Beating the Devil's Game: A History of Forensic Science and Criminal by Katherine Ramsland Page A

jurisprudence were watching European developments and pressing for higher standards in their courtroom testimony. A trial that gained a great deal of notoriety involved physicians, anatomy experts, and dentists on both sides.
    Among Boston’s wealthy Brahmins in 1849 was George Parkman, near sixty years old. On Friday, November 23, he went out to collect his rents and never returned. He was last seen that afternoon at Harvard Medical College, where he had gone to call on Professor John Webster, who owed him money. Webster later claimed that he’d paid it and Parkman had left, but no one came forward to say they had seen him leave the building. Police searched the place, but found nothing to incriminate Webster.
    His uncharacteristic behavior during the subsequent week alerted the building’s janitor, Ephraim Littlefield. He drilled through a wall into the pit for Webster’s privy—the only place in the building not searched. Once he broke through, he spotted human remains: a pelvis, a dismembered thigh, and the lower part of a leg. In short order, the police arrested Webster and searched the lab again. In a tea chest, they discovered a human torso and a dismembered thigh, while in the furnace lay charred bone fragments and a jawbone with artificial teeth that had not burned.
    With so little to work with, it was difficult to determine the identity of the victim. Mrs. Parkman identified the body as her husband’s from markings near the penis and on the lower back, and Parkman’s brother-in-law confirmed that it was Parkman via the hirsute torso. Subsequent searches in the lab and office produced bloody clothing belonging to Webster.
    Since they were already at a medical college with good facilities for the examination of a body, the investigators laid out the various body parts, tested them, and wrote thorough descriptions. By the end of the day, they had estimated the man’s height to have been five feet ten inches—a match to George Parkman. The inquest jury pointed out that the two thighs found were different sizes, and the coroner patiently explained to these laypeople that one had been exposed to fire and the other was waterlogged from the privy. They could still be from the same person. The inquest and grand juries both ruled that John Webster should be tried for the murder of George Parkman. Judge Pliney Merrick and Edward Sohier defended Webster when the trial began on March 19, 1850, with Judge Lemuel Shaw presiding.
    Attorney General John Clifford described how he believed Parkman had been killed, his skull fractured, and his various parts cut off and burned or dumped into a toilet. Dr. Jeffries Wyman, an anatomist, drew a life-size skeleton showing which parts of the body had been recovered and how they fit a frame the size of Parkman’s. He said that in the furnace he had found bones from the head, neck, face, and feet, and he used actual bone fragments to demonstrate how they fit together.
    Drs. Winslow Lewis and George Gay both helped to clarify the medical issues involved. Lewis, who was a former student of the defendant’s, used Wyman’s anatomical drawing to demonstrate the body’s various parts, how they fit together, and how they had been affected by the attack. He said that there was an opening in the thorax region that might be a stab wound, but on cross-examination he admitted that he could not be certain.
    By the third day, it was clear that the prosecution was relying heavily on scientific medical testimony, which was a boon for American medical jurisprudence. First, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, dean of the Medical College, took the stand and said that someone with knowledge of human anatomy and dissection had done the dismembering. He also explained that a wound between the ribs would not necessarily produce a lot of blood, and that the remains were “not dissimilar” to Parkman’s build—a careful sort of statement that would set a tradition followed even to the present day.
    Then Dr.