Dark Downeast - The Murder of Mattie Hackett (Maine)

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

At Readfield Corner Cemetery in quiet Readfield, Maine, a gleaming granite headstone marks the final resting place of Mattie Hackett, born January 29, 1888, died August 17, 1905. Mattie was just 17 years old when she was murdered just outside her home on Kents Hill.Though more than a century has passed since that August evening when her life was stolen, the answer to Mattie’s mysterious killing was never uncovered. The question remains: Who really killed Mattie Hackett? View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/mattiehackettFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-caseDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

There's a certain kind of hush that falls over the grounds of historic cemeteries. Voices of visitors lower in reflection. The leaves and trees rustle in the wind as if they're shushing even the birds in their songs. When I find myself walking past the gates of adie Hackett, born January 29, 1888, died August 17, 1905. Maddie was just 17 years old when she died, when she was murdered. And though nearly 116 years have passed since that August evening when her life was stolen, the answer to Maddie's mysterious killing was never uncovered. So the question remains, who really killed Maddie Hackett?

I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is supported by local businesses, like Plant Movement. Plant Movement, CBD tinctures, salves, lip balms, and more are handcrafted with love in Booth Bay, Maine. Try the spiced maple hemp oil. It's my absolute favorite. Stay tuned for a giveaway at the end of this episode and shop Plant Movement at plantmvmt.com with code DOWNEAST for 15% off your order. Growing up in Kennebec County, I knew Reedfield, Maine fairly well. I had family at Moranakook Community Schools and friends at Kent's Hill, and I'd spent a summer day or two at Moranakook Lake.

Though I lived in such close proximity to the small, rural town growing up, I never knew much about its history until Maddie Hackett's story introduced me to Reedfield of the past. Long before it was known as Reedfield, and before white settlers moved into the area from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, indigenous people migrated through the region seasonally, favoring the many waterways for travel by canoe. In 1771, the town of Pontown was incorporated, with Reedfield as part of it. Twenty years later, Reedfield became its own town. Reedfield was a booming center of industry in the 1800s and early 1900s. The old factory square along Dead Stream was once home to numerous businesses and mills, including the Reedfield Manufacturing Company. The mill produced cotton and wool cloth and yarn, and provided what was called Reedfield cloth for the Union Army. Also along

the stream were a sash and bind factory, a boot factory, a grist mill, and other businesses. Today, Factory Square is nearly extinct, with many of the original buildings long gone, save for a dam and a crumbling house. Reedfield of the late 1800s was like many rural Maine areas, swathed in farmland and fields, with the quintessential New England farmhouse at the corner of each sprawling plot of fertile acreage, as was the Hackett family farm in the Kent's Hill village of Reedfield, Maine. On the evening of August 17, 1905, Levi Hackett sat down for dinner with his family. It had been a long but ordinary day on the farm, and he was grateful for a meal to refuel after a full day of labor in the sun. His wife Julia sat amongst their children, his sons Lucius, James, and Earl,

and his daughters Ethel, Nettie, Winifred, and Maddie. Maddie Hackett was born in Aristock County during a brutal Maine winter, just a few months before the Great Blizzard of 1888 made the record books as one of the worst storms in American history. The Maine winter, paired with the life of a working farm family, must have made her tough, because Maddie was as determined and strong as she was beautiful, and she was certainly known about town for her beauty. Maddie attended Maine Wesleyan Seminary and College, which would later be named Kens Hill School, but left school early to begin working at Woolworths in Lewiston and at the Elmwood Hotel as a waitress. The very next day, Maddie was set for an operation.

