Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Some years ago, there was a “Midsomer Murders” episode where a killer had the bright idea to hide the body of his victim in someone else’s grave.  This story from the December 19, 1874 issue of the “Louisville Courier Journal” (via Newspapers.com) suggests that such a scheme may have successfully played out in real life.

[Springfield, Ky. Letter to Lebanon Standard]

Your reporter gathers the following facts from the Rev. Miles Saunders.  The family burying-ground of Judge P.I. Booker has been charged to Springfield cemetery; the exhumation we spoke of in a former number of your paper.

Among the number of graves is that of Mrs. Samuel Booker, step-mother of Judge Booker.  She was buried twenty years ago this month.  On opening her grave a human skeleton was found lying diagonally across, and about eighteen inches above the coffin of Mrs. Booker.  The body was in such a position it seemed that it had been chucked into the grave, as it were.  The left leg was drawn up, with the hands to the left side of the face, and the head was drawn over on the breast as though the body had been very hurriedly thrown in, without regard to position or care.  It had been put in without any coffin, box, or covering of any kind, as no signs of any were seen, save of a broad, very thick, poplar plank, which seemed to have been placed over the body.  The coffin of Mrs. Booker was in good condition and untouched.

We understand that, about a year and a half after Mrs. Booker was buried, a large freestone box or tomb was placed over the grave, and large, thick stones set up edgewise and running with the length of the grave.  The freestone box consisted of two very thick stones, three feet long at the sides and two shorter at the ends; these supporting a slab six feet long, four inches thick, and broad enough to cover the grave, on which was the inscription.  Now, the body must have been thrown into the grave during the interval of eighteen months from the time Mrs. Booker was interred to the time of placing the monumental box over her remains.

It is related that about the time of the burial of Mrs. Booker, or sometime after, it is not certain, a loose horse, saddled and bridled, came to the gate of a gentleman in the neighborhood of Judge Booker’s and no owner was ever found or heard of.  We are informed that Judge Booker did not own the farm at the time Mrs. Sam Booker was interred, but had sold it about six years before to Dr. Ashby.  A great deal of interest and curiosity are manifested generally and many suggestions and ideas advanced concerning this mysterious burial in the grave of another person.