Category: criminal justice

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The Enduring Mystery of an 1891 Cecil County Murder

murder of Lady by burglars
Burglars murdered Mrs. Richards.1

One of the darkest, cold cases in Cecil County history unfolded on a tranquil April night in 1891.  The scene was a rural home along the road from Rising Sun to Conowingo, where intruders shattered the silence while J. Granville Richards and his family peacefully slept.

In the calm of that spring night, a noise stirred Jennie, his wife.  She woke her husband, alerting him to an intruder in their bedroom.  Richards seized a nearby pistol and called out, “Who’s there?  Speak, or I’ll shoot!” With that, a gunshot rang out from the foot of the bed, and Jennie fell back on her pillow, a bullet penetrating her brain. 

As the assailant fled, Richards pursued, encountering a figure in the hallway whom he thought might be his oldest son coming from his room.  “Willie, is that you?” he called out, only to be attacked by a ruffian.  Then a desperate tussle ensued, the house invader putting a bullet in his abdomen and then striking him with a heavy piece of iron.  This caused the homeowner to tumble down the stairway, where he was shot again.  The commotion roused other family members, prompting Richards’ two oldest sons to rush to the first floor.

Mrs. J. Granville Richards, a sketch from the Kokomo (MI) Gazette Tribune.(Kokomoz Gazette-Tribune, “Killed by Burglars,” May 2, 1891))

The boys, Willie, 17, and Harry, 15, helped their father back up the stairs, where they found their mother unconscious, in a dying condition on the bed, her “lifeblood pouring from a large gaping head wound.” Miraculously, their six-year-old brother, nestled between the parents, remained unharmed. The older boys were sent to get medical assistance and alert the neighbors. 2

News of the disturbance reached Rising Sun three miles west of the house around 2 a.m., prompting Dr. Turner and Dr. Crothers to rush to the residence. They found an appalling sight when they reached the home. Mrs. Richard was lying unconscious with a bullet hole behind the ear, and Mr. Richards was wounded with two bullet holes in his body, the projectiles having passed entirely through him. The four children clung to each other, weeping over their stricken parents.

Although Jennie never spoke another word, she lingered for almost five hours. Even though there was nothing more that could be done medically, Dr. Turner remained by her side until death eased her suffering. It was around 6 o’clock in the morning, shortly after daybreak, when she took her last breath.

The murder house where Jennie Richards was killed
The Cecil Whig said the Richards’ homestead was three miles from Rising Sun on the old Post Road to Conowingo, “almost under the shadow of the famous Richards Oak, a venerable landmark in that section” on the hilltop above Porter’s Grove. A Wilmington newspaper described it as an old stone structure about two and a half stories high, with the nearest home about a quarter of a mile away. This is a photo of a property across from Spready Oak. It was owned in recent decades by Audrey and Ron Edwards. According to Audrey, the murder occurred at this house.

Hunting for the Murder Suspects

The gruesome murder stirred a frenzy of activity on farms and in nearby villages as people flocked to the scene.  With the first light of day, citizens set out to hunt down the killers, the neighbors organizing search parties while Cecil County’s late 19th-century criminal justice system geared up to join the effort to capture the fugitives. Although they scoured the countryside, the perpetrators had vanished into the night, leaving little or no clues to trace them.   

Telegrams describing the killers flashed out on the wires to nearby points, instructing authorities to look out for the killers. But, in the deep midnight darkness of the house, Richards could only state that they were young white men from 20 to 25 years of age, both of whom wore light-colored overcoats. This put city police authorities on the case as they were on the lookout. The perpetrators of this horror on an innocent family took with them about $100, two watches, some silverware, and several railroad bonds.3

Grimmer telegraph bulletins followed as details became available. These spread the horrendous story to every city and town in the country, and reporters from daily papers and city detectives rushed from Baltimore and Philadelphia by special trains. This growing force of private investigators, railroad detectives, county law enforcement officials, and neighbors mounted a systematic manhunt. Also, city pawnshops received alerts to look out for the stolen property. But it was thought that by this time, the killers, cloaked in darkness, had put many miles between them and the scene of their crime.

Later that Monday morning, Joseph T. Richards, Assistant Chief Engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Granville’s brother, arrived in Rising Sun with Railroad Detective Ottey and a force of assistant officers on a special train from Philadelphia. Captain William B. Lyon of the firm of West, Lyon & Smith came from Baltimore, while State’s Attorney William S. Evans and Sheriff J Albert Boyd arrived from Elkton.   County Constables J. C. Hindman and John A. Richie were already there. 

The State’s Attorney and Sheriff dedicated the entire day to working up the case. But, the villains left few clues by which they might be traced — outside of the ransacking of the house, the only visible clues to the direction taken by the murderers were footprints of two sizes, one made by a number 10 shoe and the other much smaller. The double tracks, headed in the direction of Colora, were traceable for about half a mile through the yard, an adjacent wheat field, and a plowed field before disappearing in sod.4  Besides this, a broken button and a piece of torn cloth were picked up. Deputy Sheriff Mackey made a Plaster of Paris impression of the footprints by the cellar door.5

Dr. Bram Arrested on Suspicion

A medical student was arrested.

As the first shock of the murder eased, people began to think of possible assailants. One they fingered was Doc. George Bram, 23, and a cry went up–“Where is Bram?” He had studied medicine under Dr. Crothers of Colora and went to Baltimore to attend medical school, but “soon became notorious as a body-snatcher and had to leave there,” it was alleged by The New York Times. 6

Bram was taken into custody at Rowlandsville by County Constable John A. Ritchie and Railroad Detective C. G. Ottey at about 11 p.m. Monday. While allowing him to get dressed, the young man’s pistol fell from his pocket — the detectives picked it up and found it to be a 32 caliber with three empty chambers. As soon as the officers handcuffed him, they telegraphed Media, PA, for a special train to convey the prisoner to the Elkton Jail.