She battled what doctors believed to be appendicitis, and so on the morning of August 18th, she would undergo an appendectomy to relieve her pain. That's why Maddie stayed behind to clean up after dinner, as the other members of the Hackett family ventured off to socialize at a neighbor's house. Maddie's father, Levi, stayed behind too. It was around 7.30 or 8 o'clock when a man knocked on the front door of the Hackett home,

he introduced himself as Harry Jones. Harry told Mr. Hackett that he'd recently been released from jail after serving time on vagrancy charges. That is, Harry had been experiencing homelessness and resorted to scavenging, petty theft, and begging as means for supporting himself. Harry asked Levi if he could stay at his home that night and possibly get something to eat. Levi told the man he could sleep in the barn and agreed to feed him. He hollered for Maddie over his shoulder since his wife was at a friend's house, and asked his daughter to fix the man some supper. As Maddie began preparing a plate for their surprise house guest, Levi and

Harry went out to the barn, where Levi had a few lingering chores to complete. Not ten minutes later, while the pair was in the barn, they heard noises coming from down the road. It was loud voices, faint shouting, maybe. Harry was the one to point it out to Levi, but he seemed to shrug it off, saying to Harry, I guess it must be children. The next sounds they heard coming from the road were much more alarming. From what they could discern, it was the voice of a woman, and she was in some sort of struggle. Over the chirp of crickets that always accompanies a main evening in the summer, Levi and Harry heard loud and clear the high-pitched exclamation, a woman's voice saying, oh, you you dirty nasty thing. In a piece published by the Fall River Daily Evening News

in 1905, Mr. Hackett said they rushed back to the house to check on Maddie but quote, my daughter was not there and I began to get scared unquote. Despite there being no signs of trouble or struggle inside the Hackett home, the father's fear quickly escalated. He and Harry Jones searched for Maddie inside the house, and then outside, combing the dooryard with a frantic pace. For nearly 30 minutes, they called out her name, but Maddie didn't respond. Mr. Hackett doubled back onto the road running parallel to his farmland, heading towards what he believed to be the direction of the voices he'd heard earlier. His eyes were trained on the culvert. And just ahead, he could see the form of what he believed to be his daughter.

There she was, laying in a ditch, a large, bleeding gash on her forehead. She was alive, but unconscious. Her breathing was labored, and it wasn't improving. With a powerful bellow mustered only from a father's place of fear, Levi Hackett shouted for help, and the rest of the family poured out of the neighbor's house down the road. They tried all they could to save her, some sources saying her siblings splashed water on her face and rubbed her feet and hands,

but Maddie's pulse weakened. She died there, surrounded by her siblings and parents. The scene had been chaotic, and as the rush at attempts to revive Maddie subsided into a frozen shock, her parents discovered what they had overlooked just minutes before. The murder weapon, a tightly bound cord constricting Maddie's windpipe, so deep in her neck that there's no way her family could have seen it amidst the panic and fear. The Hackett sent for the doctor and for the high sheriff. What was once a long but routine day on the Hackett family farm on Kent's Hill in

Reedfield, Maine, had become their very worst nightmare. Levi cried out to whoever would listen, quote, I can't imagine who could do such a thing, unquote. The early investigation into 17-year-old Maddie Hackett's murder was narrated by sensational headlines in both local and national newspapers. I'm always surprised by the amount of coverage that crimes from the late 1800s and early 1900s received. There's really never a shortage of source material when I begin to dig into these decades-old cases. Maddie's story took hold of Maine and New England, and dozens of articles on the day after her murder detail the first steps investigators took to find her killer. Harry Jones was the first target of the investigation, the wandering man who

showed up on their doorstep asking for a meal and a place to sleep. He was quickly detained as a material witness and a potential suspect in her slaying. Harry Jones, whose name may have actually been Joseph A. Johnson or Alfred Johnson depending on the source, was placed in Kennebec County Jail and held there the day following her murder. He explained to the sheriff that on August 17th, he'd been traveling with three other men through Kennebec County. They had all been released from a jail in Auburn at the same time, and they were together up until they reached North Wayne, about five miles outside of Reedfield. According to Harry, the other three men were headed west of North Wayne to Livermore Falls, while he set off solo to Reedfield. But Harry couldn't speak to how far the three others made it after they went their separate ways. However, a witness reported seeing three men walking down the road in the general area of the Hackett farm on the day Maddie was murdered.

Investigators assumed the men were Harry Jones' friends. They, too, were quickly located and detained by state police. Richard Love, John McCahern, and James Brennan denied ever being in Reedfield on August 17th, as well as any involvement in Maddie's murder. Despite their claims of innocence, they awaited questioning while the investigation continued. An early theory emerged that perhaps Harry Jones hadn't separated from the rest of his group, and that the quartet of Harry, Richard, John, and James was responsible for orchestrating and carrying out Maddie's murder. Meanwhile, the autopsy results revealed what was already obvious to her family.

