The case of John White Webster, murderer of Dr. George Parkman, was a media sensation at the time and is still a classic of true crime. A sordid tale of dark deeds by low people in high places, the social status of both the murderer and his victim guaranteed international media interest. The gruesome nature of the crime didn’t hurt newspaper circulation figures, either.
John White Webster, murderer of George Parkman.
Both men were born into affluent families in Boston, Massachusetts. Parkman was higher up Boston’s social hierarchy, being a Boston Brahmin and thus at the top of the pyramid. Webster was more an upper-middle class man and, unfortunately, not business-minded or sensible with his money or other people’s. His habit of borrowing more money to cover debts he’d already run up would be his downfall and fatal for both he and Parkman.
Both men lectured at Harvard Medical College. Parkman was senior in the medical department while Webster, having failed in private practice as a doctor, lectured in minerology, geology and chemistry while also publishing books on those subjects. Both were married and, by the time of the murder in 1849, Webster’s poor business sense and domestic expenditures saw him in desperate financial trouble. He was in hock to many of his friends and acquaintances. He was over-extended with his bank. All in all, he needed more money than he had and was running out of people to borrow it from. One of his creditors was George Parkman.
Webster borrowed $400 from Parkman in 1842. In 1847 with the original loan still unpaid, Parkman accepted a promissory note from Webster for $2432 comprising both the original loan and even more added on. The use of promissory notes was common between the wealthy, monied gentlemen of the time, they were the forerunner of checks people use today. But, with Webster’s previous unpaid loan still in mind, Parkman insisted that the loan be secured using Webster’s personal possessions as security. They included a large box of unusual mineral samples.
Parkman wasn’t happy about the unpaid debt. In 1848 he became positively enraged that Webster still hadn’t paid him back and, much worse, had used the same box of mineral samples as security on a $1200 loan from a Mr. Robert Shaw. Had Webster paid off Parkman before re-mortgaging the samples then there would have been no problem. But he hadn’t, so there was. Parkman was livid and went stalking around Boston looking for a confrontation with Webster and to resolve their dispute. As it turned out, Webster too had ideas about resolving the Parkman problem.
Permanently.
‘Boston Brahmin’ George Parkman.
On November 22, 1849 Webster visited Parkman at his home to discuss their dispute. He invited Parkman to his lab at the Harvard Medical College at 1:30pm the next day. At 1:45pm the next day, Parkman was seen entering the College grounds. It was the last time anybody would see him alive.
On November 24 Parkman’s family contacted police, having seen or heard nothing from him. On the same day Webster was seen walking through the College grounds carrying a large, unidentified bundle by the College janitor Ephraim Littlefield. We’ll be hearing much more from him later. Living next to Webster on the College grounds and knowing Parkman by sight, Littlefield would prove a decisive witness for the prosecution. Parkman, meanwhile, had completely vanished.
On November 26 a $3000 reward was offered for information leading to the discovery of Dr. Parkman. His disappearance was widely publicised and the search for the missing Boston Brahmin covered a wide area. Local rivers were dragged. Nearby towns were searched. Search parties were despatched around the area. The dragnet for George Parkman was probably bigger than the one that caught John Webster.
Ephraim Littlefield was also taking an increased interest in Webster and feeling increasingly suspicious. To Littlefield, Webster’s actions and behaviour were odd and unsettling, especially as it was an open secret that Webster and Parkman were at daggers drawn over Webster’s debts and his dishonest means of staving off disgrace and bankruptcy. The fact that Webster had been quizzing him about the College’s dissection facility also seemed odd, considering Webster didn’t actually lecture in medicine or anatomy.
Webster’s chickens were about to come home to roost.
Littlefield was in the building next-door to Webster’s lab on November 28 when he noticed that Webster was running the lab’s furnace so hot that he could feel the heat through the basement wall. Peeking under the lab door he could see Webster frantically stoking the furnace while burning a number of unidentified objects. Littlefield spent the next day digging down to the outside of the basement wall where the bricks were still warm to the touch. Now even more suspicious, he broke through the wall into the furnace itself.
Where he found the charred bones and teeth of what the jury were later convinced had once been George Parkman.
Webster was arrested in early-December, 1849 while Parkman’s remains were buried on December 6. When police came to arrest him Webster initially denied all knowledge of Parkman’s whereabouts. Realising that the detectives weren’t buying his story he then attempted suicide with a dose of strychnine, which didn’t kill him. The Massachusetts hangman wouldn’t be cheated of his fee. Webster was formally indicted on January 26, 1850.
