THE ET CETERA CHRONICLES - THE CASE OF THE CROPPED CORPSE

THE CASE OF THE CROPPED CORPSE 

One of the most unusual and morbid stories ever published about Dublin appeared in the Montgomery Monitor in the fall of 1915.  

   It seemed that an undertaker sued Walter Blackshear for his fee for embalming and burying his mother.  Blackshear refused to pay the debt, claiming that the undertaker  mutilated his mother during the embalming process.  

   The defendant, in denying liability, claimed that the undertaker placed his mother in a coffin which was too narrow.  In order to make the deceased fit into the coffin, Blackshear alleged that the undertaker trimmed pieces of his mother from her body.   One woman, purportedly looking through a window,  testified that he saw the woman being split from the throat to the stomach in order for her to fit into the box.  

   The jury found for the undertaker, believing that he was simply making a normal incision during the embalming process.   Montgomery Monitor, November 4, 1915.

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