The Hillmon Case

A website by Mimi WessonThe Hillmon Case

A website by Mimi Wesson
The Hillmon Case
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The Hillmon Case: Who Is This Man?

From left: Three Views of John Wesley Hillman/Hillmon, Frontal and Profile Views of the Corpse in the Hillmon Case, Two Views of Frederick Adolph Walters.

Archives: National Archives and Records Administration in Kansas City, Missouri.

Photos courtesy of Marianne Wesson.
From left: Three Views of John Wesley Hillmon, Two Views of the Corpse in the Hillmon Case, Two Views of Frederick Adolph Walters
National Archives and Records Administration, Kansas City, Missouri.

The Hillmon case is:
The corpse of John Hillmon, or Frederick Adolph Walters, or possibly someone else, was at the center of a lawsuit you might think of as an American Jarndyce v. Jarndyce: it lasted forever, and by the end there was nothing left because the lawyers had gotten all the money. But even after the lawsuit was over, the mystery remained: who was buried in John Hillmon's grave?