The railroad sent orders to the night operator at Oxford, Robert Armstrong, to awaken Conductor Griffith and Engineer Brown. They were to make the run immediately, and at 2:34 a.m. Tuesday, their train started for Colora, arriving at 2:55 a.m. In a few minutes, Bram was speeding down the line toward Elkton. At 4:10 a.m. April 14, the prisoner was safe in the Sheriff’s keeping at the Elkton jail.

State’s Attorney Evans decided that the home of the elder Bram, with whom Doc stayed in Rowlandsville, should be searched. Thus, Deputy Sheriff Harvey Mackey, Railroad Detective Ottey, and several assistants returned on the special train “to follow up on the theory of Bram’s guilt and fasten the chain of evidence around him.”   Back in Rowlandsville, the “tired, sleepy, and hungry deputy and detective got into a buggy and started on their errand for evidence.” Bram’s house was thoroughly searched that afternoon, but no evidence against him was found. While examining his trunk, they found a few old bones and dirty clothes but nothing to implicate the suspect.

When a Wilmington Morning News reporter visited the jail, they described Bram as “a well-dressed young man” who “seems to have been arrested solely upon his reputation.”  He wore a neat black suit, a high collar, and a dark necktie. He also had a high silk hat.

On Tuesday night, with one man being held, the State’s Attorney received a telegram from the York PA Police Department, reporting the arrest of two men on suspicion of being connected with the Richards murder. Evans telegraphed, telling them to hold the men and to examine their clothing and find whether a light concave button had been recently broken from the breast of one of them. The answer came back that one of the coats had a freshly broken button.

Mr. Evans then dispatched Railroad Detective Ottey with a brother of Mr. Richards to York to settle the question on the button and a piece of cloth found on the fence gate. On Thursday, Ottey sent word that there was nothing to this connection.7

The Coroner’s Inquest

On Wednesday, Cecil County’s death investigator, Coroner Perry Litzenberg, left Elkton at about 9 a.m. and drove to the scene so he could get to work on the case.8 When the legal proceeding was called about 1 p.m. to hold an inquest over the remains of L. Jennie Richards and investigate the facts about her death, he was assisted by the State’s Attorney Evans and Newman Davis, stenographer to the State’s Attorney.

Since the day was warm and the house was “crowded with women making ready for the funeral,” Litzenberg decided to carry out the hearing on the front porch. ”In the center of the porch was an old table, at which sat the coroner and the stenographer. Around the table stood the jury with the State’s Attorney.9

richards house murder scene
The Morning News published a sketch of the Richards’ house. 10.

After swearing in the jurymen, the panel visited the room where the tragedy unfolded and was shown the presumed position of the intruder when he fired the fatal shot, the location of the bed, and the hole in the wall from Richard’s return fire.

The jurors, having thus been acquainted with the relative positions of the parties to the terrible affair,  were taken into the room occupied by Mr. Richards to hear this testimony: “The presence of more than a dozen serious-looking men in the room, bringing as it must have done the horrible scene once more before his eyes with an unnerving realization that their errand was to inquire into the manner of the death of his wife, naturally shook his composure. But upon a few reassuring words, he was ready to be sworn,” the Cecil Democrat remarked.

Eight people slept in the house that Sunday night, so the jurymen moved to another room to interview more witnesses. William, the oldest son, testified that he took his gun and, accompanied by one of the brothers, ran across to the nearest house about a quarter of a mile away, that of Mr. Reynolds, as he sounded the alarm.   

This concluded the testimony of the medical men, and the jury passed into the parlor to examine the body. The dead woman was lying on an improvised trestle, covered with a sheet that was stained with blood.

Finally, the coroner conducted the jurymen over the route followed by the thieves. They were shown the ladder leaning against a window, the cellar door, which was forced open by a crowbar, and the drawers that had been forced open with by a hatchet, along with other evidence of the burglary.

Having viewed the body, inspected the murder scene, and interviewed witnesses, the jury of farmers, newspaper reporters, and Rising Sun businessmen consulted for a few minutes before returning the verdict: We “do say that the said L. Jennie Richards came to her death on Monday morning, April 13, 1891, at the residence of her husband J. Granville Richards in the sixth election district of Cecil County aforesaid from the effects of a pistol ball that entered the brain, fired by the hand of some person to the jury unknown.”11

With the death investigation completed, the efforts to run down the murders continued without abatement on the part of the officers and neighbors, but there were few encouraging developments. 

Elusive Search Continued

The excitement over the murder only increased as the days passed. With news of the tragedy spreading into remote parts of northern Cecil County, more people flocked in from all sides until, on Wednesday (April 15), there was a continuous stream of visitors along Porter’s Bridge Road. Little work of any kind was carried on in the vicinity. Farmers left their plows and mechanics their workshops and benches, and “even the women gathered together in small knots to discuss the details of the horrible event,” the Philadelphia Times observed. Many older inhabitants had taken unusual precautions in fastening their doors in this quiet neighborhood.12

Since a constant stream of reporters and detectives from Baltimore and Philadelphia occupied Rising Sun, the local telegraph agents were kept up three nights dispatching messages over the wires to the cities and Elkton.13

On Sunday, April 19, Sheriff Boyd and Deputy Mackey got on the tracks of Frank Ferguson as his departure from the Porter’s Grove area shortly after the horrible occurrence directed suspicion toward him. The lawmen, accompanied by a New Castle County Constable, located Ferguson outside Newark, and the Delaware Officer brought him as far as the state line. There, he was handed over to the Maryland sheriff. The detailed facts upon which this man was held were known only to the officers, the Cecil Whig reported, and the new detainee was soon released.14

The next day (Monday, April 20), Boyd came back up from Elkton for the “purpose of making more arrests in the 8th district of parties who bear a bad reputation and live without visible means of support.”15. The unimaginable crime kept the entire two-man sheriff’s office riding night and day, pursuing “every clue, no matter how slight, until it proved worthless,” newsmen remarked. But citizens thought they were “as far away from the real criminal as ever,” according to the Cecil Democrat16

Meanwhile, after spending ten days in the Cecil County Jail on suspicion, Doc. Bram was given his release from custody, the efforts to prove that he was implicated in the affair proving a failure. Baltimore officers had determined that he had been in the city when the crime occurred. 

