The well-known Coen Brothers movie Fargo starts off with the statement that the story was based on true events. This statement was completely false, and the directors did this on purpose to draw attention to their movie and make it a little more interesting. But that’s not to say real “inspiration” isn’t out there. If you have watched the more recent Fargo series on FX – a spin-off of the movie – they have the same statement at the beginning of their episodes. The difference here is that the first season of the show actually draws a lot of inspiration from a very real mystery that is still under speculation today.
None of the movie or show takes place in Fargo or North Dakota at all, but this baffling mystery does take place in this state, in a town called Edmore.
Edmore is your typical, quaint North Dakota small town.
Andrew Filer/Flickr With a population of only 182, not a lot goes unnoticed here. Back in the 80s, when this mystery took place, the population was closer to 400. This case only occurred between two people, however. Two local auto repair men in the town had gotten into a scuffle at a local bar. These men were known as Kenneth Engie, or Kenneth Nygaard (which is where the main character from the show gets his last name) and Curtis Heck.
The fight did not end at the bar, apparently.
lotterymonkey/Flickr Heck claims he came out of the fight with the upper hand and just told Engie to leave. Engie responded by backing his car into Heck’s truck, apparently on purpose, before driving home. Heck was none too pleased with this and decided to follow him home to get even. This is where things become a little more muddied, and where speculation comes into play today.
At Engie’s house, his truck was parked in the garage and Heck claims he went inside and saw Engie lying on the garage floor, seemingly unwell. He said he decided just to leave Engie there, thinking he was just feeling the effects of the night of drinking. Heck felt there was no need to help him, especially after Engie had just damaged Heck’s truck.
Unsolved Mysteries/Wikia Engie never got up from the garage floor. In fact, that was the last time anyone saw him alive. He was found dead right on there the following day. When police arrived on the scene, it seemed like it was a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, usually caused by leaving a car running in an enclosed space and allowing the fumes from the exhaust to build up. However, there were some loose ends that did not add up.
For one, the car’s engine had been turned off. Engie may have done this himself, but if it was a suicide, why would he? And if he was feet away from his car on the floor, how could he? These questions weren’t the only ones that came up. Another piece of confusing evidence was that there was a loaded rifle and a pool of blood about six feet away from where he lay. Where did it come from and what happened? The blood wasn’t from Engie himself. The family believed that there was foul play involved here.
The police stood firm on their ruling of a suicide. Heck himself believes that Engie turned the car on to keep warm when it got cold, then started getting woozy both from being drunk and from the fumes. Heck thinks Engie then turned the car off , but wasn’t able to get inside before falling unconscious. That still doesn’t explain the rifle or blood, but to many it sounds like a viable explanation.
Whether it was Kenneth Engie’s own mistake or choice, or whether someone he’d fought with had “gotten even,” we will never really know. It still draws the curiosity of many today, including the creators of the show Fargo (despite the fact that they set it in Minnesota instead of North Dakota). What do you think happened?
Andrew Filer/Flickr
With a population of only 182, not a lot goes unnoticed here. Back in the 80s, when this mystery took place, the population was closer to 400. This case only occurred between two people, however. Two local auto repair men in the town had gotten into a scuffle at a local bar. These men were known as Kenneth Engie, or Kenneth Nygaard (which is where the main character from the show gets his last name) and Curtis Heck.
lotterymonkey/Flickr
Heck claims he came out of the fight with the upper hand and just told Engie to leave. Engie responded by backing his car into Heck’s truck, apparently on purpose, before driving home. Heck was none too pleased with this and decided to follow him home to get even. This is where things become a little more muddied, and where speculation comes into play today.
At Engie’s house, his truck was parked in the garage and Heck claims he went inside and saw Engie lying on the garage floor, seemingly unwell. He said he decided just to leave Engie there, thinking he was just feeling the effects of the night of drinking. Heck felt there was no need to help him, especially after Engie had just damaged Heck’s truck.
Unsolved Mysteries/Wikia
Engie never got up from the garage floor. In fact, that was the last time anyone saw him alive. He was found dead right on there the following day. When police arrived on the scene, it seemed like it was a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, usually caused by leaving a car running in an enclosed space and allowing the fumes from the exhaust to build up. However, there were some loose ends that did not add up.
For one, the car’s engine had been turned off. Engie may have done this himself, but if it was a suicide, why would he? And if he was feet away from his car on the floor, how could he? These questions weren’t the only ones that came up. Another piece of confusing evidence was that there was a loaded rifle and a pool of blood about six feet away from where he lay. Where did it come from and what happened? The blood wasn’t from Engie himself. The family believed that there was foul play involved here.
The police stood firm on their ruling of a suicide. Heck himself believes that Engie turned the car on to keep warm when it got cold, then started getting woozy both from being drunk and from the fumes. Heck thinks Engie then turned the car off , but wasn’t able to get inside before falling unconscious. That still doesn’t explain the rifle or blood, but to many it sounds like a viable explanation.
This is one of five baffling mysteries in North Dakota that are still unsolved to this day. Read more about the rest of them here.
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