Fiend (21 page)

Both the slaughterhouse story and Ruth Pomeroy’s own theory that her son had been poisoned by a smallpox vaccination represented only two of countless efforts to comprehend the mystery of Jesse Pomeroy’s actions. In the end, these efforts—which would continue for many months—weren’t especially productive. For the most part, they consisted of describing Jesse’s bizarre personality in the colorful, prepsychiatric lingo of the day: “moral malformation,” “horrible monomania,” “innate depravity,” etc.

Perhaps the most intriguing early comments on the Pomeroy case appeared on the editorial page of Tuesday’s
Boston Globe.
The piece, headlined “A Curious Case,” compared Jesse to a number of notorious figures, including Gilles de Rais—the fifteenth-century nobleman who reputedly butchered more than one hundred young boys and who is generally regarded as the model for the fairy-tale monster Bluebeard—and Martin Dumollard, a French lust-murderer responsible for the deaths of at least ten servant girls in the mid-1800s.

True, the editorial did not shed any new light on Jesse’s motivations. But it astutely placed him in the correct behavioral context—within that criminological category we now call serial sex-murder. (The editorial—published in July 1874—also makes it very clear that, far from being a uniquely contemporary phenomenon, serial homicide has always been a feature of human society.)

In the end, it was Jesse himself who offered what might have been the only possible explanation for his acts. Shortly after noon on Tuesday, he was visited by his lawyer, Joseph H. Cotton, who gave the boy a rundown of the previous day’s proceedings. Just before he departed, Cotton asked Jesse the question that was on everyone’s mind: Why had he killed Katie Curran? What made him do it?

At first, Jesse gave the same answer as always: “I do not know. I couldn’t help it.” Then, raising his right hand, he pointed to the side of his head and added: “It is in here.”

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I had heard of the loss of the Curran girl, but never suspected that Jesse had anything to do with her. I never saw anything in connection with Jesse that led me to think that he had done wrong, and never thought he had a propensity for doing wrong.

—Ruth Pomeroy

O
n Wednesday, July 22—four days after the discovery of her body and more than four months since she vanished from sight—Katie Curran was finally laid to rest. At approximately half past three in the afternoon, Undertaker Cole delivered the little girl’s encoffined remains to the home of her grief-numbed parents. Wishing to bury their child with as much dignity as possible, John and Katherine Curran had taken pains to keep the funeral a secret, particularly from the press. As a result, few people observing the mournful little cortege as it passed along the streets on its way to Holyhood Cemetery had any idea that it bore the pathetic remains of the “boy fiend’s” penultimate victim.

Only a few people were present at the burial site—Katie’s parents, a priest, and a handful of relatives and friends. The scene was so somber and hushed that Mrs. Curran’s heartbroken whimpers resounded through the graveyard as she watched her daughter’s white-painted coffin being lowered into the ground.

*  *  *

The solemnity of the funeral was in marked contrast to the tumultuous scene taking place simultaneously at Police Station Six, where the coroner’s inquest into Katie Curran’s murder was about to resume. Hoping for a glimpse of the infamous “boy fiend”—who was supposedly slated to appear before the jury—an enormous crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, clamoring for admission. They jostled and shoved their way into the building,
quickly filling up every available seat in the guardroom and occupying every inch of standing space in the outer offices and hallways.

Among those who managed to make it inside the room was the same “well-known spiritualist” who had announced that Jesse was controlled by a band of bloodthirsty Indian spirits. But the presence of this publicity-hungry charlatan was deemed to be so distracting to the jury that Coroner Ingalls demanded his removal before the proceedings began.

As it turned out—and much to the disappointment of the spectators—Jesse didn’t put in an appearance. Still, the afternoon’s proceedings—which lasted one and a half hours, beginning at 4:00
P.M.
—weren’t entirely without interest. Though the star attraction never showed up, the audience
did
get to witness the next best thing: the testimony of his mother, Mrs. Ruth Ann Pomeroy, who—by this time—had achieved nearly as much notoriety as her son.

