 The owner of the house, a mason named Kiesewetter, had purchased the house in 1834 from Christian Mertens, who had been a serving man at the White Swan during the period when Bathurst disappeared.Bathurst's sister, Mrs Thistlethwaite, travelled to Perleberg but could not conclusively say whether the skull belonged to her brother or not.A detailed investigation conducted by writer Mike Dash first published in "Fortean Times" in 1990 concluded that the allegedly mysterious details of the Bathurst disappearance had been greatly exaggerated over the years, and that Bathurst was almost certainly murdered.