Benjamin Collings

Benjamin Collings (?-1931) was a Stamford, Connecticut, yachtsman who was killed during an act of piracy off Long Island in 1931. The pirate was Duncan Perkins (?-1934) who took his own life in 1934 in Cohasset, Massachusetts.

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Washington Post; September 16, 1931; Magnet May Solve Collings Mystery. Effort Will Be Made to Find Yacht Anchor, Believed Used in Drowning. New York, September 15, 1931 (AP) Hope of solving the Long Island "pirate" mystery was placed tonight by authorities in the belief that grappling hooks and marine magnets might locate the body of Benjamin Collings, missing yachtsman, and in an offer of immunity to one of the unknown pair named by Mrs. Collings as her husband's assailants.
Washington Post; September 17, 1931; Collings Held Dead Before Being Bound. Autopsy on Body Discloses Pirate Victim Was Probably Slain on Yacht. New York, September 16, 1931 (AP) An autopsy on the battered body of Benjamin Collings, washed ashore on a Long Island beach, tonight furnished authorities with a theory that the Stamford, Connecticut, yachtsman was dead of a series of terrific blows, and not alive as his wife's story indicated, when he was bound and thrown into the water.
New York Times; July 1, 1934; Identified as Boat Thief. New London 'Pirate,' Who Stole Yawl, Believed a Suicide. Cohasset, Massachusetts, June 30, 1934 (AP) Duncan Perkins, Williams College student, from whom the yawl Cumberbunce was stolen at gunpoint at New London, Connecticut, last Saturday, today positively identified the body of a man found here last night as that of his assailant.