The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes (21 page)

“. . . Return To Mother Earth”

A man who was supposed to have died in a house fire as part of an elaborate insurance swindle was forced to play a charade whereby he moved from place-to-place and wore disguises to conceal his real identity. Winfield Scott Goss, aged thirty-seven, was an inventor who had rented a cottage near Baltimore, Maryland, in order to carry out secret experiments. On the evening of 2 February 1872, the cottage was destroyed by fire and the body in the ruins was believed to be that of Goss. Among those gathered to watch the blaze was William E. Udderzook, a toolmaker, who said to one of the onlookers, “I think he is still in the house”. When asked who he was referring to, he replied, “Mr Goss”.

Udderzook was Goss’ brother-in-law. His behaviour at the time of the fire was thought to be odd and, equally strange, was the puzzle of why Goss, a fit and active man, had not escaped from the blazing cottage. Suspicion began to grow that the body was not that of Goss, who, it later transpired, had several life and accident insurance policies to his name.

The insurance companies refused to pay out and further examination of the human remains in the burnt out cottage proved by dental evidence that the fire victim was not Goss. Meanwhile, Udderzook had left the neighbourhood and was seen in the company of a man at Jenneville and other
locations. When traces of blood were found in a carriage used by Udderzook and he no longer had a travelling companion, suspicion hardened further.

A week later, a farmer noticed buzzards circling a nearby field. He was intrigued by what had attracted the birds and investigated a wooded area where he found a shallow grave containing a man’s body. The true fate of Winfield Goss was thus established over a year after he was supposed to have died in the fire. Udderzook was arrested on 25 July 1873 and taken to West Chester prison.

The full extent of Udderzook’s scheming emerged after his arrest. Goss had taken out a large life insurance policy with the intention of faking his death so that he could share the proceeds with his brother-in-law. A cadaver was obtained to provide evidence of a life lost in the fire. Unfortunately, the corpse had a rotten set of teeth, whereas Goss had excellent dentition.

The fraudsters embarked on a charade, moving from place to place, while lawyers grappled with the insurance claim. To keep Goss’ true identity hidden, Udderzook made him wear various disguises. When Goss rebelled, his brother-in-law killed him in expectation of eventually reaping all the insurance proceeds.

William Udderzook was tried for murder at West Chester in October and condemned to death. Before facing execution, he stated his wish that his body would be put in the same grave as that of Winfield Goss, “that our bodies may return to the mother earth . . .”. Udderzook was executed on 12 November 1874.

Blistered Hands

Smutty Nose is one of a small group of islands called The Shoals lying out in the Atlantic about ten miles off the coast of New Hampshire, in the US. On the night of 5 March 1873, twenty-eight-year-old Louis Wagner, a German immigrant who earned a meagre existence as a fisherman, stole a boat in Portsmouth with the intention of rowing to Smutty Nose.

He was bent on robbing a Norwegian family who lived on the island. He knew them well because they had given him shelter when he was down on his luck. He also knew that on this particular night, the three women were alone because their menfolk were away fishing.

Wagner landed on the snow-covered rocks and headed straight for the Hontvets’ home. Karen Christenson awoke when she heard a noise and thought her brother-in-law had returned. The intruder felled her with a heavy blow that aroused the other two women. Maren Hontvet grappled with the assailant and shouted to Anethe to fetch help. Paralysed with fear, all she could do was shout “Louis, Louis, Louis” as she immediately recognized the intruder.

Brandishing an axe, Wagner smashed Anethe’s skull with several blows and then attacked Karen who was dazed by the initial assault. He struck her again and again breaking the handle of the axe in the process. Realizing there was nothing she could do except save herself, Maren fled from the house and spent the rest of the night sheltering among rocks. Meanwhile, Wagner went through the house searching for money and then calmly sat down in the kitchen to eat a meal with the corpses of the two women he had killed lying around him.

At daybreak, Maren raised the alarm and men arrived from a neighbouring island. She identified the murderous assailant as Louis Wagner and when her husband returned this news was quickly relayed by boat to the mainland. The murderer had returned to lodgings in Portsmouth and then boarded a train to Boston. Following news of his arrest, angry mobs awaited his return to Portsmouth and marines with fixed bayonets were needed to prevent a lynching.

