If you’ve ever watched “Law and Order,” you’ve likely heard fictional attorneys and judges discuss the difficulties of convicting someone of murder without a body. In fact, in the past many states had laws that required proof of a murder with a body, or at least part of one, or via a witness who saw the dead body.

But in the early 20th century, that didn’t stop some people from being charged or convicted of the murders of missing people who weren’t dead at all.

Here are two Alabama cases in which people were charged with killing people who were very much alive. In one case, remains were misidentified and, in another, there were no remains, just a presumption of death.

The case of Bill Wilson

The bones were discovered in spring of 1912 by a local farmer and his son fishing in the Warrior River. The remains appeared to be those of an adult and child and many people assumed they were those of Native Americans.

But not area resident Jim House. He had other ideas. House remembered that Jenny Wade Wilson and her 19-month-old baby left town in 1908, not long after Jenny divorced her husband Bill, according to the book “Wilkie Collins’ The Dead Alive: The Novel, the Case and Wrongful Convictions” by Rob Warden.

The couple’s two older children were still living with their father, but no one had heard from Jenny.

When the county attorney heard House’s suspicions, he took notice and gathered a grand jury, which quickly indicted Bill Wilson for the murders of Jenny and the baby. Witnesses for the prosecution testified they’d heard Bill threaten to kill Jenny, and admonish one of his older children not to “tell.”

However, Wilson’s attorneys put on a strong defense. The prosecution’s own medical witness, Dr. Marvin Denton, had admitted it was the remains found by the river where Jenny’s and the baby’s because their bodies could not have deteriorated that much in the time Jenny had been missing. He also said the teeth of the dead child’s remains would have developed at around age 4 and Jenny’s baby was only 19 months old.

At trial, Jenny’s sister testified she’d seen Jenny several months after the time she was supposedly dead. Defense expert Dr. J.E. Hancock told jurors the adult skull was that of an elderly person.

Despite the lack of concrete – or even compelling – evidence, the jury found Wilson guilty. The week before Christmas, on Dec. 18, 1915, Judge J.E. Blackwood sentenced Wilson to life in prison.

After the sentencing, Dr. Alex Hrdlicka, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution, was given the chance to examine the remains.

Hrdlicka concluded the bones found by the river were from four or more people rather than two. Based on this evidence, the original judge in Wilson’s case asked the governor to release Wilson. But the wheels of justice turned slowly and in 1918, Wilson was still in jail.

This 1915 article in the Southern Democrat said Wilson “contended that the woman and child were never murdered but are still living,” but no one listened.

That’s when the case took its final twist, one that would finally free Bill Wilson. His ex-wife Jenny arrived in Blount County in July 1918 and announced she wasn’t dead. She and her daughter, by then 11 years old, had been living in Vincennes, Ind., and had just heard of the trial.

On July 8, 1918, Alabama Gov. Charles Henderson pardoned Wilson and he was released from jail. The remains were never identified.

The disappearance of Mike Mayer

On June 30, 1905, a shocking headline was published in the Cullman Tribune: “A Very Strange Disappearance. Mike Mayer is Missing and Foul Play is Suspected. Arrests Made. Trial is Going On.”

The article was transcribed in the book “People and Things from the Cullman, Ala., Tribune 1898-1913,” by Robin Sterling. It explained that two weeks earlier, Mike Mayer had left work and never returned to his home on Vinemont Road.

Authorities suspected foul play. Mike’s wife, Annie Mayer, and two houseguests, J.M. and Florence Northcut, were arrested as suspects, as were three local men, including Pete Shikles. One of the men had an alibi and charges against him were dropped right away.

The article stated a trial was underway but “no positive evidence has been brought out up to this time that a murder was committed further than that the man is missing and no good reason has been advanced as to why he would leave so mysteriously.”

Mayer had been married about a year and authorities said coal oil stains on the floor were evidence that someone had wanted to burn the house to destroy evidence. A witness said the two male suspects who were not from the household, Shikles and a man named Gay, were seen taking Annie Mayer and Florence Northcutt somewhere in a horse-and-buggy.

People from across the county attended the sensational trial.

But one week later, on July 7, 1905, the Tribune would publish a brief story under the headline “Risen from the Dead.”

The story said: “The excitement created by the mysterious disappearance of Mike Mayer was hushed last Saturday night when he returned to Cullman from Birmingham. He stated he went to Birmingham to try and get work but failed. Those were arraigned, charged with murder, were released by Judge R.I. Burke on last Saturday morning.”

The last line of the story said, “Mayer refuses to live with his wife and has filed an application for divorce.” No further details were published on the case.