Dark Downeast - The Murder of Helen Jewett (New York)

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

NEW YORK CITY, 1836: In the early morning hours of April 10, 1836, the madam of a New York City brothel awoke to find 22-year old Helen Jewett's bedroom filled with smoke and flames.Helen Jewett, born Dorcas Doyen in Augusta, Maine, was considered a well-known sex worker in New York City. As her case became sensationalized and publicized around the world, it brought the taboo subject of sex into the prudish public sphere of the 1800s, inviting commentary, opinion and bias, even among those tasked with the pursuit of justice on Helen's behalf.Helen Jewett's Known Aliases: Maria Benson, Maria Stanley, Helen Mar, and Ellen JewettRichard R. Robinson's Known Aliases: Frank Rivers, Richard ParmaleeTo learn more about sex work issues and advocacy, visit decriminalizesex.work.View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/helenjewett Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

In the early morning hours of April 10th, 1836, the madam of a New York City brothel awoke to someone knocking loudly on the door of her building, located at 41 Thomas Street. When she rose to let the visitor inside, she noticed a lamp out of place in the parlor. She carried it up the stairs to return it to its rightful place, only to find one of the girls' bedrooms filled with smoke and flames. The madam sent for the watchman as she and the girls doused the fire with water. As the flames died down, there they found 22-year-old Helen Jewett, dead on her mattress. But it was clear that Helen's death was not caused by the fire they'd just extinguished. Helen, who was born and raised in Maine, was

considered a well-known sex worker and a prominent New Yorker, and her case became known around the world. And though Helen Jewett's case was sensationalized by the press and the tabloid papers of the day, the coverage helped put a human face on sex work and the criminalized act of prostitution. As the taboo subject of sex entered the prudish public sphere of the 1800s, it invited commentary, opinion, and bias, even among those tasked with the pursuit of justice on Helen Jewett's behalf. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the historical case of Helen Jewett on Dark Down East. Helen Jewett was born Dorcas Doyen on October 18, 1813 in Temple, Maine, to John and Sally Doyen. Dorcas would change her name often as she moved through life, and according to Patricia Klein

Cohen, author of The Murder of Helen Jewett, quote, As soon as she could, Dorcas abandoned the name her parents had given her, later insisting that Maria Benson was her natal name, end quote. I will refer to her as Helen, as that is her most commonly used name. According to the Kennebec Journal, the moniker was one she assumed in honor of her favorite historical character, Helen of Troy. Just a note, this case and the individuals involved used numerous aliases. I will include a list in the show description for your reference. Helen's mother died sometime between 1820 and 1823. Her father later remarried, and by 1826, 13-year-old Helen moved out, or was sent out, and was under the care of the Weston family of Augusta, Maine. The Weston household was headed by Chief Justice Nathan Weston, and he had agreed to take Helen in as a servant.

Helen stayed with the family for five years, and they helped her get an education. That is, until Judge Weston discovered that she'd had sex with a local banker when she was just 16. Judge Weston and his family were publicly known to be moral and virtuous, and this news implied that they could not properly supervise Helen. Having brought shame upon herself and the household, Judge Weston told Helen to leave. Sources say that Helen was still a child when she began accepting money for sex. Whether or not this was a choice of her own, or one that was made for her, is unknown. But let me be clear here. A child being paid for sex, that's not a sex worker. It's child rape. In the 1800s, when consent and age weren't discussed or considered like they are

now, she was considered a prostitute, a term that is now used to describe the criminalized act of accepting money for sex. I will be using the term sex worker, except where quoting original source material is necessary. Helen moved through various cities in New England, among them Boston and Portland, renaming herself often, using aliases like Maria Benson, Maria Stanley, Helen Marr, and Ellen Jewett, a name that many newspaper reports would later mistakenly use. In 1832, at the age of 19, Helen Jewett moved to New York City to become what many 19th century people referred to as a girl about town, according to Patricia Klein Cohen. She was well-read, enjoyed philosophy texts,

and loved to write. And, a repeated fact in every piece about her, Helen was beautiful. Helen lived in a boarding house at 41 Thomas Street in New York City, operated by Madam Rosina Townsend. It was a known brothel, and Helen saw men at the house. It was here in New York City, at the Thomas Street brothel, that Helen met a young man she knew as Frank Rivers, but whose legal name was Richard P. Robinson. Robinson was born in Connecticut to a wealthy family. Patricia Klein Cohen writes that Robinson was the first son, but the eighth child. He eventually became one of 12 siblings. He moved to New York City at the age of 19 and began clerking for a man named Joseph Hoxie. Richard P. Robinson went by the name Frank

