Help Wanted: The Macabre Death of Samuel Resnick

There are certain people who, for one reason or another, have a way of attracting people who are eager to murder them.  What makes the following case stand out is that exactly the opposite appears to have happened: A man was desperate to find someone willing to kill him, and he had a damned hard time achieving that goal.

Samuel Resnick was a jeweler in Albany, New York, for nearly thirty years until a heart condition forced his retirement in 1959, after which he and his wife Lillian retired to Phoenix, Arizona.  However, he still occasionally dealt in gemstones.  Life went quietly enough until the evening of March 1, 1962, when the 61-year-old Samuel told Lillian he was going for a walk.  That in itself was hardly unusual--evening strolls were a frequent part of his daily routine.  What was unusual is that he failed to return home.

Lillian and their 35-year-old son Martin immediately reported his disappearance to the police.  However, the mystery of Samuel’s whereabouts was not solved until March 4, when a horseback rider found his body on a little-used desert trail 10 miles outside of the city.  He had been beaten and then strangled with a rope.

The coroner estimated that Samuel died about four hours after leaving his home.  To most observers, the motive for his murder seemed obvious--his expensive diamond ring, a watch, his wallet, and a gemstone-studded Masonic ring were all missing from his body.  Neighbors told police that on the night Samuel disappeared, they had seen him talking to a couple of young men.  

The police, however, had reason to believe that something far more complicated--not to mention bizarre--than a mere robbery had happened.  A few months earlier, a man came to them with a startling story:  He had answered a “help wanted” ad that Samuel had placed in a local newspaper.  The man was appalled to learn that the job Resnick wanted him to do was to murder him.

Unfortunately, at the time the police shrugged off the man’s claims, but upon realizing that the jeweler had evidently found someone more cooperative, they began searching the advertisements in back copies of newspapers for possible suspects.  A 19-year-old named Clemmie Jackson caught their eye.  Clemmie was not around when police went to his home, but a search of the car belonging to his uncle turned up a length of rope identical to the one that had been used to strangle Samuel.  They also found a cluster of paper strips like ones found near Samuel’s body.  Clemmie’s brother, R.E. Jackson, told police the strips came from the paper shredding company where he worked.  R.E. claimed he knew nothing about the Resnick murder, and had no idea where his brother was.

On March 17, Clemmie was arrested in Crockett, Texas.  He readily--almost eagerly--told police his version of how Samuel Resnick came to die.  And what a story it was.  Clemmie had placed an advertisement in the papers looking for work.  On February 25, Samuel responded to the ad, telling Clemmie that if he was willing to kill him, the young man could have all the jewelry he was wearing, as well as any cash in his pockets.

I would like to think that if a stranger asked me to murder them, my response would be a polite “No, thank you,” and a quick rush to the nearest exit, but Clemmie was apparently a more accommodating and open-minded sort.  He gathered together a band of accomplices--his brother R.E., and three friends, Jesse Tillis, John Henry Lewis Jones, and Ernest Spurlock--and settled with Samuel that the big day would be March 1.  However, Clemmie said that at the last moment he had “chickened out” and allowed his confederates to do the deed without him.

When these men were arrested, they all confirmed Clemmie’s story, adding that they had agreed to the murder “because Mr. Sam had cancer and had only six months to live and wanted to leave his family some money.”  They went on to say that after meeting “Mr. Sam” at the prearranged spot in the desert, he coached them on how to strangle him, adding, “Do a good job.”  Two of them stood on each side of the jeweler and pulled the rope, but it quickly broke.

Samuel was beginning to get exasperated.  He told them, “Here, let me show you how.”  He doubled the rope for them and got on his knees.  The young men began feeling qualms about the whole enterprise, and tried to talk him out of proceeding, but Samuel was insistent.  “And this time, he helped, too.”  Once Samuel was dead, the confederates stripped his body of his jewelry and money, and then beat the corpse and turned his pockets inside out to make it look like a simple robbery.  

At first, police found their story unbelievable, and one can’t really blame them for that.  But then, yet another Phoenix man came forward, saying that Samuel had tried enlisting him as a hit man.  “I think those boys you’ve arrested are telling the truth,” he added.  Three other men, including Samuel’s barber, also told police that the late jeweler had tried talking them into murdering him.

Samuel’s widow and son, along with his physician and the doctor who had autopsied him, all denied that Samuel had cancer.  However, the medical examiner conceded that the jeweler was in very poor health, suffering from a grossly enlarged heart, an enlarged spleen, and a congested liver.  It seemed possible that Samuel might have preferred a quick end to his physical woes.  It was surmised that his reason for choosing murder over suicide was to enable his wife to get the “double indemnity” benefits from his $50,000 life insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London.

