by Alan Hynd
Mrs. Sparing and the doctor made their first mistake when one night Mrs. MacGregor was out of town, Mrs. Sparling decided to remain all night in the house she rented to the doctor. One of the village gossips, a spinster lady naturally, saw Mrs. MacGregor sneaking out of the house in the early hours of the morning to drive back to the farm. The gossip ran straight to Old John and told him what was going on. So Old John rented a room in the old maid’s house, remaining under cover by day, so that he could keep an eye on what went on at Doc’s at night.
One night the Widow Sparling checked into the Doc’s place in the afternoon and was still there when all the lights went out that night. Old John bided his time until around midnight. Then, carrying a lantern and a ladder, he sneaked up to Doc’s house, climbed up the ladder, peeked in a second-story window and got a pretty good view of what was going on between the good doctor and the bereaved widow.
Similarly, Dr. Daniel Conboy, still bothered by the events at the Sparling ranch, paid a visit to Xen Boomhower in Bad Axe. Dr. Conboy had had time to come to some conclusions. He now alleged Carrie Sparling had poisoned Scyrel, the motive: insurance money.
Old John, having seen plenty, dropped in on Prosecutor Boomhower next day.
“I know people think I’m nuts,” said Old John, fixing Boomhower with a belligerent stare, “but you won’t think I’m nuts if you dig up them Sparling boys.”
Boomhower was opening his mouth to respond when who should come in the door but Dr. Daniel Conboy, still bothered by the events at the Sparling ranch. Dr. Conboy had had time to come to some conclusions. He now alleged Carrie Sparling had poisoned Scyrel, the motive: insurance money.
“See?” said Old John, as soon as Conboy piped down. “Told you so!”
There was something so sincere about the bellicose old auctioneer that Boomhower, who had heard gossip, too, decided he had nothing to lose by digging up at least one body. Secretly, of course. So, Boomhower hired a couple of gravediggers. They dug up Scyrel and took him to the office of a doctor in the next county.
The doctor took out Scyrel’s vital organs. What remained of Scyrel was ushered back to his grave. At the laboratory of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Scyrel’s vital organs were found to be shot through with arsenic. Boomhower thought things over carefully when he got the news. Then he did a most unusual thing. He called Doctor MacGregor into his office.
“Doc,” he said, “I have something unpleasant to take up with you.”
“What?”
“There’s been a lot of talk in town about all those deaths in the Spading family. So, just to settle the thing one way or the other, I had Scyrel’s body exhumed.”
“Is that so?” said MacGregor, calm as could be.
“Yes,” Boomhower continued, “I sent the vital organs to the University of Michigan.” “And what did they find?”
“Arsenic!”
MacGregor looked out the window and drummed his fingers on a table.
“Do you know,” he said at length, “I’m not at all surprised.”
“You’re not? Why not?” MacGregor looked earnestly at Boomhower.
“Why,” he said, “because of all that tonic that those boys swigged. I told you that before! You know that tonic contains arsenic. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet everybody in that family’s filled with arsenic.”
“There was enough arsenic in Scyrel to kill an elephant!”
“Long term use,” said MacGregor. “That’s what happens. Genuinely unfortunate.”
Boomhower hadn’t thought of that. He looked at MacGregor.
“Doc,” said Boomhower, rising and placing a hand on MacGregor’s shoulder, “I’m glad all this has come up. It’s settled once and for all. I’m convinced you’ve been a victim of malicious gossip.”
Boomhower summoned Old John to his office.
“Mr. Sparling,” he said to the old boy, “I don’t care what’s going on between the doctor and the widow. And I’m convinced Doctor MacGregor had nothing to do with those deaths.”
“You are, eh?” said Old John.
“Yes. And that’s all that matters.”
“Well, I’ve been doin’ a little snoopin’ myself. Why don’t you go have a talk with the president of the bank here in town?”
“What do you mean?”
“You just do as I say. Then maybe your eyes’ll be opened.”
Boomhower had a talk with the president of the Bad Axe bank. MacGregor, whose practice had never been profitable, had never had any significant money until he bought the automobile. Then he had deposited a check for $1,000 made out by the Sun Life Association of Canada to Mrs. Spading for Albert’s death, and endorsed over to the doctor by the woman.
