The Harvard Medical School at North Grove Street location, used from 1847 to 1883. Image Credit: Wikipedia
On Friday November 30, 1849 Ephraim Littlefield, a janitor at Harvard Medical College, opened a trap door in the cellar of the school building and crawled inside with his lantern and tools. This was the second day that he sat hunched in the dirt to chisel way at the brick wall that stood between him and the cesspool in a privy vault. Littlefield’s back hurt and his hands were raw but he continued to work because he suspected that Dr. John Webster, a chemistry lecturer, had something to do with the disappearance of Dr. George Parkman, a prominent businessman.
Webster was the last person to see Parkman alive on November 23, 1849, and since then he spent a majority of his time locked in his private lab. Although the police searched most of the campus, they did not look in the vault under Webster’s private privy, so Littlefield believed if Webster was hiding something this is where he would find it. But the only way to access the vault was through the brick wall below the basement since Littlefield didn’t have the keys to the privy door.
Portrait of Ephraim Littlefield. Image Credit: Wikipedia.
At about 430pm Littlefield punched a hole through the brick and stuck his head and lantern into the darkness. The stench from the raw sewage struck him in the face and made it difficult to breathe. When his eyes adjusted to the dark he could see a human pelvis and two pieces of human leg scattered amongst the filth. His suspicions confirmed, Littlefield left the building and notified the authorities. This was just the beginning because more body parts were found over the next 24 hours. John Webster was eventually charged with Parkman’s murder and put on trial.
Every fledgling forensic anthropologist in the U.S. learns about the murder trial of John Webster because of its significance to the history of forensic science. But the drama surrounding the discovery of George Parkman’s dismembered remains is just as fascinating.
Ephraim Littlefield worked as a janitor for the Harvard Medical College and assisted the professors by setting out specimens for their lectures. He made extra money by obtaining and selling cadavers to teachers and students to dissect. Littlefield and his wife lived in an apartment in the basement of the building so he was aware of all of the comings and goings at the Medical College.
Dr. George Parkman was a physician, real estate investor, and philanthropist. Although he was born into Boston’s upper class, known as the Boston Brahmins, Parkman obtained a medical degree and served as a surgeon in the Massachusetts Militia during the War of 1812. He was an advocate for humane treatment methods for the mentally ill and was passionate about improving asylums. Parkman assumed control over his family’s wealth in 1824 after his father died. He expanded his family’s estate by purchasing real estate and large areas of land in and around Boston. He funded endowments for the McLean Asylum for the Insane and a professorship of anatomy at Harvard. Dr. Parkman was a familiar figure in the streets of Boston because he walked the city daily to run errands, collect rents, and payments on loans.
Portrait of John Webster during his trial. Image Credit: Wikipedia
Although Dr. John Webster was a trained physician, he became a chemistry instructor at Harvard Medical College when he couldn’t get his medical practice off the ground. At the college he had exclusive access to a lecture room and a connecting laboratory on one of the upper floors of the Medical College as well as another lab in the basement. Webster also had a private privy, or bathroom, in the basement for which only he had the keys.
Webster had profound financial troubles and subsidized his income by selling tickets to chemistry lectures and with loans from colleagues. Webster borrowed $400 from Dr. Parkman in 1842 and took out another loan for $2432 in 1849, which covered the unpaid balance of the 1842 loan and an additional sum. To secure this loan Webster used his mineral cabinet and other personal property as collateral. Webster promised to pay Dr. Parkman the money he made from ticket sales to a chemistry lecture on November 7, 1849. When Parkman did not receive any money by the 9th, he visited Mr. Petty, the Harvard cashier who handled the money Webster earned from ticket sales, and learned that Webster earned a “considerable sum.” Parkman had Petty tell Webster that he considered him a “dishonorable man” who does not “keep his word” (pg. 5). Parkman grew angrier on Friday, November 16, 1849 when he found out that Webster borrowed more money from his brother-in law and used his mineral cabinet to secure that loan as well.
At about noon on Monday, November 19, 1849, Webster approached Littlefield to see if there was a way to get under his private laboratory in the basement or get a light in the privy vaults. Littlefield told the court, “I told him no. He asked me if I was sure. I told him I was, for I tried two days before to get a light into the vault. I mean a candle or artificial light-the foul air put it right out. I tried it at the request of Dr. Ainsworth [an anatomy professor who prepared medical specimens] to find something which he had lost in the vault. I think it was an African skull that he placed there to macerate. When I got there I found the rope had rotted off, and let the skull down into the vault. I attempted to put the light down, and the foul air put the light out (p. 16).”
Littlefield witnessed a meeting between Dr. Parkman and Dr. Webster the evening of November 19th during which Parkman attempted to collect a payment. They argued and Parkman left empty-handed. They agreed to meet the next day, on Tuesday, but Webster sent a note to Parkman to reschedule and they didn’t meet again until Friday, November 23rd (pg. 16).
Parkman spent the morning of November 23, 1849 running errands, and collecting payments on loans and rents. The last time Parkman was seen alive was between 130 and 145pm as he walked to the Medical College Building to meet with Dr. Webster. He was a punctual and predictable man, so when he didn’t return home Friday evening his family became alarmed and alerted the police. According to Littlefield, Webster remained behind locked doors at the Medical College all day and most of the night on Friday the 23rd. When he tried to access Webster’s lecture room and laboratories to clean them he found the doors were bolted from the inside, which was extremely unusual.