Rivers, at least when he was patronizing the Thomas Street brothel. As reported in the Long Island Star, a young man called upon the Thomas Street brothel to see Helen Jewett on the evening of April 9, 1836. Madam of the house, Rosina Townsend, answered the door around 9 p.m. to find a man wearing a cloak pulled up to his face. Rosina asked the man twice to announce himself, but both times he responded saying only, I wish to see Miss Jewett. Patricia Klein Cohen wrote that Helen may have been expecting two visitors that evening, a man named Bill Easy and a regular visitor who Helen knew as Frank Rivers. Helen had asked Rosina Townsend to decline the visit from Bill Easy, but to allow Frank Rivers inside. Rosina didn't think the voice sounded like Bill Easy, but she couldn't

be certain it was the voice of the man she knew as Frank Rivers. But when she opened the door and the man's face was illuminated by the light inside the house, she was confident it was Frank Rivers, so she let him inside. Frank made his way upstairs to Helen's room while Rosina went to find Helen in the parlor to let her know she had a guest. As Helen climbed the stairs to join the man, Rosina heard her say, my dear Frank, how glad I am to see you. Rosina saw the man once more that night when she delivered champagne to Helen's room around 11pm. According to the Evening Post, he was lounging in bed and reading a paper by the light of a glass lamp near the bed. Helen offered Rosina a glass of champagne, but Rosina declined

and retired to bed herself. Around 3 a.m. on April 10, 1836, another knock on the front door of the house woke Rosina up. As she walked through the house to the entrance, she noticed that a lamp, still burning, was sitting on a table in the parlor. It didn't belong there. She also saw that the back door of the house was open. Rosina called out to see who was there, but there was no answer. Rosina shut and barred the back door and picked up the misplaced glass lamp, making her way upstairs to return it to one of the bedrooms. The first room she tried was locked. The next room belonged to Helen Jewett. Rosina turned the handle, pushed the door in, and out came billows of smoke.

After the initial chaos to wake everyone up in the house and get them to safety, Rosina yelled to a watchman stationed nearby. As he made his way to the house, Rosina and another woman ran into Helen's room to save her from the fire. Instead, they discovered that Helen was already dead. Patricia Klein Cohen writes that what they found, quote, sent them out of the room in horror. The bed was smoldering rather than blazing. Helen was dead. Three bloody gashes marked her brow, and blood had pooled on the pillow beneath

her body, end quote. Helen's overnight guest, Frank Rivers, was nowhere to be found. The early morning hours of April 10th were windy, dark, and damp, with a drizzle coating the city after a long, cold winter. This made the nighttime search for clues nearly impossible. Police processed the scene inside the Thomas Street house but decided to wait until sunrise to search outside in the light. The Long Island Star reported the results of Helen's autopsy, which was performed on the floor of her room, stating, quote, from the position in which the body was found, together with the fact that no noise or struggling had been heard at the time of the murder, body was found, together with the fact that no noise or struggling had been heard at the time of the murder, it was conjectured that the deceased, upon the first

blow, must have passed instantly from sleep to death. When the sun came up, police searched the outside and discovered a cloak and a hatchet in separate yards that neighboring the Thomas Street brothel. The items were collected and processed as evidence. The investigation did not have to look far for an early suspect. Helen had an overnight guest, and though she could have been expecting two different men that night, Rosina was sure that the man she let inside, the one she saw lounging in bed, was the man she knew as Frank Rivers. Police found Frank Rivers, aka Richard P. Robinson, at a boarding house where he had a room about a half mile from the Thomas Street brothel.

