Wisconsin, August 16, 1924 / Michigan, December 4, 1924

On August 6, 1924, Emil Zupke picked up his pregnant fiance, Cora Raber. Cora had come from out of town, after receiving a letter from Emil stating that he would marry her if she came. They drove out to meet Florence McKinney, who was also engaged to Zupke. He handed the wheel over to Florence, and while they were driving he strangled Cora to death with his elbow, because “she did not wish to be a mother, while he did not wish to marry her” and she had asked him to “find her a way out of this”. Florence claimed she didn’t know that Zupke was killing Cora until it was too late. Cora’s body was tossed into a thicket, where it was found a few days later.

It is possible that Florence was telling the truth, and that she didn’t know Cora was dead, because one prosecutor claimed that Zupke’s elbow went into Miss Raber’s throat with such force that it ruptured her vocal chords and broke her neck, making it impossible for her to cry out.

At sentencing, Florence McKinney received a sentence of seven years. She was released a year later, on good behavior, and pardoned.  Emil Zupke received a life sentence, but was released 11 years later, in November of 1935, claiming that he hadn’t been the perpetrator at all, and that he had been covering for somebody “higher up”.