Maritime Murder (10 page)

The crowd had grown quiet by now. No one shouted, no one cheered. There was no talk of rescue attempts. At this point it was as if the entire group of witnesses had been possessed by a desire to simply see this dark deed done and over with.

Dowey hung there for over a half an hour. The hangman, his assistants, the volunteers, and several of the soldiers took turns grimly holding onto the straining rope. At forty minutes, they lowered him down to the ground and declared him dead. He was hastily carried away in a horse cart, and buried in what is now known as the historic Old Protestant Burying Grounds on the edge of University Avenue in Charlottetown,
pei
. A stone was erected for a short time, but was later taken down, as if people did not want to remember the murder and the badly botched execution.

This was not the last execution in the province, but it was the last public execution. The hangings that followed, until as late as
1911,
took place away from the public eye. As far as the Prince Edward Island government was concerned, the notion of public execution had come to the end of its rope.

Burlington, Prince Edward Island
1887

T
he last time John Tuplin saw his seventeen-year-old daughter, Mary Pickering Tuplin, alive was in the quiet dusk of Tuesday evening, June
28
,
18
87
—the same day that the Tuplin family had buried one of her brothers, who had died following a long and bitter battle with consumption.

Mary was busy tending to a baby girl, her niece from her married sister Josephine. Her father remembered looking at his daughter and wondering to himself how long it would be before she would be tending a baby of her own. She was about six months pregnant, and her father knew it, but he also knew that she was certain that he didn't know. For the time, he would keep it that way. If it made the burden easier for his daughter, then he would bear the strain.
Mary had admitted the fact of her pregnancy to her sister not more than two weeks before, and had told
her that she believed the father of her unborn child was William Millman.

Of course, the young man denied being the child's father. They always do, don't they? Mind you, there was the possibility that John Tuplin would get the law involved in the matter. Seducing girls that young was a jailing offence accountable under the Seduction Act, which could result in a jail term of several years. But John Tuplin was certain he could convince young Millman of the error in his ways. He would reason with the boy—if necessary, at the point of a loaded shotgun.

John Tuplin smiled at that thought—a sad smile, because he had just come from his son's funeral, but a smile nonetheless. It was the last smile that John Tuplin would smile for a very long time.

He was still wearing that smile as Mary handed the baby back to her mother, and changed from her funeral clothes to a tired housedress and a comfortably battered pair of farm boots.

“I am going for a walk,” she told her parents.

“You're going to see that Millman boy, aren't you?” her mother, Margaret, asked. “I know you are.”

“I said it was a walk,” Mary pointed out. “I am hardly dressed for courting.”

“Love needs no tailor,” her father dryly observed, still trying to remain stubbornly optimistic. “Now does it?”

“I said it was a walk,” Mary repeated. And then she was gone.

Half an hour later, Margaret went out to find her, fearing that her daughter had somehow lost her way. An hour after that, she returned to her home alone. There was no sign of her daughter.

“I can't find her,” she told her husband. “It's not like her to stay out this late. I'm worried for the girl.”

John Tuplin pulled on his own boots and walked out to check with the neighbours, the Profit family. Mary wasn't there. He checked the barn, and he wandered the field, calling out her name. Finally, he decided there was nothing left to do. She was young, after all, and young often means impulsive. Perhaps she had met up with her man Millman and the two of them were spending the evening in some quiet and secret spot.

Tuplin continued to tell himself that as he went to bed that night. He slept fitfully, and arose before the sun had swum over the horizon. He ate a quick breakfast and resumed his search. All that Wednesday he went from house to house, neighbour to neighbour, with no result. It seemed that no one had seen Mary that night.

Midday found John Tuplin knocking on the Millmans' very door. John Millman and his wife had seen no sign of their son William that night either.

“Perhaps they've run away together,” Mrs. Millman suggested. “Young people are apt to do that sort of thing.”

“Trust that boy to run off when there's chores to be done,” John Millman agreed.

But John Tuplin was not as certain. He continued his search for the rest of the day, with no result.

On Thursday morning, he saddled his horse and rode to Summerside, where he met with his lawyer to get an arrest warrant written up for young William Millman.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” the lawyer asked.

“As sure as sin,” Tuplin replied. “That boy has got to pay.” He presented the warrant to the local authorities, and rode home. On a hunch, he borrowed a wooden scow from his friend Archibald Bryenton.

“She's in the river,” Tuplin said. “It's all I can imagine.” The search began that Friday, June
1
,
1887
, and it continued throughout the weekend.

They finally found her body on Monday, June
4
,
18
87
, submerged near a spring hole in the Southwest River, beneath about four feet of water. A rope was tied about her waist and secured to a killick, a large, crude anchor of red sandstone of about eighty pounds in weight, originally used for ballast. She was shot twice through the skull. The only other sign of human presence was a pair of overly large footprints sunk into the muddy bank of the river.

The newspapers seized upon the story. “An Atrocious Murder” read the headline in
The Patriot
, “Evidence Looking Dark for Millman.”

The papers spoke the truth. Investigation proved that Millman was a very likely suspect. On the morning the body was found, William Millman rode out to Charlottetown for the first time in his life, to talk to a lawyer about the charges that were being laid against him. This, in itself, would have been an innocent and sensible enough action for any young man in this situation, but it was complicated by the fact that Millman had both motive and opportunity.

The preliminary hearing took place on July
7
,
1887
. During his testimony, William Millman's father told the court that he and his wife had been with their son the entirety of the night that Mary Tuplin was slain. In the middle of the testimony, Millman's father collapsed in the witness box. After a glass of water was brought, he sipped it carefully. He rose up slowly, cleared his throat, and confessed that everything he had told the court was a blatant lie.

