Prosecutors: Man killed for rare first edition of The Wind in the Willows

(Image credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

published 4 October 2016

Prosecutors in England say an antiques dealer was killed by a cold, calculating murderer looking to steal his rare first edition of the classic children's book The Wind in the Willows, worth $64,000.

Police in Oxford found Adrian Greenwood dead at his home in April. He was stabbed and beaten to death, and prosecutors allege Michael Danaher, on trial for his murder, spent several months planning the killing. Police say Danaher discovered Greenwood online, when he was trying to sell the book on eBay, and had a spreadsheet where he listed his robbery targets, noting that he expected to take "rare books" from Greenwood. They also found e-books on his computer with sinister titles like "Opening Locks Without Keys" and "The Technique of Silent Killing," the Los Angeles Times reports.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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