Joe "Hooch" Simpson

Joseph L. Simpson (September 1874 - April 22, 1908), also known as Joe "Hooch" (or "Hootch") Simpson, was an American miner and saloon owner who was lynched by a vigilante mob at Skidoo, California and hung from a telegraph pole after being arrested for the murder of James Arnold, and was re-hanged either for the media who arrived after the fact or by local physician Reginald E. McDonald for the purpose of photographic record. Following the staged second hanging, the head of Joe Simpson was said to have been removed and kept by McDonald as a medical curiosity, while the body itself was reburied (or dumped down an abandoned mine shift) and, purportedly, recovered by friends of Simpson who planned to have him given a proper burial in another town but were overcome by the smell of the rotting remains while in transit and abandoned them in the desert.