Murders made to look like train accidents have always been a common way to hide a crime. In this 1906 report, we learn that a 19 yo murdered a 17 yo, and then placed the young man’s head on the railroad track to hide the crime.
Fortunately, Karma is always alert, and the body was discovered before it was hit by a train, revealing what had happened.
Boy Confesses Awful Crime
Chicago, Jan. 6, 1906 – W.j. Moran, aged nineteen years, confessed to killing Thursday night Robert Collier, aged seventeen years, during a quarrel, after which, Moran says, he placed Collier’s body on a railroad track in the hope that a passing train would hide the evidence of his crime.
The accidental discovery of the body before the train passed disclosed the fact that Collier had been killed by a pistol bullet.
Fifteen companions of Collier were rounded up by the police. Among them were Moran, whose clothing was blood-stained.
The body was found on the Nickel plate railroad with the head lying across a rail. No trains had passed over the body before it was found.
It was the belief of the police that Collier had been murdered while in the rear of a barn belonging to John Swaggert, a neighbor, and that the body had been carried to the tracks, the murderer of murderers expecting a train would pass over it and destroy all clews to the real manner of death.
The Collier boy lived with his parents and was employed in the Pullman car shops. The theory of the police that a murder had been committed was further strengthened by signs of a struggle at the read of Swaggert’s barn.
Heel marks were plainly visible in the soft earth for several feet, showing that the murderer had at first attempted to drag the body and then apparently had carried it to the tracks.
Source: Palestine daily herald. (Palestine, Tex.), 06 Jan. 1906.
