John Webster
John White Webster (May 20, 1793 - August 30, 1850) was an American professor of chemistry and lecturer at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1849 he was accused of the murder of businessman George Parkman in the sensational Parkman-Webster murder case, one of the first cases in history in which forensic evidence was used to identify a body. Webster was found guilty and hanged in 1850.
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Biography edit
Webster worked at the Harvard University Medical College as a lecturer in chemistry, geology and mineralogy. He was regarded as a bad teacher, but was popular among students and known as "Sky-rocket Jack" due to his great interest in fireworks and regular pyrotechnic displays during his chemistry lessons.
In 1842, Webster, who had long-running financial problems, borrowed $400 from wealthy businessman George Parkman, an acquaintance of his. He repaid the loan in 1847, but the following year he borrowed $1, 200 from another acquaintance who he gave as collateral a mineral cabinet which he had already promised Parkman as collateral, enraging Parkman.
On November 22, 1849, Parkman went to Webster's workplace and demanded that he be given money from the sale of Webster's lecture tickets to pay off his debts. The following day he was contacted by Webster and agreed to meet him at the medical college at 1:30 p.m. that afternoon to discuss the debt. At 1:45 p.m., Parkman was seen for the last time arriving at the college. Later that day, Harvard University janitor Ephraim Littlefield attempted to clean Webster's rooms but found the doors locked and heard the sound of running water. Parkman did not return from the meeting and was reported missing the day after.
Over the next few days multiple anonymous letters were sent making various claims about Parkman's fate. Webster claimed that he had met Parkman and paid back the debt in full. However, he soon garnered suspicion from Ephraim Littlefield by asking him odd questions; for example, he asked him several strangely specific questions about if he had seen Parkman on the campus after the time of the meeting or at Webster's rooms. He also asked a number of strange questions about the college's dissecting room. Littlefield began watching Webster closely and on November 28 saw him arriving at the college early and moving between the furnace and fuel closet eight times before igniting the furnace. Suspicious, Littlefield began chiselling through the wall into the furnace, finally breaking through on November 30 and finding a burnt human pelvis and some leg bones. The police were called and removed a number of bone fragments from the furnace. Webster was arrested on suspicion of murder and unsuccessfully attempted suicide by poisoning himself with strychnine.
On December 1, a coroner's jury was assembled to examine the scene. Several more bone fragments were recovered from the furnace, including a jawbone with false teeth, and odd acidic stains on the floor were tested and established to be copper nitrate, which is effective for removing blood. A chest from which emanated a foul smell was opened and found to discover an armless and decapitated human torso which Parkman's family identified as his due to its unusual hairiness and markings on the lower back and near the penis. From the discovered remains it was established that the victim was likely around 5'10'' tall, the same height as George Parkman. The inquest declared that the body was George Parkman and he had been murdered and dismembered by John Webster.
Webster was defended at trial by Edward Sohier and Pliny Merrick, with his main defence being that the body could not be proved to be that of Parkman. On the second day of trial the head of the medical college's dissection department testified that none of their dissection specimens were of the same proportions as the remains found in the furnace. Parkman's dentist testified that the dentures fitted in the recovered jawbone fit exactly into a plaster mould he had made of Parkman's jaw. A police officer who had examined the scene told the court that the torso found stuffed in the chest did not fit in the furnace, unlike the remains that had been burnt in the furnace. The court was told of Webster's debt problems with Parkman, with Webster being forced to admit that he could not explain where he had got the money with which he claimed to have paid off Parkman. Three anonymous letters in Webster's handwriting making different claims about Parkman's fate were shown to the court. Webster's defence attempted to cast doubt on the identity of the remains, with a dental expert testifying that a number of dentures he had produced would fit perfectly into the dental mould used earlier in the trial. However, Webster undermined his defence while testifying on his own behalf by attacking his lawyers and presenting a wildly different interpretation of the evidence.
On March 30, 1850, Webster was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to death the following day. An appeal claiming that the judge presiding over the trial had been biased against Webster was denied and he was hanged at Leverett Street Jail on August 30. Shortly before his execution he produced a statement in which he admitted to killing Parkman during an argument over the debt.