A story without robust documentation, based on a second-hand account published four decades after the alleged events, embellished in the retelling — why does it persist?

Why does the name Essie Dunbar continue to circulate, to appear in books and websites and social media posts, to generate interest that far exceeds what the evidentiary record can support?

The answer is that the Essie Dunbar story does what the best stories do: it connects to something real and universal.

The fear of death, and the even more terrible fear of being not-quite-dead, is not a historical curiosity.

It is a permanent condition of human consciousness.