Whether Samuel really wanted to die or not, the law still forbade anyone from obliging him.  The five young men were all put on trial for first-degree murder.  In brief, the defense argued that the ultimate blame for Samuel’s death rested on the victim, while prosecutors insisted that--whatever the jeweler may have requested--the defendants were fully responsible.  

In the end, the jury decided that murder was murder, whether the victim had solicited it or not.  Clemmie, the one defendant who had not directly participated in the killing, was acquitted, while the other four were convicted, with the recommendation that they be sentenced to life imprisonment.

In a final irony, Lloyd’s found the circumstances of Samuel’s death to be just weird enough to justify them refusing to pay on his policy.  You might say that his passing was a tragically wasted effort on all sides.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

Happy Friday the 13th!

The languages of ancient humans.

Dodo birds actually tasted pretty good.  Unfortunately for them.

An ancient coin that tells of a massive slave rebellion.

The long war against the Barbary pirates.

Traces of a mysterious ancient religion.

An extinct marsupial turns up alive and well.

The miniatures that served as Tudor love tokens.

In which we learn that "adult" has nothing to do with "adultery."

Ancient humans loved elongated skulls.

Yet another artifact that rewrites human history.

The mystery of the man in the reservoir.

How people woke up before alarm clocks came along.

A legendary cow.

A murder mystery in Medford.

If you live in Florida, keep your eyes peeled for giant scorpions.

The fire that destroyed the SS City of Montreal.

Syphilis has been around for a very long time.

Sir John Vanbrugh and his castle.

In which undertakers Tell All.

Da Vinci and the hidden crotch detail.

The Kentucky county that celebrates the time it got showered with meat.

How France came to legalize posthumous marriages.

The possibility that Amelia Earhart wound up as crab food.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a death that was part suicide, part murder.  In the meantime, here's some Vivaldi.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This tale of…Fortean food throwing? appeared in “The Guardian,” November 11, 1978:

Police are seeking a phantom food hurler who has issued a fusillade of black puddings, eggs, bacon and other groceries at four old people's bungalows at Castleton, Derbyshire. 

The night attacks began a year ago when everything from eggs to legs of mutton hit the bungalow walls and doors and landed in the gardens. The local constable gave up free time to try to catch the thrower, and the events temporarily stopped.

Councillor Charlie Lewes, who has raised the matter with the High Peak Council, said: "It's annoying. The occupants of these four bungalows wake up to find the face of their homes strewn with food. The culprits are either raiding a deep freeze or have got a supply to be able to do it." 

Mrs. Ethel Bramley, whose home has been battered by flying food, said: “It's unreal, weird. If people want to give us food why not wrap it in a parcel and leave it on the doorstep?"

Why not, indeed?  I wasn’t able to find if the mystery of these unorthodox Door Dash deliveries was ever solved.

A Hogmanay Mystery: The Vanishing of Alex Cleghorn

On this blog, I have covered a few missing-persons cases where the victim appeared to instantly vanish into oblivion, never to be seen again.  One minute they’re going about their normal business, the next…gone.  And nobody can ever figure out why.  As peculiar and disturbing as these disappearances may be, the following mystery is startling enough that it not only made the local newspapers, but the pages of that journal devoted to all forms of High Strangeness, the “Fortean Times.”

A few hours into the first day of 1966, 19 year old Alex Cleghorn and his two older brothers, David and William, left their Glasgow home to “first foot” some friends.  (“First foot” is a Scottish New Year tradition where the first people to cross a home’s threshold on January 1 bring symbolic gifts such as coal or whisky to ensure good luck for the year.)  As they walked down Govan Road, the brothers reached a crossroads.  David and William turned to ask Alex which way they should go.  Except that Alex suddenly wasn’t there.  David and William, assuming their brother had fallen behind, retraced their steps and searched side-streets to see if Alex had taken a shortcut.  No Alex.  They called his name repeatedly.  No response.

Not knowing what else to do, David and William returned home, but Alex wasn’t there, either.  When daylight came with no sign of him, the family called around to friends and relatives, but no one had seen him.  They checked with police stations and hospitals, only to hit the same brick wall.  The following day, Alex’s father called the factory where his son worked, but they hadn’t seen him, either.  Alex’s insurance card and a week’s salary had not been picked up.

And…that’s all, folks.  From that day to this, the whereabouts of Alex Cleghorn have remained a complete mystery.  A few years after he vanished, his brothers reenacted that fateful walk, hoping it would give them some clue about what had happened, but they were still left completely baffled.

If ever a disappearance could literally be called “into thin air,” this one is it.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to the Link Dump!  Our host for this week is Muggins!

ALL HAIL MUGGINS!

A woman's murder of her sister.

