Lewis Keseberg Won One-Dollar Damages

In 1847, a rescue party found a man named Lewis Keseberg alone at the Donner Party's Truckee Lake camp, surrounded by human bones and beside a pot that appeared to contain human organs. Keseberg admitted eating people who had died, including rescuer William Eddy's young son, but denied murdering anyone. Rescuers accused him of killing Tamsen Donner after discovering that he had hidden her money, while Keseberg claimed she died from the cold and had asked him to deliver it to her children. He later sued rescuer Edward Coffeemeyer for defamation and won, but the court awarded him only $1.

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