A STRANGE STORY OF CONSPIRACY AND MURDER.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 138, 16 July 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

A STRANGE STORY OF CONSPIRACY AND MURDER.

A strange story of conspiracy and murder curious in its complication of motives aud facts, has just been revealed in the United States by the confession of one of the conspirators, though the events themselves took place more than five years ago. Two men, named Goss and Udderzook. married sisters, and became intimate friends. Goss was indolent and given to drink, but an aftectionate husband. He had insured his life for 5000 dollars, and found great difficulty in paying the premiums, frequently having to borrow money from his brother-in-law. Often conversing on these matters, Goss proposed to Udderzook, to increase the insurance on his life from five thousand to twento-five thousand dollars—in Euglish money about five thousand pounds—then to rent a shop in Baltimore, and, setting fire to it, so manage that he should appear to have perished in the flames. For this purpose he would procure a dead body which, as regards size and other characteristics, should be like his own, and place it in the shop so that he should be burned beyond recognition, nothing but the bones remaining. When his ‘ widow’ had obtained the insurance money, then, but not until then, should she lie told that her husband was alive, and awaiting her in the far West. It was suggested that Udderzook should retain one-third of the profits, and on this understanding he agreed to assist in the fraud. The insurances were effected. Goss undertook to provide the body, though how he did so Udderzook never knew. It was brought to the shop ; wood with oil poured on it was piled around the corpse; aud Goss, in the presence of a neighbour, was seen to enter the house. A few hours afterwards he set fire to the building at night, and in disguise escaped by the back door. Then arose the difficulty of hiding Goss, who was impatient for the money, and too fond of drink to he trusted by himself. The companies refused to pay, suspecting that Goss was still alive ; the ‘ widow’ had to begin an action at law, and detectives were set to work to discover the missing man. This delay irritated the often tipsy fugitive, who worried his fellow-conspirator by constant demands for money by reckless reappearances at night, and even by threats that he would sell the secret to the companies for a small sum in hand. In fact Udderzook had on his hands a ‘ dead’ accomplice, -who was very troublesome .and exclusively indiscreet in ‘ revisiting the glimpses of the moon,’ especially when he was drunk. At any moment Goss might ruin the whole plan and place his partner in the grasp of the law, saving himself by his confession. This situation so preyed upon the mind of Udderzook that from often wishing that Goss was dead he resolved to kill him, arguing to murder a man believed by everybody but himself to be dead involved no great danger if the body could be quietly put away. The men met secretly once more, and drank together, Goss as usual inflaming himself with whisky, while Udderzook kept himself cool for the deed by taking nothing but beer. Like the brothers and their ‘ murdered man’ in Keats’s poem, the two wandered ‘into a forest quiet for the slaughter.’ Their opportunity came; the intended victim, ill aud tired fell fast asleep. Here was the chance Udderzook waited for, but his courage failed him ; he wanted whisky to nerve him; he almost paraphrased Lady Macbeth, ‘ that which had made him drunk would make me bold.’ He therefore woke up Goss, and with him went to the nearest inn, the murderer to obtain strong drink. ‘ Local option was in operation at the time,’ says Udderzook in his confession, ‘and hotelkeepers were careful to whom they sold anything, but as we were strangers, and they knew tliat I lived in Baltimore, I did not have much difficulty.’ This is the first time privileges of the bona fide traveller have been accessory to murder. When the doomed wretch and his companion entered another wood Udderzook turned upon Goss, having driven the waggon in which they had been travelling in among some chestnut trees. ‘ Where are you taking me ? Are you going to kill me ?’ cried the victim. The answer was a cut in the throat. There was little resistance, but to make sure Udderzook stabbed Goss again and again, and then disfigured the body and buried it. ‘The digging was very hard,’ writes the murderer, in his confession ; * the ground was dry, and there were so many roots that I had great difficulty in digging a hole to bury the body. And here is where I made a fatal mistake, for if I had only dug that grave a little deeper nobody would have known.’ But the two men had been going about together: the hiding necessary on account of the position of Goss excited suspicion, and when Udderzook was observed to leave the neighbourhood alone search was made and the corpse was discovered. It was utterly unrecognisable, but some trinkets found near it were by a strange chance remembered, and the habits of drinking helped to identify the missing Goss with the murdered stranger. The conspiracy to defraud the insurance company was established, and Udderzook’s connection with it was proved. He was then accused of the murder, and, though the evidence was only circumstantial, he was convicted and hanged more than five years ago. Yet only now does his dying confession see the light. He requested his counsel to keep it back in order that a brother of Goss, who assisted him in the fraud, should not have his guilt made clear. Iu 1874 the whole affair seemed a mystery. Udderzook held his tongue, William Goss was dead, and his brother, an accomplice, was dead. Now at last full light is thrown upon it. ‘ This is'the true story,'says the murderer in conclusion ; • and I am sure those who read it will believe that 1 would never have gone into this if I had foreseen the necessity ffiginurder. But the killing of Goss beeame a matter of necessity for my own self-preservation. I tried this last chance, and have lost. I desire to say that I and I alone am responsible for the killing, no one else knew anything about it, and not a soul except myself and the two brothers Goss knew anything of the conspiracy. It was my intention to have tliisfpublished immediately after my execution, but fearing that it might have a bad effect on the trial of A. C. Goss, I leave it with my counsel, that he retain it for five years after my death, and then give it to the world.— ‘ Daly Telegraph. ’