Resurrectionists at Work (Looks like someone forgot to set the coffin torpedo!)
On the night of January 17, 1881, a would-be body snatcher by the name of Dipper was killed by a blast in a Mount Vernon, Ohio cemetery. The attempted grave-robbery was a three-man operation, according to the Stark County Democrat. The explosion broke the leg of the second thief. The third—tasked with keeping watch—was allegedly left unscathed and hoisted his wounded friend into a sleigh.
Another win for the coffin torpedo!
Professors needed bodies for young doctors to carve into, and the pool of legally available corpses—executed criminals and body donors—was minuscule. Enter freelance body snatchers, dispatched to do the digging. By the late 1800s, the illicit body trade was flourishing, and salacious accounts of grave robberies appeared in local papers across the country.
Capitalizing on the public’s funereal anxiety, inventors got to work. Their solution? Explosives!
Read the rest of the article at Atlas Obscura.