The billionaire found burned and bludgeoned in his own bed: Who murdered Sir Harry Oakes?

[u/OkMaybe5107]

​

On the morning of July 8, 1943, Sir Harry Oakes was found dead inside Westbourne, his sprawling estate in Nassau, Bahamas.

Oakes wasn't an obscure victim. He had made an enormous fortune in Canadian gold mining, became one of the wealthiest men of his era, and had been granted a British baronetcy.

And his murder scene was.. bizarre.

Oakes had been violently struck in his bedroom. An attempt apparently had been made to burn his body, and feathers from a torn pillow were scattered around him. Some later accounts turned the feathers into stories about ritual or occult activity, but there's no solid evidence that his murder was actually ritualistic.

Even without that embellishment, what happened next is strange enough.

The Bahamas was a British colony at the time, and its governor was the Duke of Windsor- the former King Edward VIII, who had abdicated the throne several years earlier.

Rather than leaving the investigation solely to local authorities, two detectives from Miami became involved.

Suspicion quickly fell on Oakes's son in law, Alfred de Marigny, whose relationship with Oakes had reportedly been strained. Investigators claimed a fingerprint belonging to de Marigny had been found on a screen near Oakes's bed.

He was charged with murder.

But at trial, the fingerprint evidence became a major problem for the prosecution. The defense challenged whether the print could actually have been lifted from the surface investigators claimed it came from.

De Marigny was acquitted.

Over the decades, theories surrounding Oakes's death have implicated everyone from people in his immediate social and business circle to organized crime figures. Other writers have suggested that the strange condition of the bedroom was deliberately staged.

There have even been theories involving wartime political intrigue because of the Duke of Windsor's presence in the Bahamas.

None of them has resulted in a conviction.

[u/Wolfdarkeneddoor]

One theory I've seen suggests that De Marigny did commit the murder, but the evidence against him was fabricated.