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The Man Awarded A Fortune For Returning A Misdelivered Letter That Helped Catch A Killer
In the early 1900s, a young painter with the same name as a murderer’s brother, turned a misdelivered letter from the fugitive into the police, leading to him receiving a huge reward
Any time a reward is advertised for information leading to the arrest of a fugitive or the resolution of a mystery, people generally perk up their ears in the hopes they might have seen or noticed something that would help them cash in. Not everyone who has such information is initially aware of exactly what they have. Such was the case of a young man named George Rogers, who more than a century ago received a small fortune for simply returning a misdelivered letter that ended up helping catch a man who had killed three people.
According to the January 7, 1910 issue of the New York Times, police had been looking for a desperate man named Charles Rogers, who was wanted for killing brothers Fred and William Olney, and Alice Ingerick, on the outskirts of Middletown, New York in 1905. It appeared that he may have gotten away with the horrific killings when a lucky and very improbable break in the case led to him him finally being caught and convicted.