With the investigation yielding no viable suspects, the county commissioners offered a reward of $1,000 for the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators.17 This monetary incentive prompted private detectives to intensify their efforts in every direction to apprehend the criminals. 

However, as the spring days passed, the mystery surrounding the murder seemed as elusive as ever, with no resolution in sight.  A Philadelphia paper remarked, “The work upon the case formed an interesting chapter in police annals, as numberless clues have been run out only to find the wrong man suspected.  . . . Other suspects were rounded up, but after sifting the stories, nothing amounted to them.”

Eventually, the Pinkerton Detective Agency took over the case, dedicating months to following leads. Within a few weeks, two men – one in York and one in Philadelphia – were arrested on suspicion of being the killers. The Pinkerton agents had shadowed these men. But once again, the case failed to progress beyond the preliminary hearing due to thin evidence. Over the following years, periodic tips led to more arrests in Oxford, Rochester, NY, and Philadelphia, PA, but none led to an indictment. Speculation arose that the detectives were trying to grab someone and make it stick to get the reward. 

In March 1892, the grand jury recommended that further steps be taken to unravel the mystery. The county commissioners agreed, appropriating a sufficient sum to defray the expense of a more thorough probe while increasing the reward to $3,000.   

The grave of Elizabeth V. Richards at West Nottingham Cemetery.

An Unsolved Cecil County Murder

The murderous home invasion, horrible in its character and unnerving in its detail in the dark Cecil County countryside, was on people’s minds for years. It was hard to forget the “cool deliberate shooting of an innocent, harmless mother as she lay in bed by the side of her child . . ..  This caused many to ask who was safe?” But no one was brought to trial despite the tireless work of the entire Cecil County criminal justice system, railroad detectives, and many private sleuths, including the Pinkerton Agency. The Sheriff, one deputy, part-time constables in the outlying areas, the State’s attorney, and the coroner comprised the entire county law enforcement force.

As the decades passed and one generation gave way to another, the once vivid details of the cold-blooded crime began to blur.  When J. Granville Richards, aged 70, passed away on January 14, 1922, the Midland Journal noted that no one had been prosecuted for the murder.18   The mystery of the Richards family murder haunted the community with the specter of an unresolved, cold-blooded crime for decades.

For More See

Private Investigators Work the Case

Endnotes
  1. Philadelphia Times, “Killed in Her Bed,” April 14, 1891[↩]
  2. Cecil Democrat, “Murder,” April 18, 1891[↩]
  3. Midland Journal, “Burglary and Murder,” April 17, 1891[↩]
  4. Farmer Mulligan first located the tracks. He secured a foot-rule accurately measuring the footsteps and slowly with great pain followed the tracks across the lawns, fields, and woods. Mulligan pegged each one with a short piece of word as he measured them. Once Sheriff Boyd and Detective Ottey took up the case, he alerted them to the trail, according to the Delaware Gazette and State Journal of April 16, 1891[↩]
  5. Cecil Democrat, “The Richards Case,” April 28, 1891[↩]
  6. New York, Times, April 15, 1891[↩]
  7. Detective C. Edgar Ottey, who had been detailed by the Pennsylvania Railroad to work up Richard’s murder case, was presented with a handsome revolver by J. Granville Richards, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on May 27, 1891[↩]
  8. For a discussion on the role of coroners in investigations, see “The Coroner Investigated Deaths“[↩]
  9. Philadelphia Times, “Richards Murder,” April 16, 1891[↩]
  10. Morning News, April 15, 1891[↩]
  11. Cecil County Land Records, Coroner’s Inquest, JAD 24 002, April 15, 1891[↩]
  12. “Richards Murder,” Philadelphia Times, April 16, 1891[↩]
  13. The Midland Journal, “Minor Locals,” April 17, 1891[↩]
  14. Cecil Whig, “The Richard’s Tragedy,” April 25, 1891[↩]
  15. “Mrs. Richards’ Funeral,” Midland Journal, April 24, 1891[↩]
  16. CecilDemocrat, “Murder! Mrs. J. Granville Richareds Killed in her Bed by Burglars,” April 18, 1891[↩]
  17. Board of County Commissioners Minutes, April 15, 1891, p 138[↩]
  18. “Jacob Granville Richards,” obituary, MidlandJournal, January 12, 1922[↩]
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Pivot Bridge, a Lost Cecil County Village

Around 1824, before the first shovel of earth was moved to dig the C & D Canal, there was a flourishing village a few hundred yards from the Delaware State Line called Bethel or later Pivot Bridge. It clustered around an old church with an ancient graveyard. Before Chesapeake City, its neighbor two miles to the west began to grow, Pivot Bridge had a tavern and was a place for elections. The stagecoach conveying mail and passengers on the daily run down the Peninsula passed through Pivot Bridge and kept it quite a busy spot for that period in the 19th century. 

pivot bridge map
A map of Pivot Bridge in 1877 (Source: Atlas of Cecil County, 1877)

At the center of this beautiful spot along the canal was the original Methodist Church for the area, built about 1790. A newer edifice replaced the aging house of worship in 1849. The new church was built by John Pearce, a contractor, who received $3,000 for the construction. Bordering the church and the canal was an old burial ground, the final resting place for many of the area’s oldest inhabitants.

The entrance to the Bethel Cemetery (Historical Sketch of Bethel Cemetery, 1908)

Pivot Bridge boasted of a dozen dwellings, one dry goods and grocery store, one wheelwright and blacksmith shop, and a public schoolhouse in 1869, the Cecil Democrat reported. Yet it didn’t have a rum shop “so they were free from all those drunken brawls and disturbances.” By 1902, thirty people lived in Pivot Bridge and James R. Kirk had a store there, according to the 1902 Polk Directory. For a few brief years (1892-1893 and 1905-1907), James R. Kirk Sr. served as the postmaster. During part of the 19th century, Stephen H. Foard operated a store and built a wharf for shipping grain to the city. A steamer stopped regularly to take in freight and passengers.

