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The Death of James Maybrick, a Jack the Ripper Suspect
James Maybrick suffered what was a questionable death, which sent his wife on trial for her life.
He was born in October 1836, the son of engraver William Maybrick and wife Susanna, and died May 11, 1889. James’s parents named him after a brother who had died the year before, and they christened him on November 12, 1838, at St. Peter’s Church in Liverpool; he was the third of their seven sons. James’ trade as an adult was as a Liverpool cotton merchant.
In 1871, James Maybrick was unmarried and living with his mother in London. Two years later, James formed a company with his brother Edwin. In 1874 James left England for the cotton port of Norfolk, Virginia, to open a branch office. This is where James Maybrick contracted malaria. By 1878, Maybrick lived as a bachelor in rented quarters on York Street and became a member of the Virginia Club. There are reports of his being a frequent visitor to the brothel run by Mary Hogwood.
Maybrick was given a prescription of quinine that did not rid him of malaria. Then they tried second medicine of arsenic and strychnine, which was used in the 1870s. Folwers medicine is also popular in medicine. James Maybrick took a liking to arsenic. At first, thinking it increased his virility, but this not only had high addictive properties but was becoming fashionable with professional men in America and back in Britain.
Why did James Maybrick become a Jack the Ripper Suspect?
James Maybrick became a Jack the Ripper suspect long after his death. The reason he became suspected stemmed from his own diary entries. There were some who claimed the entries in the diary were a hoax. It seems whoever Jack the Ripper was went to their death with them since no one ever got caught in the vicious murders.
In 1992, someone found the diary under the floorboards of his bedroom during a remodel of Battlecrease House, his home where he lived and where he died. That year Michael Barrett, a retired Liverpool scrap metal merchant, gave up a diary he claimed Tony Devereux had given him in a pub the year before.
While the diary does not give a name to identify him, it is clear from personal references that the owner was James Maybrick. Of these references, he referred to his wife as ‘the bitch’ or ‘the whore’. In his diary, he seemed to assume she was having an affair.
Then, in the diary, he described the Jack the Ripper murders, basically confessing to the murders. The diary entries go into detail about the murders.
The forensic testing did not provide any answers for the Ripper enthusiasts who did not trust Maybrick wrote the diary. Similarly, the inconclusive test results did not vindicate those who surmised this was Maybrick’s diary. The one thing found in the diary were scratches that scientific analysis found the scratches could be from the period between 1888 and 1889.
The one thing not clear is if the diary handwriting got checked against the Jack the Ripper letters sent to the police at the time taunting them, one labeled ‘Dear Boss’.
Another thing that links James Maybrick to Jack the Ripper is a watch of Maybrick’s that was found. The watch inscribed with the scratched initials of Jack the Ripper’s five victims, together with the signature J. Maybrick, and the words “I am Jack.”
When Albert Johnson purchased this watch in 1993, it drew more criticism. This lends some credibility to the remodeling and finding of both the diary and watch hidden under the floorboards. Tests of the antique gold watch did date back to when James Maybrick would have been alive.
Diary Passages
This is one passage where he is deciding:
Time is passing much too slowly. I still have to work up the courage to begin my campaign. I have thought long and hard over the matter and sstill I cannot come to a decision to when I should begin. Opportunity is there, of that fact I am certain. The bitch has no inclination.
Another passage:
To my astonishment I cannot believe I have not been caught. My heart felt as if it had left my body. Within my fright I imagined my heart bounding along the street with I in desperation following it. I would have dearly loved to have cut the head of the damned whore off and stuff it as far as it would go down the whores throat. I had no time to rip the bitch wide, I curse my bad luck. I believe the thrill of being caught thrilled me more than cutting the whore herself. As I write I find it impossible to believe he did not see me. In my estimation I was less than a few feet from him. The fool panicked, it is what saved me. My satisfaction was far from complete, damn the bastard, I cursed him and cursed him, but I was clever, they could not out do me. No one ever will. Within the quarter of the hour I found another dirty bitch willing to sell her wares. The whore like all the rest was only too willing. The thrill she gave me was unlike the others, I cut deep deep deep. Her nose annoyed me so I cut it off, had a go at her eyes, left my mark, could not get the bitches head off. I believe now it is impossible to do so. The whore never screamed. I took all I could away with me. I am saving it for a rainy day ha ha.
