Welcome to our deep‑dive into the world of 10 outrageous liars who tried to profit from the dead, exposing schemes that range from forged wills to phantom authors.
10 Outrageous Liars Who Tried to Cash In on the Dead
10 Emily Grant Hutchings
When aspiring writers rack up a mountain of rejection letters, the dream of a publishing break can feel hopeless. In the early twentieth century, a handful of opportunists claimed they could channel deceased literary giants through Ouija boards.
Emily Grant Hutchings was one of those charlatans. In 1917 she released Jap Herron: A Novel Written From the Ouija Board, insisting that the spirit of Mark Twain was dictating a fresh manuscript from beyond the grave.
The entire text is accessible on Google Books for the curious, but Twain’s spectral contribution appears to have lost its sparkle after death. The New York Times panned the work mercilessly, even joking that Twain’s ghost should appear in court via the board to defend himself.
Twain’s estate sued Hutchings’s publisher, forcing a halt to further print runs. Although the novel never became a bestseller, Hutchings still secured a New York Times review and managed to rake in cash from the surrounding controversy.
9 Brian Adams
Brian Adams, a 56‑year‑old jobless man, shared a modest home in Green Cove Springs, Florida, with his elderly mother Janell and his own son. Their household relied entirely on Janell’s Social Security checks and pension.
In 2014, Brian learned that Janell had died of natural causes. Reporting her death would have cut off the family’s only source of income, so he persuaded his son to help him move the corpse to the backyard, dig a deep pit, and bury her.
Month after month, the benefits kept rolling in. Brian siphoned the checks into Janell’s account, then transferred every dollar into his own name, eventually amassing $35,345.
Brian’s daughter Brittanie eventually confronted him about the inexplicable cash flow. He confessed, and she swiftly alerted authorities. With a prior criminal record, Brian now faces up to a year in prison for his fraud.
8 Thomas Patrick Morris
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Wendel family dominated New York City’s rental market, amassing a fortune so vast they became multimillionaires.
Paradoxically, the Wendels lived a reclusive, frugal lifestyle, shunning marriage and children. The last surviving member, Ella Wendel, spent her days with a poodle named Tobey and a cadre of servants.
When Ella passed away in 1931, she left behind a jaw‑dropping $100 million estate (roughly $1.6 billion today). Her will directed the bulk of the wealth to charities, with a modest portion for servants to care for her dog. Over 2,300 claimants rushed to the newspapers, asserting kinship.
Thomas Patrick Morris, a Scotsman, journeyed to New York claiming he was Ella’s nephew. He produced a forged marriage certificate alleging he was the son of Ella’s brother, John Wendel, and even fabricated a heartfelt letter supposedly penned by John, describing a secret Scottish elopement.
Thomas bore an uncanny resemblance to John, making the deception plausible. Had his claim succeeded, he would have inherited a massive fortune.
However, the estate’s attorney dug into Scottish records, discovering the forged certificate was penned in Thomas’s own hand. Business documents proved John Wendel was in New York during the alleged Scottish romance, debunking the story. Morris was promptly arrested for fraud.
7 Carel Cody
From 1988 to 1994, Carel Cody operated a licensed elder‑care facility out of her Cottage Grove, Oregon residence. When social services grew suspicious of unusually rapid patient deaths, they investigated.
Inspectors found the home filthy and unfit for caregiving, even noting a pet monkey that added to the unsanitary conditions. As a result, Cody’s caretaker license was revoked, though she continued to siphon money from every resident.
After losing her license, Cody began volunteering at nursing homes, where she seduced a disabled elderly man, “M.B.,” into marriage. The Social Security income from this union proved insufficient, prompting her to lure another patient into her home.
John H. Arnold, a 76‑year‑old orphan with no family, was persuaded to leave his nursing home and move in with Cody. He died in 1996.
Cody clandestinely buried Arnold’s body on her mother’s property. Deprived of official oversight, she claimed Arnold had moved away, deceiving her husband. When M.B. finally realized Cody’s abuse, he divorced her.
For the next sixteen years, Cody continued to collect Arnold’s Social Security checks and accessed his bank accounts, stealing over $200,000. In 2013, she was finally apprehended and sentenced to four years in federal prison.
6 Anna Anderson
In 1920, a striking young woman attempted to leap from a Berlin bridge. A police officer rescued her and placed her in a mental institution, where she spoke only in a thick Russian accent and was labeled “Miss Unknown.” She bore numerous scars, hinting at past trauma, and refused to reveal her identity.
Two years later, a fellow patient informed doctors that Miss Unknown bore a striking resemblance to one of the Romanov daughters, sparking speculation that she might be Anastasia, the youngest daughter presumed dead after the 1918 Bolshevik execution.
