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The American Actress Killed And Dumped in Lake Como
Mary Scott Castle’s Italian honeymoon ended in tragedy
Mary Scott Castle was 39 and a divorcée when she met 21-years-old Porter Charlton in New York. Despite the age gap and different social backgrounds (she was a failed actress from the Bay Area, he the scion of an upper-middle-class Washington family), the attraction between them was mutual, immediate, and irresistible: in March 1910, just a month after they met, Porter and Mary took a train to Delaware, where they clandestinely got married.
Less than 90 days later, Mary’s lifeless body was found stuffed into a wooden trunk floating on the surface of Lake Como.
An Eventful Life
Mary’s unpredictable behavior made headlines long before her shotgun wedding and the gruesome events that followed.
She was born in 1872, the daughter of a wealthy San Francisco merchant. Strong-willed, short-tempered, and fully conscious of her own beauty, Mary used her looks to make her way in the world: in 1896 she married a very wealthy Bay Area attorney, Neville Castle. Mary was high-maintenance and had very…