She died by strangulation, and though she had cuts and scratches on her face and hands, the cord around her neck was responsible for her death. That cord, a thin but strong rope, gave way to another early theory, one that was favored by High Sheriff Frank J. Hamm. In the words of 1905 reports by the Fall River Evening Herald, the sheriff claimed that the knot used to tie the rope was the sort of knot which a woman invariably ties. It was a weaver's knot, used by anyone who worked as a weaver in the nearby woolen mill. It was a role primarily associated with women.

The county attorney noted that, although they had two theories in the investigation, they didn't have enough evidence that would lead to an arrest. Not of the four transient men still held in jail for questioning, and not of a possible unknown female suspect linked to the death only by the knot tied in the murder weapon. Rewards totaling $300 were offered by local selectmen and by the sheriff himself, but it seemed the sizable sum, close to $10,000 in today's money, did little to reveal new information. It only stirred the talk around town. Was it one of Maddie's many admirers, scorned by the object of their affection?

Could it have been a woman, jealous of the attention Maddie garnered? Or was it the men wandering through town, labeled as, quote, tramps by the papers? An excerpt from the Bangor Daily News reads, From the meager details which are now obtainable, it is evident that the crime is one of the most revolting which Kennebec County has ever known. It has sent a shudder of horror

through every farmhouse for miles around and even in the settlements. Today, the women hereabouts go about their work with blanched faces and frightened looks in their eyes. The men wear grim determined looks and it will be just as well for members of the Tramp fraternity to give this section of Maine a wide berth in the future. However, by August 19, 1905, investigators were leaning away from the theory involving the four men and into the possibility that this murder was in fact committed by a woman. Investigators considered other clues at the Hackett home.

The interior of the house was undisturbed and showed no signs that Maddie left or was unwillingly taken from the house where she was washing dishes and preparing a meal for Harry Jones. A search from the house where she was washing dishes and preparing a meal for Harry Jones. A search of the house revealed that she hadn't even made it that far in preparing the meal her father requested. The dish she was drying at the time still sat on the counter with a towel on top. Investigators hypothesized that Maddie's killer could have been an acquaintance, someone known to Maddie,

who knocked on the door just moments after her father went out to the barn with Harry Jones. If not a friend or at least a familiar face at the door, why else would she leave the house without incident? Sheriff Hamm spoke to more witnesses, including Reedfield residents Burt Davis and Marcellus Williams. They reported seeing a woman walking rapidly in the direction of the Hackett home just before 8 o'clock in the evening of August 17th.

These witness reports aligned with another piece of information Sheriff Hamm learned during other conversations with potential witnesses. A married woman in the Kent's Hill area was reportedly away from home that night, between 7 and 10 p.m. It was 1905 in a small town, so I suppose a married woman away from home without her husband that night was something worth noting at the time. A few days after her death,

a friend of Maddie's from Lewiston spoke to investigators. She revealed that Maddie had recently confided that she was afraid of a man in town, but who that man might have been was a mystery to her family. Maddie's mother Ed, told the Boston Globe, quote, Maddie had no affairs of the sort in this town, so far as I know,

and the men hinted at are married. I cannot understand why my daughter's name should be linked with the names of married men. She was a sweet, pure, fun-loving girl, and I doubt very much if she cared seriously for anybody. Unquote. According to coverage of Maddie's funeral proceedings by the Boston Globe, however, Maddie Hackett was engaged. A Boston man named Lester P. Lyons traveled to Reedfield, Maine for her service, apparently missing the ceremonies by just minutes.