As the entries in the diary go on, they get more delusional, and in some cases he makes poems. In some entries, he either says how good his medicine is working or complains his mind is in a fog.
What do we know?
The cotton trading James Maybrick did required him to travel regularly. That gave him time for Jack the Ripper activities. An entry in the diary talks about going to Post House. While there has been some debate about its not existing at the time. The pub existed when James Maybrick lived, and rather than it being in London or Whitechapel, the pub was in Liverpool. It was built in 1820 and still exists today. The advertising for the pub today touts it is one of Liverpool’s cheapest and oldest bars. At 23 Cumberland Street, Liverpool L1 6BU, United Kingdom.
James Maybricks Health
During his life there were some, including his personal doctor, who had to be aware James Maybrick was an arsenic addict.
The spring of 1889 found James Maybrick’s health deteriorating rapidly. He described his deteriorating health as ‘seedy’ and his mouth as ‘foul as a maiden’. He suffered from a sore stomach, he felt dizzy, could not stop vomiting and had diarrhoea.
His doctor prescribed a digestive medicine containing prussic acid, which contains a poison known as hydrogen cyanide. Then he prescribed regular doses of Fowler’s Solution, a tonic that contains arsenic and champagne. They believed this solution to have a calming effect. A plaster was then to be applied to the skin to draw out the infection. None of these remedies worked and, by today’s standards, probably made his condition worse.
James got fed bowls of arrowroot and glasses of beef essence in his bedroom, where he remained because of his failing health. James Maybrick’s health failed fast, with his death coming fifteen days later.
Questions Asked Later
One of the largest questions asked after James Maybrick’s death. Did he get poisoned? If he was who did it? His doctor prescribed several medicines containing arsenic and strychnine? The more popular killer, according to his brothers, was Florence Maybrick, his much younger wife.
The Happy Life of James and Florence Chandler Maybrick
Florence was born Florence Elizabeth Chandler in Mobile, Alabama, to William George Chandler and Caroline Holbrook Chandler Du Berry. Her father had been a Mobile, Alabama, mayor and partner in the banking firm of St. John Powers and Company. Her father died before Florence’s birth, and her mother remarried Adolph Von Roques of the German Army. He was a cavalry officer in the Eighth Cuirassier Regiment.
Florence Chandler met James Maybrick while traveling by ship to the United Kingdom. The marriage between the 18-year-old Florence and 42-year-old James happened after meeting aboard a transatlantic steamship, the SS Baltic, from New York to Liverpool. Shocking many passengers that she was spending so much time alone with Maybrick, who was so much older. One year later, on July 27, 1881, James Maybrick and Florence Chandler married at St. James Church, Piccadilly, London. The couple settled in Battlecrease House in Aigburth, a suburb of Liverpool. After the marriage, the couple attended the most important balls in Liverpool.
James Maybrick had been conducting business in Norfolk, Virginia, and after the marriage the couple split their time between Norfolk, Virginia, where they lived in a house on West Freemason Street, and Liverpool. They did this for the next two years.
Eight months after Florence and James married, their son was born prematurely.
By 1844, the Norfolk Cotton Exchange was declining in trade, which caused James Maybrick to resign and return to Liverpool with his wife and son. In 1886, Florence gave birth to their daughter Gladys Ebelyn. Then, in 1877, Florence discovered there was another woman. James’s long-time mistress, who had several children. Florence stopped sharing a bedroom with her husband moving to her own room in their twenty-room house.
The marriage deteriorated with James Maybrick’s addiction to arsenic and other medicines that included poisonous substances continuing. After finding out about James’s longtime mistress, she began having an affair with businessman Alfred Brierly. When James found out about the affair, he assaulted Florence, and while divorce was impossible, he could divorce her and take the children for adultery. But Florence could not divorce him and keep the children. Maybrick would not be obligated to support Florence if there were a divorce. He had several mistresses, one which bore him five children.
