Grave robbing became a common phenomenon beginning across the pond in Europe before quickly trickling into the United States. With leading medical communities outlining new teaching practices through human dissection, medical institutions adapted to meet the needs.
While both brutal and bizarre, it would take the testimony of two survivors in the upcoming days for law enforcement to begin to connect the dots and launch their month-long investigation – one that resulted in one of the most publicized trials in the city’s history and the subsequent capture of Richmond’s own femme fatale Violet Merryman, better known as the “Hammer Woman.”