Why it took so long for you to be able to look at the bones of St. Francis.

Did the Vikings visit Maine?

The grim history of "Ring Around the Rosie."

A look at the London of Charlie Chaplin's childhood.

The mystery of "terminal lucidity."

Mutiny on a Dutch warship.

The "pitchfork poisoning."

Friendly fire incidents in WWII.

The puzzling murder of the Schultz children.

Some ancient health tips.

The first fatal airplane crash.

Poe's "mechanical imagination."

Fake photography in the Victorian era.

A brief history of dowries.

John Dee's library.

The long history of going down rabbit holes.

In praise of burial shoes.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a young man's remarkably perplexing disappearance.  In the meantime, here's more 1960s pop.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Yet another example of how returns from the grave can be quite awkward appeared in the London “Sunday Dispatch,” September 22, 1907:

The return of a man after an inquest had been held on his supposed body and after his relatives had drawn his insurance money has had a strange sequel at the Westminster Coroner's Court. Then the "dead” man appeared in person to prove that the six persons who identified the body made an extraordinary blunder.

On April 27 the body of a man, apparently about sixty years of age, who had lost his left eye, was taken from the Thames, and on April 20 an engineer named John Steer, of Cannon-road, Bromley, Kent, attended at the mortuary, with a number of his relatives, declared that the dead man was Arthur Albert Steer, aged fifty-seven, a labourer of Bromley. Steer, they said, had only one eye. 

At the inquest the evidence of identification was accepted, and the friends of Arthur Albert Steer drew his insurance money, went into mourning, and buried the body. 

A few weeks later, however, the "dead” man appeared at his son's house, and in order to set right the matter of registration of the death the identifying witness attended before the coroner to prove that he had made a mistake. 

Addressing John Steer, the son, the coroner said: “I will now read what you said at the inquest: 

“I have seen the body in the mortuary, not for the first time today, but yesterday as well.  I identify it as that of my father, Arthur Albert Steer. My brothers and sisters are also satisfied as to his identity. My father had lost the sight of his left eye, and he had had a piece of bone removed from over the same eye.  I have no doubt at all about the identity.” 

The Witness: “I find the only mistake all made was that father had lost his right eye, and that the drowned man's left one was missing.” 

How many of you saw the body besides yourself?  “Six, sir.”

How did you come to make such a mistake?--We did not make a mistake, only about the eye, sir. (Laughter.) 

But you made another little mistake, as it was not your father at all?--I am very sorry I did make a mistake, sir. (Laughter.) Are you?--Well, I am glad about it. The man had a scar under the eye, and a tooth was gone from the front, and it was the same with father. 

Did you draw the insurance money?--Yes, sir, and I paid it back again.

The coroner said all he could do was to rectify the entry on the certificate of death, and say that the identification was a mistake, the body being that of an unknown man.

As far as I can tell, the dead doppelganger was never identified, but I’m assuming that Arthur Steer was very glad it was not him after all.

The Weird Death of Joan Norkot

Sir John Maynard (d. 1690) had a long and distinguished career as a lawyer, serjeant-at-arms, and Member of Parliament.  Shortly after his death, discovered among his papers was his account of an unusually eerie and puzzling murder case from Hereford, England, in 1629.  The manuscript evidently languished in obscurity until it was eventually published in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for July 1851.  It reads like one of the more supernatural-tinged episodes of “Midsomer Murders,” but with an unsatisfactorily enigmatic ending.  Joan Norkot’s death may have been officially “Case Closed,” but it could hardly be called “Case Resolved.”

I write the evidence which was given, which I and many others heard, and I write it exactly according to what was deposed at the Trial at the Bar in the King's Bench. Johan Norkot, the wife of Arthur Norkot, being murdered, the question arose how she came by her death. The coroner's inquest on view of the body and deposition of Mary Norkot, John Okeman and Agnes, his wife, inclined to find Joan Norkot felo de se: for they (i.e. the witnesses before mentioned) informed the coroner and the jury that she was found dead in the bed and her throat cut, the knife sticking in the floor of the room; that the night before she was so found she went to bed with her child (now plaintiff in this appeal), her husband being absent, and that no other person after such time as she was gone to bed came into the house, the examinants lying in the outer room, and they must needs have seen if any stranger had come in. Whereupon the jury gave up to the coroner their verdict that she was felo de se. But afterwards upon rumour in the neighbourhood, and the observation of divers circumstances that manifested she did not, nor according to these circumstances, possibly could, murder herself, thereupon the jury, whose verdict was not drawn into form by the coroner, desired the coroner that the body which was buried might be taken up out of the grave, which the coroner assented to, and thirty days after her death she was taken up, in the presence of the jury and a great number of the people, whereupon the jury changed their verdict. The persons being tried at Hertford Assizes were acquitted, but so much against the evidence that the judge (Harvy) let fall his opinion that it were better an appeal were brought than so foul a murder should escape unpunished.

