Abraham Suydam's Golden Pocketwatch

Origin
In December, 1840, banker Abraham Suydam, prominent citizen of New Brunswick, New Jersey, went to the home of carpenter Peter Robinson to collect a debt and was never seen alive again. Within 24 hours, news of the banker's mysterious disappearance had spread through the city, generating what newspapers described as "a terrible excitement" among the populace. Before long, suspicion fell on Robinson, who was seen in possession of Suydam's gold pocket watch. Searching Robinson's house, police discovered the victim's decomposing corpse beneath the newly laid flooring in the basement. Ultimately, Robinson confessed that he had bludgeoned the banker unconscious, buried him alive in the dirt floor of the cellar, then purchased a wagonload of boards and laid a new wood floor over the grave. Robinson's trial was one of the most sensational and widely publicized proceedings of the time, and his public hanging in April 1841 a gala event that drew thousands of raucous spectators. The crime was commemorated in true-crime pamphlets and broadside ballads and had a lasting impact on classic American literature, serving as the inspiration Edgar Allan Poe's masterpiece of horror, "The Tell-Tale Heart."