The two officers asked him to go with them. Robinson did so without question. According to Patricia Klein Cohen, quote, Robinson was not spared the horror of viewing the crime scene. Early American criminal legal practice had at one time set great store on the ritual moment of placing a murder suspect in direct confrontation with the victim's body, end quote. The police made note of the man's indifference to the scene. Frank Rivers, aka Richard Robinson, was arrested right there in the room. After viewing the scene and Helen's body, Robinson said to another woman at the scene, quote, Do you think I would blast my brilliant prospects by so ridiculous an act?

I am not afraid that I shall be convicted. End quote. An extensive report made by the Evening Post on June 4th, 1836, documented the first days of Richard Robinson's trial. It deserves noting that the Evening Post was among a collection of publications at the time known as Sixth-Cent Papers. Not quite as seedy as the penny papers that read like today's tabloids, the Sixth-Cent Paper class of publications

was known for reporting on international and financial topics and targeted elite businessmen. According to Timeline.com, it wasn't until the murder of Helen Jewett that those papers began to pay attention to crime stories in the city. It was good for business and increasing circulation. In fact, this was the first homicide covered in detail by a majority of New York's publications. The massive publicity on Helen's murder turned the trial of Richard Robinson into a spectacle. Stephanie Buck wrote for Timeline.com that nearly 6,000 people crowded the second floor of City Hall

to watch the testimony as an all-white male jury heard the case. The prosecution's case appeared to hinge on the witness testimony of Madam Rosina Townsend, those two pieces of evidence found the next morning, the cloak and the hatchet, and the testimony of another woman who lived at the Thomas Street brothel. Rosina Townsend, madam of the brothel, was the prosecution's star witness, testifying to the events of that evening and the identity of the man who knocked on the door asking for Helen. She told the jury that she was certain the man who she let inside was the same man sitting at the defendant's table, Richard Robinson. The prosecution presented the

cloak and hatchet found in the neighboring yards as evidence, telling the jury that Richard Robinson was wearing the cloak in question when he was admitted to the brothel, and that the autopsy showed Helen's injuries were consistent with blows to the head with a sharp object. A loop of twine found tied inside the cloak and a section of twine tied to the hatchet appeared to match. According to writer Stephanie Buck, the prosecution suggested that the hatchet had been secured to the cloak with twine to conceal it. In the report by the Evening Post, a man named James Wells, Robinson's co-worker at Joseph Hoxie's store, testified that a hatchet that was often used in the store to split wood and open packages had recently gone missing.

Wells believed that the hatchet presented to him in the courtroom was the same hatchet that had disappeared. Elizabeth Salter, another woman who lived in the Thomas Street brothel, testified that she had previously accepted visits from a man she knew as Frank Rivers. She recognized the cloak that he wore to Thomas Street as the very cloak that had been taken in as evidence and presented to her in court. But the defense challenged the evidence as trial testimony revealed that the chain of custody for the hatchet may have been broken and alluded to the fact that the hatchet could have been tampered with. The Evening Post reported that the hatchet found in

the daylight hours after the murder did not have any blood on it, but it was wet from the dewy morning and covered with rust. The watchman called to the scene had examined the hatchet, having it in his possession for at least a half hour, and then he stored it in a room along with the cloak. The watchman testified that when he examined the hatchet, he did not remember it having any twine attached to it. The next person to handle and examine the hatchet was the coroner to determine if the weapon was consistent with Helen's wounds. When the coroner observed the hatchet, it did have a piece of twine wrapped around it. The prosecution and defense went back

and forth about the cloak, the hatchet, the twine on the hatchet, and the section of twine on the cloak, challenging each witness to recall whether or not the twine was attached to each piece of evidence when they first viewed it, and if both were made from the same material. The twine existing on both the cloak and the hatchet was key to making a case against Richard Robinson, because it would suggest the only connection between the cloak worn by the accused and the presumed murder weapon. If the hatchet did not have a piece of twine attached, though, as the watchman had testified, or if the materials were not the same, the connection could not be so easily made. However, one witness testified that the twine was similar to the twine used at Hoxie's store, where Robinson worked. Richard Robinson's defense team also tried to establish an alibi for their client on the night

