Remarkable stories of ‘Mistaken Identity’

It is astonishing to know how in different places, in different era mistaken identity has created confusion and mystery. In all these events, society has been put to trial on the question of righteousness time and again. Few of those stories are retold here with the sequence of time.

The return of Martin Guerre

In 16^th century, Basque community (with their distinct language and culture) inhabited the French Basque country in the western part of France. In 1524, at the village of Hendaye; Martin Daguerre was born in a wealthy peasant family of Basque tribe. His family comprised of his parents, then bachelor uncle and Martin himself. Two years later, Daguerre family shifted to the village of Artigat, in south of France (beyond the territory of Basque). The family settled here well and adapted the language and culture of mainstream French population. They modified their family name to Guerre. Four daughters were born following their only son. Martin was married to Bertande (from another wealthy peasant family) at the age of fourteen. Years passed by, Martin proved to be a remarkable athlete especially skillful in swordplay and acrobatics. But, his marriage to Bertande was futile for which villagers held him responsible. Martin all the more became outward bound, started hating the village and callousness of people. His family arranged for prayers and masses to break an evil spell, believed to be causing the misery. Finally, after eight long years his son Sanxi (named after his father) was born. Arrival of a much desired grandson brought happiness, but Martin’s marriage to Bertande could not culminate in love. Two years later, in 1548 Martin escaped home stealing grains from his father (a grave crime as per Basque custom) and joined the Spanish Army.

Bertande, a lonely young mother did not know where to look for solace. Catholic law did not allow her to remarry until death of her husband. She reduced to be an object of pity and reproach. Martin’s father died not long after; his uncle Pierre, now married to Bertande’s widowed mother started looking after the estate.

                                                                                                  

On a brilliant morning in the summer of 1556, a man appeared in the village heading for the house of Bertande. On curious questioning by the villagers, he introduced himself to be Martin Guerre. His striking resemblance with Martin did not escape villagers’ attention. Bertande was dumbfounded to get back her long lost husband. Martin’s sisters also came down to meet him and rejoiced his home coming.

Bertande was glad to find out radical change in Martin’s character; he was compassionate towards his wife and son. Bertande was truly happy for the first time in her married life. After sinking of the initial excitement, Guerre household took its normal course; Martin started taking interest in the family inheritance. He started questioning his uncle about the book keeping of the proceeds which infuriated Pierre greatly. Then came a time when Martin sold a part of his estate that triggered ultimate conflict between the two ‘Guerre’. Selling of inherited land was against Basque custom; Martin seemed to be ignorant of it. He was too foreign in his dialect, expressions and lifestyle that made Pierre getting suspicious about his identity.

Three years passed, two soldiers of Spanish army came to the village while returning home. They listened to the story of Martin’s return and outright discarded the new Martin’s identity. They claimed to know Martin in the army who lost a leg in the Spanish siege on Saint Quentin, France in 1557. Pierre started enquiring about the new Martin around the neighborhood. He came across an innkeeper in a nearby village who recognized new Martin as Amaud du Tillh a.k.a penesette. Pierre could trace back penesette to a village named ‘Sajas’ where people elaborated about Penesette’s colorful nature and acting skill. Apparently, his resemblance to Martin encouraged him to impersonate the wealthy landlord after reasonable research.

In late 1559, Pierre dragged New Martin to the court with a charge of impersonation and adultery. Initially Bertande supported Martin and refused to be a part of the proceedings. The entire village divided supporting two parties. Martin’s sisters gave testimonies in favor of the defendant claiming him to be their brother. Total one hundred and fifty people were called in the witness box including villagers from ‘Sajas’. Juries were still undecided; judgment was to be declared in favor of defendant. Then suddenly, a man with a wooden leg appeared in the court pleading to be a witness. He testified to be Martin Guerre returning after twelve years of absence. His account of fighting the war coincided with that of the two Spanish soldiers.

