The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-07-27
STRANGE CONFESSIONS.
Men Who Have Owned UP to Crimes
They Never Committed.

FROM W OnuefIul Events.
That man on the track, with every
nerve quivering, with every nerve
drawn to it's utmost tension, with the
pain increasing in intensity and vio-
lenCe, should confess himself the per-
petrator of crime is natural enough.
The prospect of relief from actual pain
is temptation that blinds the suf-
ferer to the future. But it may seem
strange. and is indeed one of the most
ineXplicable things in human history,
that men have been induced by re-
ligious eXhortations and other means
of persuasion to sign their own death
warrants by confessng crimes actual
ly never committed. Such in England
was the case of John Perry, executed
near Campden n 1861 with his mother
and brother, for numbering William
Harrison, steward for Lady Campden.
The testimony against them was chief
ly the confession of John Perry him
self, but, to the astonishment of all
Harrison. who had been kidnapped and
carried off, returned two years after
| the execution.
In 1912 a man named Russell Colvin,
living at Manchester. VT, disappeared,
| and suspicious of foul play We're en-
tertained. Public opinion attributed
his murder to Stephen and Jesse Boorn.
| Still. as there was no definite ground
on which to arrest them. the excite
ment gradually drew away. In 1919,
| however, a Mr.. BOorn dreamed that he
| had been murdered by two men, whom
| he fixed upon as his nephews, Stephen
| and Jesse. The ghost of the murdered
| man even specified the place of the
murder and the old cellar holes where
| the mangled body had been thrust.
| Here knife and buttons We're found,
which were identified as belonging to
| Colvin. On this the men were arrest
| ed. Stephen and COlvin had quarrelled
| just before the disappearance of the
| latter, and Stephen had been seen to
strike him with a club and knock him
| down.
In a short time Jesse confessed that
he and stephen, with their father, after
stephen knocked him down, had car
ried him to the old cellar and cut his
throat with a jackknife. He further
stated that the next year they made
away with most of the bones of their
| victim. stephen, after a time, admit
ted the truth of Jesse's confession. on
this they were convicted and sentenced
to be hanged on the 2Sth of January,
1920. They applied for communication
Of the sentence; and, as some believed
their innocence. advertisements We're
inserted in various papers for ColVin.
Not long afterward a letter appeared
i'm the New York Evening Post, signed
by a Mr.. Chadwick, and dated Shrews-
bury, n. j., Dec. 6, 1919, stating that
a slightly deranged man named Russell
COlVin had been there five years before,
This was generally looked upon as Il
hoax. but James Whelpley, of New
York, who knew Colvin, resolved to
follow up the Clew, and actually found
Colvin at the house of William Pol
hemus. at Dover, n. j., where he had
been since April. 1913.
Mr.. Whelpley took him to New York
the common council gave him means
to proceed to Vermont, and he arrived
at Manchester on Dec. %.
The whole place was i'm a state of
wild excitement People gathered in
from all the surrounding country to
see the dead alive. A cannon was
brought out and COlvin was saluted
with a discharge of cannon and small
arms, stephen Boorn firing the first
piece. There was much discussion as
to the motive for the confession, some
attributing it to the effect of imprison-
ment, a general sort of panic, terror
and others to the injudicious advice
and eXhortations Of a clergyman.