of the murder. On June 7th, the Evening Post reported the ongoing court proceedings, including testimony of James Liu, Robinson's roommate at the boarding house where he lived. Liu told the court that he awoke twice on the night in question to find Robinson asleep next to him, but he could only guess at the hour. The ongoing coverage of the trial proceedings were not favorable for the defense of Richard Robinson. Many publications considered their case weak, until a surprise witness shook up the trial. A man named William Furlong testified that he had seen Robinson inside his grocery store on the night of the murder. He claimed that Robinson bought some cigars and then sat in the store chatting with him until after 9.30pm, the same time that

Rosina Townsend testified to having seen Robinson at the brothel. Another witness, Henry Wilson, corroborated this alibi, saying he saw Richard Robinson in the store that night, at the same time, too. The last-minute appearance of witnesses who could provide a near-rock-solid alibi for the accused murderer left some to wonder if William Furlong and Henry Wilson were telling the truth, or if they'd been paid off for their testimony. After five days of testimony and cross-examination and considering the evidence, the prosecution and defense gave their closing arguments. The judge then addressed the jury, giving them their instructions. Instructions laced with very thinly

veiled bias. He told the jury, which again was all white and all male, that the testimonies given by the women who worked at the brothel, quote, are not to be entitled to credit unless their testimony is corroborated by others, drawn from better sources. Testimony derived wholly from persons of this description is not to be received, end quote. That is, without someone else to back up what the women of Madame Rosina Townsend's brothel said on the stand, it should not be weighed in their deliberations. The jury was out just 15 minutes before returning with a verdict. In the summer of 1836, Richard P. Robinson was acquitted of the murder of Helen Jewett. Cornell University reported that Richard Robinson said of his entry to New York City at age 19, I was an unprotected boy, without female friends to introduce me to respectable society,

sent into a boardhouse where I could enter at what hour I pleased, subservient to no control after the business of the day was over. Newspapers around the country would later nickname him the Innocent Boy. Patricia Klein Cohen writes, quote, Had Richard Robinson been found guilty, it is likely that the Jewett murder would quickly have faded from memory, taking its place alongside a number of similarly lurid crimes that have agitated or mystified the public for a brief time before attaining obscurity, end quote. Instead, many found Robinson's not guilty verdict to be a miscarriage of justice. The reporting that surrounded the death of Helen Jewett left

an impression on those who believed this case had opened a wound of class and sex privilege in America. Male privilege in American society was nothing new, but it became publicly obvious that those in positions of power used their privilege to protect others. Patricia Klein Cohen wrote that the district attorney, Thomas Phoenix, claimed that all of the male visitors who were in the brothel on April 9th had retreated before they could be identified. This was, in fact, not true on Phoenix's part. The police had identified three of the men who were with women that night, but decided not to put them on the stand. As reported by Cornell University, some believed, quote, no man ought to forfeit his life for the murder of a whore, end quote.

Richard P. Robinson left for East Texas soon after the trial was over and began using yet another assumed name, Richard Parmelee. While fighting a campaign to drive Cherokee people from their ancestral lands, a musket Richard was carrying exploded in his hand. It disfigured him and left his right hand practically useless. The Shreveport Journal wrote that some believed, quote, retribution had paralyzed the hand that had slain Helen Jewett, end quote. Though he ran to the South and changed his name, the press in New York City wasn't through with Richard. They'd dug up and published some damning evidence against him many years after he was acquitted. When Helen Jewett's room at the Thomas Street house was first processed for evidence,

police seized a trunk filled with over 90 letters written both from and to Helen, many of them correspondence with the man she knew as Frank Rivers. The letters were documented in an itemized list that is part of the original case file for the investigation. The district attorney, Thomas Phoenix, as well as Judge Robert Morris, knew about the letters, and they were intended to be used as evidence against Richard Robinson. The letters were referenced at trial, but only briefly. Just two of the letters were read aloud and entered into the court record. Those particular letters portrayed Helen Jewett as an educated woman

