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Subject: [GM-L] Maria L. Crue Murdered, 1880 at Groton - Boston Herald Story Part 2
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2002 19:57:35 EST


The Crue Murder Case
Boston Herald March 19, 1885
Thursday
The criminal annals of America and of all the civilized nations of the world
present, with a
master hand on the canvass of life, phrases of individual character which are
subjects of
most profound study on the part of students of human nature, speculative
social philosophy and those interested in any degree in the problem of
sociology.

There is in the Massachusetts State Prison today a person whose nature and
disposition
are such as would attract the attention of the author of the Jukes and to
which he would
give the closest scrutiny. That individual, Stearns Kendall Abbott one of
the most remark-
able trangressors of the law of his time.

He is possessed of great audacity, marvelous ability as a perverter of the
truth, and a wonderful faculty to adapt his outward bearing and conversation
to his immediate surround-
ings. He can be very religiously inclined in the presence of one of the
cloth, can pray well
when prayed with and can swear like a trooper when so inclined, that is, if
it be politic so to
do. In fact he is a versatile man; quick witted beyond the ordinary, and not
at all slow to
perceive a point to his advantage, and to make full and complete use of it.
He is also endow-
ed with more than ordinary mechanical ability.

As people are generally aware, he is serving a life sentence in the state's
respository for
dangerous men, for the murder of Mrs. Maria L. Crue on January 17, 1880. The
particular
interest that attaches to him at this time is the question of his innocence
of this crime, which
has existed, in greater or lesser degree, since the day his name was first
connected with it,
and which, of late, has assumed such proportions as to attract considerable
attention on
the part of the public.

The Theory of His Innocense

was first given being by members of the Massachusetts district police. These
gentlemen
were not connected with the working up and development of the case against
Abbott, and
from the time of his arrest and arraignment on charges of having committed
this murder,
they have been more or less active in agitating it. They claim the credit of
bringing about
the commutation of the sentence of death passed on Abbott to imprisonment for
life, by
impeaching the testimony, as they maintain, of one of the witnesses in the
case, Jennie
H. E. Carr; but it will be seen by carefull consideration of the evidence
that she was not
impeached and it was not in her testimony alone that the question of Abbott's
guilt
depended.

The evidence on which he was sentenced to be hanged was gathered by Detective
Samuel
Reed of Ayer [Mass., once a part of Groton], who is an officer of many years'
experience.
He is one against whose ability and integrity not a word can be said. It
will be seen by his
presentation of the testimony herewith and the manner in which it was
obtained, and information learned since the conviction of Abbott and the
commutation of the sentence of
death to imprisonment during natural life - that unusual precautions were
taken to test
the strength of the evidence against him. It would be difficult for those
who believe in the
innocense of Abbott to designate a case of any kind wherein evidence against
a criminal
was put to such crucial examination before his arraignment on a charge by the
officer interested in developing it as did Mr. Reed in this instance. He
took almost unheard of care
that the evidence should be up to the highest standard of truth. He did not
give the witnesses an opportunity to allow their imaginations to run riot,
even if they had personally
desired to stretch their knowledge of the affair. The evidence incriminating
Abbott justified
his conviction, it must be presumed. The theory of his innocense now hangs
on questions
of time, identification, whereabouts and whether or not Mr. Crue, the husband
of the
murdered woman, hired a certain man who is alleged to have been seen with him
on the
afternoon of the murder, and who is claimed to be know to kill his wife.

To be continued Part 3.
Transcribed from the photo copies of the Boston Herald, March 19, 1885/

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