Over the next few days, police searched his properties, dragged the river, and combed neighboring communities. Parkman’s family also offered a $3000 reward for information on his disappearance.
When police searched the Harvard Medical College building on Monday the 26th and Tuesday the 27th Webster was present but seemed anxious to draw police away from the privy. The police came up empty-handed during this first search. After the police left, Webster went shopping and purchased twine and large fish hooks that could be made into grappling hooks (pg. 32). Webster kept the doors to his lecture room, laboratories, and privy locked or bolted from Tuesday 27th afternoon to Friday the 30th.
Littlefield asked Webster on Tuesday the 27th if he needed any fires that week because of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and Webster told him no. On Wednesday the 28th, the day before Thanksgiving, Webster locked himself in his private, basement laboratory and burned a fire so hot that Littlefield could feel it through the walls. Littlefield became suspicious of Webster because he was acting erratically and it was extremely strange for him to start his own fires. He watched Webster under the lab door and saw him making multiple trips to his furnace with a coal bucket. When Webster left the building Wednesday afternoon, Littlefield snuck into the basement laboratory through a window but did not find anything.
Littlefield decided to break into the vault under Webster’s private privy on Thanksgiving, (November 29th) because it had not been inspected during the search earlier in the week. He also heard the town gossip and knew that some people suspected that he was responsible for Parkman’s disappearance. He believed that if found Parkman’s body it would clear his name.
Littlefield told his wife to keep watch and to knock on the floor four times if she saw Webster coming, then he opened a trap door and crawled under the building to start chiseling away at the brick wall that separated him from the privy vault. He hammered away at the wall Thursday and Friday, and finally broke through around 430pm on Friday. When he discovered the three dismembered human body parts he notified the authorities.
On Friday evening the police went to Webster’s home and arrested him and took him to the jail for an interview. When they tried to take Webster to the Medical College to continue the search for evidence, the police had to carry him to the carriage.
The police searched Webster’s lecture room and upstairs laboratory and again found nothing. But when investigators explored the downstairs lab they uncovered more human remains. Investigators found five dismembered human body parts, charred human bones, and artificial teeth: a torso, the upper part of a left leg, a knife, and a ball of twine were found in a tea chest; a pelvis, piece of a right upper leg, and a piece from a lower left leg were found in the privy vault; bones and artificial teeth were found in the furnace (pg. 4, 5, 19).
The remains were given a post-mortem examination by several anatomists and physicians. According to them, the body was dismembered by someone familiar with anatomy and the sternum was removed by someone acquainted with post-mortem examinations. But the remains were not anatomical specimens (pg. 10, 14). Dr. Ainsworth, the same instructor who dangled a human skull in a privy vault to macerate it, testified that these were not part of the college’s collection. Ainsworth preserved specimens by injecting veins and arteries with an arsenic solution. The body parts recovered by the police had not been dissected or injected with this fluid. The school also kept meticulous records of all of its specimens and these remains were not in those notes (pg. 12).
Image of the jaw bones and denture recovered from the furnace, compared to Dr. Keep’s cast. Image Credit: Snipview
According to the post-mortem report, the remains belonged to a man who was between 50 and 60 years old (Parkman was 59 when he died) and the height and build of the body parts were consistent with Dr. Parkman. Webster removed most of the organs and tried (unsuccessfully) to macerate the flesh with a couple of chemical substances (pg. 10 and 11). There was a puncture wound between the 6th and 7th ribs on the left side, but expert witnesses couldn’t agree if that was a stab wound or a post-mortem injury caused by a cane belonging to one of the officers (facepalm). Most of the internal organs in the pelvis were present. There was twine wrapped around the pelvis and the left upper leg that matched the ball of twine found in the tea chest (pg. 4, 5, 19). Investigators did not recover the arms, hands, feet, lower right leg, or head.
Dr. Jeffries Wyman, professor of anatomy at Harvard, examined the bones from the furnace. He stated that all the bones belonged to one person because there were no duplicates, but he could not say to whom the bones belonged. All the bones recovered matched missing body parts (pg 11):
- 30-40 pieces of cranium fragments
- Fragments of a temporal bone
- Coronoid process of the lower jaw (mandible)
- Right side of the lower jaw
- A fragment of the 1st cervical vertebrae
- Fragment of the 2nd or 3rd cervical vertebrae
- Humerus fragment
- Fragments of a leg bone
- Fragments of hand and foot bones
Dr. Keep, Dr. Parkman’s dentist since 1825, examined the dentures retrieved from the furnace and was able to identify them as the set he made in 1846. He regularly saw Parkman to make adjustments to them and had just seen Parkman two weeks before his disappearance. The dentures corresponded to the plaster model Keep made of Parkman’s jaw (pg. 13 and 14).
This expert testimony was pioneering because it was the first time in the United States that dental and osteological evidence were accepted in a murder trial to identify a body. Although Webster’s attorney tried to convince the jury that Littlefield was responsible for Parkman’s disappearance, the defense did not prove its case and Webster was found guilty on March 30, 1850. In June Webster confessed to killing Parkman and was publicly hanged on August 30, 1850. During his testimony Littlefield renounced the $3000 offered by the Parkman family but he was given the money anyway.
References:
The Trial of Prof. John W. Webster, Indicted for the Murder of Dr. George Parkman. (1850). Boston, MA: Redding and Company 8, State Street.
