Fiend (15 page)

What made Jesse so suspect was his highly unnatural sympathy for the Indians. “Jesse would watch us,” said Thompson, “but he thought it unfair that the Indians were always wiped out, while the scouts were victorious. He seemed to think more of the Indians than he did of the scouts. Simon Girty, I remember, was his hero. Jesse used to think it was a fine thing to be a renegade like Girty; to be the one white man in a great Indian tribe like the Shawnees; to have lots of squaws do all the work, while he sat around and discussed roasted venison. Then the fun with the prisoners of war! The running of the gauntlet, and the different modes of putting captives to death!”

Reports like these soon led to authoritative pronouncements—issued by assorted savants—that it was Jesse’s fondness for “reading cheap blood-and-thunder stories, particularly those about Indians and the way they torture prisoners” that “first put it in his mind to torture boys.”

One of the weirdest news stories on this subject appeared in the April 27 issue of the
Boston Herald,
under the following headline:

THE CHILD MURDER.

The Dreams of a Spiritual Medium on the Subject of the Tragedy— Pomeroy the Agent of Young Indian Devils Avenging Themselves on “the Whites”—A Theory Which Requires Time for Substantiation.

According to this article, a reporter for the paper—seeking to shed light on Pomeroy’s motivations—had sought out the advice
of a “thoroughly reliable trance medium.” This unidentified spiritualist had promptly put himself in touch with a mysterious “intelligence” that proceeded to reveal the following information through the medium’s lips:

The intelligence spoke of the recent event and, incidentally, of previous acts of violence committed by the youth Pomeroy. It said that . . . he was to blame and yet not to blame. The law would hold him guilty, but in another sense he was not responsible for the act. He was defective in his mental organization and lacked an appreciation of right and wrong, so that even in the commission of murder he would have no realizing sense of wrongdoing. If his parents had watched him closely in years past, they would probably have observed that he manifested an unnatural fondness for witnessing acts of torture and cruelty, like the excessive beating of horses and the like.

But this was not all that was said in explanation of the affair. Through this weakness, he had attracted about him a spiritual influence of an even worse type, so that in the present act of murder the boy was but the tool of a blood-thirsty and cruel band of spirits. To be more explicit, this band was composed of a number of wild and untutored Indian boys about a dozen years old, led on by another young savage of some seventeen years. Most, if not all, of them had within a few years been massacred by the whites in the far Western plains, and, having been educated to hate the “pale-face,” they had gathered about the boy (Pomeroy) and through him sought vengeance upon the oppressors of their people.

In evidence of the truth of this assertion, the intelligence called the writer’s attention to the published fact that the boy would dance around his victims, real Indian fashion, and seemingly delight himself as he saw the blood flowing from the wounds of the tortured captives.

Needless to say, the theory that Jesse was demonically possessed by a band of vengeance-crazed Indian spirits was bizarre in the extreme. Nevertheless, some of the medium’s comments were surprisingly astute—his observation about Jesse’s parents, for example, and their failure to note his early “fondness for witnessing acts of torture and cruelty.” The same point is commonly made by modern psychologists, who list childhood sadism as an early warning sign of what is now called “conduct disorder.”

Indeed, what strikes a contemporary researcher into the Pomeroy case is that—when it comes to understanding the root causes of sociopathic behavior—things haven’t progressed very much in the hundred-plus years since the “boy fiend” was on the prowl. We are still groping for answers, still putting the blame on violent popular entertainment, or neglectful parents, or innate propensities for evil. In fact, there are still people who insist that “the devil made them do it.”

In the end, the answer provided in a newspaper editorial that appeared on Friday, April 24, 1874, was as good as anything modern criminology has come up with. There was only one way to explain the atrocious deeds of Jesse Pomeroy, proclaimed the paper. The boy was “a moral monstrosity.”

20

Public interest in the tragic death of the child Horace H. Millen does not seem to abate, but, on the contrary, daily grows more intense.

—
Boston Post,
April 27, 1874

T
he growing notoriety of the Pomeroy case was demonstrated again on Monday, when the
Boston Evening Herald
ran an editorial pertaining to the Millen murder by the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous American preacher of the day.

Two days earlier—on Saturday, April 25—the little boy’s funeral had taken place. The plight of John and Leonora Millen—so poor that they could not afford a coffin for their four-year-old child—had elicited an outpouring of sympathy from the people of South Boston. The grief-stricken parents had been deluged with notes of condolence, many containing small sums of money. The Millens had also received a purse of $50 from John’s fellow-workers at Clark’s cabinet factory; while the police officers attached to Station Six had contributed an additional $150.

As a result, the Millens had been able to purchase a handsome casket for their child. Following the funeral service on Saturday morning, at which the Reverend Mr. Rand officiated, Horace’s body was transported by train to Wicasset, Maine—John Millen’s birthplace—for burial in the family plot.

It was the terrible ordeal of the murdered boy’s parents—and especially of Horace’s mother, who had been virtually prostrated by the tragedy—that inspired the editorial. The Reverend Mr. Beecher (who was himself at the center of a nationwide scandal at the time of the Pomeroy affair, having been publicly denounced as an adulterer by the flamboyant women’s rights crusader, Victoria Woodhull) based his article on a passage from
scripture, Hebrews 12: 11: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

The editorial itself—a kind of consolatory sermon, entitled “A Mother’s Sorrow”—begins with an evocation of the indescribable raptures of mother-love:

As the waters roll in on the shore with incessant throbs, night and day, and always, not alone when storms prevail, but in calms as well, so it is with a mother’s heart bereaved of her children. There is no grief like unto it—Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are not! With what long patience, what burden and suffering does the mother wait until the child of her hope is placed in her arms and under the sight of her eyes. She remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world.