When the waterway across the Peninsula opened, it created a ditch that bisected the community, separating some of the residents from others and the church, school and store. Gradually over time, the thriving spot along the canal disappeared as the ditch kept getting wider and wider, taking away adjoining land. Although businesses and families came and went and generations of residents passed on, the arrangement with the intersected village worked satisfactorily for about 100 years.

Once the federal government purchased the route across Delmarva in 1919, it gradually started knocking off pieces of the settlement as it widened the waterway. Before the loss of land took away most of the remaining structures, residents of Pivot Bridge faced a more immediate problem. The Army Corps of Engineers decided to abandon the bridge that connected villagers in 1925, justifying their decision by the fact that Chesapeake City wasn’t too far away.

Residents of the hamlet objected, pointing out that for centuries the road the government wanted to scrap had been the main highway for the Peninsula. From its origin as an Indian trail, it had served the people first using carts and wagons and then automobiles. Moreover, for shipping products, while their neighbors 200 feet away could send their product to Elkton, farmers on the south side would have to use the railroad depot at Mount Pleasant, Del. The freight rate from Delaware was almost double that of Elkton. They also noted that the church had an average attendance of 75, of which more than 50 came from the other side of the canal — a trip that would be 12 miles without the bridge.

The pleas moved Uncle Sam some, though they didn’t get to keep the connecting bridge. As a substitute, the Army Corps of Engineers started running a ferry between the north and south sides. That lasted for a few more years before it, too, was discontinued.

Bethel Cemetery at Pivot Bridge being moved.
Moving part of the Bethel Cemetery (CecilWhig, July 14, 1965)

By the 1960s the canal needed to expand again and most of the remaining structures, including the church, were demolished. Old Bethel’s graveyard with its 1.67 acres also disappeared under a federal order which condemned the land for the widening of the C & D. About 500 graves were supposed to be opened and the remains reburied in a section of the adjoining newer cemetery. But when the job was finished in 1965-66, workers had counted 1,137 graves that had been moved back from the water’s edge. Some of the graves dated back to the earliest years of this nation. One of the most famous was Joshua Clayton, president of Delaware from 1789-93. He died in 1798 at the age of 54 from yellow fever.

Today, Bethel Cemetery Road stops abruptly at the canal’s edge, and little remains to inform 21st-century travelers that a thriving hamlet once existed in this area. Near where the old burial ground stood at the canal’s edge, a tall, simple cross memorializes the church.

Click this link for additional photos from Bethel Cemetery.

a passing ship on the C & D Canal at Pivot Bridge or Bethel
Occasionally a passing ship on the C & D Canal interrupts the quiet day at Pivot Bridge or Bethel (Photo Credit: Mike Dixon)
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Pinkerton Detectives Investigated Chesapeake City Murder in 1886

A Series: County Judicial Officers

A SERIES — This is the second part of a series examining the role of the coroner, the lead officer in charge of investigating suspicious deaths for centuries in Maryland. For the first installment about the history of the coroner’s office click this link. This article examines how a murder investigation progressed in one case in 1886.

The murderously battered body of William Green, an old man living on a barge on Back Creek at the edge of Chesapeake City was discovered on March 18, 1886.  Incoherent and urgently needing medical attention, people carried the insensible fellow to George Whiteoak’s home in town, where he lingered for a few days.

Billy the Joker was murdered in Chesapeake City. His name was William Green
How Billy the Joker was Killed, Cecil Democrat, Oct. 2, 1887

As news of the grisly assault spread, lawmen hurried to the desolate cabin at the edge of the marsh. First, they came in ones and twos, Town Bailiff Foard and County Constable Carpenter arriving promptly.  And when word of the cruel assault traveled to Elkton, Cecil County’s entire criminal justice system, the sheriff, state’s attorney, magistrate, coroner, deputy sheriff, and more constables bolted into action.

The local officers scoured the abandoned canal boat cabin at the edge of Chesapeake City for clues.  On the floor, they discovered a stonemason’s hammer covered with blood, and in a trunk the man’s revolver, its chambers fully loaded.  Otherwise, the assailants left no trace of their identity, and there were no witnesses. 

Working off slender leads, the officers chased down suspects, questioning a local stonemason, interrogating canal boat crews, and rounding up a few wayward types.  However, it was fruitless, mystery surrounding the crime as nothing viable developed. Only the incoherent victim knew what happened.   

Chesapeake City the scene of the murder
William Green, also know as Billy the Joker, was murdered in the cabin of his abandoned canalboat grounded on the northside of Back Creek at the edge of Chesapeake City (Source: Atlas of Cecil County, 1877)

Green lingered on his death bed until 8 a.m. Sunday, March 21, when officials sent for Coroner Perry Litzenberg.  He dashed to Chesapeake City to hold an inquest upon the remains, State’s Attorney William Bratton coming down from Elkton with him.1

Murder Investigation Begins

In the hands of the Cecil County Coroner, the investigation into the violent and untimely death began that afternoon at the Whiteoak house. Chesapeake City Magistrate Christfield rounded up twelve good and lawful men to serve on the coroner’s jury, and Litzenberg swore them in.  Upon their oath, the panel swore they would inquire on the part of the State of Maryland when, how, and what manner Green came to his death.

The inquest began when the jurors viewed the body in the dining room. They carefully eyeballed it for marks of violence, taking note of the wounds, before retiring to the parlor to continue the inquest.  Some 30 witnesses testified and evidence was exhibited as doctors Bratton, Krasner, and Wallace conducted the postmortem in the next room.  After finishing the autopsy, the physicians testified that blood on the brain and a crushed skull, a piece about the size of a quarter pressing into the brain, caused death.  His jawbone was also broken, and they were satisfied that the hammer was the instrument that took him down.

