Imperfect Murder # 1: Don’t go Upside-Down!

Claude and George Oliver deliberately let the car insurance lapse on Claude’s car, so no one would suspect insurance fraud. Claude and his nephew George were inseperable pals and that didn’t change when Claude suddenly married Delia Ringer. Claude thougt of Delia as nothing but a huge dollar sign. He had convinced her to take an insurance policy for $5,000 with a double idemnity clause in case she died in an accident and with him as beneficiary.

One day, Claude drove his wife and his best pal to a bridge just outside the town of Davis, Oklahoma. George used a tire iron on the head of Delia and Claude bashed her face in with a rock. The blood spewed down the seat and car floor. Then Claude and George moved the car to the bridge rail and pressed the starter, sending the car over the side. It landed upside-down in the jagged gully below.

Claude and George told the police they’d been going too fast, downhill and on a curve, when the faulty steering gear gave way. George had been driving, with Claude on the outside of the front seat and Delia in the middle. The two men had leaped to safety, but Delia had been trapped. 

Now, if you don’t want to end up with your insurance money on death row, you have to plan your murder more carefully. These guy’s were not pro and though Delia’s face and skull were battered, there were no bruises on her arms. A person plunging off a bridge in a speeding car generally throws the hands up to shield the face too. And last but not least, blood had stained the car seat and the floor, but the car had landed upside-down, Delia was lying on her back on the car’s ceiling… and there was virtually no blood where it should have been…

Claude and his nephew were executed on August 23, 1933.

Imperfect Murder # 2: Complete your Plumbing! 

Willie Guldensuppe wanted Augusta Nack from the day he moved into the Nack home as a border, and so he got Mr. Nack moving out of his own house in disgust. Augusta fell in love with another boarder, Martin Thorne, and Willie gave him a beating and booted him out of the house. But Augusta and Martin kept seeing each other in secret and began thinking of how they could finish Willie.

Willie Guldensuppe had a little summer cottage and the lovers decided to commit the Perfect Murder in this dainty dream house. Martin would be hiding in the closet with a revolver, and – just in case – a butcher knife, a bottle of carbolic aid and a rope for hanging. When Willie opened the door of the cottage, he was shot dead. Martin and Augusta lugged his corpse in the bathtub. All they had to do now was to cut up the body and get rid of it piece by piece. The torso of Willie Guldensuppe was fished out of the East River on June 28, 1897, but there was no possible way to identify the victim, so the lovers thought they were safe.

Now, if you want to commit the perfect murder – especially when your victim listens to the name Willie! – you have to check and double-check if your plan is as flawless as it seems. In this case, a farmer started wondering why his ducks were turning red. He couldn’t figure it out until he found them swimming in the nearby pond of the New Yorker who had built there a little dream cottage. The plumbing of the cottage was incomplete, the water lines were in but the sewer pipes were not, and the bathtub merely drained into the pond…

Imperfect Murder # 3: Check the Weather Report!

Frederick Small beat his wife Florence over the head with a lead pipe, strangled her with a rope, and – to be sure! – shot her. Nex thing to do, was burn Florence to death in a fire that would occur later that day, “by accident”, when he was in Boston, many miles away from their summer cottage in Mountain View, New Hampshire.

Small got busy with rosin, a cloth and thermite – a substance used in blast furnaces to produce very high heat very quickly. He applied the preparation to the neck, face and head of his wife and when this was done, he set up a device with an alarm clock, batteries and spark plugs. He placed the body in the living room and doused the room with kerosene. His timer would produce a spark and the spark would set off the kerosene, rosin, and thermite. The blaze would melt or burn the corpse, the cottage, the bullet and his infernal device.

In Boston, Small concentrated on making sure he was seen by people who knew him well. Later that evening, he caught a train back to his New Hampshire house, where he would feign shock and play the role of the heartbroken husband (he could console himself later with his wife’s fortune). But on his arrival, he was immediately arrested for murder. The fire had broken out as planned and had razed the cottage, but the floor had collapsed and corpse, timer and all had fallen into the basement, where water had seeped in because heavy rains had raised the level of the nearby lake. The water doused the flames, leaving intact not only the body, but also Small’s telltale devices. He was sent to his execution on January 15, 1918.

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