Murder victims later turning up alive and well

psychonaut · July 8, 2008, 4:32pm

Are there any well-known cases of someone being convicted of a murder and the victim later turning up alive and well? How about cases where the victim disappeared on purpose to frame the wrongfully convicted?

BrotherCadfael · July 8, 2008, 5:47pm

Here’s a classic, from 1820:

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/vtBoornSummary.html

casdave · July 8, 2008, 8:39pm

That’s all I got.

JoseB · July 9, 2008, 9:19am

There was a historical case in Spain, in 1910, that is very famous there. It is known in as “El Crimen de Cuenca” (The Murder of Cuenca, Cuenca being a province in Spain). For details, this article in Wikipedia explains it reasonably well:

The Crime of Cuenca - Wikipedia.

Summing it up: A man (José María Grimaldos) disappears in 1910; foul play is suspected, and two others are accused of having killed him. A first investigation in 1911 is closed but reaches no conclusions. The case is re-opened in 1913, the two suspects are arrested and confess under torture to having killed Grimaldos and destroyed the corpse. In 1918 they are finally sentenced to jail, narrowly avoiding the death penalty. They are released in a general amnesty in 1924, after having spent 11 years in jail (they had been in prison since their arrest in 1913).

In 1926 it is discovered, purely by chance, that Grimaldos is alive and well in another village.

Just my 2 eurocent!

Indian · July 9, 2008, 3:50pm

Stories like this occassionally appears in Indian media…including murder victims returning …

Here is one such story…

aldiboronti · July 9, 2008, 4:08pm

Here’s how the Romans handled such situations! (Well, probably not in most cases, but they loved the story).

Piso’s Justice

Lastly, Seneca, tells of Gnaeus Piso, a Roman governor and lawmaker, when he was angry, ordering the execution of a soldier who had returned from leave of absence without his comrade, on the ground that if the man did not produce his companion, he had killed him. As the condemned man was presenting his neck to the executioner’s sword, there suddenly appeared the very comrade who was supposed to have been murdered. The centurion in charge of the execution halted the proceedings and led the condemned man back to Piso, expecting a reprieve. But Piso mounted the tribunal in a rage, and ordered three soldiers to be led to execution. He ordered the death of the man who was to have been executed, because the sentence had already been passed; he also ordered the death of the centurion who was charged with the original execution, for failing to perform his duty; finally, he ordered the death of the man who had been supposed to have been murdered, because he had been the cause of death of two innocent men.