Episode 190: Russell Colvin
Stephen and Jesse Boorn, two brothers, spent their lives in Manchester, Vermont, doing the best they could with what they had. Even though they were described as “malicious, passionate, and when angry, blind to consequences,” they were hard workers and believed in the value of hard labor. Their sister Sally married a man named Russell Colvin in the early 1800’s, and neither one of the brothers liked him. They thought he was lazy, had a bad work ethic and was “of weak intellect.” He also was described as having a significant issue with alcohol abuse. Russell had not been able to keep up with his own farm, and it had actually been confiscated by the men in the town. As a result he, Sally and their six children moved into the Boorn’s home.
Stephen and Jesse had enough on their plate, but now found themselves supporting their sister and her kids as Russell wasn’t able to. Russell had a habit of running off and disappearing, sometimes for months at a time, and he would do this out of the blue with no warning. Each time he did this, he would leave Sally and their kids without any money. When he returned, he and Sally would celebrate him coming home. Sally was said to be perpetually pregnant, and she was described by Stephen as “one of the devil’s unaccountables.”
The brothers would argue with Russell, a physical fight would ensue, Russell would disappear, eventually come back, and the cycle would continue. On May 10th, 1812, Russell and one of his sons named Lewis were working in the Boorn’s family field with Stephen and Jesse. It did not take long for Stephen and Russell to start arguing and fighting with each other, and Stephen was quite vocal about how he resented having to share his family’s hard-earned money with Russell when he should be providing for his own family. The arguing went back and forth for hours before it finally escalated to being physical. Lewis said that Stephen picked up a big stick and used it to knock Russell to the ground before striking him a second time when Russell tried to get up. Lewis ran away in fear after seeing his father get knocked down.
In the days that followed, it seemed that Russell had disappeared again. Only this time, he didn’t come back. Days turned to months and months turned to years, and there was still no sign of Russell returning. Everyone in the small town knew that Stephen and Jesse despised Russell, and everyone couldn’t help but wonder if they had anything to do with his disappearance. Stephen and Jesse would openly say to anyone that would listen that Russell was weak, lazy, and was mooching off of them and their family. Their resentment had only grown as time went on. Stephen also had been overheard reassuring his sister Sally that Russell was dead and gone and was in hell, and his words were that Russell was “where potatoes would not freeze.”
Suspicions that the brothers murdered Russell only escalated when seven years after his disappearance, the brother’s uncle, Amos Boorn, kept having the same recurring and damning dream where Russell Colvin appeared at his bedside. Russell would tell Amos that he was a ghost and had been murdered. He never identified who killed him, but he said that his body was put in an old cellar hole in a potato field. The field was on the Boorn brother’s farm.
The cellar hole, about 4” by 4”, was dug up, and while there were no human remains, they did find a button, a penknife, broken pieces of china, and a jackknife. Sally was shown these items and identified them as Russell’s, however some felt that this was biased. It would benefit her to have Russell declared dead because since he had disappeared, she had given birth to another child. Legally at the time, any child born to a married woman was considered the child of the husband. This meant that Sally could not get any kind of financial support from the child’s biological father unless Russell was declared dead. This meant that looking out for herself and her children would put her brothers behind bars.
Shortly after the cellar hole was excavated, a fire of unknown and suspicious origin burned down the Boorn brother’s sheep barn. This only led to more rumors that they were responsible for the disappearance of Russell Colvin. Just several days after the fire, a dog was digging at the base of an old stump near the Boorn property when it dug up bone fragments and human toenails. Three different doctors determined that the bone fragments were human bones.
What started as rumors were now backed by enough evidence for the townspeople to believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that Stephen and Jesse killed Russell. The rumors circulating said that the brothers buried Russell initially in the cellar hole, then in the barn, then under the tree stump after the brothers burned down their own barn to dispose of evidence.
Jesse Boorn was arrested, and authorities put out a warrant for Stephen Boorn as he had recently moved from Vermont to New York.
Jesse’s cellmate was a man named Silas Merrill who had been arrested for forgery. Seeing this as an opportunity for a reduced sentence, Silas told police that Jesse had confessed to killing Russell after his father, Barney Boone, came to visit. Silas said that Jesse admitted to Stephen knocking Russell to the ground during a fight, and Barney had come upon the scene and used Stephen’s penknife to slit Russell’s throat. The three men buried Russell in the cellar hole, but after two to three years dug him up and moved him to the barn. Once the fire burned the barn down, the brothers moved Russell’s bone fragments and remaining evidence under the tree stump where the dog then dug them up. In exchange for his immediate release, Silas agreed to testify against Jesse and Stephen.
Jesse then confessed to police, putting as much of the blame as possible on his brother Stephen as he thought Stephen was safe in New York. Turns out, locals in Stephen’s new town learned of what he had done and showed up at his house with torches and pitchforks, so Stephen fled back to Manchester.
Witnesses lined up to tell their own accounts of hearing the brothers talk loudly of their frustrations and resentment towards Russell. Stephen tried to say that it was self defense, and the bone fragments found under the tree stump were re-examined and found to be animal and not human, but the damage had been done and the court continued to seek the death penalty for the brothers.
Jesse’s sentence was commuted to life in prison, but Stephen however, was still sentenced to death.
The New York Evening Post published a piece on November 26th, 1819, on how divine intervention had brought the men responsible for Russell Colvin’s murder to justice. This piece was read out loud in the lobby of a hotel in New York, where a man named Tabor Chadwick overheard. This caught Tabor’s attention, because he knew of a man named Russell Colvin and he was very much alive and well and working on a farm in Dover, New Jersey. Tabor immediately sent two letters, one to the New York Evening Post and one to the Manchester, Vermont postmaster, about how he knew Russell Colvin and that he was alive.
The Manchester postmaster was part of the court proceedings for the brothers and disregarded the letter, but the New York Evening Post published it on December 6th, 1819. This letter was read by a man named James Whelpley, who was living in New York but had grown up in Manchester, Vermont. James immediately put down the newspaper, packed a bag, and went to Dover, New Jersey. Standing before him was Russell Colvin. While he was very much alive, he did not want to go back to Manchester.
Stephen’s execution, set for January 28th, 1820, was rapidly approaching. James was rumored to have tricked Russell into getting on a stagecoach that was, unbeknownst to Russell, headed for Manchester, Vermont. They arrived on December 22nd, 1819, and a crowd quickly formed in shock and curiosity. Stephen Boorn was brought before Russell Colvin wearing shackles and chains. Russell was shocked to see him and asked him why he was in chains, to which Stephen replied “Because they say I murdered you.” Jesse and Stephen Boorn were exonerated just weeks before Stephen’s execution date.
Image sources:
vtdigger.org - “Then Again: A case of who done … what?