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.
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.
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
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
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.
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- Philadelphia Times, “Killed in Her Bed,” April 14, 1891[↩]
- Cecil Democrat, “Murder,” April 18, 1891[↩]
- Midland Journal, “Burglary and Murder,” April 17, 1891[↩]
- 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[↩]
- Cecil Democrat, “The Richards Case,” April 28, 1891[↩]
- New York, Times, April 15, 1891[↩]
- 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[↩]
- For a discussion on the role of coroners in investigations, see “The Coroner Investigated Deaths“[↩]
- Philadelphia Times, “Richards Murder,” April 16, 1891[↩]
- Morning News, April 15, 1891[↩]
- Cecil County Land Records, Coroner’s Inquest, JAD 24 002, April 15, 1891[↩]
- “Richards Murder,” Philadelphia Times, April 16, 1891[↩]
- The Midland Journal, “Minor Locals,” April 17, 1891[↩]
- Cecil Whig, “The Richard’s Tragedy,” April 25, 1891[↩]
- “Mrs. Richards’ Funeral,” Midland Journal, April 24, 1891[↩]
- CecilDemocrat, “Murder! Mrs. J. Granville Richareds Killed in her Bed by Burglars,” April 18, 1891[↩]
- Board of County Commissioners Minutes, April 15, 1891, p 138[↩]
- “Jacob Granville Richards,” obituary, MidlandJournal, January 12, 1922[↩]