The bank records disclosed a second $1,000 payment by Mrs. Sparling to MacGregor, immediately after the death of Scyrel. Boomhower also learned that MacGregor had been living in Mrs. Sparling’s Ubly house rent-free. And then there was the undeniable interplay between all of the insurance money dancing from Carrie Sparling’s account into the doctor’s every time a Sparling son bit the dust.
So Boomhower now decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to dig up Albert. More arsenic. Had MacGregor, with the aid of Mrs. Sparling, done in all four of the Sparlings, starting with the old man? If so, the doctor had done a very clever thing in moving the Sparlings out of Sanilac County up to Huron County after the second death.
The prosecutor of Sanilac County wasn’t a close friend of the doctor’s, but Boomhower had been. If MacGregor was a murderer, a murderer for profit, he had at least created a most favorable climate for his operations, getting chummy with the prosecutor and conditioning him in advance of the murders to the deaths of the victims.
Boomhower was still wondering what to do as August1911 turned into September. Then he ran into MacGregor on the street.
“Oh, Xenophon,” said the doctor, “you’re just the man I want to see.”
“Why?” asked Boomhower, smart at last and playing it straight. “What now seems to be the matter, Doc?”
MacGregor ran his hand over his brow.
“It’s about Ray Sparling.”
“Really?” said Boomhower, concealing his alarm and skepticism. “What about Ray?”
“I’m afraid,” said MacGregor, looking off into space, “that Ray is not long for this world. He just seems to not be himself.
True enough. Ray had kept a pretty low profile during all the tragic proceedings. And now Ray was left alone to work the farm. Without his brothers, though, his heart no longer yearned to spend time in the barn or in the fields. Mrs. Sparling decided to leave this farm, too. Too many memories. So Carrie and Ray decided to pull up stakes.
A local auctioneer handled the sale held at 12 noon on Friday, November 10, 1911. Livestock included one brood mare and colt; three horses; one yearling colt; six cows; two yearlings; four calves; one boar; and 20 sheep. Farm equipment consisted of one Sterling hay loader; one Kemp manure spreader; one Champion disc seed drill; one McCormick binder; one McCormick mover; one Champion hay rake; three harrows; two John Deering plows; one Kraus riding cultivator; and two hand cultivators.
Neighbors flocked to the Sparling farm, for the Sparling boys had had a stellar reputation for keeping their equipment in top-notch shape. Before the day was out new owners would walk away with two of the Sparling’s heavy sleighs. Also on the auction block were two sets of light sleighs; two lumber wagons; three buggies, one of which was advertised as nearly new; two cutters; and a spring cutter. Ray gathered the gardening tools, hayforks, multiple sets of harnesses, two incubators - one with a 100-egg capacity and the other 200 - and even the Empire cream separator from the barn.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sparling worked inside gathering the household goods. Three heating stoves and four bedsteads made the sale bill as did three kitchen tables, six dining room chairs, one rocking chair, one dish cupboard and even the organ. Mrs. Sparling had had enough – it was time to move on.
Carrie and Ray took the cash, ban
ked it, and moved into an easier smaller place nearby.
Boomhower meanwhile had a genuine problem. He needed time to go to the grand jury and tell them what he suspected. Meantime, though, he wanted to tip off Ray, the last of the four Sparling boys, not to take any medicine the doctor might be giving him. Moreover, he had to tell Ray not to tell his mother that the doctor was being suspected of mass murder.
Boomhower went out to the new Sparling residence one night. When he figured that Mrs. Sparling and Ray would be asleep, he sneaked into the house, found Ray’s room, clapped a hand over his mouth and woke the fellow up. After briefing Ray on what was in the wind, and getting Ray’s cooperation to keep mum about everything, he asked,
“Where’s the medicine MacGregor is giving you?” Ray gave Boomhower a bottle of the stuff. “When he brings more,” said Boomhower, “pretend to take it…but pour it out, spoonful by spoonful. Then turn it over to me.”
Ray obliged. The medicine was analyzed and found to contain lethal amounts of arsenic. Finally, Xenon Boomhower had had enough.
