Sketch of Frank Ruttan from the Watertown Re-Union, 1876. Printed with permission from the Watertown Daily Times.
The Re-Union on December 9 said:
In the minds of the medical gentlemen who made the postmortem examination yesterday, there is no doubt at all but the girl was brutally murdered. They think that she was first struck the two blows spoken of, and that then the murderer, finding his work not quite complete, finished it by strangling her to death with her scarf. The marks on the neck, and the lungs being gorged with blood, are evidences too plain to be mistaken that the poor child died by strangulation. Neither of the blows upon her head and face would have produced death. Her tongue, when she was first found, was protruding from her mouth, which is another evidence of strangulation.
More specifically, the medical examiners, Drs. Trowbridge, H.M. Stevens and R.A. Stevens, found that the bone on the outer edge of the upper right eyelid had been crushed in a severe downward blow, obvious lines were found around her neck along with discoloration indicative of strangulation, finger nail scratches covered her left and right hands and wrists, as if someone had dug into them and held on tightly, her face was considerably swollen, and her lungs were profusely engorged with blood. The theory, before Ruttan gave a sworn statement, was that the boy saw Sarah leaving school that fateful day from the loft of the barn at Humphrey’s, which commanded a view of the school and the woods nearby. It was supposed that he decided then and there to corner her and pay her back for speaking poorly of him.
The Watertown Re-Union said:
It appears that about a year ago, he sought to ravish the girl Sarah Conklin, but was repulsed. It is claimed that he also made a similar attempt upon the person of a little girl of Mr. Humphrey’s. These girls, when in company, used to shame young Ruttan, and his anger was fiercely kindled against them. The story of his attempts had got abroad, and the boy frequently threatened to punish the girls for their taunts and scorn of him. One day he saw [Sarah] at dinner and he said to a hired man on the place that he wished it was arsenic that she was eating. He is now said by the whole neighborhood to be a very sulky and vicious boy. He had frequently made threats of personal violence towards the girls.
For these transgressions, Mr. Humphrey gave Ruttan “very severe thrashings, and threatened him that if ever he caught him at such attempts again, he would thrash him within inches of his life.” Thus, Ruttan had another motive: the need to make sure that Sarah would never implicate him, or else Humphrey would make good on his vow to thrash him within inches of his life. In other words, once he decided to lie in wait for his young victim, he crossed a line that left him with no choice but to permanently silence Sarah Conklin or face “the wrath of Mr. H.” The medical examiners believed that Sarah had been knocked down by an initial blow to the head, followed by a stronger blow that broke her cheek bone. Rising from the ground, she may have then spit the blood out of her mouth, as the crime scene seemed to indicate. Then, as Ruttan turned to go, Sarah struggled to her feet and passed between two trees, leaving more blood on them. The killer’s footprints found at the scene indicated that he turned around, probably when he realized she had gotten up, and he returned to finish the job, strangling her with her own scarf. The medical examiners concluded that she had not been raped, but the torn button hole on her drawers suggested that Ruttan may have attempted to ravish her. According to the Ogdensburg Daily Journal of December 10, 1875, the jury from the coroner’s inquest returned a verdict of “death from blows on the head from a club, and strangulation inflicted by one Frank Ruttan, on Tuesday, 30th day of November, with the premeditated design of effecting the death of the deceased.” Frank Ruttan would be charged with murder in the first degree.
While in jail in Watertown awaiting trial, Ruttan made a confession in December 1875, which was kept hush-hush—at least until the press got wind of it in February 1876. First, the Journal & Republican said, “Efforts are being made to keep the confession secret.” Then, the Daily Journal chimed in, saying, “The Watertown Times is roasting the persons who have received the confession of Frank Ruttan who murdered Sarah Conklin, and are keeping it to themselves. If their object is to make money out of their knowledge of the young wretch’s crime, they deserve to be roasted.” The confession was made to a police officer, Miles Guest, the arresting officer who took Ruttan to jail. He said he had spoken to the boy on the day of his arrest and again on December 4, when he took him to Hart’s Photography Gallery to have his picture taken. He said the boy offered to write out his confession, if Guest would provide him with paper, which the officer did. On December 10 or 11, Guest received the confession, which simply said:
December 9, 1875
She called Me a Fool and i thought i would pay her for it. And i saw her coming From school and i run acrossed And she started to run And i throw a stick and hit her side the head. [sic]
Frank Rutan [sic]
Two months later, a more detailed second confession was made to Deputy Sheriff Babbitt. The following verbatim admission of guilt was quickly printed in the Watertown Times and the Re-Union in its entirety—and it was just as quickly rejected for its lies:
About a week before John Allen went away, he came to town and got a pint of whiskey, and left some there in the bottle when he went away. What was left in the bottle the day of the murder, I drank. Bertie Van Slyck told me that she (Sarah Conkling) [sic] had been calling me names. He told me the next night after John Allen went away. I stood in the alley way of the barn after throwing down the hay and looked out. I saw her near the barn by the school house. She was not in the lot. I went out the alley door and under the bridge. I went right close to the orchard fence and came back the same way. She got into the woods before I did. I asked her what she had been saying such things about me for. She didn’t make any reply, but started to run. I ran after her with a stick in my hand. I don’t know whether it was the stick shown at the coroner’s inquest or not, for I didn’t see that, but the one I had was a good, solid maple stick with a knot on it. I was about five or six feet from her when I threw it. I hit her on the right-hand side of the head. She dropped where she stood, and lay. She began to shake, and then got up and staggered along. Then I went to her again and tightened the scarf on her neck. She kicked, and tried to untie the scarf. I didn’t mean to kill her when I hit her with the club, but she looked so that I was afraid she would go home and tell of me, and they would do something to me, and so I went back and killed her. I didn’t stay more than five minutes after I tightened the scarf. I fed the turkeys before I left the barn. I shut the grain barn door, but didn’t fasten it. I had on a coat over my frock. I didn’t get any blood on me. I was scared about what I had done that night after I got back to the barn.
