The Promise City body-snatching --- that wasn't

I though sure I'd found a news item appropriate for Hallowe'en this week whilst reading The Chariton Democrat of Nov. 6, 1885 --- a report on the local news page of grave robbers at work in a cemetery near Promise City, one of our neighbors in Wayne County just to the south. Here's the text of the story:

The county cemetery situated about three miles west of Promise City was raided by ghouls on Wednesday night and four graves were robbed of their contents. The corpses taken were all recent burials, and one was the body of a young lady named Summer, whose remains were brought here from Omaha and were interred only two days before.

the supposition is that the cemetery was entered about midnight as a family who lives near the cemetery were awakened by a team driving leisurely by toward the cemetery between 11 and 12 o'clock. The inmates of the wagon were seen to be three men, and one of them acted as if he was under the influence of liquor.

The robbery was discovered Thursday by a young man who entered the cemetery to care for some shrubbery. The community are greatly exercised over the ghoulish transactions, and are disposed to make a strong effort to find the guilty ones. The friends of the stolen corpses are grief-stricken. And it may yet result in an uprising for investigation. There are some surmises that make it look a little dubious for certain parties, but nothing to substantiate their being implicated.

The editor of the Humeston New Era also read that article and reprinted it in his edition of Nov. 12, but having investigated a little, added the following disclaimer:

The above must be a little mixed, for we have taken considerable trouble to find out about it and all our efforts have proved futile. The Promise City mentioned is certainly not the one in this county, for we have interviewed men right from there. Will the Chariton Democrat please make things clear?

The Chariton Democrat did not make things clear in subsequent editions and I could find no other references to body-snatchers in Wayne County. So the mystery seems not to be who was guilty of robbing graves at Promise City but instead who was guilty of telling tall tales and snookering his editorship in Chariton.