After Florence Maybrick’s affair with Brierley, she wrote letters to him that nanny Alice Yapp intercepted and passed to Maybrick’s brother Edwin, who in turn showed them to James’ other brother Michael. Michel, the head of the family, deemed Florence a gold-digger and disposed her as mistress of the house, holding her under house arrest.
The Trial of Florence Maybrick, James Maybrick’s Wife
James Maybrick’s brothers had James’ body examined, suspecting Florence. They could not prove James had not taken the trace amounts of arsenic found in his body or if Florence administered it to him.
An inquest held at a nearby hotel determined Florence Maybrick to be charged with her husband’s murder.
Florence had soaked flypaper in a bowl of water to extract the arsenic she said as a solution for her skin. She was clear about this since it was a key ingredient for the cosmetic wash. Her purchase of the flypaper was told by a local chemist’s shop.
Her late husband’s brothers did not wait for James’ last breath before they had their suspicions about it and the fact that she may have put something in her husband’s beef juice. Then the fact she had had an affair with a family friend, Alfred Brieley. Florence was unable to deny the adultery whenshe spent two nights in London with Brierley in a hotel room. Paperwork existed from the hotel stay.
James Maybrick’s Edwin and Michael, his brothers, believed Florence was a gold-digger. Since there was a 23-year age difference between James and Florence and as an American of dubious background.
In one book on Jack the Ripper, it is possible James’s brother Michael might have known James was Jack the Ripper, but if James got caught, Michael feared he and his brothers would be ruined. It is also questioned whether Florence might have known and hidden it since that would give her a reason to murder James.
Florence swore James had long been slowly killing himself as a hypochondriac and addicted to many pills and potions. Many that contained arsenic. The examination revealed arsenic in his body, as well as strychnine and belladonna. After James Maybrick died, authorities removed approximately 120 bottles from the house.
The brothers disagreed with Florence, and between they found, the flypaper and Florence’s adultery, they wanted her held accountable for Jame’s death.
Despite convincing evidence, they tried Florence Maybrick for the death of James Maybrick. The trial of Florence Maybrick began on July 31 at St. George’s Hall in Liverpool. Sir Charles Russell was Florence Maybrick’s advocate.
On May 9th, a nurse reported Florence tampered with a Valentine’s Meat Juice bottle. Afterward, they found to contain a half-grain of arsenic. Florence testified that her husband had begged her to administer it to him. James Maybrick did not drink the contents of the Valentine’s Meat Juice.
The jury found Florence guilty of the death of her husband, James Maybrick, and the court sentenced her to hang. One report said Judge Fiztjames Stephens believed women to be evil. He told the jury that “Mrs. Maybrick was an adulteress and that adulteresses by nature were likely to commit murder.”
After the sentence there was a public outcry that the presiding Judge James Stephen thought to have been hostile to Florence Maybrick. She won many people over in the dock and was only guilty of adultery and not James’ death.
The result of this uprising in her case kept Florence Maybrick from being hung by Henry Matthews, the home secretary and Lord Chancellor Halsbury. They concluded the evidence established that Mrs. Maybrick administered poison to her husband with the intent to murder. But there is ground for reasonable doubt if the arsenic administered did in fact cause his death. Instead, the sentence was commuted from hanging to life imprisonment for a crime she was never charged with.
Later found, a city chemist confirmed he supplied James Maybrick with quantities of arsenic over a lengthy period, and the search of Battlecrease House turned up enough arsenic to kill approximately fifty people.
In the 1890s, fresh evidence was publicized by those in support of Florence since she had no appeal afforded her. The Home Office refused her release even with the efforts of Lord Russell of Killowen, the Lord Chief Justice.
Newspapers took up covering the case on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean at a time when some men viewed arsenic as an aphrodisiac and tonic.