First of all, John Allen told the Watertown Morning Despatch that he never had any liquor with Ruttan at Mr. Humphrey’s, and that if he had left a pint of liquor when he left there two weeks before the murder, anyone who knew Ruttan knew that the liquor would never last a full two weeks. Secondly, the confession contradicted the boy’s earlier statements in which he said he killed her with a blow to the head and didn’t strangle her. The Watertown Re-Union of May 18, 1876, took special issue with how the scarf was found wrapped around the girl’s neck, reminding readers of earlier statements made regarding same:
The little fiend then went to her, held her down to the ground and choked her until she was quiet, and then drew her scarf about her neck as tight as he could, and tied it in a hard knot! He then left her, and followed his track back, as the theory of the prosecution claimed, part of the way walking on his heels and part of the way on his toes, as the tracks indicated…If the person who cut the scarf from the girl’s neck after she was carried home, and after nearly all her clothing had been removed and efforts were being made to restore her life, will recall that fact, and the effort to get it off which resulted in cutting, he will remember it was tied in a hard knot. The liquor is a pure lie. This is one of the most atrocious murders ever known, and
we only regret that the cold-blooded villain still breathes but will not tell the truth about his horrible crime.
In defense of Ruttan, Dr. H. M. Stevens said he had been with Mr. Conklin and the others when they attempted to fit Ruttan’s boots into the footprints in the snow several days after the murder, and he “thought it was not an accurate fit,” according to his sworn testimony at the trial. He said the shank of the boot appeared longer than the footprint. To make matters worse, Sarah’s teacher had taken thirteen of her students to the scene of the crime the day after the murder, and the oldest boy in the group was fifteen years old, meaning that the footprint that seemed (to Dr. Stevens, at least) to be smaller than Ruttan’s could well have been the student’s footprint rather than the damning evidence needed to prove Ruttan’s guilt. Another young man who visited the scene of the crime the morning after the murder when Messrs. Warner and Conklin were there said that he saw no club or stick that day. A.W. Hardy said that it was not until two days after the murder that he first saw an alleged assault weapon. It was a stick his brother found in the woods and was carrying toward Conklin’s house. It was about twenty inches long, partly rotted—it probably would have crumbled with the slightest impact—and there was a little spot of reddish-brown on it, in an indentation in the wood. Hardy said he was certain the reddish-brown coloring was from natural mold and not blood. The testimony of these men and others made the jury’s job more difficult. Had Ruttan been set up? Had evidence been tampered with? It certainly seemed possible. Then why would Frank Ruttan confess to such a heinous act? In a word, intimidation.
It was disclosed during the trial that Mr. Conklin, the grieving father of the victim, had coerced a confession out of the boy by what some would consider strong-arm tactics. You can’t really blame him, after what he had just been through—seeing his little girl laid to rest—but his actions could have meant the difference between charging Ruttan with first-degree murder or second-degree murder—life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Hiram Hungerford told the court that he went to the jail shortly after Ruttan’s arrest with Mr. Conklin, Mr. Penniman and a Mr. Kitts to talk to the prisoner. After careful consideration, the judge allowed Conklin’s statements to Ruttan to be admissible in court.
According to Hungerford:
The prisoner was standing in the corridor; Mr. Conklin said to the boy, “You had better confess, for we have the evidence to prove you guilty;” then he said, “I guess we may as well hang you now as any time,” and looked up; Guest [the police officer who arrested Ruttan] said, “Hold on, that won’t do.” Tears came into the boy’s eyes; that was the only time I saw him show emotion; Conklin told him he’d better confess, that he had the evidence to convict him.
W.M. Penniman’s sworn testimony corroborated Hungerford’s story. He said he went to the jail with Conklin, Hungerford and Kitts four days after the murder, and that Conklin told Ruttan he’d better confess and mentioned hanging him. He, too, said the boy began to cry at the threat. Mr. Kitts was then questioned in court regarding the incident. He said that Conklin said, “Here’s a good place to hang him, better hang him up here,” and he agreed with Hungerford that Conklin told the boy he had evidence to hang him.
Postcard of courthouse in Watertown, New York. Copyright 1905 by the Rotograph Company.
