Report of the trial of Leavitt Alley : indicted for the murder of Abijah Ellis, in the Supreme judicial court of Massachusetts / reported by Franklin Fiske Heard.
- Alley, Leavitt
- Date:
- 1875
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the trial of Leavitt Alley : indicted for the murder of Abijah Ellis, in the Supreme judicial court of Massachusetts / reported by Franklin Fiske Heard. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![found manure and shavings of a peculiar character, and the jury must assume that the person who killed Ellis cut him up and packed him in the barrels with the shavings and ma- nure. We go farther and find a piece of paper marked C. 0. D., M. SchouUer, 1049 Washington Street. This is a piece of circumstantial evidence; but does any one doubt that the per- son who came in possession of this paper killed Ellis and then packed him in the barrels ? We next go to Mr. SchouUer and find that the piece of paper went out of his possession in October, and we also find that Leavitt Alley had shavings from that shop, and used them for bedding at his stable on Hunne- man street. Then it is our duty to go to Leavitt Alley and find out wliat light he can throw upon these remains ; for we have not yet found out whose remains they are. Captain Sav- age goes to the house of Leavitt Alley, treating him as an innocent man, but for the purpose of ascertaining whose re- mains had been found. Did anybody ever hear of any person's being abused by Captain Savage in his long experience in the police service, or that he ever went outside his office to obtain evidence to convict an innocent man ? Nor does Captain Savage have associated with him men who are thieves or liars. They go to the house of Alley for the purpose of investigation, and with no view to extort a confession from him. Now we have the fact that a man has been murdered and his remains packed in manure and shavings. [The Attorney- General then produced the skull of Mr. Ellis.] One of the blows was given from behind with an axe. You will see that the blow was produced by the back of an axe, and the break in the back of the hat corresponds with the edges of an axe. I claim it is perfectly clear that Mr. Ellis was killed by an axe, as other blows upon the skull show. Whoever killed Ellis did it with premeditation, for men do not kill one another in self- defence with an axe, when the blow was given from behind. The next morning Alley came to the office of the Chief of Police, and, without being compelled to go, went to Cambridge and identified Mr. Ellis and also one of the barrels. Now the question is. Who killed him, and when and where was he killed ? In the first place it is well to ascertain when](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2103848x_0140.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
