Man Beheaded; Dentist Sought: The True Crime of Richard M. Brumfield

Here's a true crime story that is too bizarre to be believed. In 1921, the Roseburg, Oregon, dentist Dr. Richard M Brumfield tried to fake his own death by putting the dead body of the local hermit, Dennis Russell, in the flaming wreckage of Doc's roadster--after he removed the man's teeth and set off a stick of dynamite in his mouth. It was a thin ruse, and when the dentist was nowhere to be seen, a thorough manhunt of the Oregon Mountains and the Pacific Coast ensued. After a month of mistaken identities and false leads, the trail suddenly turned north to Canada, where it only took the Royal Northwest Mounted Police a few days to get their man. Or did they? Incredibly, the fugitive claimed to be the victim Dennis Russell. Then he claimed to not know who he was. Then he admitted he was Doc Brumfield, but could not remember anything that happened for more than a month. Was the dentist really mad? Or was he the criminal mastermind that the prosecutor made him out to be?