Interesting Crime Reenactment

[DiamondSmiles]

It was loaded?

Accidental deaths may be reported in newspapers, as was the case with Ohio politician and lawyer, Clement Vallandigham. Clement was defending a murder suspect and trying to demonstrate the possibility that the victim had shot himself.

He attempted to demonstrate his theory, but grabbed a loaded gun by accident. His reenactment proved fatal. This article fromThe Herald and Torch Light of Hagerstown, Maryland, (21 June 1871), describes the accident and the aftermath.

Clement Laird Vallandigham

Death of Vallandigham

A fatal accident occurred at Lebanon, Ohio, on Friday night, 16th inst., resulting in the death of Hon. Clement L. Vallandigham, the well-known lawyer and Democratic politician, who has been so conspicuous for a month or tow past as the originator of the new movement in the Democratic party.

He was at Lebanon engaged in defending Thomas McGehan, who was on trial for murdering a man named Meyers. At the time of the accident he was in one of the rooms of the Lebanon House in company with Governor McBurney, and while showing with a Smith & Wesson pistol how Meyers, the murdered man, might have shot himself, the pistol was discharged, the ball entering the right side of the abdomen below the ribs.

No one was present with Mr. Vallandigham when the accident occurred but McBurney, who had bee associated with him in the defense of McGehan. McBurney had expressed some doubts as to the theory that Meyers had shot himself, and Mr. Vallandigham picked up a pistol from the table, saying he would show him in half second.

Two pistols were on the table, one unloaded, and he by mistake took up the loaded one. He put it in his pocket and withdrew it, keeping the muzzle next his body. Just as it was leaving his pocket it was discharged, the ball entering, it is said, near the same place Meyers was shot. He at once ejaculated, “Oh murder,” and said he had taken the wrong pistol.

While the examination was going on, he watched the surgeons at work with eager eyes, and even assisted them in their search for the ball. Mr. Vallandigham died between nine and ten o’clock on Saturday morning, 17th inst.

At this particular juncture in the somewhat notorious career of Mr. Vallandigham, the peculiar and sudden manner of his death will be regarded by many as a strange coincidence.

However this may be, he has left behind him a record which will not soon be forgotten, either by his friends or his enemies while in this life. But as the great evils he purposed doing came to naught, and all his well-laid plans were frustrated, it were better to draw a veil over his misdeeds, and to try to remember, if possible, the better qualities of which he was possessed.

Source:
The Clinton Public.
Clinton, DeWitt County, Illinois.
G. B. Richardson, Editor and Proprietor.
Thursday, June 22, 1861
Volume 15, No. 22, Page 4

The defendant was eventually acquitted, but in 1875, he too succumbed to a bullet wound when he was shot in his saloon.

[deanmine]

i like this ... thank you for sharing

[Shakey]

Strange looking beard.