The charge was murder. The penalty, if convicted, was death.
The trial started on March 19 until April 1, 1850. The courtroom was packed every day with people itching to hear of low deeds in high places, of dishonesty, betrayal and murder most foul. Reporters even came from as far afield as London, Paris and even Berlin to cover the story.
Webster had always been a poor businessman. Now he proved himself to be an even worse defendant, not that his lawyers were exactly the cream of Boston’s crop. As no lawyer of any substance was willing to take his case, Webster had to pick two court-appointed lawyers from a list. Having secured lawyers whose legal sharpness resembled a butter knife rather than a scalpel, he then hampered them even further by insisting they work entirely to a detailed 194-page plan he’d drawn up instead of letting them do their job and use their own judgement. Not that their judgement was exactly good to start with.
Facing off against Webster’s discount defence team were Boston’s legal heavyweights. State Attorney-General (and later State Governor) John Clifford led the prosecution, although much of the trial was fought by his assistant, Harvard law graduate George Bernis. The presiding judge was no less a figure than Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Webster entered a plea of ‘Not Guilty.’
Ephraim Littlefield, the star witness for the prosecution.
The defence made a number of blunders from the start. Ehpraim Littlefield had a lucrative side-line selling fresh corpses to medical students and lecturers. He would also collect the $3000 reward for his services and his testimony. They never brought this up even though it might have made him seem less savoury and less credible a witness. They didn’t force the issue of identification enough. The law at the time stated that human remains had to be identified with ‘absolute certainty’ which, given forensic science at that time, wasn’t possible. What the prosecution could do was persuade the jury that the remains were indeed those of George Parkman rather than conclusively identifying him. Mrs Parkman identified the remains as being her missing husband and, given Webster’s now-established reputation for dishonesty, this proved evidence enough.
Other medical evidence included blood-stained clothes belonging to Parkman. Clothes belonging to Webster were admitted into evidence and proved to have bloodstains and stains of copper nitrate, a substance well known to be effective at removing blood. Evidently for the jury, Webster’s use thereof hadn’t been quite effective enough.
On April Fool’s Day, 1850 the judge summed up very heavily in favour of the prosecution. Not surprisingly, the jury didn’t take too long to render their verdict. They left the courtroom at 8pm. At 10:45pm they returned having made their decision.
Their decision was guilty.
The sentence was death.
Webster was promptly sentenced to death and lodged in a cell to await the outcome of his appeals and possible execution. His appeals didn’t work out any better than his defence. His appeals were met with denial after denial as the days, weeks and hours ticked down to his date with the hangman.
An artist’s impression of Parkman’s murder.
A few days before his execution Webster, who had for so long insisted upon his innocence, finally admitted killing George Parkman. Killing him, that is, not murdering him. He claimed that Parkman had become enraged and attacked him and that he, Webster, had been forced to kill him in self-defence. Therefore he claimed that, despite being the admitted killer of George Parkman, he wasn’t a murderer. Quite how that squared with Parkman having suffered multiple blows from a blunt object and having a number of stab wounds he never quite explained but, in his own mind if in nobody else’s, Webster was an innocent man, wrongly convicted and about to be unjustly executed. Unfortunately for Webster, while innocent in his own mind, his opinion hadn’t been shared by any appellate judges and the State Governor didn’t agree, either.
The end finally came on August 30, 1850. Webster was taken from his cell at Leverett Street Jail to greet his final audience. The final indignity was still to come. Webster would hang in public, standard practice for the time and not outlawed until the late 1930’s. It would also have weighed heavily on his mind that America’s hangmen were (and remained) a careless crew. They didn’t have the same way of doing the job as their British counterparts who would elevate their grim calling to a science (albeit with a hint of dark art about it). In Webster’s case they were relatively competent. He dropped and strangled for only four minutes before dying, far quicker than many who slowly strangled and far less messily than those given too long a drop, only for their heads to be torn off when they reached the end of the rope.
Webster’s family, left destitute by his debts, found themselves the focus of much public sympathy. A fund was set up to support them, taking in public contributions so they would be able to clear his debts and still have something to live on. In a gesture of great magnanimity, the first donation was made by George Parkman’s widow.