The Galápagos Affair: Murder on Floreana

In September 1929, a German doctor named Friedrich Ritter stepped onto Floreana, a remote island where no one lived. He had come to build a new life on willpower alone. With him was Dore Strauch, his partner and former patient. She had multiple sclerosis, and she hoped the isolation and his philosophy might cure her. Ritter had planned for the wilderness in one startling way. He had every tooth pulled at home and replaced with a single set of stainless-steel dentures, so no toothache could ever force him back to a dentist. The two of them reportedly shared that one set. They built a house of volcanic rock and twisted wood in the dry highlands. It was meant to be a place of peace. But an island that empty does not stay empty. By the end of 1932, two more households had joined them on the island.