhiker as one of the world's most widespread urban legends, told on roads from South Africa to Japan. Stories link Mary to several young women who died in the area in the 1920s and 30s, but none has been confirmed. The cemetery said the bars had been damaged by a truck and heated during repairs.
- When
- Reported since the 1930s
- Where
- Archer Avenue, Justice, Illinois, USA
- Witnesses
- Drivers on Archer Avenue
- Status
- Urban legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.