Four hours after the inquest started, the jury presented the verdict.  Although they were unable to connect anyone with the murder, they swore upon their oath that “William Green came to his death from compression of the brain caused by blows upon the head by a blunt instrument in the hands of persons to the jury unknown.”

This murder ruling triggered a full homicide investigation, all the elements of the county’s criminal justice system sprinting into action to pursue leads while grilling suspected assailants. However, the murder investigation grew cold, the local officers exhausting every avenue as they ran down suspects.

Pinkerton Detectives

Therefore, the Cecil County Commissioners hired the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.  One sleuth worked the case around town, spending the entire month of April and part of May combing through tips, leads, and clues while working up suspects.  Nevertheless, after a “patient investigation” of weeks, he was unable to make any viable discoveries, so an undercover agent was added to the case.  In the dry town of Chesapeake City, this gumshoe started a “pear cider saloon,” covertly listening to the “class of the community who spent their time in drinking and playing cards” for clues.    

This approach to criminal investigations was a waste, the Cecil Whig reasoned.   “Instead of asking the governor to offer a suitable reward open to competition among professional detectives for the discovery of the criminal,” they hired two private eyes from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to work up the case with a “vengeance” at the expense of the county.  One took it in hand and masqueraded in the role of a detective for quite a time in Chesapeake City, while the other worked as a “blind,” the paper remarked.

Weeks after the “miserable failure in detective work”, one of the participants in the crime confessed his guilt and an arrest of his associates followed.  This big break came when Alfred T. Mannon took his son, George, to State’s Attorney Daniel Bratton.  There he admitted to being one of the parties involved in murdering the “old Englishman.”  He along with Paul Reed came upon a stonemason’s hammer in the road and they carried it to the desolate cabin in quest of whiskey and money, he reported.    

Meanwhile, Reed had slipped out of the county and the Pinkerton man collared him near Annapolis.  The detective brought him to the jail and put him in the custody of Sheriff Robert Mackey and Deputy Harvey Mackey. Both made confessions implicating each other. 

Not one clue, trace, or step in the case was due to the gentleman who “mulcted” the county for the nice little sum of almost $600, doing practically nothing except to aid in defying the law in Chesapeake City and in doing police duty to bring Paul Reed from Annapolis to Elkton, the Cecil Whig noted following Mannon’s confession.2

Murder Trial

Reed waived his right to trial by jury, opting instead for a bench trial, while Mannon put his case in the hands of jurors. Owing to the great interest in the matter, Judges Stump and Thompson ordered Sheriff Mackey to summons “forty talesmen,” as the pool for jury duty.

At 11 p.m. on October 1, 1886, George Mannon, 19, walked out of the courtroom, a free man having been declared not guilty by the jury.  As the foreman announced the acquittal, friends of Mannon applauded and shouted vigorously.  At the time of the disruption, Judge Robinson made a remark that caused controversy.  Some thought he said this verdict was an outrage on all decent people.3,4,5,6

Reed was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, Judge Stump remarking:

A more deliberately planned, premeditated, cold-blooded murder was never perpetrated in this or in another community, than that of which you stand convicted.  After numerous consultations with your confederates . . . you twice walked seven miles with the deliberate purpose to murder and rob. . . . . After the second visit George Mannon was your companion.  There was no hesitation then.  He was possessed of the nerve that was wanting in you and Goffney.  I have no doubt that he struck the blow, which deprived William Green of Life.  You were present, aiding, abetting, counseling, and robbing.  But you are as guilty as he.  The conviction of Mannon would have added nothing and his acquittal can subtract nothing from the full measure of your guilt.7

A Wilmington newspaper, the Daily Republican, had this to say about the shocking murder verdict: 

Read, it was proved, was an accessory to murder, while Mannon was the real conspirator.  But Reed selected to be tried by the court and Judge Robinson adjudged him guilty.  Then came Mannon’s trial and availing himself of the same privileges selected to be tried by a jury and that jury, though he was the real murderer, brought in a verdict of not guilty.  Reed was an African American and Mannon was white.  While there was no doubt of the guilt of Reed, there was, if such a thing could be, less doubt of the guilt of Mannon.  But the latter knowing his guilt and knowing that Judge Robinson would not have spared him on account of his color, knew he would be in safe hands of a white jury, and that was his choice.  This is a sad commentary on the justice of trials by jury, and if this is the way they work the sooner they are abolished the better.  Governor Lloyd, however, will display good sound reason and judgment by never setting a day for Reed’s execution.8

Reed Pardoned

Under the circumstances associated with the verdict, State Senator Clinton McCullough States Attorney Daniel Bratton, and several Elkton lawyers went to Annapolis to present Governor Lloyd a petition “signed by all the officials and most of the prominent citizens of Cecil County” urging a commutation of the Reed sentence.  Governor Lloyd commuted the sentence to life in prison.9,10

On De. 24, 1907 Governor Warfield pardoned Reed.  He had been in the penitentiary since 1886 for the murder of William Green, also known as “Billy the Joker.”   

Paul Reed convicted of murdering William Green, also known as Billy the Joker.
The Cecil County Trial Docket for Paul Reed, convicted of the murder of William Green
Endnotes
  1. “Death of William Green,” Cecil Democrat,  March 27, 1886[↩]
  2. “Something Else to Show,” Cecil Whig, Nov. 5, 1887[↩]
  3. “Billy the Joker,” Cecil Whig,  Oct. 2, 1886.[↩]
  4. State of Maryland V. Paul Reed, Criminal Index 1, R.P., 394, Sept. 1886, Cecil County Clerk of the Circuit Court[↩]
  5. State of Maryland v. George Mannon, Criminal Index 1, Sept. 1886, 522, Cecil County Clerk of the Circuit Court[↩]
  6. “How Billy the Joker Was Killed” Cecil Democrat, Oct. 2, 1886.[↩]
  7. “The Sentence,” Midland Journal (Rising Sun), October 22, 1886[↩]
  8. “A Question in Cecil County,” Daily Republican, Wilmington[↩]
  9. “Read not likely to hang,” Cecil Whig, November 6, 1886[↩]
  10. “The Governor commutated the death sentence to imprisonment for life  Will not be Hung,”  Daily Republican, November 1, 1886[↩]
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Christmas Eve Stories from the Cecil County Police Blotter

As families gathered to celebrate Christmas in the 1970s, Cecil County Police Officers continued their never-ending job, patrolling the roads and answering calls while others shared gifts, good company, and delicious meals.  Although the demands placed on law enforcement can be high on holidays with the officers juggling calls, a glance at the police blotter reveals that sometimes there is a lighter side.