Boomhower told a likely story to the grand jury: Doctor MacGregor and Mrs. Sparling had decided to live in sin. By way of removing obstacles to their amatory progress, MacGregor, with the woman’s knowledge, had dispatched the woman’s husband. Then, seeing how easy it was to feed arsenic to a victim, he had decided to put murder on a paying basis by getting the boys insured before he did them in. And so the grand jurors handed down an indictment charging Doctor MacGregor with the murder of Scyrel, and Mrs. Spading with being an accomplice. Just Scyrel, mind you, not the others. Why, nobody knew. It was January 12, 1912.
The trial of Doctor MacGregor and Mrs. Sparling was a sensation in Bad Axe. It was held in the local opera house with the judge sitting up on the stage. The only fairly direct evidence against Doctor MacGregor, who was placed on trial first, was medical testimony to the effect that the arsenic found in Scyrel was in such quantity that it couldn’t possibly have been self-administered in patent medicine. The rest of the evidence was circumstantial: the two $1,000 checks that Mrs. Sparling had given to MacGregor and tales of Old John and others that they had seen the doctor and Mrs. Sparling in compromising situations.
MacGregor made a good witness in his own behalf. The money that Mrs. Sparling had paid him had been for medical services. As to the arsenic, he insisted, it could so have been administered via the patent-medicine route.
But Boomhower pulled out all the stops in his address to the jury. He dwelled at length on the fact that Albert, as well as Scyrel, had been found loaded with arsenic. The most damning evidence against Dr. MacGregor and Mrs. Sparling, however, came from Assistant Professor of Hygiene, Richard Pryor, and Professor of Pathology, Alfred Scott Warthin, the University of Michigan pathologists who analyzed Scyrel’s organs. The level of arsenic found could not be explained away by the consumption of patent tonics, they said. In their combined expert opinion, Scyrel Sparling had been poisoned.
Dr. MacGregor had his supporters, too. His father attended court each day. Carrie Sparling, who had also been charged in the conspiracy, said she still believed in the goodness of her family doctor. Carrie Sparling maintained that she sprayed plants with arsenic, explaining the box of poison found in her house. The doctor was not responsible for her loved one’s deaths.
Ray Sparling, Carrie’s last surviving son, defended the good doctor, testifying that the brothers changed the beneficiary to Carrie Sparling on each of their life insurance policies of their own volition. They had wanted to ensure their mother would be properly cared for in the event that they passed away before she did. When Prosecutor Boomhower asked the surly young man how many times Dr. MacGregor frequented the Sparling farm, Ray smartly stated, “More than a half-dozen and less than three thousand.
The doctor’s wife, Ida MacGregor, took the stand on behalf of the defense. She proved to be a valuable witness, testifying with righteous honesty. Though she couldn’t change the facts, Ida MacGregor did testify to the relationship in question between the Sparling family and the MacGregors. The families exchanged Christmas gifts and took turns entertaining in each other’s homes. The Sparling boys made themselves at home when visiting the MacGregor’s, and Ida helped Carrie in any way she could during the Sparling’s harvest season. If anything improper had been going on between Dr. MacGregor and Mrs. Sparling, it became evident to the jury that Ida MacGregor had been clueless, or didn’t care.
When Dr. MacGregor took the stand, he faced a grueling five days of questioning with an answer for everything, though his statements contradicted the testimony of Drs. Conboy, Herrington and Holdship as well as the county coroner and the sheriff.
Dr. MacGregor explained that Mrs. Sparling’s eye ailments required multiple visits to the farm. The endorsement by Mrs. Sparling on Albert’s insurance proceeds merely paid off the Sparling debt owed to the doctor. All eyes in the court were on his wife, Ida, when the doctor testified nothing improper had been going on between him and Mrs. Sparling. Ida, noticeably relieved, sat a little straighter.
In all, over 100 witnesses on behalf of either side took the stand to tell their story. Jury selection had begun on April 2, with testimony given between May 1 and June 6. At that point, the Sparling murder trial had been the longest criminal case in the state of Michigan.