She wore a plain, dark dress and a deeply careworn expression. Surprisingly, she showed none of her normal pugnacity, delivering her remarks in a low, even voice. Essentially, her testimony consisted of a string of denials. She did “not recollect seeing anything unusual” when she arrived at her shop on the morning of March 18, the day of Katie Curran’s disappearance. She did not “remember whether anyone was in the store” when she came in. She did not “recollect anything about Jesse on the 18th of March.” She “did not go into the cellar” until the following week. She “never saw anything that led me to think there was anything wrong in the cellar.” She “never to my knowledge saw this Curran girl.” She “never perceived any bad smells in the store that led me to think there was something wrong.” She “never knew of Jesse’s being in the cellar more than he ought to be, or saw any efforts made to conceal anything that might have been done.” She “never saw on Jesse’s clothing or on the floor of the cellar anything in the shape of blood.”

Jesse, she insisted, was a “good and clever boy, and never quarreled with his brother more than boys generally will.” She knew that he “carried a small knife” but always “trusted him, and never thought there was anything wrong.”

*  *  *

With her subdued, ladylike demeanor, Mrs. Pomeroy made a surprisingly favorable expression on the spectators, who were
expecting a harridan. The case was precisely the opposite with the next witness, her older son, Charles. Consistently portrayed in the papers as a model of youthful diligence, the sixteen-year-old boy turned out to be a sullen adolescent, who slouched in his seat, chewed on a toothpick throughout his testimony, and spoke with such careless indifference that Coroner Ingalls felt obliged to admonish him repeatedly that he was under oath.

Charles’s testimony, like his mother’s, was a litany of negation. He “didn’t recollect who opened the store” on the morning of March 18, nor did he remember “anything else about this day.” He “did not know where Jesse was, what he was doing, or whether he was in the store.” He couldn’t remember whether he “found the door locked that morning.” He “never smelled anything bad in the cellar, never looked behind the water closet, never thought Jesse had anything to do with the Curran girl, never saw any blood on his clothes, sleeves, or elsewhere.”

Two more witnesses spoke briefly after Charles. Sergeant Hood of Police Station Nine testified that—shortly after being arrested for the Millen murder—Jesse had hinted that he knew something about the missing Curran girl and was willing to reveal this information “if he could be sure that his mother would get the reward.” Next, one of Katie’s schoolmates, a little girl named Emma Lee, made a brief statement. Early on the morning of March 18, she had spotted Katie looking into a store window on Broadway, near D Street. Though the six-year-old was not officially sworn, her testimony was regarded as important for one reason: apart from the killer himself, little Emma Lee was the last person known to have seen the murdered child alive.

At that point—at around 5:30
P.M.
—the inquest was adjourned until Friday afternoon. Immediately following the conclusion of the day’s proceedings, Mrs. Pomeroy and Charles were escorted—not back to their second-story quarters—but to the Charles Street jail. Given the uproar that Jesse’s mother was capable of provoking in the local populace, the authorities felt it best—for her own protection, as well for the good of the community—to remove her from the neighborhood and keep her locked in a cell.

*  *  *

Immediately after the proceedings ended, a reporter for the
Boston Herald
sought an interview with Edward Mitchell, the man who had operated a little jewelry business directly adjacent
to the Pomeroys’ shop at the time of the murders. Mitchell’s comments, which focused mainly on Jesse’s relationship with Charles, revealed a pattern of sibling hostility that was considerably uglier than the benign teenage bickering their mother had described at the inquest.

