The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-09-12
INGENIOUS FRAUD
Perpetrated on Insurance Company
 By Officer Twin Brothers.

Lesueur (Minn.) Cor St. Louis Republic
 Seven years ago Bertrand Officer of Marmadulxe insured his life and the Cen tral and Western Life and Limb Assur- ance association of New Orleans and two other companies, for a total sum of S5O, 600. his brother. Orville, being named as beneficiary. Six months later he wrote to the company and informed them that 1t had just been called to his attention by some friends that his twin brother Orvllle Officer, and he looked so much alike that in case of his own death, if it were set up by the company as a de- fense to his brothers, the benehearys claim for the money that the living broth CT, Orville, were really the deceased brother, Bertrand, there might be diff culty about 1t, and he asked the com pany, for his and their own protection, to send on a representative who should ex- istence, on the back of his left shoulder of a birthmark-a flat mole about the size of 10 cent piece-which was not duplicated on his brother Orville.
 The company did this. It's representa- tive made the examination, found and reported the existence of the mole and took an affidavit from Bertrand to the effect that his brother had no such mole and a little later an affidavit, signed and sworn to by "Orville Officer" was sent to the company from St. Louis, where Bertrand stated his brother was living, setting forth, on the part of orville, that he had no mole on his shoulder such as Bertrand had.
 Four months later Bertrand Officer bought out small iron foundry in an in- terior Iowa town and employed two men to assist in running 1t. Three weeks later, late in the evening, Jacob Prooster one of the men in Officers employ, ran screaming from the foundry and stated that his master had fallen bodily Into a mass of molten iron and been instantly consumed. The first persons to enter tho foundry reported that an odor of burned flesh and clothing could be distinctly per ceived, and when the brother, OrvilIe came on from St. Louis and made claim for the insurance, the companies, after an examination of his left shoulder to assure themselves that 1t was indeed Orville and not Bertrand, paid over the $50O0O
 Orville Officer moved to Hapwell, three miles east of here, and has made that place his home for the last five years. although he knew no one in the town and no one there had ever heard of him. He came in answer to an advertisement and bought out the hardware business of Cormorick & Nesseday and set up a lux urious bachelor life at the Graveswynd house. Yesterday he was arrested at Hapwell by Sheriff Candall on complaint of representatives of the insurance com panies who charged him with being Bert rand and not Orvllle Officer. The evidence against him was so overwhelming that he made no defense.
 The discovery of the fraud was a re- markable instance of the workings of chance One of the men connected with the New Orleans company, H. H. Slew, was a brother-in-law of Dr. George liar ravane of Foldesi. Ill.,, and, being on a visit to his relatives some three months ago, happened to mention to him the strange death of Bertrand Officer and the payment of the insurance to his twin brother, relating all the attendant circum- stances. Dr. Harravane immedia tely be- came deeply interested in the case and said that at a date that must have been a month or so after the examination by the insurance officials of the birthmark on Bertrand's shoulder a man, whose ap- pearance he remembered perfectly and which was exactly like the agents de- scription of Bertrand, had applied to him e cut out similar birthmark from his left shoulder and to graft skin from the small of his back over the place. and that he had done the job and was at the time very proud of the fact that .he opera;ion had been perfectly success full as to the removal of the birthmark and had left absolutely no scar. This story was startling one to the insurance man. They looked for and found Jacob Pooster. the employe of Bertrand Off cer, who had reported his death in the mol.on metal, and obtained from him the confession ttat Officer had not fallen into the metal at all but had gone se- crctly away, and that the odor perceived by the persors first to arrive in the foun- dry had been caused by some old cloth ing and quarter of beef that had been cast into the liquid iron