On the morning of July 8, 1943, the body of Sir Harry Oakes—one of the wealthiest men in the British Empire—was discovered bludgeoned, burned, and bizarrely covered in feathers at his estate in Nassau, Bahamas. The gruesome scene looked more like something out of a macabre novel than a real-life crime. But this wasn’t fiction—it was the beginning of one of the most infamous unsolved murders of the 20th century.
Harry Oakes had been a self-made millionaire. Born in Maine, he’d spent nearly two decades chasing gold around the globe before finally striking it rich in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, in 1918. His Lake Shore Mine became one of the most productive in the Western Hemisphere, and by the 1920s, Oakes was earning tens of thousands of dollars a day. But wealth came with complications—especially taxes. By the 1930s, Oakes had relocated to the Bahamas, where income tax didn’t exist and investment opportunities were ripe. He quickly became a central figure in the colony’s elite, pumping millions into real estate, infrastructure, and philanthropy.
But Oakes had enemies. And on that stormy July night in 1943, someone murdered him in a way that seemed more symbolic than spontaneous. His body was found in bed, partially burned with insecticide, feathers scattered across his chest by the room’s still-running fan. He’d been struck with a miner’s hand pick and then stabbed with an ice pick in a clear attempt to conceal the initial wounds. The killer had even set the body on fire—perhaps to destroy evidence, or perhaps for something more sinister.
Enter the Duke of Windsor—formerly King Edward VIII—who was serving as Governor of the Bahamas at the time. The Duke took over the case personally, bringing in two Miami detectives rather than relying on local police or Scotland Yard. That decision would compromise the entire investigation. Evidence was contaminated. The crime scene was cleaned too soon. Critical materials—like a bloody handprint—were scrubbed away.
Within days, the Duke had a suspect: Count Alfred de Marigny, Oakes’ son-in-law. The Count had married Oakes’ beloved daughter Nancy under less-than-ideal circumstances, and the two men reportedly had a strained relationship. A single fingerprint allegedly found on a Chinese screen in the bedroom became the key piece of evidence against him. But the fingerprint evidence was weak—possibly even planted. De Marigny stood trial that fall and was ultimately acquitted. Still, he was deported from the Bahamas as an “undesirable alien.”
No one else was ever charged with the murder.
In the years that followed, theories swirled. Was it Sir Harold Christie, Oakes’ longtime friend and business associate who had been staying at the house that night but claimed to hear nothing? Was it organized crime figures like Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, angered that Oakes refused to support a casino development in the Bahamas? Was it Axel Wenner-Gren, a Nazi sympathizer with murky financial dealings? Or even the Duke of Windsor himself, whose ties to Nazi Germany and shady offshore banking practices might have come under threat if Oakes had gone public?
Each theory offers motive and intrigue, but none have ever been proven. The truth is, this case was mishandled from the start. Evidence was destroyed. Politics got in the way. And the one man who may have known the full story—Harry Oakes—is long gone.
In the aftermath, everyone involved moved on in their own way. Christie became one of the most successful real estate developers in Bahamian history. De Marigny wandered across continents, never escaping the shadow of the accusation. Nancy Oakes lived out her days in Hollywood and Europe, forever tied to a father’s violent end and a husband the world called a murderer.
The murder of Sir Harry Oakes remains unsolved. And now, over 80 years later, it likely always will be.
