Flint is well known for its modern violent crimes but Flint's history is filled with little known stories that read stranger than fiction. Gruesome murders, weird accidents, and violent deaths. Join us every Thursday as Joe Schipani details some of the odd but true deaths he found in Flint's archives.
Murder of the Water Commissioner
October 8th, 1916
Neil Berston was born in
Cumberland, Maryland in 1857. He dropped out of school at a very young age due
to his father’s early death.
With little education, Neil had
to learn to use his best assets, his charming personality and good looks, to
make a living. He went into sales and
became an instant success.
Neil decided to move out west-first
to Illinois, then South Dakota. In 1897 he took a sales job with the Appleton
& Sons Company in Flint, Michigan.
Shortly after arriving in Flint,
Neil started investing in real estate. He bought large pieces of land in the
north end of the city. It wasn’t long before he was the largest real estate
dealer in Flint.
Around the turn of the twentieth century
he became the director of the Industrial Savings Bank of Flint followed by
becoming a member of the water board of commissioners.
One Sunday afternoon in early
October, Neil went to his office on Durant Street as he did every Sunday. On Sundays he collected rent on the properties
he owned in the north end.
All morning, people would come
and go, paying their bills as he sat at his desk working on other projects.
Around four in the afternoon John
Goodenough went into Neil’s office to make a payment on the property he was purchasing
from Neil.
When he entered the office he found
Neil in his office chair with blood flowing from his chest.
John then ran to Officer Ed
Robertson’s home a few blocks away for help.
Robertson phoned police
headquarters and headed to Neil’s office.
Officer Robertson determined that
Neil had been shot and robbed.
His pockets were turned inside
out and some loose change littered the floor.
The coroner determined that Neil
had been dead for about an hour before being found.
The coroner noted that there was
no sign of a struggle and that Neil had probably been shot before being robbed.
Neil’s attorney arrived shortly
after. Without going over the books he had no idea how much the thief might
have taken.
On Sundays Neil usually collected
one to four hundred dollars from twenty to fifty people. Most of the factories
in the area paid employees on Saturdays so they paid their debts on Sundays.
After talking with the neighbors the
police had little to go on. The only piece of evidence they had was a rare
pistol found in Neil’s office
No one heard gun fire. One person
claimed to have seen a strange man leaving the office, looking nervous as he
hurried down the street. The only description given to the police was that he “looked
foreign”.
The police chalked it up to a business
deal gone bad.
A reward was offered in exchange
for information about the shooting, but that never lead to anything useful. The
murder remains unsolved.
Neil was laid to rest at Glenwood
Cemetery.
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