It's 1907. The body of a well-dressed young man is found on the property of a very wealthy private estate in New Rochelle. There is a bullet hole behind the left ear, and a revolver is found nearby. His pockets have been turned inside out. There are bootprints around the body, yet the heels of the victim's boots have been torn off and are not found. The body is never identified. Local police close the case, and file it as a suicide. The owner of the estate is a very well-respected banker, philanthropist, and sportsman. Several years earlier he was implicated--and then exonerated--in a high-profile international cheating scandal. All of the above is 100% true, BTW, and was reported in the New York Times. But then things went quiet. Can anyone here come up with a theory as to what happened? The possibility of blackmail or witness tampering is fairly obvious--but it there was foul play, why would it take place on the grounds of the rich man's estate? And what about the boot heel mystery?
Doesn't sound like a suicide to me. But why the torn-off heels? I suppose we can speculate. Truth is always stranger than fiction. Why would anyone want those heels? What message does it send? The only metaphorical meaning of "heel" is a contemptible person. So taking them away is an exoneration? I dunno, strange. If you have a link to this story so we can read more about it, that would be appreciated.
This is fun to think about. My first thought was that it was a suicide. Apparently a shot behind the ear is one of the most painless ways to go. But the left ear? He'd have to be left-handed. There might be ways for a medical examiner to determine this, ie. callouses, muscle development, but it certainly wouldn't be 100% accurate. The gun being left at the scene also makes one think suicide, however fingerprints weren't a big thing just yet. A quick search reveals they were first adopted as something to examine in 1902 (in the States), but weren't used as evidence in a trial til 1910. So there's some doubt there about what a murderer might have been thinking with regards to leaving the gun. Was this estate completely enclosed? The theory that popped into my head right away was that the man killed himself, and then a person, maybe a tramp? came to see what he could loot from the body. Perhaps he needed a new pair of boots, but seeing that the size of the victim did not match his own, decided to at least replace his own worn-down heels. But one might need to know how the boot prints and the man's feet matched up before suggesting this possibility.
Here's the link https://nyti.ms/3ZvAyFK--though I guess it will only work if you subscribe to the New York Times. But there's not much more info. This is what it says: '... the pockets of his clothing were turned inside-out.... the man wore a black coat and vest and blue trousers, and in his derby hat was found the initials H.B..... near to the body were many boot-heel marks, which might have been made by the suicide before shooting himself, though there were no heels on his shoes, they having been torn off, apparently, just before he died.' Other NYT articles report that the property owner C.Oliver Iselin was from one of the richest families in the country. In 1895 he was embroiled in a sporting scandal, but his name was cleared. In 1908 there was a mysterious fire at the same property. And in 1909 his 12 year old son died. PS correction, the bullet was behind the right ear.
[QUOTE="Set2Stun, post: 1989236, member: 104052"The theory that popped into my head right away was that the man killed himself, and then a person, maybe a tramp? came to see what he could loot from the body. Perhaps he needed a new pair of boots, but seeing that the size of the victim did not match his own, decided to at least replace his own worn-down heels. But one might need to know how the boot prints and the man's feet matched up before suggesting this possibility.[/QUOTE] With old-fashioned hobnail boots, could you rip off the soles and bang them into your own boots? That would make footprint tracking interesting....
How do we know the heels were torn off just before death? Is it clear he wasn't walking for an extended period of time without the heels, i.e. that portion of the boot isn't dirty or worn?
Fun story! I mean, not so much fun for boot guy, but for the rest of us ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ OK, so boot guy is a suave, sophisticated secret agent - James Bond before James Bond. He's carrying something small, but vitally important in the heel of boots, maybe a diamond, maybe a paper with secret codes written on it. Something cool. One night, he's out for a walk on his rich friend's estate when he hears a brief motion behind him, and he has just enough time to realize that he's slipped before the assassin puts a bullet into him. The killer rifles his pockets, finds nothing, then notices that Bond's bootheels are a little weird. He tears the heels off, grabs the treasure and walks quickly but casually away, tossing the revolver so any suspicious coppers who may have heard the blast don't find him with it. As for the cops? They realize that this is something they don't want to get mixed up in. Call it a suicide, case closed, somebody else's problem.
Murder committed by person unknown who removed dead man's bootheels because murderer had read too many Sherlock Holmes stories and wanted to cause a sensation in the newspapers ("Case of the Missing Bootheels") that he could enjoy, knowing the story starred himself. Murderer lured the unidentified deadman there as supposed lark for the two of them to share ("See how the other half lives") all the while planning the murder for reasons unknown at this time (one mystery at a time).
Perhaps he dropped and repeatedly stepped on a raw steak he was about to cook, and then a dog or perhaps a pair of them tore off his boot heels trying to eat them? I know, unlikely, and was he outdoors? No reason he would have a raw steak if he was, unless he just ran out for a moment when catastrophe struck. But then, my idea would fit a comedy or something surreal and bizarre, and I doubt you're writing either.
Behind the ear with a small caliber weapon, is a famous method for an execution. Removing the boot heels, maybe to make it difficult for the victim to run, or a killer's signature. Who knows.
Check with the man's bootmaker. Most footwear was made to order in that time. Good footwear, anyway, and the maker would have a mark inside. If the heelprints around the victim match the kind of heels put on that type of boot, a second party had to have stolen them, someone who was careful not to leave prints. Murderer or thief/corpse despoiler? Unknown. If the heelprints don't match, you've likely got a murderer and thief.
The heels may have been removed so that they could not be compared to the other heel-marks on scene. Clear evidence of two parties would have contraindicated the seemingly intended narrative of suicide. Though something tells me the people investigating that crime were happy to overlook more than a few things.
I should think it's obvious. The dead man was a tap dancer living in a first floor apartment with his only living relative, his nephew who dreamed of becoming a tap dancer but couldn't afford the footwear, over a sleep-deprived gunsmith with anger management issues who snapped one day, shot the tap dancer, then realised, to his horror, that the boots would naturally be left to the only living relative. The cops returned a suicide verdict because there's just too much paperwork in justifiable homicide. It could also be the case that the body was moved, dragged from site of demise to a more suitable location for discovery. Attrition removed the heels or they proved too cumbersome, snagging on the broken ground, so were removed for ease of passage. Either way, there's malice afoot (ahem) but I'm inclined towards the tap dancer explanation.
Obviously the murderer was disguised as a bent old cobbler, come to fix the victim's boots. Or perhaps he was an obsessivive heel-collector, and the victim happened to have a rare set of limited-edition, hippo-leather bootheels, part of a matching set that said collector needed. Having done the victim to death, he ripped off the heels and made off with his booty.
