You just can't make this stuff up. The best Hollywood script writers are no match for the odd turns of fate, the twists of fortune, and the dramatic events that actually happen in real life. Here are real conspiracies, historical legends, mysterious murders, social scandals, and a horse thief who quite literally gets caught with his pants down. Inquests are often forgotten as a historical source, frequently lost in the glow of subsequent and more sensational public trials. Yet because of how the system operates, they are many times the most immediate and timely reconstruction of the scene and event, especially in the historical period where they were frequently held over the body at the place the death occurred. Included are forty-six stories of the beginnings of forensics and death investigation in Fremont County, Wyoming, from 1885 to 1900. Sometimes justice is served, sometimes it goes astray. Presented inside before you, the jury, is the evidence as gathered, and the testimony as heard, to await your impartial decision as to the cause and manner of death of the forty-six bodies that now lie before you.