In June 1873, Wagner was tried for murder and Maren Hontvet gave graphic testimony. Four men gave evidence that Wagner had said he needed money so badly he would murder for it. His bloodstained shirt was retrieved and his blistered hands provided ample evidence of his rowing feat.

He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death but gained a reprieve pending a decision about the fate of another axe murderer, John True Gordon. It was decided that the two
murderers would be hanged together on 25 June 1875. But fate intervened when Gordon stabbed himself, causing potentially fatal wounds. The decision was made to go ahead with the double execution and, while Wagner walked to the scaffold, Gordon was dragged semi-conscious to face the hangman. Thus two axe murderers who, between them, had killed five people, were sent to their doom.

Sudden Passion

Miriam and Isaac Angel lived in two rooms in Batty Street, Whitechapel, London. They attracted a certain degree of envy because, while their neighbours lived in only one room, the Angels had two. Miriam was pregnant and, on 28 June 1887, a friend called in to see how she was. Growing concerned when there was no response to her knock, the friend pushed the door open and entered the room.

Miriam Angel lay on the bed with yellow froth exuding from her mouth, which later proved to be nitric acid. The bedclothes were stained with acid and Miriam had a head injury. A doctor was called and could do little more than pronounce her dead. Noting the obvious signs of corrosive poisoning, he started to search the room for a container.

By this time, a crowd of fellow residents had gathered at the door and a police officer arrived at the scene. He joined the doctor in the search for the source of the poison and, in the process, moved the bed. They heard groaning noises at the disturbance and revealed a man lying beneath the bed. They dragged out twenty-two-year-old Israel Lipski who had marks of corrosive poisoning around his mouth.

Lipski was revived and sent to hospital where he made a full recovery. He explained that he lived in the attic in the same house as the Angels. He alleged that two men who also lodged in the house had murdered Miriam Angel and forced him to drink poison. They pushed him under the bed and, as they departed, one said to the other, “Lipski will soon be dead, too”.

His story did not hold up, not least because the door of the murder room had been locked from the inside. Although the
body had been covered with a blanket, there were suggestions of a sexual assault. It was proved that Lipski had bought nitric acid and an empty acid bottle was found in the room.

Lipski was charged with murder and sent for trial in July 1887 to appear before Mr Justice James Fitzjames Stephen. The judge’s summing up was against Lipski. It was suggested that he had been overcome by a surge of “sudden passion” on seeing Miriam Angel lying in bed. To access his room in the attic, Lipski had to ascend a stairway and pass a window that gave a view into the Angels’ room. The trial jury took ten minutes to bring in a guilty verdict.

After the verdict, public opinion swung heavily in Lipski’s favour and W.T. Stead, editor of the
Pall Mall Gazette
, campaigned on his behalf. A reprieve was demanded and Mr Justice Fitzjames Stephens was said to be concerned about a possible miscarriage of justice. But Lipski made a full confession the day before he was hanged at Newgate Prison. He said that robbery rather than sexual assault was his motive which, perhaps, helped to ease the judge’s conscience.

Meadow Massacre

On 11 September 1857, a large force led by John D. Lee, a Bishop of the Mormon Church, attacked a wagon train in Utah killing 120 men and women in America’s greatest civil atrocity.

A party of Arkansas farming families, numbering 140, was headed west to California and had reached a place called Mountain Meadow in Utah. At the time, Utah Territory was in conflict with the United States and was being run as the personal fiefdom of Brigham Young and the Mormon Church. The Mormons were stockpiling weapons and disregarding federal laws.

When the wagon train reached Mountain Meadow, about 300 miles from Salt Lake City, it was surrounded by a band of white renegades masquerading as Indians. The pioneers held off their attackers for three days. Then Lee offered a truce, saying that if the pioneers gave up their gold and livestock they would be allowed to continue their journey westwards. Having secured the truce, the renegades systematically slaughtered 120 people, sparing only seventeen children. Corpses were stripped of clothes and jewellery and the attackers disappeared.