Florence served 15 years in prison. She left for America after serving her jail sentence and died in 1941, destitute. She spent some years at the Woking District Female Convict Prison. Florence remained there until 1896, and then authorities moved her to Aylesbury Prison, where she spent nine months in solitary confinement. Then she got moved to a different cell in this prison but under the structure of the silent system. The prison staff enforced silence at all times. After this, Florence Maybrick entered a third phase at this prison that involved hard labor. She could leave her cell at 6:00 a.m. and returned to it at 5:30 p.m. she had to watch ten four quart cans, scrub one twenty foot able and two twelve foot dressers, clean knives, wash a stack of potatoes and help serve the dinners and scrub a piece of floor twenty by ten feet. Based on the writing of her book.
In May 1896, Florence Maybrick became ill upon entering the prison infirmary. She stayed there for two weeks suffering from a feverish cold. She claimed it was from drafty cells, inadequate clothing and bedding. At the end of this, infirmary stay is when she got transferred to Aylesbury prison.
After Prison and The Children
Florence never saw her two children again. Florence and James, two children, James Chandler with the nickname ‘Bobo’ and their daughter Gladys Evelyn. They were raised by the family doctor. Her son died in 1911 after becoming a minor when he mistook a glass of poison for water.
Upon release from prison in January 1904, Florence had spent over 14 years in prison. She left for America, where she had lost her citizenship when she married James Maybrick. In the beginning, she earned a living on the lecture circuit talking about prison reform and protested her innocence.
Florence Maybrick wrote a book after prison as a memoir, ‘Mrs. Maybrick’s Own Story My Fifteen Lost Years.’
In the book, she described kneeling down beside her late husband’s bedside. To surmise, ‘Death had wiped out the memory of many things, I was thankful to remember. That I had stopped divorce proceedings, and that we had become reconciled for the children’s sake.’
With Florence’s marriage all but over, ending in divorce, she had little reason to kill her husband James. With the paltry amount that James left in his will to provide for Florence and their two children, she would have been better off with him alive to provide for them.
She goes on in her book about her time at Aylesbury Prison with her time in solitary confinement and then the cell where she waws under the structures of the silent system. This took a physical and mental toll on her. She claimed solitary confinement was the most cruel feature of the English penal servitude. She emphasised the desolation and despair, the hopeless monotony it led her to feel.
Florence goes on in her memoir that she had insomnia and frequent ill health she claimed was from the frequent shrieking and destruction of cells by weak-minded inmates in the night. This, she said, left her with quivering nerves and unable to sleep.
Some then and now assume that James was about to divorce Florence, which in Victorian society she would be ruined. Then there is the fact that she might have lost the children if they divorced.
Florence later moved to Connecticut using her maiden name of Chandler and spent some months unsuccessfully as a housekeeper. Then she moved to a three-room bungalow in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, a village in New Milford. Her only company was cats. A few residents discovered Florence Elizabeth Chandler’s true identity as Mrs. Maybrick and kept her secret.
Florence Chandler Maybrick died alone, penniless, on October 23, 1941, never seeing her children again.
The New York Times published Florence Elizabeth Chandler’s obituary at the top of page one the next day. Florence requested to be buried next to her dear friend Clara Duton in South Kent, Connecticut, on the grounds of the South Kent School.
When they examined Florence’s possessions, they discovered a tattered family Bible and a scrapbook with newspaper clippings of her life as Florence Maybrick.
References
Shirley Harrison, the author of “The Diary of Jack the Ripper,”
The 1992 book “Murder and Madness” by David Abrahamsen
Ms. Harrison and Paul Feldman, author of the upcoming book “The Ripper Confessions”
Paul Begg from “Ripperologist”
Ghostly Evidence in the Thomas Cornell III Trial
One of the oddest trials after the witch trials involved ghostly evidence. Thomas Cornell II, on trial for the murder of his mother, Rebecca.
Thomas was one child born in England to Rebecca Briggs Cornell and Thomas Cornell. Thomas Cornell III came to America with his parents at about age 11.
