# Has there ever been a real life Mansion Murder Mystery?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 8, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941 "2015-10-08T17:43:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/1 "2015-10-08T17:43:14Z")
You know the old trope. A bunch of rich guests are invited to a dinner party. One of the guests is murdered (usually with a flash of lightning and the lights going out). Any of the guests could be the real murderer!
My question is, is this an entirely fictional event, or has anything similar happened in real life?
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2015, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/2 "2015-10-08T19:27:37Z")
I seem to recall it being fairly common for guests of the Borgia Popes.
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### Author:  [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/3 "2015-10-08T21:32:51Z")
Yeah, I hear the Mansion Family did it twice in the LA area, back in the late sixties; that’s why Sharon Tate never made any more movies.
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### Author:  [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/4 "2015-10-08T22:21:08Z")
Not exactly like the trope but the murder of [Sir Harry Oakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Oakes#Death)in the Bahamas bears some resemblance (and involved an ex-King of England).
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/5 "2015-10-08T22:42:36Z")
> [@Master\_Wang-Ka](#):
>
> Yeah, I hear the Mansion Family did it twice in the LA area, back in the late sixties; that’s why Sharon Tate never made any more movies.
I see what you did there.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/6 "2015-10-09T00:14:36Z")
Mansion murder scenes
[the Glensheen Mansion murders in Duluth Minnesota](http://youtu.be/ilG2mZDG7fs) (short video)
[Ann Woodward shot her husband to death](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Woodward,_Jr.), and Truman Capote was ostracized more harshly for using it as story fodder than she was for actually committing.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/7 "2015-10-09T01:03:15Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Mansion murder scenes
>
> [the Glensheen Mansion murders in Duluth Minnesota](http://youtu.be/ilG2mZDG7fs) (short video)
>
> [Ann Woodward shot her husband to death](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Woodward,_Jr.), and Truman Capote was ostracized more harshly for using it as story fodder than she was for actually committing.
C’mon. Other than involving rich people how is this in any way what the OP is talking about? Of course rich people have killed each other or been killed. Who doubted that? And so what?
I’ve never heard of a classic murder mystery scenario in real life. Most of them are about the dumbest possible ways of killing a person, and I say this as a huge fan of classic murder mysteries.
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### Author:  [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2015, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/8 "2015-10-10T06:41:04Z")
Well, the closest two I can think of are:
1. Not really that on-target, so to speak, but it’s a cool case. The wonderfully named [Hippolyte Visart de Bocarmé](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Visart_de_Bocarm%C3%A9)and his wife, Lydia (_née_ Fougnies), were once wealthy but had fallen on hard times. They were hoping that Lydia would come into an inheritance once her allegedly sickly brother, Gustave Fougnies, died. However, Gustave got engaged, a potential fly in the ointment to the de Bocarmés–Gustave’s future wife and any possible issue would then come into the Fougnies fortune instead.
So they invited Gus to a dinner, serving him a meal that included a massive amount of tobacco extract (nicotine). The couple insisted he’d died of apoplexy, but the servants suspected foul play. The couple were found guilty when a chemist performed the toxicology report and proved the murder–the first time a nicotine test was used. (And it was named after him, too.)
1. Not at a mansion, but at a party on a yacht–that’s a murder mystery staple. 🙂 The famous death of Thomas Ince took place on board William Randolph Hearst’s yacht during a sailing party that included Hearst, Marion Davies, Louella Parsons (at the time, a movie columnist for one of Hearst’s NYC papers) and Charlie Chaplin, among several others. It was Ince’s birthday, too, and the party was pretty much held for him. But after drinking some alcohol, Ince was taken ill with “indigestion,” then taken off the boat and died.
The question of whether this death was natural or foul play hasn’t ever been solved. It’s known that Parsons was suddenly promoted to the Hearst’s top gossip columnist with a lifelong contract. Marion Davies lied about whether Chaplin was on board. (Rumors were rife that Davies and Chaplin were having an affair, and Ince’s death was a case of mistaken identity, with Hearst intending to kill Chaplin instead.) Ince’s wife had Ince’s body cremated (Wikipedia claims she refused to allow an autopsy) and she left the U.S. quickly. [Read more about the death mystery on Wikipedia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_H._Ince#Murder_or_natural_death_debate) As you’ll see in the article, Patty Hearst (yes, _the_ Patty Hearst) wrote a fictionalized version about the death as _Murder at San Simeon_.
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2015, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-ever-been-a-real-life-mansion-murder-mystery/733941/9 "2015-10-10T06:56:23Z")
You men Ten Little Indians wasn’t a documentary?
☹