Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1885-12-23
MURDER MYSTERY CLEARED UP
A Thirty Years Secret.

General Butler, IN answer to many
recent inquiries, has cleared up great
murder mystery of forty years ago. On
the night of March 2s, 1S45, James L.
Parker, who was tax collector in Man.
chester. Y. H, was mysteriousiy
murdered. He had passed the evening
in a bowling alley adjoining his house,
and while there man rang the bell and
asked for Mr.. Parker, who responded In
person, borrowing lantern from the
proprietor of the bowling alley. After
some conversation they went away to-
gether, and no more was seen OF Parker
until his body was found near the edge
of some woods on the outskirts of the
town. His throat was cut from ear TO
ear. and there was deep cash in his
hip. Near the corpse was shoe knife
and a razor. Blood marks were also
found in each pocket except the one on
the left side of the trousers, IN which
the Coroner found a watch and a small
wallet containing three $500 bills, thlr-
teen SO and one S. bill. Five years
after Henry Wentworth and others were
tried for the crime and acquitted, but
the suspicion against the accused men
never entirely died out, and the stigma
has rested upon the Wentworth family
ever since. 4 descendant of the Went
worths recently begged General Butler
To make public any information he had
about the case. and in response the Cen
eral told the secret Of the murder,
which he has kept for more than thirty
years.
After referring 10 the trial, which
lasted for a month, General Butler says:
II had been of counsel prior TO and
after the trial for man who was
convicted of the murder of his wife
and two children. committed in VIII
mington in this State. That murder
was committed in a very singular man
ner. \ shoemaker's knife, ground to a
point. and a razor were left on the table
bv the woman'S bedside, and means
taken to have the murder appear a
suicide. That murder was not COM
mitted until some years after the Parker
murder, but before the investigation Of
the Parker murder, as that was not
tried until some five years after the deed
was committed.
Upon the trial of the Parker murder
il came out that the murder was COM
mitted with exactly such knife, and q
razor was left by the dead body. was
struck by the coincidence, as l had a
ground of suspicion against relative
of my Wilmington client, and the fact
WAS known that on the night Of the
murder of Parker, which took place be-
tween 9 and 10 in Manchester, \. H,
a wagon drawn by a white horse, with
two men in it, passed through Lowell
III the direction of Wilmington, and the
marks of the wheels of such wagon
were found in mud near the murdered
man. which wagon apparently drove on
in the direction of Lowell.
''As my client was about to be hanged
and it could do him no harm, questioned
him, assuring him that 1t should not be
used to his prejudice, as to whether OF
not he drove wagon that time down TO
Wilmington. He admitted that he did.
[ asked him who was in the wagon, and
he said he did not want 10 tel me. asked
him with what instrument II was done,
and he said with a shoe knife and razor.
] asked him what the razor had to do
with il. HWhy." he said. the man
might have cut his own throat with the
razor | asked him also what was done
with the 81, ,0G0 bill which Parker was
supposed to have in his pocket and
which never could he traced. He sad
there was 10 81. .000 bill taken from
Parker, and without remembering the
circumstances now, l questioned him
until was convinced that person had
in my mind was the man with him; but
as the Grand Jury found no bill against
my client, and as PieTsOn was hanged,
/ did not feel called upon 10 talk with
aybody about it, because L supposed
thtre was nobody so foolish now. as TO
belieSe that the WentwOrths had any
thing to do with the murder of Parker" "