Santa Speeding Across Cecil County

In the early 1970s, one patrol sergeant, Steve Landbeck, orchestrated a little holiday tradition for several years.  As people settled in with their families on Christmas Eve, things generally quieted down for first responders. But an urgent flash would break the silence of the night on the police radio. A Maryland State Trooper out of the North East Barrack was in a high-speed chase.

As the drama unfolded, the pursuit continuing up Route 40, a description was put out for other units rushing into position to back up the North East car.  It went something like this. It was a shiny red vehicle moving fast. Moments later came the driver’s description: a heavy-set man with a white beard in a red suit. Soon, something would follow about hearing sleigh bells and ho-ho, ho. The radio broadcast played out over several minutes as additional details eked out.

In time, Sargeant Landbeck advised to 10-22 (disregard).  The fleeing vehicle was only the jolly old fella and his sleigh coming into Cecil for his annual visit on a busy night with lots to do. The reindeer were there, and the sleigh was loaded with gifts for boys and girls around the county, the state trooper reported reassuringly.

That became a Christmas Eve tradition for many years as Steve orchestrated his little radio play, and once the broadcast kicked off, parents had their children listen to the scanner.  After the 10-22 went out on the airwaves, children across the county knew Santa was on his way.  He was in the county, and they had better hurry off to bed so they could wake up early on Christmas morning for gifts from Santa.

St. Nick Makes Quick Escape in Dark Parking Lot

In the county seat, another case unfolded on a Christmas Eve watch decades ago.  Elkton Police Officer Marshall Purner prowled the streets on the holiday shift when dispatch radioed early on that quiet evening that someone had broken into a vehicle at Cecil Lanes.  The bowling alley was having a party for children, and while all the merriment distracted everyone, a perpetrator forced entry into a car, taking holiday gifts.

Marshall Purner, Elkton Police Department
Marshall Purner retired from the Elkton Police Department in June 1989. Photo Credit: Wilmington News Journal, July 27, 1989

Upon arrival at the scene, Officer Purner started the investigation.  A witness observed a suspicious person — a man in a Santa Claus outfit dashing through the dark parking lot.  He was carrying stuff in some sort of hurry when he jumped into a vehicle and sped from the scene.   Those details were dutifully recorded, and with that information pointing to a primary suspect, Marshall was on the trail as he put out a “be on the lookout” broadcast for the getaway car and this red-suited suspect.

With all Cecil County patrol cars on the road Christmas Eve now keeping an eye out for the fleeing vehicle occupied by old St. Nick, they soon executed a stop, pulling it and the driver over.  It was a fellow officer, Patrolman Joseph Zurolo, playing Santa for a group of kids at the Bowling Alley.  Having finished bringing joy to a group of Cecil County youngsters, the merriment and gift-giving taken care of, Santa dashed off to make his holiday rounds.  So, he made a hasty departure from the party, rushing through the parking lot.

Of course, he had nothing to do with the incident, but it made for a unique discussion back at the police station and several laughs on a Christmas Eve long ago, the calls documented for all time in the old Cecil County Police Blotter.

Elkton Police Officers Joe Zurolo & Jim Long

Elkton Police Officer Joe Zurolo (in uniform) greets old Saint Nick. Officer Jim Long is dressed as Santa in the mid 1970s.  Source:  Cecil Whig photo from the Jim Cheeseman collection at the Historical Society of Cecil County

Also See

Marshall Purner Went From Big City Policing to Keeping the Peace in Cecil County

From Weather to Crimes, Police Blotter Gives Glimpse of Bygone Elkton

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Cecil County Public Safety Oral History Project Continues With Additional Interviews

Jim Long joined the force in the early 1970s after returning from duty in Vietnam.

In November 2012, with the encouragement of Willis May, the Historical Society launched the Elkton Police Oral History Project with a group of retired Elkton Police Officers.  The purpose of the initiative was to carefully document the story of the force in the 1960s and 1970s.  As we moved through the preliminaries, Willie, our project leader and a retired detective, suggested we expand the scope, making it the Cecil County Public Safety Oral History Project in order to create a record around all first responders.  Thus we now have a broader objective.

Marshall Purner examines a picture of the force in 1968.

We also promised to give readers periodic updates as we taped additional recordings.  Well today we interviewed two additional Elkton officers, Kenny CIine and Jim Long, from the 1960s and 1970s.  As these two veteran patrolmen hadn’t been seen by their colleagues in decades, a number of additional retirees tagged along.  Once our work is edited, the footage will become a record that is accessible to anyone interested in the subject.

After documenting the interviews, the group enjoyed an informal get together at an Elkton restaurant.  Amidst smiles, waves, and handshakes and tales of long ago, the sense of camaraderie was obvious as they reminisced about the passage of nearly forty years and the challenges of a time when manpower was limited and resources were scant.  And just as if it was yesterday the professional bond, the friendship, and the shared sense of duty in serving and protecting the community was there too.  Oh sure some of those war stories from long ago haven’t suffered at all from repeated retellings.  But there were also conservations about the era when professionalization of policing got its start here as these men had a direct hand in that.
At the Society we are going to continue to work on getting a solid body of oral history material together that captures their experiences serving and protecting the community during the period when criminal justice was evolving to deal with the challenges of some troubling times.  We’ll keep you updated as this initiative moves along.