with an interest in literature, the arts, and foreign languages, and revealed that she was also known by, and in correspondence with, some prominent figures in New York society. The other letters, dozens of them written by Robinson to Helen and to Robinson from Helen, were not entered into the trial proceedings. Handwriting experts were reluctant to identify the authors, and so they were omitted. However, court testimony revealed that Robinson, just days before the murder of Helen Jewett, arrived at the Thomas Street house with a collection of letters she had sent him and asked that Helen either destroy what he'd sent her or give them back. He was engaged to be married at that point and presumably he wanted the letters to disappear for fear of offending his future wife. It appeared that, given the

letters were found in the trunk in Helen's room after her murder, she did not obey Robinson's request to destroy them. Over a decade after the trial, in 1849, a publication called the Police Gazette obtained the original letters and published them in a series over six months, as well as put them on display in their front window alongside the very hatchet, which had once been part of evidence in the case. Copies of the Police Gazette flew off the shelves and people swarmed the windows to get a glimpse of the evidence. The contents of the correspondence between Helen and her accused but acquitted killer portrayed Robinson in a guilty light. According to writer Stephanie Buck, the correspondence spanned nearly nine months, and their words took on an increasingly jealous tone as time went on. It appeared that Helen

also may have been aware of or even wrapped up in the sketchy business dealings of Richard Robinson. At one point, Helen threatened to expose Robinson for his activities. He responded, quote, you are never so foolish as when you threaten me, end quote. Regardless of what the public inferred from the letters, no matter how guilty he looked so many years after his acquittal, Robinson remained a free man and, according to Stephanie Buck, even became one of the wealthiest men in his East Texas town up until his death. In 1855, while on a passenger ship from New Orleans, Louisiana to Louisville, Kentucky, Richard contracted dysentery and had to be removed to a bed at a local hotel.

The Shreveport Journal reported that a local mob approached the Galt House where Richard was resting, demanding that he present himself to them. Nearly 20 years later and over 700 miles away, it seemed that some people still wanted Richard P. Robinson to be held accountable for the crime of killing Helen Jewett. Richard Parmelee, aka Richard Robinson, aka Frank Rivers, the accused and acquitted killer, died the next day, on August 8, 1855. William Furlong, the witness whose testimony effectively gave Richard Robinson an alibi and ultimately helped to secure the acquittal, fell on hard times almost immediately after Robinson was acquitted. According to an October 1836 report from the Bangor Wigan Courier, Furlong, quote,

who was chiefly instrumental in saving that hardened culprit from the gallows, has become bankrupt, end quote. Patricia Klein Cohen wrote that Furlong, long suspected of perjuring himself to save Robinson, hurled himself off a ship in August of 1838. Quote, many took his death as a guilt-driven suicide, end quote. Years later, and only two weeks after Richard Robinson died, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Henry Wilson, the witness who had corroborated William Furlong's testimony of Robinson's alibi, had lied in court. It was only after Richard's death that Wilson had come forward to ease his conscience. Cornell University reported that the case of Helen Jewett, quote,

transformed what was appropriate for public discussion in America, end quote. It was at the height of impropriety to discuss the topic of sex and murder in the public sphere, and yet reporters and editors couldn't afford to not make mention of Helen Jewett, her life, and her murder when their competition was also covering the story from every angle. Multiple reporters had written their own varying accounts of Helen's personal life and background. However, one reporter in particular, a man named James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, was the only one who actually arrived at the scene in order to describe it firsthand. It is believed that this case helped Bennett to pioneer a new kind of journalism by initiating his own investigative reporting. Bennett also interviewed Judge Nathan Weston,

who had helped to raise and educate Helen as a young girl in Maine, to confirm certain facts about Helen's early life. In his reply to Bennett, Judge Weston wrote, I very sincerely hope that the catastrophe, cruel as it was, may not be without its moral uses, end quote. The Westons had essentially written Helen off as ever being part of their family and suggested that Helen was to blame for her own fate. During the 1800s, sex work was a viable and profitable sector of the cash market economy, but commercializing sex without a social contract left sex workers like Helen vulnerable to