On Saturday, May 6, 1876, Frank Ruttan was found guilty of murder in the second degree. When Judge Merwin asked if he had anything to say before his sentence was imposed, he looked down, and his lawyer, Mr. O’Brien, replied, “He don’t wish to say anything.”
With that, Judge Merwin said:
The verdict of the jury in this case indicates that they were satisfied that you killed this girl, and it is a terrible matter to contemplate that a boy of your age should have had the hardihood to accomplish a purpose of this kind. And it is certainly a lesson to all who are evilly disposed that should come home with a great deal of force. What your motives could have been we can only imagine, because there is no adequate motive that appears in this case. The motive must have rested in your heart and certainly could not have been more evil. In the place where you are to be sent, you will be kept at labor. You will have time to contemplate and review your action here, and it is the desire of the court that you should do so, and certainly to shape your thoughts and feelings in such a way that you may grow up a better man than you are a boy. There is certainly opportunity, and will be opportunity, no doubt, for you to improve and to be educated to some extent, so that your intellectual powers may be more or less developed. How much of happiness there may be for you in this world is a matter of doubt. You have by your actions brought yourself to this point. The sentence of the law is that you be imprisoned at the State prison at Auburn at hard labor during the period of your natural life.
The Watertown Re-Union of May 11, 1876, said that Ruttan handled his fate with the same apparent indifference as he had displayed before he was sentenced. It also said that, when asked what he thought of his sentence, “he hung his head like a roguish school boy, and half smiling replied, ‘I don’t know.’” The paper, in its final word on the matter, said, “He will be taken to Auburn probably by the middle of the week. And how many people, in ten years’ time, will remember Frank Ruttan?”
CHAPTER 5
GEORGE POWELL’S PROBLEM WITH WOMEN
STERLINGVILLE, 1876
On a chilly afternoon in March 1876, Julia Powell came in from outside to remind her hired girl, Barbara Zaphf, to add carrots to the butter they were churning to give it color. Then, according to Zaphf, she walked back outside and was never seen alive again. Her body was found in a three-foot-deep creek behind her home ten minutes later, and the coroner’s official stance was that it was a “voluntary drowning.” But the public outcry and rumors of foul play that ensued quickly prompted District Attorney Watson M. Rogers to undertake his own investigation—an investigation that proved to be stranger than fiction.
According to the Watertown Re-Union of March 16, 1876, Rogers, Officer William McCutchin and a representative of the Despatch “proceeded to the scene of the tragedy, about two miles west of Sterlingville, and found that the funeral ceremony had just been performed, and the body still remained in the house, the intention being to remove the body to Martinsburg, Lewis County, on Monday.” Many friends and relatives of both Mr. and Mrs. Powell were there at the time, so the investigators were able to press those closest to the deceased for more details. But first, they visited the scene of the tragedy, aided by a few “who were in a position to give an explanation of the finding of the body and the place where the unfortunate woman is supposed to have entered the water.” They found that the door leading from the rear of the house was “exactly opposite” the location of where the last footprint leading into the creek was found and that a person could see the trail to the creek “in a straight line,” if they were looking out the back door. The trail led downhill approximately 27.5 feet to the shoreline. After looking over the rest of the property, which consisted of the home, an icehouse, a large barn and two sheds, the investigators questioned those present for a half hour. Only at that point did George Powell, the deceased’s husband, finally approach them, after taking his horse from the barn to the creek for water. The news article stated that he appeared “perfectly unconcerned” and did not look like a man who had just lost his wife. He became quite agitated, however, when asked why he didn’t attempt to search for his wife in the creek, when he knew she must have just barely gone into it (he had seen her only ten minutes before in the house). Why didn’t he assist the neighbor he summoned to pull his wife’s body from the creek, and why was he unable to explain the marks found all over his wife’s body that indicated she had been beaten? All he would say in response was, “I must take this horse to the barn, or he will catch cold.”
Courtesy of the author.
The investigating party then went back inside the house to continue the discussion. They learned that Julia Powell had been confined to the house and was
very ill for about two months before her death. Mr. Powell’s first wife, from whom he was divorced, lived in Lewis County. The hired girl was sixteen years old and had lived with the couple for just four weeks, along with a hired boy named Eugene Willard, who was twelve years old and had only been hired three or four days before the tragedy. The nearest neighbor was a farmer named Watt Slaid, who lived on the other side of the road forty-six yards south of the Powells. For some reason, when Powell set out to find someone to pull his wife’s body from the creek so that he wouldn’t have to, he went instead to the home of Mr. Converse who lived twice the distance of Slaid—even though time was of the essence, if they were to pull her from the creek and successfully revive her. Investigators viewed the body and found there to numerous marks indicative of a recent beating with a rod. She bore six contusions on one arm, four on the other and one each on her shoulder, neck, back, arm and hand. Yet, no postmortem exam was held prior to the district attorney’s visit, and Mr. Powell was not required to provide a sworn statement to the coroner’s jury during the initial inquest—a point that didn’t sit well with District Attorney Rogers. Had he provided a sworn statement, he would have become a person of interest in any rational man’s mind.
Murder & Mayhem in Jefferson County Page 4