Anno, paschæ termino, quarto Caroli, [In the year, at the end of Easter, of the fourth year of Charles] they were tried on the appeal which was brought by the young child against his father, the grandfather and aunt, and her husband Okeman. And because the evidence was so strange I took exact and particular notes of it, which was as followeth, of the matters above mentioned and related, an ancient and grave person, the minister of the parish where the fact was committed, being sworn to give evidence according to custom, deposed, that the body being taken out of the grave thirty days after the party's death and lying on the grave and the four defendants present, they were required each of them to touch the dead body. O.'s wife fell on her knees and prayed God to show token of their innocency, or to some such purpose, but her very words I forget. The appellers did touch the dead body, whereupon the brow of the dead, which was all a livid or carrion colour (that was the verbal expression in the terms of the witness) began to have a dew or gentle sweat, which reached down in drops on the face, and the brow turned and changed to a lively and fresh colour, and the dead opened one of her eyes and shut it again, and this opening the eye was done three several times. She likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger three times and pulled it in again, and the finger dropt blood from it on the grass.

Hyde (Nicholas), Chief Justice, seeming to doubt the evidence, asked the witness : "Who saw this beside yourself?"

Witness: "I cannot swear that others saw it; but, my lord," said he, “I believe the whole company saw it, and if it had been thought a doubt, proof would have been made of it, and many would have attested with me."

Then the witness observing some admiration in the auditors, he spoke further,

"My lord, I am minister of the parish, long knew all the parties, but never had any occasion of displeasure against any of them, nor had to do with them, or they with me, but as their minister. The thing was wonderful to me, but I have no interest in the matter, but am called upon to testify the truth and that I have done."

This witness was a reverend person as I guess about seventy years of age. His testimony was delivered gravely and temperately, but to the good admiration of the auditor. Whereupon, applying himself to the Lord Chief Justice, he said, "My lord, my brother here present is minister of the next parish adjacent, and I am assured saw all done as I have affirmed," whereupon that person was also sworn to give evidence, and he deposed the same in every point, viz., the sweat of the brow, the changes of its colour, the opening of the eye, the thrice motion of the finger and drawing it in again; only the first witness deposed that a man dipped his finger in the blood to examine it, and swore he believed it was real blood. I conferred afterwards with Sir Edmund Vowel, barrister at law, and others who concurred in this observation, and for myself, if I were upon my oath, can depose that these depositions, especially of the first witness, are truly here reported in substance.

The other evidence was given against the prisoners, viz., against the grandmother of the plaintiff and against Okeman and his wife, that they lay in the next room to the dead person that night, and that none came into the house till they found her dead next morning, therefore if she did not murther herself, they must be the murtherers, and to that end further proof was made. First she lay in a composed manner in her bed, the bed cloaths nothing at all disturbed, and her child by her in the bed. Secondly, her throat was cut from ear to ear and her neck broken, and if she first cut her throat, she could not break her neck in the bed, nor e contra. Thirdly, there was no blood in the bed, saving that there was a tincture of blood upon the bolster whereupon her head lay, but no other substance of blood at all. Fourthly, from the bed's head on there was a stream of blood on the floor, till it ponded on the bending of the floor to a very great quantity and there was also another stream of blood on the floor at the bed's feet, which ponded also on the floor to another great quantity but no other communication of blood on either of these places, the one from the other, neither upon the bed, so that she bled in two places severely, and it was deposed that turning up the matte of the bed, there were clotes of congealed blood in the straw of the matte underneath. Fifthly, the bloody knife in the morning was found clinging in the floor a good distance from the bed, but the point of the knife as it stuck in the floor was towards the bed and the haft towards the door. Sixthly, lastly, there was the brand of a thumb and four fingers of a left hand on the dead person's left hand.

Hyde, Chief Justice: "How can you know the print of a left hand from the print of a right hand in such a case?"

Witness: "My lord, it is hard to describe it, but if it please the honourable judge (i.e. the judge sitting on the bench beside the Chief Justice) to put his left hand on your left hand, you cannot possibly place your right hand in the same posture."

It being done, and appearing so, the defendants had time to make their defence, but gave no evidence to that purpose.

The jury departing from the bar and returning, acquitted Okeman and found the other three guilty; who, being severally demanded why judgment should not be pronounced, sayd nothing, but each of them said, "I did not do it." "I did not do it." Judgment was made and the grandmother and the husband executed, but the aunt had the privilege to be spared execution, being with child. I enquired if they confessed anything at execution, but did not as I was told.