KARL ATTICUS was a filmmaker from the Baltimore, Maryland area. He was last seen alive during the summer of 1973; remains subsequently identified as his were located in Howard County, Maryland several months later. His death was ultimately ruled a suicide, but many questions remain about the circumstances of his demise, as well as the life that preceded it.

We have been investigating this man and his work for a number of years, and if any one thing has become obvious, it is that nothing can be taken for granted pertaining to Karl Atticus or his work. The name itself seems to elicit a negative (in some cases violent) response from people who were known to have associated with him. In most instances, however, there is scant information to be found. We have encountered situations in which any reference to his very existence has been denied, deleted, removed or expunged from public records.

For a man who made two movies, there still seems to be a great lot of unanswered questions...questions to which certain parties do not want the answers divulged, for some reason.

Our initial foray into the legend resulted in a fair amount of information, much more than we had expected to find, but clearly just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Some of this information leaked and ended up online over the years - presuamably due to our sudden interest in a case that had lain dormant for four decades.

Recently, however, events have taken a sinister turn. Pages of information on Karl Atticus began to be shut down or deleted altogether. People who were initially open and forthright no longer returned our phone calls or e-mails. Avenues of research to which we previously enjoyed access began to be closed off to us.

There is obviously something larger at stake, something that a particular person or group appears to be actively protecting. One anonymous caller has suggested that elements of the film industry are working to prevent any inquiries into Atticus's past; others have suggested that religious activists may be trying to deliberately suppress the very memory of this man.

The upshot of which is: Why? Who would go so far out of their way, this many years after the fact, to discredit an investigation into events which transpired 40 years ago?

We will attempt to recap as much of the basic information on our website as we have been able to uncover, in spite of these cowardly, anonymous attempts to compromise our research.