Posted on 07/16/2022 7:06:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
J. Milton Bowers was found guilty of murder. So he committed another one to free himself.
J. Milton Bowers was not a particularly creative murderer at first.
He had found a reliable scheme, a scheme used by many murderers before and since, and he stuck with it. In 1885, the San Francisco physician was on his third wife. His previous two had both died suddenly after he’d taken out large life insurance policies on them. And wife No. 3, poor Cecelia, had recently become one of the city’s most-insured civilians when her husband took out five different policies on her. They added up to the equivalent of over half a million dollars in today's money.
If Cecelia knew her husband had been married before — and that those women had met mysterious ends — perhaps she would have demanded treatment outside of her home at 930 Market when she first fell ill. But she trusted her doctor husband, at least for a little while.
Near the end of her two-month death spiral, Cecelia’s brother, Henry Benhayon, visited her sickbed and noticed a strange whiteness around her mouth. One day, he overheard Cecelia make a chilling protestation.
“You are torturing me with medicine,” she moaned while Dr. Bowers gave her her daily dose.
The day after Cecelia died, the city coroner received an anonymous letter. It asked her to look into the death of Mrs. J. Milton Bowers, whose “liver” illness was not what it seemed. An autopsy was ordered up. The coroner reported that when her stomach was cut open, the overwhelming smell of phosphorus filled the room. She had been poisoned with so much phosphorus, newspaper reports claimed that her body did something very unusual.
It glowed in the dark.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
What a maggot.
Just so happens that I am currently listening to a book on Librivox about life insurance fraud cases. Old book with many of episodes dating to the 1870’s and 1880’s.
Stratagems and Conspiracies to Defraud Life Insurance Companies.
Fascinating stuff.
Wow, fascinating.
I guess she took a shine to him.
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