People are always trying to hide the bodies of their victims. Sometimes they hide the bodies far away from themselves and other times they keep the bodies close by, only to be quickly discovered.
Here are some of the strangest places killers have used to unsuccessfully hide dead bodies.
Down The Well
It was 1930. Murray and Eddie had just finished up their work on the farm. The boss’s family was at a funeral, so the two men decided they were going to kill some time and take a walk. Murray grabbed his revolver and waited in the kitchen for Eddie to get ready.
During the wait, Murray was playing with his gun when it went off. He looked up and saw that the bullet had hit poor Eddie in the head. Murray panicked. Blood was getting everywhere. To try and stop the bleeding, Murray wrapped a scarf around the fatal wound and wrapped an old coat around his friend’s body.
Next, Murray drove the body to a well on the farm and dropped him in it. Then he returned to the farmhouse and cleaned up the blood. On the owner’s return, he told them that Eddie had left.
About a week later, the boss’s wife notice an old coat floating in the well and sent Murray to fetch it. He did, while also trying to shove his friend’s body deeper into the water. It was no use and Murray was soon found out. He was charged with failing to treat the dead body with dignity. [Source]
In A Tree Stump
The sandalwood cutters lived in camps, bringing in supplies from the outside world with horses and carts. In 1898, two men got together and invested in their own horse and cart so that they could ride out, buy supplies, and then sell them in their camp. One late night the two men were riding back from getting supplies. One had his young son with him. An argument broke out and the men stopped the horse to get out for a brawl. The young boy, fearing for his life, ran off back to camp while the men fought.
No sooner was the boy gone than one of the men killed the other and stuffed his body in a burned out tree stump. The killer returned to camp alone.
It didn’t take long until people wondered what happened to the killer’s partner. He made up stories, of course, claiming that his victim, Joe, left with his brother for another sandalwood patch.
Four months passed by and Joe’s disappearance was being investigated. Eventually the police found his remains inside the tree stump and arrested his killer, a man named Flint. Flint was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, but was soon released on bail. [Source]
The Cupboard Under The Stairs
John Scott’s story is sad and tragic. It happened in the spring of 1947 in Darlinghurst, NSW. Police knocked on the door of John’s mother’s cottage. John answered the door and the police asked him where his mother was. He told them she was in the cupboard under the stairs. The police checked and found the body of his mother. They believed that she had possibly died of natural causes since she was 75 years old. However, John did attack and beat his mother 9 years before her death. He was sent to a “mental home” for a time, but returned to his mum after seven years had passed.
After the discovery of his mom’s body, John was taken into custody. He was released shortly thereafter because the only marks found on his mother’s body were caused by rat bites.
By mid summer of the same year, his mother’s house was bought by another man. The man came to his new property and discovered that it was overrun with rats. Amongst the rats was John’s body. He ended his life a few hours before the new owner took possession of the house. [Source]
In The Closet
Stories of murdered children are always horrific, but they are so much more worse when the murderer is also a child. That was the case back in 1936 when a 13-year-old boy admitted to killing his 10-year-old friend with a lead pipe. The older boy panicked after what he did and stuffed the little boy’s body in the fourth floor closet of a vacant house. [Source]
Mother’s In The Attic
It happened in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in 1909. A young man killed his mother for his inheritance. Instead of hiding her body someplace far from his parent’s home, he stoppered the cracks in the attic and dumped his mother’s body up there. He then covered her in lime, hoping to get rid of the evidence of his crime.
To prevent anyone from discovering the body, he screwed the attic door shut and sealed it with paraffin.
The young man’s father, of course, became worried about the location of his wife and went to look for her. Not found, he brought in the police who searched the home and found the mother’s body.
The young man was visiting his girlfriend at the time and when the police showed up to question him, he excused himself from his girlfriend and her family and shot himself in the head. [Source]
Inside A Tin Trunk
In 1953, it was reported out of London that a 31-year-old soldier murdered his wife. He stuffed the woman’s body inside a tin trunk and then kept it in the room of their 3-year-old daughter for several months before it was discovered. [Source]
Bricked Up Inside Room
If you thought burying people in walls was a Medieval fad, you couldn’t be more wrong. In 1925, news came out of Paris, France that a doctor had just been arrested for murder. Apparently the doctor was living way beyond his means and, in desperation, he killed a bank cashier. To hide the body, the doctor bricked him up inside his small consulting room.
When the police came to search for the man, they discovered new wallpaper in the doctor’s office and tore it down to discover the bricked up room. [Source]
Inside A Buffalo
This one sounds like something from a television crime show. In fact, I think a similar story was woven into the Hannibal series.
Back in 1938, a canal officer in India saw a buffalo corpse floating down the river. He pulled the carcass out of the water and noticed that there were stitches on the buffalo’s stomach. He cut them open and discovered the corpse of a young man inside. [Source]
Beneath The Hay
Talk about father and son troubles. In 1938, Auckland, New Zealand, a man’s body was discovered in some hay. As far as could be told, the father and son had a disagreement and the son shot his father in the head. He hid his body in some hay, where a neighbor discovered it. [Source]
In The Freezer
Never hide a body in the freezer. We all know that it is a number one place to search for a body when someone has gone missing.
In 1979, the body of a criminal lawyer was found stuffed in a freezer in Adelaide. He had been shot dead by a 19-year-old opal miner and his body was hidden in the freezer. The freezer’s lid was glued down, but that didn’t stop the police from checking inside. [Source]
