Death
Rice was the victim of one of the earliest sensational crimes of the 1900s. On September 23, 1900, Rice was found dead by his valet, Charles F. Jones. He was presumed to have died in his sleep. Shortly thereafter, a bank teller noticed a suspiciously large check bearing the late Rice's signature and made out to Rice's New York City lawyer, Albert T. Patrick, but with his name misspelled. Soon, Patrick made an announcement that Rice had changed his will right before his death, leaving the bulk of his fortune to Patrick rather than to his Institute. A subsequent investigation led by the District Attorney of New York resulted in the arrests of Patrick and of Rice's butler and valet Charles F. Jones, who had been persuaded to administer chloroform to Rice while he slept.
Read more about this topic: William Marsh Rice
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“For man, maximum excitement is the confrontation of death and the skillful defiance of it by watching others fed to it as he survives transfixed with rapture.”
—Ernest Becker (1924–1974)
“And of the other things death is a new office building filled with modern furniture,
A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)