According to Mitchell, the two brothers were constantly at each others’ throats. Mitchell had a particularly detailed memory of a vicious (though by no means atypical) fight that took place on April 22—the day of Horace Millen’s murder. Mitchell was still in his store at about half past nine that evening, removing his display goods from the window and storing them away in his safe, when he heard a squabble break out between Jesse and Charlie. There was nothing unusual about that—“quarrels between the two were frequent,” Mitchell explained to the reporter. On this occasion, however, their struggle turned especially violent. The two boys began “scuffling and tumbling against the thin board partition that separated the two stores.” Mitchell—“afraid that they might break through the partition”—left his shop and headed next door, intent on breaking up the fight. He had just reached the sidewalk when Charlie stormed out of the shop, dragging his younger brother by one ear.

“What the devil is going on?” Mitchell demanded.

Yanking himself free of Charlie’s grasp, Jesse turned to lash out at his big brother, who shoved Jesse so hard that the boy went crashing into Mitchell.

“What the hell are you doing?” Mitchell cried, pushing Jesse away.

“You son of a bitch!” Jesse shouted, turning his rage on the jeweller. “You are always putting your big nose in other people’s business.”

Infuriated at the boy’s insolence, Mitchell slapped him sharply across the face. Jesse, eyes tearing, dropped the older man’s lapel and whimpered: “My mother will have you arrested, you son of a bitch.” Then he turned on his heels and headed up Broadway.

Mitchell—so worked up that his voice quivered slightly—turned to the older boy and barked: “What in blazes are you two fighting for all the time?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie snarled. “There’s something the matter with him.”

Not long afterward, Mitchell—still shaken from the episode—
closed up his shop and bent his steps toward home. As he approached E Street, he spotted Jesse leaning against a building. As Mitchell walked passed, Jesse glared at him balefully, then immediately turned and started back down Broadway, in the direction of the shop.

There was so much malice in Jesse’s look that Mitchell—convinced the boy had mischief in mind—decided to follow him from a slight distance. Mitchell hadn’t proceeded very far when he spotted a neighborhood patrolman named Leighton on the opposite corner. Crossing the street, he told Officer Leighton about his troubles with Jesse.

“I am afraid the young ruffian means to return to my shop and break the windows,” the jeweller explained.

“I will go have a talk with him,” said Leighton, then headed after the receding figure of the boy.

Reassured, Mitchell continued home and went to bed. It wasn’t until the next day, when he read his morning paper, that he learned about Jesse’s arrest for the Millen slaying. Like everyone else in the neighborhood, Mitchell knew all about Pomeroy’s criminal history. Given his own, firsthand experience of the boy’s vile temperament, the notion that Jesse might be guilty of murder was all too easy for the jeweller to believe.

*  *  *

With Ruth Pomeroy sequestered in the Charles Street jail and removed from public sight, the violent, neighborhood protests incited by her presence came to an end. But nothing could stop the rumors that continued to spring up around her. A particularly sensational one made the rounds late Tuesday afternoon. According to this story (which did, indeed, have some basis in fact), Mrs. Pomeroy had been informed by Jesse’s lawyers that her son had finally made a full, highly graphic confession to the murder of Horace Millen.

The “essential particulars” of this statement were published in the following day’s edition of the
Boston Daily Advertiser:

On the morning of the 22 of April, Jesse rose early and went to the store, and afterwards went to the city, returning home about 9 o’clock. He remained at the store until 111
¹
/
₂
o’clock, when he told his mother he was going to the city. She gave her permission, and he went over to his mother’s house, where he remained a few moments, and then started for the city proper. He, however, went up Dorchester Avenue to Eighth Street, where he saw the little Millen boy, and immediately his evil genius got possession of him and he determined to torture him, if not kill him.

He asked the boy if he would like to see the steamer, and the boy said he would, and both started off in the direction of the marshes. When they arrived at the spot where the body was found, Jesse told the Millen boy to lie down, and the little fellow, not dreaming of his danger, did so. The young fiend then immediately sprang upon him, clapped his left hand over the little innocent’s mouth to stop his outcries, and then, with the same jack-knife that had but a month before been used to murder the unfortunate Katie Curran, the monster deliberately cut the throat of the little boy that had so implicitly trusted him.