The Mormons were suspected of involvement and Brigham Young was thought to be implicated but there was no evidence to support such allegations. In 1858, Young denied any complicity and put the blame on the Indians. A five-year-old boy who survived the massacre was questioned two years after the event and he related how his father had been killed by Indians but when they washed their faces, they were white men.

In 1870, blame was shifted to Bishop John D. Lee who was excommunicated by Brigham Young. There was talk of a church-inspired cover-up and, in 1875, Lee was arrested. It had taken the federal authorities eighteen years to gather sufficient evidence to charge him. He was tried twice and at the second attempt found guilty. Lee was condemned to death and, on 23 March 1877, he was taken to the scene of the massacre at Mountain Meadow and executed by firing squad.

The massacre inspired a number of novelists intrigued by the drama of events steeped in treachery and atrocity. In 2002 the controversy erupted again with fresh accusations blaming Brigham Young. Two books claimed the case against the Mormon leader was undeniable. Arguing that nothing happened in Utah in the 1870s without his knowledge, the thesis is that he gave his authority for the attack on the pioneers and then perpetrated a cover up.

John Lee wrote about the events of 1857 while he was awaiting execution. He blamed the Indians for attacking the pioneers and claimed that the Mormons joined in reluctantly. Later commentators suggested variously that greed lay behind the massacre or that Brigham Young decided to stage a demonstration of his political power. Contemporary Mormon church historians repeat the official line which was that the massacre was a local incident carried out by renegades. Wherever the truth lies, it is certain that John D. Lee paid the ultimate price.

A Great Escape

When working in Oxford in the UK as a servant to a local dignitary, Anne Greene was seduced by her employer’s grandson. Four months later, she delivered a dead child. Horrorstruck, she hid the body but her attempt at concealment failed. When the dead infant was discovered, Greene was arrested and charged with murder. She was quickly tried, found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.

On 14 December 1650, she was placed on the scaffold, declaring before the assembled crowd that she was an innocent victim of her employer’s lewdness. That said, executioners pushed her off the ladder. She was a heavy woman and dropped to her intended death at the rope’s end. She hung in the air while spectators pulled on her legs until she was senseless.

Greene’s body was cut down, put into a coffin and delivered to the house of Dr William Petty, an Oxford surgeon, for autopsy. It was the custom for onlookers to attend such proceedings and a crowd watched when the coffin was opened. To the surprise of all present, the occupant “rattled her throat”. A bystander, anxious to snuff out any last vestige of life, stamped on her body.

Dr Petty aided by Dr Thomas Willis, who became famous as a pioneering medical man, tried to revive the woman. They pulled her clenched teeth apart and tickled her throat with a feather, whereupon she coughed her way back to life. The doctors bled her and administered potions of ground-up mummies and rhubarb. The next morning, very much alive, she asked for beer and was soon eating chicken.

The justices wanted to hang Anne Greene a second time but the doctors pleaded for her life. They argued that her premature baby had been dead when born, thus absolving her of the charge of murder and that her revival was a sign of divine providence indicating her innocence.

News of Anne Greene’s resurrection from the dead spread far and wide. People paid a fee to see her lying in the coffin in the doctor’s chambers and, in due course, she went home taking her coffin with her as a symbol of her great escape. Pamphlets were published describing the miracle of her salvation,
including poems written by, among others, Christopher Wren, the great architect to be.

“. . . Fit As A Fiddle . . .”

Kenneth Neu’s burning ambition was to be a nightclub entertainer but he reserved his best performances for the prison authorities.

On 2 September 1933, when walking in the vicinity of Times Square in New York, Kenneth Neu encountered Lawrence Shead, a theatre owner, who offered to help him. It turned out that Shead had his own agenda and having invited Neu back to his hotel room for drinks made sexual advances towards him.

Neu’s response was to lash out and, in a violent encounter, he bludgeoned Shead to death. He then calmly took a shower and dressed himself in one of the dead man’s suits and travelled to New Orleans. A few days later, short of money, Neu targeted an elderly man he saw in a hotel. The man, Sheffield Clark, took him up to his room where Neu’s demand for money met with a blunt refusal. His response was to bludgeon Clark to death, steal his money and drive away in his car.