Dead before the mob finished killing him
Updated
•1 min read
In October 1891, newspapers reported the strange case of George Smith, accused of a serious crime and supposedly killed by a mob. But according to the assistant coroner, he wasn’t actually strangled, he died of pure fright.
The post-mortem showed plenty of injuries, but the doctor claimed Smith’s heart showed signs of extreme emotional shock. In short: they believed fear alone killed him.
It’s a grim story, but also a reminder that “scared to death” wasn’t always just a figure of speech, at least not in 19th-century headlines.