At last, his sisters and Bertande accepted the stranger to be real Martin. Pensette was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. He was executed in front of the family house of Guerre in 1560.

It is hard to believe that Bertande could not detect the fraud while living with the imposter for three years; probably she found love in him while the original husband rendered only dejection.

The Tichborne Trial

Roger Tichborne, the eldest son of Sir James Tichborne (proprietor of rich Tichborne Estate) and Henriette Felicite (a French royalty) was born in the year 1829 in England. He was apple of his mother’s eyes, since, his birth. Henriette always loathed the quiet country life of England and sought opportunity to escape to the flamboyant life of Paris. Roger was detected with a rare hereditary disease that caused malformation of genitals. His mother took him to Paris in the pretext of better treatment and remained there until he was sixteen. Returning England, Roger studied in the boarding school at Stonyhurst and later joined the army.

His holidays were mostly spent with the family of his uncle, Sir Edward. Edward had a daughter named Katherine. Long absence from England during growing up years drew Roger towards Katherine. Eventually they fell in love and decided to get married. Both the families firmly opposed, due to the obvious reason of close blood relation. Roger was hell bent to marry Katherine, not be persuaded to change his decision. Finally, he was suggested to travel abroad for three years to testify their love for each other. After that they could marry, if still determined.

Roger started his journey with South America where he spent over a year. The news of Katherine’s marriage to Percival Pickford Redcliffe reached him soon. He was devastated; decided to continue in his quest and took a last minute passage to West Indies. The ship he was traveling in, ‘Bella’ sank near the coast of Brazil in 1854. Roger was presumed dead, though his body was never recovered.

Roger’s mother could not come to terms with his death and continued believing him to be returning home some day. She started putting advertisement in national and International press seeking information about him. In the meantime, Roger’s younger brother Alfred inherited Tichborne Estate; his early death made his posthumous son the next heir in line.

Twelve years later, Lady Tichborne received a letter from Wagga Wagga, Australia in the name of Roger Tichborne. The letter contained detailed account of Roger’s life after his disappearance. He claimed to be rescued from the wrecks of ‘Bella’ and taken to Australia where his occupation was of a Butcher cum Postman. Lady Tichborne was overwhelmed and immediately invited him to England along with his family.

Since, Roger was already dead in the eyes of law and Tichborne estate had an heir in Alfred’s son; resurfaced Roger had to prove his identity to claim his property. Lady Tichborne allowed him an annuity of ₤1000 a year till his claim was established by law. The long drawn Trial of Tichborne started; being great wealth and family honor at stake.

Unfortunately for claimant, Lady Tichborne his biggest patron died before the trial started. He had a cunning mind to sell Tichborne bonds at ₤40-₤60 in anticipation of fetching ₤100 per stock in the event of his winning the case. He needed the fund for his trial, involving considerable cost in terms of legal fees and commission sent to South America and Australia for finding witness.

During the trial one of the few points that went in claimant’s favor was his malformed genitals resulting from the same disease as Roger’s. On the other hand, his physical appearance (being fat and round faced) was a far cry from young Roger (lean and sallow long face). Neither, he had the knowledge of French or Public school accent that of Roger. But, surprisingly, he garnered huge support from the public. His case had a vast appeal for the working class, who could relate to his struggle to retrieve wealth from landlord class.

During the case which dragged on for almost three years, the Tichborne claimant produced more than 100 witnesses who testified that he was the real Sir Roger. None was really close to the family, but they made a powerful showing against the 17 who spoke against him. During the trial claimant was asked about the contents of a sealed packet young Roger left with his friend and Tichborne estate steward Vincent Gosford. On his reply claimant described it to be instructions in the event of possible confinement of Katherine (his cousin) due to their intimacy. Such a disgrace besotted to a lady caused an outcry amongst the establishment, selling of Tichborne bonds also showed him in negative light.