At 12:15 p.m., June 8, the jury sent word to the judge; they had arrived at a unanimous vote. Robert Bowman, foreman of the jury, rose to give Judge Watson Beach their verdict:
“We find Dr. Robert A. MacGregor guilty as charged of murder in the first degree; of murdering Scyrel Sparling by arsenical poisoning.”
While the courtroom erupted, Dr. MacGregor sat expressionless and strangely quiet. Carrie Sparling, however, had received a mistrial. And charges against her were immediately dropped.
Judge Beach sentenced Dr. MacGregor to life imprisonment at Michigan’s state prison in Jackson. Nine weeks had passed since the beginning of jury selection. The Sparling murder case was finally over.
Maybe.
A mob had all but gathered at the Bad Axe depot expecting to see Dr. MacGregor off to prison. Sheriff McAuley anticipated as much, and made prior plans to transport the prisoner to Elkton, expecting to avoid a riot. To his surprise, word had spread to all corners of Huron County and an even bigger crowd had gathered at the Elkton depot than the one that patiently waited to catch a glimpse of the no-good doctor at the depot in Bad Axe. Sheriff McAuley, to his credit, safely escorted the prisoner to his new cell in Jackson.
By July, however, word came back to Huron County that Dr. MacGregor had gained employment within the prison confines, serving as an assistant to the prison physician. He continued to profess his innocence and vowed to work toward redeeming his freedom.
In December of 1912, Dr. MacGregor’s attorney requested a new trial. New evidence supposedly came to light in the form of a written statement by a Mr. J.W. Douglas of Bingham. In the statement, Douglas alleged Scyrel had consumed dangerous amounts of patent tonics. Douglas saw a bottle fall from Scyrel’s coat pocket, the bottle filled with an arsenic concoction.
Carrie Sparling, no doubt still carrying a torch for Doc MacGregor, took her surviving son, Ray, and moved far away. The State Supreme Court turned down MacGregor’s appeal on the grounds that there were not, as the physician was claiming, any legal flaws in the evidence presented against him at the trial.
The Doc became a trusty in prison, then, of all things, the prison doctor. He would have a bad time occasionally when, in prescribing something for a sick prisoner, the con would squint at him and ask,
“You sure there ain’t any arsenic in this stuff, Doc?” But aside from that, MacGregor seemed to be quite happy with his prison work. And the inmates developed a genuine affection for him.
But yet, the strange case of Dr. MacGregor just wouldn’t die.
MacGregor had been in prison almost four years, sending out hundreds of letters protesting his innocence. One day he dropped a long handwritten letter to Go
vernor Woodbridge Ferris.
Ferris had a special interest in medicine and the health of his constituents. During his term of office, a farm colony for epileptics was established in Michigan, as well as the Central Michigan Tuberculosis Sanatorium. He was popular and received the nickname, The Good Gray Governor. Because of MacGregor’s fine work as prison doctor, The Good Gray Governor became interested in Dr. MacGregor’s case and questioned several of the jurors.
Two jurors informed the Governor that they would never have convicted MacGregor of the murder of Scyrel had not Boomhower indicated to them that MacGregor had poisoned Albert, too, something for which no one had ever been convicted. The Governor wondered how the Supreme Court had approved such a verdict. He decided to review the whole case. When he did, and when his assistants conducted a series of interviews around Ubly and Bad Axe, he found himself seeing the case in a new light.
So one day in 1916 Ferris phoned the prison at Jackson and asked the warden to send Dr. MacGregor to his office. Without an escort. When MacGregor arrived in the state house, he received a full pardon. Governor Ferris would only said publicly that he had, “uncovered new evidence,” exonerating the doctor. But he would never said what it was.
Then came the most curious turn of all.
Released, a free man, MacGregor found he didn’t have a single friend in the outside world other than his wife Ida, who was still faithfully waiting for him when he received his pardon.
But he had no patients, and people cast suspicious glances at him on the street. Carrie was long gone. He moved up to his old home region in Ontario but quickly discovered that the tale of adultery and murder that he had starred in down in the U.S. had followed him there.
So what did MacGregor do but move back to Michigan with Ida and ask the Governor to appoint him prison physician. The Governor complied. The inmates loved him and greeted him with cheers and applause when he re-appeared. Yes, he was back in the slammer, but this time he could come and go as he pleased.