He was Maddie's reported fiancé. Some reports noted that Lester was set to be questioned and subsequently arrested in Maddie's death, but later information refuted this. Mr. Hackett himself had invited Lester Lyons to Maddie's funeral. So whether Maddie cared seriously for anybody didn't seem to be at the heart of the motive of this murder. However, not a single article covering her case could resist noting Maddie's undeniable beauty. And as the sheriff and new state investigators assisting on the case believed,

this beauty stirred a jealousy for the wives of men whose eyes wandered. Burt Raymond and his wife Elsie of Reedfield, Maine, were expecting a child that summer of 1905. The Ramons and the Hacketts knew each other. As the cliche goes, everyone knows everyone in a small town. But Burt also worked in the stables of the same Reedfield Hotel where Maddie was a waitress. A week after the murder, Maddie's sister Ethel met with state detective Hartnett to tell him about the night she and her sister Maddie got a ride home from work with Bert Raymond. Ethel explained that she and her sister were with Bert five weeks earlier, barreling up the hill to their home at an aggressive clip.

When they made it to the Hackett farm, Bert lingered there with Ethel and Maddie for about 10 minutes before Ethel got back into the cart with Bert and left with him for a reason not reported. As they drove back down the hill, they could see Bert's pregnant wife Elsie in the distance, headed towards the Hackett residence on foot, breathing heavily and struggling

with every step. The significance of that incident wasn't put into context at the time of the reporting, and although Mr. and Mrs. Raymond were referenced as part of the investigation, neither the sheriff or state detectives would formally tie them to the case as a suspect or even persons of interest. Reporting in this era towed the line of commentary and opinion, and the journalist covering the case for the Bangor Daily News suggested, perhaps, that if a woman was truly responsible for Maddie's murder, but authorities hadn't made an arrest, quote, they are showing mercy to a woman, unquote. One month after Maddie's murder, Elsie Raymond gave birth to her son. She left town soon after. Her husband, Bert, did not go with her.

Speculation and gossip and stories swirled around the case of Maddie Hackett for months. And though almost daily news reports claimed that an arrest was imminent, police still didn't have anyone in custody over two months later. On October 12, 1905, the Fall River Globe reported that every man who was suspected or implicated in the murder was subsequently cleared. Finally, Harry Jones was released from jail where he'd been the entire time held as a witness in the investigation. A private detective firm known as the Pinkerton Agency took Maddie's case and they renewed the investigation alongside the sheriff

and Maine State authorities. They believed it was time to take a hard look at Mrs. Elsie Raymond. The Pinkerton detectives learned that on the night of August 17th, Elsie's whereabouts were unaccounted for. When Burt learned of the murder of young Maddie that night, he searched frantically for his wife, worried for her safety if a killer was loose in town. Elsie reappeared at home hours later. Bert found her out back in their garden. Investigators again reviewed the notes from the crime scene. A tech had listed footprints as part of the evidence found at the scene. They measured 9.5 inches in length. Elsie's boots were 10 inches in length. As the circumstantial evidence stacked up, it did feel like they were getting closer to an answer.

And all signs pointed, at least to investigators at the time, to Mrs. Elsie Raymond. But a woman unaccounted for during the window of the murder does not a strong case make. Nor does the sheriff's assessment that the knot tied in the murder weapon was known to be tied by women or even the footprints. What motive would a then

eight months pregnant woman have to kill a 17-year-old girl? The theory again returned that it all stemmed from jealousy. Her husband Bert had reportedly shown special interest in Maddie and Elsie decided to take the life of her perceived rival. When Mr. Hackett heard the high-pitched exclamation, when the woman said, you dirty, nasty thing, investigators believed that was the voice of Elsie, labeling Maddie for what she believed was inappropriate behavior with her husband.

That was the theory police really wanted to make true. All they needed was a piece of hard evidence to support the circumstantial pieces of the case they were building. It may have taken months, but in January 1906, detectives believed they had the evidence they needed to secure from the statement of a delivery man. The Raymond family had received a shipment of goods sometime before Maddie's murder. According to information obtained by the Boston Globe, it was a sizable shipment requiring the courier to bundle the packages together with a piece of cord, similar to the cord used to kill Maddie Hackett. The delivery man noted that when he bundled packages with cord, he started with a bowline loop to allow cinching the parcels together.

Investigators reviewed the cord used in the murder again. While the weaver's knot was tied along the section of cord, so too was a bowline loop. In May, five months after reports of the same type of cord being traced back to the Raymond household, the entire community waited to hear the findings of the grand jury. At 11 a.m. on May 2, 1906, that same community was stunned by the result. No indictment for the suspected killer of Maddie Hackett.