At last a detailed investigation in Australia, unearthed the actual identity of the claimant. He was a butcher named Arthur Orton, from Wapping, London; migrated to Australia at an early age. Arthur was sentenced to fourteen years of hard labour. It was evident from his lifestyle and flamboyance that his ruthless ambition dragged him to such mess. He was released after 10 years for good conduct. He sold his ‘confession’ to ‘The People’ newspaper for £3,000 after that.

He eventually died penniless on All Fool’s day (1 April) in 1898, just at the time when fingerprinting started gaining interest all over the world. Undoubtedly, had fingerprint science been established during this case the identity of claimant could easily been exposed.



Roger at 25 & Arthur Orton(right)

Conviction of Adolf Beck

Adolf Beck, a chemist born in Norway in 1841; earned a fortune in South America. Then he came to England in 1885 with the notion to settle down. He invested savings in a few financial schemes which failed eventually, leaving him in monetary distress. His comfortable life turned in constant struggle to earn a modest living. Nevertheless, he had a gentleman’s bearing in spite of his attire being reduced to threadbare.

In a morning in 16^th December 1895, Adolf stepped out of his home at Victoria Street in order to take a stroll. All of a sudden a woman came his way and blocked the path. Adolf tried to brush her aside by crossing the road, but she seemed persistent and refused to leave his trail. Frustrated, Adolf complained to a policeman suspecting her to be a prostitute. On police intervention, the woman accused Adolf for cheating her of two watches and several gold rings. Thoroughly baffled, the policeman took them both to the police station for further enquiry. The woman identified herself as Ottilie Meissonier, an unmarried language teacher. An amazing story of stratagem came to light in her account.

One day, Miss. Meissonier was on her way to visit a flower show; a gentleman (identified as Adolf) approached her at the Victoria Street and addressed as ‘Lady Everton’. On her denial he apologized and introduced himself as Lord ‘Willoughby’. They carried on their conversation about the flower show, his knowledge of horticulture; expansive garden in his Lincolnshire Estate. Meissonier smitten by humility and grace; invited him to tea the following day. The very next afternoon, he proposed her to accompany him in French Riviera on his private yacht. He generously offered her a new wardrobe for the occasion and wrote a cheque of ₤40. Then he borrowed her wristwatch and rings in order to replace them with more expensive stuff. On his departure she discovered another watch missing and hurried to the bank to cash the cheque. The cheque was fake so as the ‘Lord Willoughby’.

Adolf was arrested instantly; two more cases with similar modus operandi came up during the investigation. Both the women identified Adolf on a line up parade among fifteen anonymous faces. Not to mention, Adolf was the only man with gray hair and moustache as noticed in the gentleman in question.

                                                                                                   

Police record showed that in 1877 a man named John Smith was convicted for swindling of jewelry from spinsters in the same method using the name ‘Lord Willoughby’. He was sentenced to five years of imprisonment and disappeared after completion of prison term. It was assumed that Smith and Adolf were one and the same. Hence, Adolf was further charged with felonies related to the earlier convictions without comparing the physical description of Smith as per prison file to that of him. A policeman (P.C. Spurrell) involved in the earlier case testified in court that Adolf Beck was the man earlier convicted as John Smith. Adolf’s only defense was to plead for summoning witness from South America where he resided during that tenure.

His defense lawyer summoned a hand writing expert to compare the cheques written by Smith in 1877 and those written in 1894 – 95 with Adolf’s writing. But, British law did not permit to refer any earlier conviction of a man during trial. As a result, handwriting expert gave opinion about the writing in the cheques during 1894 - 95 and that of Adolf ignoring the earlier ones. He opined that those cheques were written by Adolf in disguised hand. Small differences in the appearances like a scar in the neck or a longer moustache noticed in the imposter were ignored by the court. In 1896, Adolf was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.

