In late nineteenth-century Canada, the life insurance industry expanded impressively, offering policy-holders a greater sense of security. However, insurance fraud quickly followed in the footsteps of this boom, with murder sometimes being a deadly outcome.
Making a Killing examines six legal cases in 1890s Ontario, where the Crown alleged that the accused had resorted to committing murder to obtain life insurance payouts. The scenarios varied widely, from a staged logging accident to conceal a murder, to a farmer's wife who allegedly sought to collect the insurance on her husband by putting arsenic in the rhubarb she fed him. Newspapers eagerly reported these and other sensational crimes. Whether farmers or city dwellers, prosperous or poor, all the alleged perpetrators latched onto the quick money promised by the murder of an insured person.
Legal historian Ian Radforth mines legal records and newspaper reports to reconstruct these alleged insurance murders and situate them in their Victorian contexts. Together, the fascinating cases reveal how insurance fraud emerged as a prominent public concern in Ontario and beyond.
| ISBN: | 9781049808987 |
| Publication date: | 20th October 2026 |
| Author: | Ian Radforth |
| Publisher: | University of Toronto Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 240 pages |
| Series: | Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History |
| Genres: |
History of the Americas Political science and theory Economic history Legal history |
In late nineteenth-century Canada, the life insurance industry expanded impressively, offering policy-holders a greater sense of security. However, insurance fraud quickly followed in the footsteps of this boom, with murder sometimes being a deadly outcome.
Making a Killing examines six legal cases in 1890s Ontario, where the Crown alleged that the accused had resorted to committing murder to obtain life insurance payouts. The scenarios varied widely, from a staged logging accident to conceal a murder, to a farmer's wife who allegedly sought to collect the insurance on her husband by putting arsenic in the rhubarb she fed him. Newspapers eagerly reported these and other sensational crimes. Whether farmers or city dwellers, prosperous or poor, all the alleged perpetrators latched onto the quick money promised by the murder of an insured person.
Legal historian Ian Radforth mines legal records and newspaper reports to reconstruct these alleged insurance murders and situate them in their Victorian contexts. Together, the fascinating cases reveal how insurance fraud emerged as a prominent public concern in Ontario and beyond.
Making a Killing features in the following genres: History of the Americas, Political science and theory, Economic history, Legal history
Making a Killing is available in Hardback
Making a Killing was written by Ian Radforth and published by University of Toronto Press
Making a Killing has 240 pages
Yes it is part of Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History series
£50.40