Radio Shack spacesuit robbery¶
The Radio Shack spacesuit robbery is the break-in, about three years before the main Radford case, in which Abelforth "Abe" Whateley smashed the Radio Shack window wearing a homemade spacesuit and stole modems and a cellular phone.
| Type | Lore / past crime |
| Aliases | spaceman robbery |
| Perpetrator | Abelforth Whateley |
| Location | The Radio Shack in Radford, Virginia |
| First appearance | Radford Horror 02 |
The robbery¶
In Radford Horror 02, Sheriff Frank Roosevelt sends the team to the station's records closet, where they find the Radio Shack case file. Abe threw a cinder block through the store window and came in wearing a spaceman suit. He tried to take heavier stuff but could not lift it, which is how his fingerprints came to be on file. He left with lightweight modems, a cellular phone and other portable items dragged off in a garbage bag, and immediately bought a bus ticket to Richmond. None of the merchandise ever turned up again (Radford Horror 02).
Abe's father, Yobiah Whateley, explains that the suit was a replica of a Mercury spacesuit that Abe had built for a school presentation, which he skipped that morning before robbing the store. Yobiah adds that Abe had been pestering him to get a service called Usenet. The sheriff had been on paternity leave during the break-in, and he realizes only now that the thief was dressed as a spaceman, which casts the earlier talk of a spaceman in a new light. Ezra finds $130 stashed in a Shel Silverstein book in Abe's room (Radford Horror 02). See Spaceman suit and Abe's radio.
The prints on the Lucky roof¶
In Radford Horror 03 the white van watching the town parks in the lot of the town's only Radio Shack, across from a McDonald's (Radford Horror 03). In Radford Horror 05, Molly Underhill reports that the fingerprints dusted from the roof at the first crime scene have a single database hit: the Radford electronics-store robbery, "the only other incident involving a spaceman". She concludes that Abelforth is probably back in town and puts out an APB on him, sends someone to photograph his brother, and says she will post the child's sketch of the spaceman as well (Radford Horror 05).
Resolution¶
In Radford Horror 08 the sheriff reports that deputies found a hidden basement under the Whateley house containing a spaceman costume with a journal inside and a body they believe to be Abelforth, who "never ran away at all". The police theory is that Wilbur killed his brother and staged both boys' departure (Radford Horror 08). See Wilbur's journal and The Spaceman. The episodes never explain how Abe's prints came to be on the Lucky roof.