Three Fingers of Formaldehyde for Mary Bach
How many times have heard the old tale of a farmer going crazy and hacking his family to bits? Well, in the case of farmer Carl Bach of Bowling Green, back in 1883 he decided that his wife Mary just didn’t complete the daily chores the way he wanted her to, so he decided to take a corn knife to her, dismember her body and put the prime cuts into his barn.
But his actions must have weighed heavy on old Carl’s head, for a few days later he decided to turn himself in, and told the local authorities where to find his sliced and diced wife.
The local sheriff went to the barn and discovered the woman’s dismembered body, and decided to take three of Mary’s fingers, put them in a glass of formaldehyde, and take them back as evidence.
Bach was eventually found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. But rather than just your ordinary execution, town officials decided that they would string old Carl up in front of the Wood County Courthouse and hang him on the last day of the county fair, selling tickets for a big slam-bang grand finale.