Show MYSTERIES riddles that nut still puzzle pun lip here her and abroad fofi the murder of dr parkman NE of the most appalling murdeth murders 0 ONE ever committed in ID the united states was that of dr george parkman one of the wealthiest and best beat known citizens of roston boston by dr john W webster a professor of chemistry at harvard university and a lecturer in the At medical edical college in doston boston tills this was a remarkable case not cot only because of the reputation of 0 the murderer but also because of the mystery as to why a man of such marked intellect and of such high standing in his bis community and his profession should have been guilty of the crime for which he was executed there 1 Is no question that doctor webster deserved ills his fate for the only excuse he had to offer was that of an ungovernable temper hut but the records of crime contain few cases even remotely approaching this reversion on to the brute by a man who was educated cultured culture 4 and refined in the extreme doctor parkman the murdered man was one of the founders of the massachusetts chu Il medical edical college and it was through his influence that doctor webster was chosen as a lecturer on chemistry at that institution at the time doctor parkman was a man of sixty years of age with the most punctual of habits accordingly when he did not return home one day at his usual hour his family became alarmed but no attempt at a detailed search was made until the following morning while it was almost a week before any definite clew was nas located it then became known that the missing man had lind an appointment with doctor webster on tile the day he disappeared hut but as doctor webster himself informed the police of tills this fact no further importance was attached to it until it was discovered that doctor parkman had loaned webster money upon two to occasions and that the men had had several quarrels over the d debts ita doctor webster was finally taken into custody charged with at least a guilty knowledge of the crime and finally broke down and confessed saying ne he called me a scoundrel and a liar and continued to heap the bitterest taunts and epithets upon he showed me a letter cengr condrat at elating him in securing my appointment as professor of chemistry and he be fairly shrieked 1 I was the means of getting you your position and now I 1 1 vi I ill get you out of it then the doctor began heaping more throats threats and invectives upon me at first ni st I 1 tried to pacify him but it ms vi hs of no avail I 1 forgot everything and feeling nothing but the sting of his words became excited to the highest cl igrec gree of passion pasion when he thrust ills his fist into my face I 1 seized a heavy stick of f wood and struck him anith all the force that passion could lend me in his confusion doctor webster told how the horror of his crime suddenly hashed flashed upon him and in a wild attempt to conceal the evidence of the murder he removed the clothing from tile body of the dead man and burned it lie ile then dismembered the body and ds disposed posed of it in a number of maxs bel bc levIng that he be had hidden all traces of the murder but in spite of ills 1319 skill as a chemist lie he was unable to mile all portions of the body ant and a sufficient amount of the re malna enins were found to furnish the clew that led to his arrest and subsequent confession so plain were the facts in ili the case and so clear w was as doctor websters statement of the manner in which he be had acted that no attempt was made even to secure a reprieve in full view of the college where he be had ti on a scaffold erected only a short distance from the hou house se in tile the murder had bad been committed doctor john white webster paid the full penalty demanded by the law but an examination of the police annals of two continents fall to reveal an instance where a man of similar culture and education permitted self to be oer come by his passions to tile the point of becoming a murderer murder ir particularly since there was no excuse of his being under the influence of drugs or liquor in fact as one of the famous criminologists has hag stated the cuore we study the details of the barkman murder the more difficult it becomes to solve the mystery of the human emotions or to present tiny any clear analysis of the reasons for mens instinctive actions t U by the th wheeler syndicate |