This morning former members of the Elkton Police Dept. pause for a photo: (L to R) Marshall Purner, Ken Cline, Dwayne Pease, Terry Lewis, Willis May, Joe Zurolo, and Jim Long.

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Notes from The Elkton Police Blotter

The official record of the Elkton PD, the police blotter, provides around-the-clock entries as life unfolded and the community interacted with its lawmen.  Most of these fleeting encounters would have been quickly lost in time were it not for the brief items penned into the ledgers.  This long-run of volumes provides day-by-day insight into the Elkton of an earlier era, capturing permanently in the short entries life as it unfolded.  Here, from the police blotter, are a few moments that would have been quickly lost to the shadows of time.

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ernie beck elkton police
In the dead of night, Officer Ernie Beck and Baron look for trouble while patrolling Main Street.  From award-winning Cecil Whig photo series by Richard Frear.

THE BLOTTER

April 17, 1959 – 11:30 a.m. –  Air raid alert

Aug. 25, 1960 – 10:00 a.m. – With Mayor & Commissioners on North St – Radar demonstration

Dec. 1, 1962 – 9:30 a.m. – Presidential train guard Red Mill & RR Station;

Dec. 1, 1962  – 4:00 p.m.  Christmas lights on.

Dec. 1, 1962 – 5:00 p.m. Presidential train guard Red Mill & Railroad station;

Oct. 21, 1963  – 5:00 p.m.  25 cows loose in Elkton heights Hi Ho Silver

Dec. 4, 1963 – 2:30 p.m. Complaint of beatniks acting up on Main St. Ran same out of town.

Sept. 7, 1968  – 01:13 a.m. – Cross Burning in front of courthouse

1/21/1970 – CALL – UFO

Oct. 24, 1973, 8:08 p.m.  – CALL:  UFO over 279 and North Street.

Elkton police night patrol in police blotter,
Officer Beck keeps a careful eye on the night in Elkton in 1968. This is from a Cecil Whig photo spread about the night watch in Elkton. The full-page piece by Richard Frear won photo-journalism awards.

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Elkton Police Officers Get Together — Share Stories of Nearly a Half-Century

Deputy du Pont at the Sheriff’s Office. He got his start on the Elkton force. From the Baltimore Sun – 1969

This afternoon, at the Elkton Diner, a group of retired Elkton police officers got together for an informal, long overdue reunion. Amidst smiles, waves, handshakes, and tales of long ago, the sense of camaraderie was obvious as they reminisced about the passage of nearly fifty years. And just as if it were yesterday, the professional bond, the friendship, and the shared sense of duty in serving and protecting the community were still there, too.

Oh, sure, some of those war stories from long ago haven’t suffered from many recitations.  But there were also conversations about the era when the professionalization of policing got its start in Cecil County, as these men each had a direct hand in that.  Two of them graduated from the first Maryland Police Training Commission Academy back in 1968, a time when formal schooling for officers was a novel, fresh concept.

That was the idea of getting them back together since the Historical Society is interested in developing bodies of oral history materials related to local occupations.  So with the help and encouragement of Detective Willis R. May, one of the first academy graduates, the project around the work of the Elkton Police Department from forty to fifty years ago is taking shape.

Chief McIntire caught the Watergate Bug at the town’s Halloween parade about 1975.

Chief Thomas N. McIntire was the elder statesman and former commanding officer of the group. He got his start on the crime beat in 1951 as a patrolman when the department had one car, no radios, calls came in on the phone hanging from a utility pole, and the pay was $1.25 an hour. Sworn in as chief in 1962 as the town pushed to modernize the force, the chief hired every one of these men. Over the years, he guided the department into the modern era.

In the seniority cluster were also Marshall Purner and Sheriff Sam Du Pont. Purner, following stints in the armed services and the Louisville, Kentucky PD, came home to work as chief in North East in 1957. He joined the county seat’s force in 1966. Sheriff Du Pont started in Elkton around that time, too, and moved on to be elected as the county’s chief lawman in 1970. He was the other academy graduate in 1968.

The youngsters in the group included Ernie Beck and Willis R. May, who joined the department as young twenty-somethings in the second half of the 1960s.  Joseph Zurolo, Duane Pease, and Rick Blake were sworn in as patrolmen a little later, in the early 1970s.

On this gray, chilly Tuesday afternoon mid-way through autumn, as the weather broadcasters talked about some overnight snow, old friends who had not seen each other in decades exchanged many stories.  After a few hours of reminiscing, they slowly started bundling up to exit into the cool November air as some mixed precipitation dampened the day.  But these premature reminders about the cold season ahead didn’t affect this group as plans were put together to formally assemble a first-person narrative about these times.  Only a couple of officers weren’t able to make it today.

At the Historical Society, we are going to work on getting a solid body of oral history materials together that captures their experience serving and protecting the community during the period when the criminal justice system evolved to deal with the challenges of that troubling decade, the 1960s.  We’ll keep you updated as this initiative moves along.

Front: Joe Zurolo, Chief McIntire, Rick Blake; Back : Ernie Beck, Marshall Purner, Duane Pease, Willis May, Sam du Pont.

Willis May, Joe Zurolo, Rick Blake

Ernie Beck and Sam du Pont

Duane Pease and Marshall Purner

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The Hangman’s Gallows in Cecil County

capital punishment -- invitation to a hanging
A ticket to the 1905 execution. After the 1879 hanging, the sentences were carried out behind the jailhouse walls and only a small number of witnesses were admitted

Death sentences were carried out in the counties until 1923 when Maryland centralized executions in the state penitentiary. Consequently from the county’s founding in 1674 until the law changed, at least seven convicted murderers made the final walk to the gallows here in Cecil. The county’s executioner, the sheriff, got ready to perform the grizzly deed on the appointed day, as crowds gathered to witness the doomed convict’s final moments.

