Preview
Creation Date
1850
Description
Clockwise from left:
Report of the Trial of Prof. John W. Webster: Indicted for the Murder of George Parkman. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Company, 1850.
KF 223 .W4 S7 1850
Trial of Professor John W. Webster for the Murder of Doctor George Parkman. New York: Stringer & Townsend ... printed at the Globe Office, 1850.
KF 223 .W4 N3 1850
Report of the case of John W. Webster ... indicted for the murder of George Parkman ... before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850.
KF 223 .W4 B3 1850
The Parkman-Webster murder case was one of the first in the U.S. to allow scientific evidence as testimony and the first to allow dental evidence. Dr. George Parkman, a well-known man from one of Boston’s richest families, suddenly vanished in November 1849. A week later a janitor at Harvard Medical College found dismembered and burned body parts hidden in the laboratory of chemistry professor John Webster. Webster had owed Parkman money from a loan, and Parkman had begun pressuring Webster to repay him. Webster was arrested for the murder and was found guilty. He was publicly hanged in 1850.