“My wife and I were away at a church meeting that night,” John Millman sadly admitted. “Of my son's whereabouts, we have no idea.”

This, along with the other testimonies, was enough for the judge. A trial was set. Justice would be done.

The trial was set to be held in front of the Prince Edward Island Supreme Court on January
24
,
1888
. Over one hundred people crammed into the courthouse to watch the proceedings. At eleven o'clock in the morning, Justice Joseph Hensley and Justice Edward Palmer arrived at the courthouse. They were joined by lawyers James H. Peters for the prosecution and E. J. Hodgson for the defence.

Shortly afterwards, a pair of Charlottetown constables escorted William Millman into the courtroom. People booed and called out loudly for justice.

“Hang the dog,” one man shouted. “I'll be glad to buy the rope.”

The judges called for order as three strapping court bailiffs lugged the heavy stone killick into the courtroom as evidence. The rope that bound Mary Tuplin to the killick was also brought to the bench. It was proven that a red painted, flat bottom oyster boat belonging to John Cousins was stolen from its mooring on the north bank of the Southwest River. John Cousins was sworn in, and he allowed that the killick was the same stone he used as ballast in his boat.

“There's always rope in there too,” he admitted. “It wouldn't surprise me if that bit of ragged rope belonged to me as well. I'd be glad to have it back once we've hung the bugger with it.”

“It is clear to the court that whomever stole the boat is most likely the culprit we seek,” Judge Hensely declared. “However, whether or not that culprit is the defendant, William Millman, has yet to be proven. There'll be no talk of hanging in my witness box, sir.” The required proof was provided by several testimonies.

“I remember the Tuesday evening on which Mary Tuplin was lost,” a local farmer by the name of Jonathan Adams testified. “I was down in the field, weeding the bean patch. I have seen a boat moored on the other side of the Southwest River. The boat is always moored there, as far as I can tell. That night, I saw the boat on the opposite shore, near the Mud Road. I don't know who brought the boat there.”

“Are you certain it was Cousins's boat?” Hodgson questioned.

“It was a red boat,” Adams admitted. “As far as I know, Cousins's boat is a reddish boat as well.”

The further testimony of Joseph Davison drove another nail into Millman's coffin. “I saw a boat on the river,” Davison swore. “There was a man in it. It was going toward the western side of the river. I saw it go to shore. I could not tell exactly where. I was over half a mile away. The man jumped onto the shore. One man was all I saw. It would be between half-past six and half-past seven, just before sundown.”

“And was it Cousins's boat?” Hodgson questioned.

“It resembled Cousins's boat. I suppose it was. No other boats are moored there. I can give no idea as to the identity of the person in the boat.”

Peter Thompson, another local farmer, added to this testimony. “I was at home at my father's farm on Tuesday evening, and noticed a boat leaving Warren's Shore. It was Cousins's boat, I am sure of it. The time was half-past six or seven o'clock in the evening. The boat didn't go back before sundown.”

But it was Jonathan Adams's thirteen-year-old daughter, Dorothy Ann Adams, who fit the last piece of the puzzle into place. “I remember the evening Mary Tuplin was murdered,” she testified. “I was in my father's potato field, near the Mud Road. I saw a boat near the end of the Mud Road. I saw a person there. It was William Millman. He was tying the boat. He went up through the field toward the Mud Road. I kept him in view until he got out of sight. He had dark clothes on and a very dark hat.”

“Are you certain it was William Millman?” Hodgson prodded.

“I know William Millman,” Dorothy testified. “I have often seen him.”

There was a bit of conflicting evidence raised in the trial. It seems that Millman's pistol was a .
22
, but the calibre of bullet that killed Mary Tuplin was a .
32
. However, it was revealed that Millman had previously borrowed a .
32
calibre revolver from a friend, Francis Powers, several weeks before the murder. He told Powers that he was thinking of buying the pistol from him, but first wanted to try it out for size.

William Millman quietly returned the pistol to Powers the night after the murder. He then asked Francis Powers's younger brother Patrick to swear that he was with Millman somewhere else on the evening of the murder. “Even if you would only mention that you were with me that night, I would be greatly obliged,” Millman had pleaded. “Perhaps that will be enough for the judge to rethink his actions.” However, Patrick Powers would not oblige William Millman. Further, when the authorities examined the revolver, they found it to be loaded with three full cartridges and two empty shells, presumably belonging to the bullets that were fired into Mary Tuplin's skull.

The evidence was hard to deny. Witness after witness was called upon to testify. The days passed slowly. The trial lasted over a week. On February
6
,
1888
, the jury declared William Millman guilty of the murder of seventeen-year-old Mary Tuplin.

Three days later, the sentence was passed. “Your trial has been an unusually long one,” Judge Hensley stated. “No less than forty-eight witnesses were examined on the part of the Crown, and eighteen on your own behalf. After an admirably painstaking defence on your behalf by your counsel, and a most patient and attentive hearing by the jury, you have been found guilty.”

As Judge Hensley pronounced sentence, Millman put his fingers in his ears so that he might not hear the spoken words. Tears were streaming from his eyes and he was sobbing uncontrollably. At one point he passed out cold, and had to be revived before the sentence was completed. Suffice it to say, he did not meet his fate in a manly fashion.

“Your present conditions are sad and awful, and will doubtless excite the sympathy of many a tender and Christian heart, not only for you but for your aged and agonized parents, whose grey hair will go down with sorrow into the grave,” the judge observed. “But I will dwell no longer on this painful subject.” This brought on more tears from Millman. But the judge was not finished.

“Your time in this life must be limited to a brief period, and before I pronounce the solemn words of your doom, I implore you most earnestly to employ that precious time toward reconciliation with that God whom you have so deeply offended.”

More tears flowed. The judge remained unmoved by this display.