As many as 5,000 people watched some of the executions, but by 1893 when Alfred Stout was executed the law required the sheriff to execute death in as private a manner as possible.  So for the first time, the execution took place inside the jail yard.  The Baltimore Sun hoped that the Elkton hanging wouldn’t be a repetition of the turbulent scene which attended the recent hanging in Chesterton, in direct disregard of the law.  It was not for just his legal and spiritual advisers, law enforcement personnel, and a few other people stood inside the old jailhouse yard for the deathwatch.

The last public execution took place at the Alms House in Cherry Hill and Medford Waters was the doomed man.   Here is a description of the day a mile-long line of carriages made the trip from Elkton to Cherry Hill, and a crowd of between 1,000 to 1,500 assembled on the poor house property.

On the morning of December 5, 1879, Elkton was stirring at an early hour. It was to be a memorable day in town history for the resident were to be treated to a spectacle the likes of which they would never be permitted to witness again. A man was to forfeit his life on the gallows for the crime of murder and his execution was to be public. The central figure in the proceedings was an African-American youth named Medford Waters who was not yet 18 years old. He worked on a farm near Cecilton.

On November 25, 1878 he and another man were husking corn when a quarrel erupted between them. Waters got a pistol and fired two bullets into the other man, killing him instantly. He fled to Queen Anne’s County and after hiding for two nights was arrested by lawmen there and turned over to Sheriff William T. Boulden. Having been indicted for murder, his trial started on Jan 6, 1879. A verdict of murder in the first degree was returned.

Friday, Dec., 5th the date set for the execution having arrived, the Groome guards assembled at the armory at 8 a.m. and marched to the jail under command of Capt. Wm. G. Purnell who formed them in marching order to lead the procession to the Alms House, which had been selected as the place of execution. The gallows, with a platform eight feet from the ground, had been framed in Elkton the previous day.

At 10 o’clock the sheriff accompanied by the prisoner and two deputies, Eli W. Janney and John S. Cooling, came out of the jail and entered the carriage which was to convey them to the Alms House. A squad of soldiers led the procession, then came the officers and prisoners, followed by the remaining soldiers and a long line of carriages. The gallows was reached at 5 minutes after eleven, and the sheriff accompanied by the prisoner and Mr. Janney, who had some experience at an earlier execution and Mr. Cooling ascended the platform. Mr. John Perkins and the Rev. C. H. Williams also ascended the platform, where Mr. Williams at the request of the prisoner read the 15th chapter of the book of Revelations and Mr. Perkins offered a fervent prayer, and the entire audience joined in singing a hymn.

Waters then made a speech to the crowd, admonishing them to restrain their tempers and expressed the hope that none of them would come to an end like his. Mr. Perkins then sang another hymn to conclude the exercise. The prisoner asked the sheriff to lengthen the rope, which he did, and at 11:35 severed the cord and the drop fell.  The number of spectators was estimated at from 1,000 to 1,500.

The table below is a registry of identified capital punishment cases, prior to centralization.

Table 1.  Capital Punishment Registry, Cecil County Prior to 1920

capital punishment casers

Click here to go to the article on the 1905 execution, the last one carried out in Cecil County.

Last hanging at the old Elkton jail.

For more on capital punishment in Cecil County see Old Jail Managed to Outlive Its Usefulness in Just 128 Years

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An Ancient Punishment – The Whipping Post Last Used in Cecil in 1940

 Criminal codes on the Delmarva Peninsula permitted judges to sentence perpetrators of crimes such as theft, breaking and entering, wife-beating, and more to lashes on the bare back well into the 20th.  Under the original colonial statutes, wrongdoers received this ancient punishment for a broader range of crimes, including forgery, counterfeiting, Sabbath breaking, blasphemy, witchcraft, and dozens of other offenses.  As enlightened corrections emerged in the nation primarily based on imprisonment, this punishment was dropped from the codes in most states, but it persisted on the Peninsula far longer.

Delaware whipping post
The Whipping Post at the Old New Castle DE Jail. (Photo Credit: Delaware State Archives)

Maryland, perhaps the next to last state to use flogging, moved more quickly than Delaware to eradicate whippings.  Until 1809, the post figured prominently in the early administration of justice in the Free State when the code was repealed, and only slaves were whipped, the Baltimore Sun reported.  “The constitutional convention of 1864 abolished the entire law of punishment by whipping, and it remained dead until the Legislature of 1882 resurrected it and applied it solely to wife beaters.”

Under this law, a convicted wife-beater stood at the whipping post and received ten lashes in 1896.   The punishment took place in the jail yard on North Street in Elkton, “opposite where James H. Truss was executed a few months earlier.  The yellow pine post had been erected by ex-sheriff Clinton J. White and Sheriff Mackey, who had borrowed a whip from Sheriff Gillis of New Castle, De.

The last time a corporal punishment sentence was handed down in Cecil County was December 1940 when the Circuit Court ordered that a 42-year carpenter convicted of wife-beating serve 60 days in jail and receive ten lashes at the whipping post.  A local newspaper, the Cecil Democrat, remarked that this was the first time in 46 years that a person was sentenced to the whipping post in Cecil. The cat-o-nine-tails were wielded by Sheriff David Randolph, who carried out the punishment in public.  The whip was last used on the Western Shore in Prince Georges County in 1945 when Judge Marbury ordered lashes for a prisoner.  A Frederick County magistrate in 1952 ordered ten lashes for a defendant, but Governor McKeldin pardoned the “barbarous and inhumane” punishment.

Delaware’s criminal code permitted floggings to occur until 1972.  That year, Governor Russell W. Peterson signed a revised criminal code in Delaware, which abolished the outdated punishment.  With the passing of that act, Delaware became the last state in the nation to hold onto the pre-Revolutionary punishment.  Flogging was last used in 1952 in the first state when a wife beater was flogged.

Elkton jail whipping post
In Cecil County, the whipping post was in the yard at the old jail on North Street in Elkton. (Source: personal collection)