One of the oddest things about Thomas Cornell is his daughter, who married into Lizzy Borden’s family. Lizzy, known from the old children’s saying she gave her father forty whacks and her mother forty-one.
The story starts with Thomas’ father, husband to Rebecca Cornell. He moved the family. He left in his ‘Will’ the property of 100 acres and home in Portsmouth, Rhode Island for Rebecca to distribute to the children as she saw fit.
Thomas Sr., born in 1594 in Fairstead, Essex, England, married Rebecca Briggs, born October 25, 1600, in London. Middlesex, England. Thomas Sr. died in 1656. They married on June 9, 1620, at Saint Mary the Virgin Church in Saffon, Waldon, England.
Rebecca began doling out the acreage to the other siblings leaving her son Thomas III out. He lived with his first wife and second wife in the family home. While the house became crowded with the birth of Thomas’ children from his marriage with his first wife Elizabeth and his second wife Sarah Earle. Rebecca has a large room keeping the primary bedroom in the Narragansett Bay home.
These are important facts in the story of Thomas Cornell III that will became used against him at his trial.
The record of Thomas Cornells’ second wife, Sarha Earle, shows up about 1668. They had three daughters and children from Thomas’s first marriage. Records show them in the house Rebeca lives along with a few hired hands.
Events Before the Trial
The night of the incident that would put Thomas III on a deadly path. Rebecca was age 73 the winter night of February 8th,1673. Thomas sat with his mother for a long time talking. When he left the room, Rebecca was sitting near the fireplace in her room. She decided she would not go down to supper since mackerel was being served. She complained it made her sick to her stomach. Rebecca stayed in her room. Sarah, Thomas’s wife, sent one of Thomas’s sons from his first marriage to ask what Sarah might send to Rebecca since she did not eat with them.
Upon entering the room, Rebecca’s grandson Edward found her calling his father Thomas, rushed into the room followed by one of the hired hands, a Narragansett Indian named Wickopash, to find Rebecca dead and badly burned near the fireplace.
The fire had not spread further than Rebecca’s body. No one heard her scream, and not Thomas, Edward, the servant, officers or coroner suspected foul play.
Some reports claim that when Rebecca got found burned, they believed she may have dropped her pipe, and that sparked a fire on just her that did not catch the room or home on fire. That did not cause smoke to be smelled in other parts of the home to alert them.
The coroner’s panel declared the death as “an Unhappie Accident.” After the autopsy, corner William Baulston. Most would assume this would end the case of Rebecca’s terrible death. That is where they would be wrong. It was the beginning of what would send Thomas Cornell III to his death.
Local Newspapers
Newspapers filled with articles about the case, the rumors, those testifying and the hanging of Thomas Cornell III. One account is in old English that would make little sense to those reading a newspaper article today. It provided its readers with the death of Rebecca Cornell and the spectral visitation her brother claimed and testified to at Thomas’s trial. Without this evidence, the case against Thomas, Rebecca’s son, would not have faced trial for her death or convicted to hang.
The Evidence
Thomas’s trial, unlike most that have normal evidence to prosecute the accused. This was not a normal time in the northern state. Instead, people would never believe or use the evidence in a trial today.
Before the trial, there were rumors circulating involving domestic abuse, which might be normal in a case like this since Rebecca gave land to other siblings but not to Thomas, who lived there and worked the land. Other rumors that spread included witchcraft.
At trial, the rumors testified to by five neighbors supposedly spoke of Rebecca. One was George Soule, age 34, who said Rebecca wanted to live with her son Samuel. Soule said Rebecca told him Thomas III threatened his mother about moving with Samuel. He said Rebecca told him that she and Thomas had disagreements about rent. Sule said Rebecca told him Thomas III wanted money to build a house on the land.
The next testimony came from Jane Coggeshall, age 38, who stated she was told Thomas III carried himself unkindly to his mother. By detaining Rebecca’s rent and at age 46 was under his mother’s thumb.