exploitation and violence that sometimes, in this case, resulted in death. The New York Daily Herald reported in September of 1837 on yet another young woman's murder. The piece states, quote, Thus has perished in the prime of her life another of those unfortunates, whom it would appear by the horrible precedent set up in the case of Helen Jewett. It is no crime to kill. The piece also asked, whom it would appear by the horrible precedent set up in the case of Helen Jewett. It is no crime to kill. The piece also asked, When are these things to cease? Hereafter, some historian in Speaking or Writing of New York will describe it as the place where they were in the habit of murdering females,

without bringing anyone to judgment for the dreadful crime." End quote. But the issue of violence against sex workers did not begin and end in 1800s New York City. It's an issue that spans time and geography. In a 2010 case, a Maine woman named Megan Waterman, who was believed to be working as a sex worker in Long Island, New York, disappeared after leaving her hotel to meet up with someone. Her remains were discovered along a stretch of Gilgo Beach. She is believed to be a victim of the so-called Long Island serial killer, who is suspected to be responsible for at least five other deaths of sex workers in the Long Island area.

A suspect has yet to be apprehended. Megan Waterman's story is part of a larger narrative that has received massive media attention in coverage from national news networks, high-ranking podcasts, and other media outlets. But there are many more instances of violence against sex workers that don't get reported and don't earn coverage in local and national media. which have been linked to health and social inequities such as an elevated burden of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and poor reproductive and mental health outcomes. A 2014 Global Systematic Review identified a staggeringly high lifetime prevalence, 45 to 75 percent, of physical, sexual, or combined workplace violence against women sex workers. The violence is partly fueled by perpetrators' recognition of sex workers' devalued social status and by the fact that sex workers often hesitate to report incidents to police due to deep-rooted mistrust and fear

of criminal charges, stigma, or further abuse. Importantly, research has shown that sex workers' inability to contact police for support after experiencing violence enables perpetrators to abuse sex workers with impunity, perpetuating high levels of violence. According to the Sex Workers Project, a national organization that defends the human rights of sex workers by destigmatizing and decriminalizing people in the sex trades, sex workers of color, migrant sex workers, and transgender sex workers experience even greater risk of sexual violence and assault. According to the ACLU, 37 trans people were murdered in 2022, and many of them were sex workers. The ACLU says that sex workers' clients take advantage of the criminalized environment because they know that sex workers

risk arrest if they report violence or abuse. Quote, clients know they can rob, assault, or even murder a sex worker and get away with it, because sex workers cannot rely upon protections from the law. End quote. Helen Jewett was laid to rest in St. John's Burying Ground in New York, but only briefly. According to the New York Cemetery Project, four days after her burial, medical students dug up and stole her body for dissection at the College of Physicians and Surgeons on Barclay Street. Cohen writes in her book, quote, A short time later, the Herald reported, elegant and classic skeleton hung in a cabinet at the medical school. End quote. Her skeleton was likely destroyed by a fire at the school in 1860,

though the Sun Journal reported in 1935 that her remains were somewhere in Augusta, in an unmarked grave. But even if she remained interred at the St. John's Burying Ground, her peaceful rest would have been disturbed by the cemetery being turned into a park in the 1890s. Though Cohen writes that many advertisements urged surviving family members of those buried there to claim their loved ones, only about 250 of the nearly 10,000 bodies were moved before construction began. It is now called James J. Walker Park. Thousands of burial sites remain beneath the surface of the recreational fields

that cover the park today. To learn more about sex work issues and advocacy, including the difference between decriminalization and legalization, visit decriminalizedsex.work. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. This story was co-written and researched by Dina Norman and myself, Kylie Lowe. Sources cited and referenced for this episode are listed at darkdowneast.com. Please follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now. The best way to support the show is to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode or any episode with your friends. Thank you for supporting this show and

allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and homicide cases. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time.

I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.