Deadly gamble, Insurance Fraud

Eva Coo

On an isolated farm in New York's Catskill Mountains, a confrontation, the owner thinks she has caught two trespassers. The truth is much more frightening. The intruders are killers. She is face to face with a deadly woman, who has a taste for money and murder. Eva Coo is like a natural predator. Money was Eva's primary motivation and she would do anything to get it, including murder. Eva Coo is a sharp businesswoman at the height of prohibition in the 1920s. She runs the busiest speakeasy in town. Little Eva's place, it was called lots of loud music lots of women lots of alcohol and everybody visited Eva Coo’s place, that wanted to have a good time. New York playwright Isaac Rathbone has turned Eva's sordid life story into a stage production. The story of Eva Coo is the story of survival.

You have a woman who wants to survive on her own and she will go through any means necessary to survive. There's stories of her having the Sheriff's Department and the police in her back pocket, by offering them alcohol and women, so that they would kind of turn a blind eye to her operations. Eva's place is home to a cast of characters. The resident barfly is Eva's slow-witted handyman, harry Wright. Harry Wright or as he was known around the town, Gimpy Wright was a an older man in his 50s. Who lived with his mother. He was crippled. He was an alcoholic. There are stories of him drinking himself stupid. With his mother now dead, Harry is in Eva's care. You have a side of Eva that takes in kind of lost souls.

A lot of people who hung around the end were alcoholic’s, were desperate women looking for a way to make ends meet. One such woman is Martha Clift, who has found a surefire way to make a little extra money. Martha was very subservient to Eva and it's very apparent that she did whatever Eva told her to do. Before long that will include murder. Eva Coo story fits a familiar pattern. Its more common for women than men to have greed as a motivator for murder. With business booming Eva's greed is satisfied until disaster, the Great Depression hits. The good times run out. We start to see a more desperate businesswoman, as opposed to a shrewd and powerful businesswoman. Historian Scott Christensen says, the Great Depression triggered a great surge in crime. It was the Golden Age of gangsters, in the United States there were many people who resorted to desperate means, in order to survive.

Poverty-stricken and desperate, some women took a deadly gamble, insurance fraud. It was the leading cause of execution of women in New York. At that time if somebody committed insurance fraud, and committed a murder, the chances were that they were going to be sentenced to death. Eva is in dire straits, her gaze moves to Harry Wright. The slow thinking drinker is in her way as the depression rolls on and Eva starts to lose money and clients. He becomes a bit of a burden on her. She can't afford to keep herself fed and keep her business on operation, let alone paying for Harry's addiction to alcohol. By 1933, as Eva hit rock-bottom economically. She decides that she is going to take out an insurance policy on Harry Wright and murder him. Martha is also greedy for a cut of the insurance money. She will help kill Harry.

It begins at the insurance office, Eva takes out over a dozen separate policies on Harry's life. She took advantage of him as much as anyone could. If he dies accidentally, she will receive around $12,000. An accident is exactly what Harry is going to have. Greed has driven women to murder for centuries, poverty adds to the temptation. Eva Coo’s business has been crippled by the great depression. She needs money fast. Eva was able to channel her desire for more money into killing because it was an easy means to an end. Harry Wright has a price on his head. Thousands of dollars worth of life insurance, taken out by Eva Coo and her friend Martha Clift. For them to collect, harry has to have a little accident. Everybody knew Harry, they knew he was a drunk.

It would not be surprising that he had perhaps gotten drunk and wandered in front of a car and gotten hit. It was a good plan in that respect or so it seemed. Eva and Martha Hurry to a deserted farm on nearby mountain. That Mountain was very desolate at the time, it was very isolated. Not too many folks lived up there and it was the perfect place for Eva to bring Harry Wright, to kill him. She came out wielding a large wooden mallet and struck Harry on the head. It is alleged that Harry Wright's last words were to Eva and he said, my God I can see why you brought me up here now. But this insurance job has to look like an accident. It is the perfect crime as long as there are no witnesses. When angry farm owner suddenly turns up Eva decides attack is the best defense.

Eva stands her ground and tells the farm owner to call the police. It was a real gutsy confrontation. Eva and Martha get away with murder. They dumped Harry's bloodied body in a roadside ditch, just a few hundred feet from Eva's. In the coroner's verdict, hit-and-run. It seems the awful truth will be buried with Harry. Eva then went to cash in the insurance and it was at that point that the problem developed. Eva is a little too eager to get her hands on the money. The insurance agent looking into the claim became suspicious, he knows fraud is a common scheme especially among women. She is alerted by the insurance agent, authorities demand a new autopsy. Harry gives up Eva's secrets from the grave. Harry Wright had no broken bones below his chest. His rib cage has collapsed on his lungs and he had a injury to the head caused by the mallet.

They thought that was a little suspicious for a hit and run scene. He had no injuries to his legs or to his hips .It's a theory confirmed by forensic pathologist Janice, there is a different pattern we see when an individual is standing upright and is struck by a car and those injuries usually are on the lower extremities, they are on the feet, the ankles. We look for what are called bumper fractures however, if they are laying on the roadway and a vehicle just simply drives over them, the injuries are distinctly different. We do not get the bumper fractures to the lower extremities. We tend to get the crushing type injuries. Forensic evidence is bringing Eva's grand plan undone and When the farm owner reports her odd encounter on the Mountain, the police make their move. After two days of interrogation, with no sleep, no food, no drink, Martha Clift confessed.

But said that Eva had killed Harry Wright. Her confession spares Martha the death penalty. She gets 13 years. Martha Clift had actually committed the murder. She had driven the the car repeatedly over Harry, killing him. He was not yet dead from the stroke of the mallet, she carried out the murder as much if not more so than Eva. Eva Coo is not so lucky, found guilty of first-degree murder. She is executed in the electric chair on June 27th 1935. There are two sides of Eva, one is a very caring and giving person, the other one is a cold-blooded killer. It was a shame that the darker side, had taken over and she had decided to kill this man. Who she swore that she would care for, nurture and protect. That's the saddest part of the story.