Patience Coggeshall testified about Rebecca Cornell wept greatly to her and her sister Joane that she was sick and felt like a maid for her son Thomas, his wife Sarah. She told the Coggeshall women that she did not like Sarah because she once saw her chasing after one of her stepchildren with an axe. But Rebecca stopped Sarah from causing harm to her grandchildren.
Mary Almy, age 33, stated she witnessed many instances of Thomas being undutiful to his mother. She said Rebecca told her she got neglected and in winter months she would go to bed in an unmade bed, cold with no copper bed warmer. She would have to wrap herself in woolen cloth to stay warm. Almy said Rebecca told her she could not eat with the family because she was fasting. The older woman told her nothing, got brought to her when she was not fasting.
Nicolas Wild, age 73, said he agreed with the testimony about Thomas refusing to pay certain monies to his mother. He said Rebecca told him she got treated like a maid. She said she had been forced to go out in the snow for wood. He said she cried often because of her grief and troubles. His wife, Sarah Wild, also said Thomas III was cruel to his mother in a statement.
Rebecca told a neighbor that her son Thomas was a terror to her. If she had known Thomas’s first wife, Elizabeth, would die before her, she would never have made her estate and ‘Will’ over to Thomas.
Family Testimony
Mary Russell Cornell, wife of John Cornell, one of Rebecca’s sons. Said Rebecca confided in her. Chasing after pigs and doing hard work around the house made her weak and tired. Rebecca told Mary she had considered stabbing herself in the heart with her penknife, but she resisted because she would not satisfy the devil.
Rebecca Woolsey, the daughter of Rebecca and Thomas Sr., described a day that confided to her mother that after surviving smallpox she had suicidal thoughts about drowning herself or stabbing herself. She said her mother had told her to pray to God and trust. He would help her. That he helped her mother when she too wanted to make away with herself. When daughter Rebecca said she would tell her brother Thomas III about the struggles of her mother. Her mother pleaded with her not to tell her brother.
This testimony was bad enough, but there was more to come. Thomas III’s uncle and Rebecca’s brother brought the evidence that caused him to be found guilty.
The Dream
Rebecca’s brother, John Briggs, age 64, reported he had a dream with his sister Rebecca coming to him. It took him a week to report this spectral evidence or vague allegations about his nephew Thomas murdering his sister Rebecca.
This triggered a second inquest and the exhumation of Rebeccas’s body. Two physicians conducted a second autopsy. Henry Greenland and Simon Cooper exhumed and re-examined Rebecca’s body. They discovered a hole described as a heart hole and said it could have been made with a narrow, long iron spindle. Found a “suspicious wound in the body of the said Rebeca Cornell in the uppermost part of her Stomake.”
John Briggs testified on February 12, 1673. His sister Rebecca’s ghost appeared to him to say that her death was not an accident. He claimed she said to him, “I am your sister Rebecca Cornell,” and twice said, “See how I was burned with fire?” John Briggs said the apparition answered said “I am your sister Cornell” and then continued on to said twice “l was burned with fire.” Though he said the ghost never outright blamed Thomas.
Then on February 20, 1673, during Thomas III’s trial, John Brigs said he lay abed when a ghostly apparition appeared and said, “He was much affrightened and cried out in the name of God, what are you?” The apparition.
This evidence, along with the second autopsy and other evidence by George Soule saying Rebecca wanted to live with her son Samuel, was enough to put Thomas III on trial.
Jurors hearing this, combined with the testimony from the five and being superstitious along with the fact Thomas had been the last one to sit with his mother before supper the evening she died caused Thomas to be indicted for the murder of his mother.
Coroner William Baulston Testimony
The coroner, William Baulston who did the first autopsy. After Rebecca’s death, said Rebecca was deeply burned from the legs to the armpits.
He continued on to say that he and Joshua Coggeshall studied portions of the unburnt clothing and the burned clothing on her body. They declared that Rebecca had come to her death because of an unhappy accident of fire as she sat in her room. They assumed that since Rebecca was not fully engulfed by fire, her grandson, Thomas, and family members would recognize her clothing left even by candlelight since she would have a certain wardrobe.