Defense lawyer filed ten petitions during the period 1896 – 1901; his appeals to see the prison description of Smith were repeatedly disregarded. However, it was noticed during a scrutiny in Home office that Smith being a Jew was circumcised while Adolf was not. To this effect, it was declared that Smith and Adolf could not be the same person; but the crimes of 1894 – 95 were committed by Adolf.

                                                                                       

In the meantime, a journalist of ‘Daily Mail’ took interest in the case and started writing about the injustice done by disregarding any attempt to link John smith to the later dated cases. Adolf slowly started getting public sympathy including support from famous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Anyway, Adolf was paroled for good conduct after five years of imprisonment in 1901.

On March 1904, a spinster parlor maid named Paulina Scott complained that a grey haired Gentleman swindled her jewelry by paying her compliments and offering lucrative proposals. The case was too similar to the Adolf’s cases; hence, the police inspector wasted no time to locate him. Adolf was taking lunch at a restaurant where Miss. Scott was taken for identification. She could not recognize Adolf as the imposter but the inspector didn’t rely on her judgment. He set a trap to nab Adolf.

Three weeks later, Miss. Scott accosted Adolf in front of his house and threatened him of arrest. Adolf panicked and tried to flee when he was arrested by police. This was cited as the evidence of his guilt. He was again tried in court, but due to lack of conclusive evidence judgment was postponed for a few days.

One week later, Inspector John Kane of Criminal Investigation Department was on a routine visit to Tottenham Court Road. A person was arrested there in charge of swindling some rings from a pair of out of work actresses that afternoon after being apprehended at a pawnshop. Kane was familiar with the Adolf cases and identified the similar method of crime. He met the arrestee and noticed his striking resemblance to Adolf Beck; moreover, he had a scar in his right neck as described by one of the victims earlier. The prisoner stated his name as William Thomas.

 

Adolf on top & Wilhem Meyer

All the victims of the earlier cases were summoned to testify the identity of the new convict. He was identified unanimously as the swindler. On detailed investigation it came to light that the real name of William Thomas alias John Smith alias William Wyatt was Wilhem Meyer; an Austrian surgeon specialized in leprosy. He was involved in coffee and other businesses along with his practice in South America.  He came back to London and fell upon hard time due to financial misadventures. This led to the crimes involving unsuspecting service class spinsters who would not report to police easily. Adolf Beck’s imprisonment in 1896 pushed him out of London for few years, only to come back in 1903 by when Beck’s sentence was over. He continued with his old tricks till his luck ran out with the sudden arrest of Adolf which he was not aware of. He was brought to trial in September, 1904 and pled guilty to all the offences.

Adolf was freed from the charges besotted on him and awarded a compensation of ₤ 5,000. The judicial authorities along with the prison in charge were condemned by public for their irresponsible attitude towards him. The case till date is cited as a glaring example of unreliability of eyewitness identification.

However, clemency was hardly a consolation for the misery caused to Adolf; he died a broken man in 1909 of pleurisy and bronchitis.


The strange case of Bhawal Inheritance

Bhawal was a very affluent estate in eastern part of Bengal in British India. In early 20^th century, the three sons of late Zaminder were the co owners of the estate. Second son Kumar Ramendra Narayan Roy was a flamboyant young man with all the vices that come with opulence. At twenty one he contacted syphilis and his health started failing due to intemperance. In 1909 he went to Darjeeling along with his wife (Bibhabati), her brother and personal physician in order to recuperate. On the night of May 7, a sudden biliary colic made him unconscious; next day early in the morning he succumbed. Ramendra was twenty five. He was hastily cremated in Hindu burning ghat amid heavy rain and thunderstorm. His young wife moved to Dhaka with her brother Satyen Banerjee.



Ramendra Narayan at his youth

The other two brothers also died in couple of years and the estate went under control of the Court of Wards. Jealousy among relatives and dissatisfaction among the subjects were generating lot of rumors around the death of Ramendra. It was being said that the mourners left the body unattended to take shelter from rain, only to discover it missing on their return. Some even hinted on Bibhabati’s brother and physicians’ involvement in the sudden death by administering arsenic for slow poisoning.

