Bio

Alexander "Sandy" Keith Jr. was born in 1827 in Caithness, Scotland. He moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia when he was a small boy.

He was the nephew of Halifax businessman Alexander Keith. For a time he worked as a clerk in his uncle's brewery. He was apparently envious of the wealthier life his uncle lived and was determined to make a name for himself.

In 1865 he left Nova Scotia and went to St. Louis, Missouri. There he married Cecelia Paris, a milliner's daughter from St. Louis.

Murder Story

In 1875 Alexander "Sandy" Keith Jr., using aliases including "William King Thomas," prepared a timed explosive to destroy a ship for insurance fraud. He bought timers and dynamite and arranged insurance on a barrel he said contained caviar. In June 1875 he sent a filled barrel on the Lloyd steamer Rhein and insured it for ₤9000, but the detonator failed and the bomb did not explode.

He tried again with other ships. A purser on the steamer Celtic refused to accept a chest without inspecting it. Keith then targeted the Norddeutscher Lloyd ship Mosel.

A time bomb he had placed detonated on the dock in Bremerhaven in 1875. The explosion killed 81 people. Newspapers called the event "The Thomas Crime."

Keith was on another ship in Bremerhaven when the blast happened. He went to his suite and shot himself twice. He survived for about a week and then died after confessing to the police.

After the disaster, investigators looked into other ship disappearances for possible links to Keith. One allegation about the SS City of Boston was later proven false. Keith was said to have been buried in an unmarked grave in Bremerhaven. His severed head had been kept at the Bremer Police Museum and was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945.