A murder that scandalised Harvard and the world
Visiting Boston in 1868, Charles Dickens was asked what he wanted to see most. The room where it happened, Dickens said—by which he meant the scene of a grisly murder that had scandalised the city nearly two decades earlier. The crime had all the ghoulish ingredients of a potboiler: the sudden disappearance of a wealthy landowner and Harvard graduate, George Parkman (pictured); another Harvard man—John Webster, a professor of chemistry and mineralogy—as prime suspect; a dismembered body presumed to be the victim’s; a sullen janitor who supplied the anatomy laboratory with cadavers; and a trial reported in screaming headlines.
In “Blood & Ivy”, Paul Collins ushers readers into that fabled room—and the incestuously tight world of Brahmin Boston. That term refers to a nexus of privileged clans that included the Adams, Cabot and Lodge families. The Brahmins invariably went to Harvard, and in the foggy milieu that Mr Collins entertainingly evokes, suspect, victim, lawyers and many of the witnesses all came from that social subset.
Parkman vanished on the afternoon of November 23rd 1849. Despite a city-wide dragnet, the case hit a dead end until Ephraim Littlefield, a medical-school janitor who lived next to Webster’s college study, hacked his way into the vault under the professor’s rooms and unearthed a pelvis, thigh and lower leg—presumed to be the missing man’s. Webster was arrested and locked up to await trial. The mantle of privilege remained intact, however. While his cellmates dined on slop, the suspect had oysters and cream cakes delivered from Parker’s Restaurant.
The capital trial of a Harvard fellow was a sensation. Only one had ever been executed—George Burroughs, hanged for witchcraft in the 17th century. Though seating was sorely limited, some 7,000 spectators moved in shifts through the courtroom on the first day alone. The event spawned betting pools and merchandising (cough-syrup adverts played on Webster’s background in chemistry). Along with the theatrics, Mr Collins explains, the case was a landmark in the use of forensic science, and for the judge’s elaboration of the notion of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”. If, Lemuel Shaw, chief justice of Massachusetts, told the jurors, they “cannot say they feel an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty of the truth of the charge…the accused is entitled to…an acquittal.”
Although the United States Supreme Court re-examined that definition in 1994, the “Webster charge” remained the classic instruction for juries in Massachusetts until 2015. It is not a spoiler to say that the verdict was more controversial. After all, not only Webster’s life but Harvard’s reputation was at stake. Ivy, it appeared, was not immune to blight. “At such times,” Judge Shaw observed, “the glaze of civilisation and culture shows very thin in spots.”
一桩令哈佛和世界震惊的谋sha案
1868年访问波士顿时，查尔斯狄更斯被问到他最想看到的是什么。狄更斯说，在这个房间里，他指的是一场可怕的谋杀的场景，近20年前，这座城市让这座城市感到震惊。这一罪行有一锅炉的所有令人毛骨悚然的成分：一个富有的地主和哈佛毕业生乔治帕克曼（如图）突然失踪;另一位哈佛人——约翰韦伯斯特，化学和矿物学教授——作为主要嫌疑犯;被肢解的尸体被认为是受害者的;一个闷闷不乐的清洁工，为解剖实验室提供尸体;一项审判报告在头条新闻中。
在“血与常春藤”中，保罗柯林斯把读者带进了那个传说中的房间——以及波士顿婆罗门的亲密的世界。这一术语指的是包括亚当斯、卡伯特和洛奇家族在内的特权家族的联系。婆罗门总是去哈佛，而在这个模糊的环境中，柯林斯先生娱乐地让人想起，怀疑，受害者，律师和许多证人都来自那个社会群体。
帕克曼在1849年11月23日下午消失了。尽管有一个全市范围的法网，这个案子还是有了一个死胡同，直到在韦伯斯特大学研究的旁边，一个医学院的看门人，在教授的房间里，他侵入了他的房间，发现了一个骨盆，大腿和小腿——被认为是失踪的人的。韦伯斯特被捕并被关押等待审判。然而，特权的外衣依然完好无损。当他的狱友们吃着泔水的时候，他的同伴们在帕克的餐馆里吃了牡蛎和奶油蛋糕。
哈佛大学的一名学生的死刑判决引起了轰动。只有一个人被处死——乔治巴勒斯，在17世纪被绞死。虽然座位非常有限，但仅在第一天就有大约7000名观众通过法庭进行了轮班。这一事件催生了投注池和商品销售（在韦伯斯特的化学背景下播放的止咳糖浆广告）。柯林斯先生解释说，在戏剧表演的同时，这个案子是使用法医科学的一个里程碑，也是法官对“超出合理怀疑”的罪责概念的阐述。如果马萨诸塞州首席大法官莱缪尔肖对陪审员说，他们“不能说他们感到一种持久的信念，对指控的真相的道德确定性……被告有权……无罪释放。”
尽管美国最高法院在1994年重新审查了这一定义，但“韦伯斯特指控”仍然是马萨诸塞州陪审团的经典指令，直到2015年。说这一判决更具争议性，并不是一个搅局者。毕竟，不仅是韦伯斯特的生活，还有哈佛的声誉岌岌可危。长春藤似乎也不能幸免于枯萎病。“在这样的时刻，”肖法官评论道，“文明和文化的釉面显示出非常薄的斑点。”