Around twelve years after the death of Ramendra Narayan, a holyman smeared in ashes arrived in Dhaka. His exceptionally fair complexion and good physique drew immediate attention. His uncanny resemblance (including skin tone uncommon to Indians) with Ramendra was noticed by many family friends residing in Dhaka. On questioning about his identity, he informed that some time in the long past he fell ill in Darjeeling and woke up in the jungle alongside Sage Dharamdas Naga and his disciples. Memory had failed him completely leaving him, in a vulnerable situation. Dharamdas took pity and let him stay with the entourage. He assumed the ascetic life of Dharamdas and traveled extensively across India with the sage. Few months ago memory of his earlier life started resurfacing; his mentor advised him to go back to his native land.

                                   

Ramendra’s sister Jyotirmayi came to Dhaka in order to meet the stranger. She visited him a number of times; scrutinized his appearance at close view, observed his mannerisms and finally acknowledged him to be her brother. He was taken to the family palace at ‘Jaidebpur’. The subjects welcomed their long lost master with open heart. He entered the palace like a prince on an elephant. Almost everybody in the immediate family acknowledged him as the second son except the most vital relation; Bibhabati. She outright discarded his identity and refused to come back to Jaidebpur. On advice of the subjects and family members the holyman came back to Dhaka and put forward his claim of the Estate in the office of District Magistrate and Collector in May, 1921.

The court of wards initiated investigation in Punjab to trace Dharamdas Naga in order to verify stranger’s account of his past. Dharamdas acknowledged the stranger to be his disciple ‘Sunderdas’ a.k.a Mal Singh, a Punjabi Sikh from Lahore. Board of Revenue rejected the claim referring the claimant to be an imposter.

In April, 1930, Claimant filed a suit against Bibhabati and other landholders of Bhawal Estate in District court. The case continued for six years, fifteen hundred of witnesses testified on behalf of both the parties. Many of the subjects paid rent to claimant directly to carry out his case. The arguments surfaced against the claimant were his inability to speak Bengali and no trace of any syphilitic scar in body. His lawyer argued that long absence from native place was the main reason of forgetting Bengali. Sage Dharamdas testified in the court identifying claimant as Mal Singh of Aujla, Punjab. Jyotirmayi contradicted by highlighting many family characteristics visible in claimant. Finally, in 1936 Judge gave verdict in favor of the claimant.

Claimant moved to the estate, but Board of revenue did not release any fund to him. In Oct, 1936 the Government appealed in Calcutta High Court challenging the verdict of District Court. Appellant concentrated on what had really happened in Darjeeling, seeking for proof that Ramendra was not dead and who, if any, had been cremated. Respondents' side defended the judgment, stating Ramendra’s identity had been proved. Hearings concluded on August 14, 1939. Out break of World War II detained Judge Sir Leonard Costello in England (as he went on holiday), Other two judges in the panel gave the verdict in August 1940 supporting the decision of District court.

Board of revenue finally released fund to claimant, he settled in his estate; even remarried. Bibhabati refused to give up and appealed in Privy Council (in England) in 1943. Hearing could only start in 1945 post World War II. In 30^th July, 1946 Council declared claimant to be Ramendra Narayan Roy, the lawful successor of Bhawal Estate dismissing the appeal of Bibhabati. Judgment was telegraphed to Calcutta the very next day.

The same evening while offering prayer in Kali Temple, new Ramendra suffered a cardiac arrest and died two days later.

                                                                                    

It is yet a mystery whether; new Ramendra was an imposter or the rightful owner of the Estate. The unique story had stimulated romantic imaginations for generations; with its dramatic ending. Nobody can resolve whether Ramendra’s death was merely a coincidence or final verdict from Almighty.