Who can read, or, if he saw, could utter the thoughts of a mother during all the days and nights in which she broods the helpless thing. Every true mother takes home the full meaning of the angel’s word, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. The mother does not even whisper what she thinks, and the whole air is full of gentle pictures, every one of the background of the blue heavens.

The child grows; grows in favor of God and man—and every admiring look cast upon it, even by a stranger, sends light and gladness to the mother’s heart. Wonderful child! The sun is brighter for it! The whole earth is blessed by its presence! Sorrows, pains, weariness, self-denials, for its sake are eagerly sought and delighted in.

Beecher then delineates the crushing sense of grief and self-recrimination that overwhelms the mother when her cherished boy is suddenly snatched away from life:

The mother’s heart was like a heaven while it lived; now it has ascended to God’s heaven and the mother’s heart is as the gloom of midnight. Wild words of self-reproach at length break out, as when a frozen torrent is set loose by spring days. She that has lavished her life-force upon the child turns upon herself with fierce charges of carelessness, of unskill, of thoughtlessness. She sees a hundred ways in which the child would have lived but for her! All love is turned to self-recrimination. Tears come at last to quench the fire of purgatory. But grief takes new shapes every hour, till the nerve has lost its sensibility, and then she coldly hates her unnatural and inhuman heart that will not feel!

The editorial concludes on a note of solace that suggests the healing effects which the passage time—and the return to the mundane routines of everyday life—inevitably bring:

A child dying, dies but once; but the mother dies a hundred times. When the sharpness is over, and the dullness of an overspent brain is passed, and she must take up the shuttle again and weave the web of daily life, pity her not that she must work, must join again the discordant voices, and be forced to duties irksome and hateful. These all are kindly medicines. A new thought is slowly preparing. It is that immovable constancy and strength which sorrow gives when it has wrought the divine intent.

On the same day that this editorial was published, the inquest into Horace Millen’s death resumed at Police Station Nine. The session, which began shortly after lunch and lasted for about three hours, was held behind closed doors—a circumstance that led to a great deal of griping on the part of reporters. “Why the whole thing needs be shrouded in mystery is unaccountable,” the reporter for the
Boston Journal
complained; while his colleague at the
Evening Transcript
similarly questioned the purpose
of such “secretive sessions” and denounced them as “stupid proceedings.”

Not that the newsmen were the only ones excluded from the inquest on Monday afternoon. Even Jesse’s lawyers were obliged to leave the hearing room once the testimony began. Nevertheless, thanks to the persistence of the reporters, who (in the self-congratulatory words of the
Herald
’s man) “lingered about the premises for over three long and weary hours with their customary patience”—the papers were able to provide their readers with a summary of the day’s proceedings, gleaned from interviews with participants.

Altogether, the coroner’s jury heard testimony from the Powers brothers, Obed Goodspeed, and four other people who had been on the marsh the day of the murder. At least three of the witnesses positively placed Jesse at the crime scene. The casts of Jesse’s boot prints were also exhibited, along with the confiscated boots themselves, whose soles were shown to match their plaster counterparts point for point. In addition, the jury learned that Jesse’s double-bladed knife had been subjected to a microscopic examination, and that (as the
Herald
reported) “traces of blood were plainly distinguishable on the larger blade.”

The inquest concluded on the following day—Tuesday, April 28—with a four-hour session that commenced just after 2:00
P.M.
Another half-dozen witnesses were examined, all but one of them police officers involved in the investigation. The most significant testimony of the day was delivered by Detective James Wood, who described the confession Jesse had made to him after viewing Horace Millen’s corpse at Waterman’s undertaking parlor.

Following the testimony of the final witness—Officer Hood of Police Station Nine—the coroner’s six-man jury retired for its deliberation. They returned shortly after 7:00
P.M.
with the following verdict: “That the said Horace Holden Millen came to his death between the hours of eleven o’clock in the forenoon and five o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, April 22nd, 1874, from loss of blood and injuries received in the neck and chest, which injuries were produced by some sharp-cutting instrument. And the jury further find, from the testimony before them, that they have probable cause to believe said murder was committed by Jesse Harding Pomeroy.”

Jesse was returned to his cell to await his arraignment, which
took place before Judge Wheelock at the Highlands Municipal Court on Friday morning, May 1. With his lawyer at his side, Jesse pleaded not guilty. He was committed to jail without bail to await the convening of the Grand Jury.

Approximately one month later, at its June term, the Grand Jury found (in the words of the indictment) “That Jesse Harding Pomeroy, April 22, 1874, at Boston, in and upon one Horace H. Millen (age 4 years), feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, an assault did make; and that the said Pomeroy with a certain knife, the said Millen in and upon the throat, breast, hands, and belly of the said Millen, then and there feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought did strike, cut, stab, and thrust, giving to the said Millen then and there with the knife aforesaid in and upon the throat, breast, hands, and belly of said Millen diverse mortal wounds, of which said mortal wounds, the said Millen of the twenty-second day of April did languish and languishing did live and on the twenty-second day of April, at Boston, the said Millen of the mortal wounds aforesaid, did die.”