Posted on 01/28/2021 1:29:01 PM PST by CheshireTheCat
January 28, 1820 was the scheduled hanging-date for Stephen Boorn in Vermont, who was spared by the stroke of luck in one of the Republic’s seminal wrongful conviction cases. For all its vintage, it has a disturbingly current feel.
Stephen Boorn and his brother Jesse were farmers in Manchester living with their possibly feebleminded brother-in-law Russell Colvin when Colvin suddenly vanished in May 1812. Vanishing unexplained for weeks on end was actually an established behavior for this peculiar gentleman, so it was only gradually that suspicion of foul play accumulated. There was some bad blood known to exist between Colvin and his brothers-in-law; they had even been seen in a violent quarrel just before Russell Colvin disappeared (pdf). There were whispers, but never any real evidence.
And so weeks stretched into months, and then to years. Many years. Was it possible two neighbors of the good people of Manchester, Vt., had gotten away with murder plain as day and gone about bringing in their crops just like nothing happened?
The break arrived in 1819 courtesy of the brothers’ aged uncle Amos Boorn. Amos reported that Russell Colvin had appeared to him in a dream and accused his former in-laws of murder. Now a dream couldn’t be read in evidence, but it proved sufficient to re-open a cold case and endow the investigation with official “tunnel vision” so familiar to the staging of a wrongful conviction.
The other classic trappings of that scene followed anon: shoddy evidence, a jailhouse snitch, and even a false confession.
Once under the pall of suspicion, random events around the Boorns began to seem sinister. The dream-Russell’s accusation led to a cellar-hole being excavated, which turned up some random junk (a penknife, a button); was it Colvin’s random junk?...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
That one was kind of interesting. 8> Thanks.
You’re welcome. I often think that true crime tv channel should develop a series on murder mysteries that are more than a century old.
Deadly Women is an American true-life crime documentary-style television series produced by Beyond International Group and airing on the Investigation Discovery network. The series focuses on murders committed by women. It is hosted by former Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal profiler Candice DeLong and narrated by Lynnanne Zager.
Note: Before you ask: As far as I know Candice DeLong is of no relation to me. 8>)
There is just such a channel on youtube...British crimes only.
“They Got Aawy With Murder”
Link to:
“Anatomy of Murder: Burke and Hare, 1928”
Pretty good presentations.
I am familiar with her show. What I have in mind is a show that covers murders throughout many centuries and on different continents.
Yeah she does that. But only crimes committed by women.
Moral of the story: Don’t talk to the police. If you are innocent there is little good to come from it. If you are guilty...it’s the only way to get away with it.
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