Charles and Hugh.

Charles Arthur Preller and Hugh Mottram Brooks
(Illustrated Police News, April 25 & May 2, 1885)

Charles Arthur Preller and Hugh Mottram Brooks (alias Walter Maxwell) met in Liverpool, England, in January 1885, and traveled together by steamship to Boston. During the voyage, they began an amorous relationship. When the ship landed in America, they went separate ways but agreed to meet later in St. Louis.

They booked separate rooms at the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, but it was well known by the staff that both men were sleeping in Brooks’s room. On April 6, 1885, Brooks checked out, telling the hotel that Preller was traveling on business and would return for his luggage. 

On April 30, after guests reported a foul smell, the manager found Charles Preller’s corpse decomposing inside a trunk. The manhunt that followed ended with the arrest of Hugh Brooks in Auckland, New Zealand. 

Read the full story here: The St. Louis Trunk Tragedy.