Sarah Cornell Testimony
Sarah testified hoping to save her husband. She testified, basically accusing her mother-in-law of witchcraft. She, as well as her husband, made statements about God taking Rebecca’s life. Sarah included in her testimony something Thomas did not mention. She said when her stepson entered Rebecca’s door opening it, a great dog jumped over her stepson to alert them something was wrong. This black dog is an English superstition that she might have believed in it as an English immigrant. Sarah further testified that something evil was at work in the death of Rebecca, but Thomas had nothing to do with it.
Thomas III Cornell’s Testimony
Thomas testified he sat with Rebecca for about an hour and a half before going to supper. He said she refused to come and eat salted mackerel. Sarah asked her stepson, Edward, to go ask his grandmother if she wanted boiled milk for supper, thinking it might be easier to digest. Sarah was concerned about Rebecca keeping her strength up during the cold February Rhode Island winter.
Edward, upon entering Rebecca’s bedroom, screamed out for help. They found her body charred on the floor.
The border Henry Straite upon seeing Rebecca assumed it was a drunken Indian that had an accident or was attempting to break-in when the accident happened. Thomas recognized his mother.
He testified that his mother regularly smoked a pipe. He assumed it fell in her chair or was an ash or ember. While she slept, or was too slow getting up to save herself. Thomas said if she had been awake and caught fire from an ember or ash from the pipe or her fireplace, she would have screamed out. Thomas told the jury his mother wore cotton and wool, both flammable fabrics.
Thomas Teenage Children
Then Thomas’ teenage children testified with similar accounts as their border Straite.
The Prosecutor
The prosecutor focused on the room where Rebecca was found burned and dead. He questioned that the room had not burned, but there was a part of the bed curtain and bedstead, meaning part of the frame had slight burns. But the sheets and nothing else in the room showed signs of fire burns.
He further went on that Thomas killed his mother, causing as little damage as possible since he would inherit the home and furnishings. So he did not want them damaged.
The Sentencing
The trial began on February 21, 1673, and the last of the testimony happened on May 16, 1673. Then the jury found Thomas Cornell III guilty of the murder of his mother, Rebecca Cornell. Thomas was sentenced to hang for his crime at the gallows in Newport, Rhode Island.
Neighbors requested Thomas to be buried by his mother and father. That request got denied. Thomas’s execution is believed to have occurred on May 23, 1673.
Innocent Cornell
Shortly after Thomas was executed, his wife Sarah gave birth to a daughter. She named the child Innocent. Some assumed she named the baby Innocent as a form of protesting her husband’s guilty verdict in the death of his mother.
Innocent Cornell married Richard Borden. It would be their fourth great-granddaughter, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Borden, who would be put on trial for murdering her father and mother.
References
Rhode Island Historical Society (A Smithoian Affiliate)
Portsmouth Historical Notes
Elaine Foreman Crane Killed Strangely : The Death of Rebecca Cornell
[Providence, R.I.: Printed by William Goddard, 1764]
Find A Grave Innocent Cornell Cornell Borden
Find A Grave Rebecca and Thomas Sr. Cornell
Strange Company, “The Strange Death of Rebecca Cornell,”
Genealogical Publishing Co.; Baltimore, MD, USA; Volume Title: New England Marriages Prior to 1700, pg. 183.
Place: Boston, Massachusetts; Year: 1636; Page Number: 23; Rev. John Cornell, Genealogy of the Cornell family: being an account of the descendants of Thomas Cornell, Portsmouth, R.I., (New York: Press of T.A. Wright, 1902), pg. 17.
Genealogical Publishing Co.; Baltimore, MD, USA; Volume Title: New England Marriages Prior to 1700, pg. 183; John Osborne Austin, The genealogical dictionary of Rhode Island: comprising three generations of settlers who came before 1690: with many families carried to the fourth generation, (Albany: J. Munsellʼs sons, 1887), pg. 54.
Daniel Berkeley Updike, Richard Smith, rst English settler of the Narragansett country, Rhode Island, (Boston: Merrymount Press, 1937), pg. 93.
New England HIstorical Society online