Faked Accident

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 189, 12 August 1936, Page 6

Faked Accident

Remarkable allegations of self-mutil-ation to enable the perpetrators to collect insurance money as “victims” of a road accident have been made at Los Angeles by the police. Five people, including a woman, have been arrested in connection with a socalled “fake accident plot.” In the case in question, detectives described an astounding scene. The conspirators, they alleged, gathered in a room and turned on the radio full blast to drown any screams. Then they started mutilating one another. Ono man struck another man near the elbow with a rolling-pin. The arm was thus fractured. A hypodermic syringe, filled with blood, was squirted into one man’s ear to simulate the effect of a broken skull. A woman, meanwhile, was busy shredding the skin off her legs with a cheesegrater. As soon as the injuries had been completed, another conspirator drove the bleeding, moaning party to the nearest hospital. There, he explained their condition by saying that he had unavoidably run into them while they were repairing a puncture on the side of the road. Such synthetic accidents, according to the District Attorney, are costing insurance companies £200,000 a year.