1874: William Udderzook, because a picture is worth a thousand words

ExecutedToday.com ^ | November 12, 2008 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1874, William Udderzook was hanged in West Chester, Pennsylvania for an insurance scam gone horribly macabre — accidentally making judicial history in the process.

Udderzook and his brother-in-law Winfield Scott Goss had contrived to pick up some easy scratch by insuring Goss’s life and having him “burned to death” in a laboratory fire; Udderzook procured a medical cadaver for the purpose, and duly identified its charred remains the late lamented Goss, who was in fact laying low in Newark under an assumed name.

An amateurish stunt by today’s standards, but forensic science was still in its infancy. During the Civil War just a decade before, the majority of the dead had been buried unidentified. Personal recognition was still the best way available in most cases to tell who was who.

Udderzook and Goss’s wife therefore collected on their say-so, but insurance adjusters smelled fraud. It was through their pressure that the “Goss-Udderzook tragedy” unfolded, and became an object lesson and test case in the science of establishing identity.

Goss was the first hoisted on his own petard, for his faked death meant that Udderzook could not afford to have investigators find him alive. So Udderzook murdered Goss, this time for real — real gruesome, that is. When the body was discovered, it had been dismembered, disemboweled, and repeatedly stabbed.

When Udderzook faced trial, Goss’s identity with “Wilson” (his assumed name) was the central question, and it was established using photography. (The same way they identified the body, actually, per a contemporary New York Times account here. (pdf))....

[Red Badger]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ltLp30KVs

[Deplorable American1776]

New CBS crime show coming spring 2022; CSI: 1874...🤓

[wally_bert]

They could remaster and release Hec Ramsey.

[Vigilanteman]

Insurance companies don't like paying legitimate claims, much less fraudulent ones. Had a hit and run claim last year (my first auto claim since the Reagan administration) and was fascinated with the inflated estimate the collision shop produced.

Not sure what they were ultimately paid as I was only charged the $100 deductible, but I am sure there was a lot more behind that game than I'll ever know.