John Zoos was a Polish immigrant who worked in the plumbago mines near Byers, Pennsylvania.    This requires some explanation.   The word "plumbago" is now used for a flowering plant; it is no longer used for graphite.   But a hundred years ago, you could work in a plumbago mine, and this did not mean that you were a florist.

                Byers, Pennsylvania, also no longer exists; there is a "Byers Road" and a "Byers Station" which are in the area where the hamlet of Byers once was.   It is now part of the Chester, Pennsylvania, area, which could in turn be described as part of the Philadelphia area, but the name "Byers", as a town, has almost entirely faded from the public record.

                September 21, 1920, was the first anniversary of the murders in Hurley, Virginia.   As he returned from work on September 21, John Zoos found his seven-year-old son lying in a clump of bushes near his home, barely alive.   His head had been bashed in by an axe.   Zoos scooped the child into his arms and ran into his house, where he discovered that his entire family had been murdered in a similar fashion, his wife and two daughters, aged three and aged seven months.

                Zoos lived on a dirt road.  There was a country store some distance down the road.   Zoos ran to the store and sounded the alarm.  The axe was found outside the house, covered with blood.

                One first report says that "suspicion points to a boarder, who has disappeared, but who the police officials are making a desperate effort to locate."   A paragraph similar to this one appears in all first reports of the case:

                It was evident that the murderer had gone to the Zoos home for the purpose of robbery and the fact that three persons in the dwelling at the time were disposed of would seem to bear out the theory that the robber was familiar with the family and murdered the members to prevent being recognized.

                $45 and a bank book were missing from the home.   Another report from a nearby newspaper says that "A strange man was seen in the vicinity of the Zoos home, and when leaving he was seen going in the direction of Downingstown."    Downingstown, about three to four miles away, is where the railroad track runs; there is a Downingstown train station there yet today.

                And here this story ends.   To the best of my knowledge, these crimes were never solved, and nothing more is known about them today than was known then.    After a flurry of newspaper reports about the incident, lasting two or three days, the murders simply disappear from the journalistic record.   It appears—to the best of my knowledge—that no one ever took an interest in the stories, no anniversary or commemorative stories were ever written about them, no family members remain, no neighbors ever wrote about it.   A google search for "Zoos family murders" finds absolutely nothing.    Searches for "Byers murders" or "Pennsylvania family axe murders, 1910" are similarly unproductive, occasionally turning up a copy of a day-of-the-crime newspaper.       To the best of my knowledge—which is surely incomplete, and this is surely impossible—not a word about the Zoos family murders has ever been published since a week after they occurred.