Revealed Fates: The Missing Groom and the Eccentric Inventor
Chilling Find
On the warm afternoon of August 14, 1942, two boys from Otis Street in Westfield set out with rifles in hand. Sixteen-year-old Alexander Grabowski and his friend, fifteen-year-old Frederick Witek, were hunting crows in the fields and woods of neighboring Southwick, Massachusetts. Instead of birds, they stumbled upon a far more chilling discovery: a badly decomposed body lying in a swamp about one hundred feet east of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad tracks.
Startled, the boys made their way back toward Westfield. When they came upon a passing police cruiser, they waved it down and reported what they had seen. The patrolmen accompanied them to the site, confirmed the grim discovery, and quickly notified the Massachusetts State Police and the medical examiner.
The remains were ordered removed to the undertaking rooms of the Lambson Furniture Company in Westfield, but the hearse became mired in the swamp. Darkness fell before it could be freed, so the body wasn’t recovered until the following morning.
A Missing Groom?
News of the discovery spread quickly through Southwick and Westfield. Many speculated the body belonged to twenty-four-year-old Robert H. Sawtell, a Westfield man who had mysteriously vanished on August 19, 1941.
Sawtell’s disappearance was the talk of the town in August 1941. Two days before his planned wedding, he withdrew money from a local bank, attended to errands, and then failed to appear at his stag party that evening. A Westfield milk dealer later spotted his abandoned car at a filling station in Springfield, Massachusetts. The attendant told investigators it had been there since early Wednesday morning. On March 30, 1942, federal authorities declared him delinquent from the Selective Service, with the local board following suit.
With the body discovered nearby, many believed the mystery had finally been solved. Sawtell’s father even came to view the remains, hoping for closure. But one piece of clothing convinced him otherwise: the body wore a vest, and he insisted his son never wore such a garment.
The True Identity
On August 15, the unidentified body was brought to Pine Hill Cemetery for burial. But before it could be laid to rest, investigators identified the man as Henry J. Walczak, a 28-year-old parolee from the notorious Northampton State Hospital for the insane. He had been released only weeks earlier, on June 30, 1942.
Walczak was a peculiar and troubled figure whose name had surfaced in arrest and court records long before his death.
An Inventor in Conflict
In 1939, Walczak petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to build an experimental television station using technology he claimed to have invented—broadcasting on lower frequencies than those employed in New York. He refused to attend a mandatory public hearing, fearing competitors would steal his ideas. When the FCC denied his application, Walczak launched a bitter campaign against the agency, publicly accusing it of protecting RCA’s corporate interests.
He sued the FCC, petitioned Congress, and even took his case to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., which dismissed it in 1940 for lack of jurisdiction. Walczak responded with an enigmatic statement: “I yield to defeat than bear arms in an act of treason.”
His conflicts extended to industry as well. In 1941, Walczak filed suit against United Aircraft, alleging the company had stolen his design for a revolutionary new “antigravitational device” that could neutralize the effects of gravity on flight. His ambitious blueprint involved gears and drive shafts to transfer power from a single engine to two propellers. It was predicted that use of the improved design would make airplanes capable of reaching speeds of 1,000 miles per hour—an almost unimaginable figure at the time.
Walczak responded to a court summons with a letter, claiming that the pressure of government work prevented him from appearing in person. He explained that he had sent plans for an airplane he designed to Westover Field, an Air Force base in Chicopee and Ludlow, Massachusetts. The judge ordered him to undergo mental health testing. After he was found to be sane, the judge severely reprimanded him and fined him $2.
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| Westover Field |
Legal Troubles and Tragedy
Walczak’s inventive mind was shadowed by legal problems. His arrest record stretched back to 1931, when, as a teenager in the Bronx, he was charged under New York’s Sullivan Act after police caught him with a loaded revolver. A year later, New York State Police sought him for stealing a taxicab while the driver ate his breakfast in a diner.
His family life was equally fraught. Born in 1914 to immigrant parents, Walczak grew up in a household marked by both industriousness and despair. His father, who had built a bakery business out of a converted barn, hanged himself from a rafter in the family garage on July 18, 1941. The son who discovered him—Henry’s brother—would later die of a heart attack at just 47 in 1963. Henry’s sister had married on May 31, 1941, only weeks before their father’s death. Her union ended in divorce five years later, when her husband filed on grounds of cruelty. At the time of his own death in 1942, Henry was living with his sister and brother-in-law, the latter of whom became the administrator of his estate.
Reports differ on the exact date of Walczak’s death. Due to the body’s decomposition, some sources suggested he died on July 4, 1942, weeks before the boys discovered him.
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| Northampton State Hospital |
A Twisted Epilogue
As for the missing groom, Robert Sawtell, his story took a surprising turn. On September 18, 1944, local authorities were notified that federal agents had arrested him in Washington, D.C., where he had been working at a gas station and selling fuel on the black market. He was returned to the Bay State on charges of failing to report for army induction. He pleaded innocent, was cleared by military authorities on September 24, 1946, and was eventually inducted into service.
The swamp in Southwick, however, kept its own secrets. The discovery by two teenagers on a summer’s afternoon had unraveled not just one mystery but two: the fate of an eccentric inventor whose ambitions reached the skies, and the lingering absence of a groom who had fled the altar.
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Edited Out/Author’s Additional Research Notes
Alexander Grabowski lived at 42 Otis Street. Fred Witek lived at 12 Otis Street.
Henry was born in America on January 9, 1914.
The Sullivan Act was a New York State law passed in 1911, named for its sponsor, Senator Timothy "Big Tim" Sullivan. It established strict regulations on firearms, requiring a license to carry a concealed pistol in public. Critics of the law claimed it would only disarm lawful citizens, while supporters viewed it as a measure to curb gun violence. Lawmakers have greatly amended the act over the past century.
Henry was arrested in 1931 along with two friends. Each carried a weapon. One friend had a pistol, the other a dagger. Henry had a loaded revolver. Police suspected that the teen boys were going to hold up a lunch wagon in the Bronx.
Henry posted a “Business Opportunity” classified ad in the Janaury 1939 edition of Electronics magazine - a publication for those in the industry. The ad read in part: “Inventor Wishes to Organize Company. To promote a narrow band width system of television.”
Henry’s new TV station would operate on 250 watts, 1604 - 1624 kc.
Robert Sawtell was supposed to report for duty on November 5, 1943. Following his arrest, he was brought back to Massachusetts and held on $1,000 bail.
Henry’s brother-in-law was the administrator of his estate.
Cannot locate any patents attached to Henry J. Walczak.