The Case Of The Disappearing Passenger
One July evening in 1864, two men stepping into a first-class train compartment in Hackney, England, stumbled upon a scene of carnage. Blood on the seats and on the door but nobody within—more specifically, no body within. Women in the next carriage even reported having been spattered with red droplets through an open window.
The eerily empty compartment was replete with clues as well as gore. Those included a leather bag, walking stick, and beaver hat. Eventually, the battered body of a still-breathing, 70-year-old banker named Thomas Briggs was found along the tracks, but he died shortly thereafter.
Acting on tips from a jeweler and cabbie, Inspector Richard Tanner pursued a suspect named Franz Muller to New York. Besides leaving his own beaver hat at the crime scene, Muller apparently had been dim-witted enough to keep the silk top hat and gold watch he’d stolen from the victim. His hanging turned into such a spectacle that public executions were banned shortly thereafter.
Somehow I don't think the killer was very smart. In fact, he was about one sandwich shy of a picnic
Coffee inside this morning. More rain coming in.