The Romanov tragedy had left many hopeful that at least one child survived. Miss Unknown matched Anastasia’s age and appearance, and because she could not recall her past, she never refuted the claim.
The press seized upon the story, and numerous acquaintances who had known the real Anastasia personally met Miss Unknown, posing probing questions only a true princess could answer. Opinions split: some believed she was genuine, while others dismissed her as a fortune‑seeker.
Romanov relatives ultimately denied her any inheritance, yet a circle of aristocrats took her under their wing. Philanthropist Annie Burr Jennings financed her move to the United States, granting her the name Anna Anderson and a lavish Manhattan apartment. Over the years, she lived in various aristocratic homes, supported by generous patrons.
Decades later, DNA testing finally resolved the mystery: Anna Anderson was, in fact, a Polish factory worker who had suffered a grenade explosion, accounting for her scars. While she may have genuinely believed she was Anastasia due to her amnesia, scientific evidence proved otherwise.
5 Marsha Henderson
In her twenties, Marsha Henderson married 76‑year‑old Newton Davies, a retired school crossing guard living in London. Beyond his modest pension, Newton owned a house in a rapidly appreciating London neighbourhood.
When Newton passed away at 85 in 2013, his estate listed a £600,000 inheritance. However, his will allocated only £25,000 to Marsha, leaving the bulk of the money and the property to his daughter, Paulette.
Unwilling to vacate the home, Marsha concocted a forged will that claimed she deserved the house and over £500,000. The falsified document was riddled with spelling errors and even mistakenly referred to Newton as a woman.
She claimed the “new” will had been hidden in an attic crawl space inside an empty Doritos bag, only now discovered. In court, the judge exposed the absurdity of her fabrications and ordered Marsha to pay Paulette £42,000 in back‑rent for refusing to leave.
4 Renee Bowman
In the United States, foster parents receive monthly stipends to cover the costs of caring for children. In Maryland, that amount can approach $800 per child.
Renee Bowman took in three girls, two of whom were sisters fleeing an abusive home. For this arrangement, she collected $2,400 each month, enough to cover rent and personal expenses.
In 2009, a seven‑year‑old foster child leapt from a window and sought help from a neighbor. The incident revealed that Bowman had been starving and abusing the child.
Even more chilling, the other two girls—one sister and a third foster child—were discovered dead, their bodies stored in a freezer that Bowman moved with her during multiple relocations. She kept the third girl alive only to mask the disappearances.
3 Albert Houghton Pratt
In 1918, Albert Houghton Pratt published My Tussle with the Devil and Other Stories, claiming it was dictated by the ghost of O. Henry via Ouija board. He opened the book with a direct address to skeptics, insisting any stylistic differences were due to his after‑life evolution.
Pratt’s work featured interludes where he purportedly recorded dialogues between himself and O. Henry’s spirit, further cementing the supernatural premise.
Public reaction was sparse, but records show Pratt later released other titles, including a treatise on mysticism. By 1922, the New York Times reported his eviction from a New Jersey residence for mortgage default, suggesting his ghost‑writing venture failed to generate lasting profit.
2 Arafa Nassib And Adil Kasim
In 2017, 48‑year‑old Arafa Nassib was apprehended after claiming she had died. She and her 18‑year‑old son, Adil Kasim, had secured a sizable life‑insurance policy on Arafa’s name.
The duo traveled back to Tanzania, where Adil reported that Arafa had perished on Zanzibar. The insurance company paid out £136,000, despite Arafa being very much alive.
Adil initially returned to the United Kingdom, spreading the false news of his mother’s death. The ruse unraveled when Arafa attempted to re‑enter the country; airport officials flagged her passport, which listed her as deceased, leading to her arrest.
1 The Manchester Frauds
GoFundMe is designed for people in need to raise money for medical bills, emergencies, or charitable causes. Anyone can start a campaign, and donors often trust the platform to deliver aid.
In May 2017, Manchester was rocked by a terrorist attack outside an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 people. Unscrupulous individuals quickly created fake GoFundMe pages, claiming to collect money for the victims’ families.
These fraudulent campaigns siphoned donations straight into the creators’ accounts. GoFundMe’s policy allows fundraisers to withdraw money at any time, making it easy for scammers to disappear with the cash.
The sheer volume of bogus pages prompted GoFundMe staff to work around the clock, constantly deleting and suspending fraudulent accounts.
One of the fraudsters, Shannon Quinn, a writer and entrepreneur from Philadelphia, was among those caught exploiting the tragedy for personal gain.