A second grand jury sometime later would also return that same decision. No indictment. They just didn't feel that the evidence was strong enough to support an indictment for Mrs. Elsie Raymond. The primary doubt stemmed from the fact that Elsie was eight months pregnant at the time. Could she really have made it two miles to the Hackett home and then back on foot? Could she have overpowered the young girl? Would she really have been that jealous, that rage-filled to end the life of Maddie Hackett over suspicions that her husband had taken a keen interest in the girl. Ultimately, the grand jury decided the answer to every one of those questions was no.

But the town of Reedfield didn't let that stop their gossip. The thick fog of suspicion lingered over the Raimonds for years, eventually pushing them out of town altogether. When police attention was all but diverted from Elsie Raymond, she took it upon herself to make a statement to the press, saying in part, quote, One thing I want to say at the start,

and I want to say it with all the emphasis of my being, I did not strangle Maddie Hackett. I know that the officers of the law have cast suspicion upon me. They have not been secretive about it. They have spread it, broadcast it throughout the world. In all my life, I have never heard of such a monstrous thing, to throw such an awful cloud of suspicion upon a woman without having a single tangible fact upon which to base it. Why should this suspicion have been cast upon me? Did anyone ever hear me make a threat against the life of Miss Hackett? Never. Did anyone ever hear me make

a threat against the life of any person? No. I am not that kind of woman. I cannot conceive of what that kind of woman is even. And yet, I have been singled out as the one who could do such a fiendish thing. It is not true that I had a motive to do an injury to Maddie Hackett. It is simply laughable. In the first place, Miss Hackett was a mere child, and so far as I know, a nice, quiet girl of whom no woman would even think of being jealous, unquote. Elsie's statement to the media also included an explanation for her whereabouts the evening Maddie was murdered. She claimed that after an argument with her husband over money, she decided to hide in the yard under an apple tree to frighten him. She stayed there from around 7.45 until about 10

p.m. that night. She also addressed the story that Ethel, Maddie's sister, told the sheriff about that afternoon when her husband drove Ethel and Maddie home from work. Elsie claimed that she only wanted to catch up with her husband that day so she could hitch a ride back into town herself. That's why she was walking hurriedly in the direction of the Hackett farm. Elsie closed her statement saying, quote, My sorrow for the bereaved family is as deep as any other woman's in Reedfield. Unquote. Mrs. Elsie Raymond had said her piece,

and then did her best to maintain obscurity. She managed to mostly achieve it, until seven years later, when the county attorney made the sworn to their own secrecy. This, along with the determination of County Attorney Joseph Williamson, it all brought a new surge of attention to an investigation once believed to be cold and hopeless. Mr. Herbert Raymond was summoned by Kennebec County Grand Jury for testimony in April of 1912. At that point, the Raymonds lawyered up. On August 7th, 1912, Elsie Raymond was indicted by the Grand Jury of Kennebec County for the murder of Maddie Hackett.

Although no direct quote is published, the Boston Globe reported that Elsie was in fine spirits. In some ways, she welcomed the indictment, seeing it as a chance to finally clear her name. The murder trial of Elsie Raymond began in November of 1912. The jury, comprised of 12 men, seemed to sit forward in their chairs as the state finally opened the trial of one of the most well-known murder cases in Maine's history at the time.

In the opening statements, the state finally reviewed the new evidence that led them to secure an indictment on their third attempt. County Attorney Williamson addressed the members of the jury, saying, quote, The state will introduce evidence tending to show that the respondent had threatened to kill Maddie Hackett, that two days before the murder, she had followed her husband and Maddie, who were driving home together, that on the evening of the murder, being strong and vigorous, though far advanced in her delicate condition, she went from her home after a quarrel with her husband and did not return until midnight. Also, the state will tend to show that after her disappearance, a woman, whose appearance the witnesses will describe, went

hurriedly up the Nickerson Hill, avoiding close observation, and came back shortly after the murder. The state will show that Mrs. Raymond had failed to give a credible account of herself during that evening, and by suppression of evidence, she has sought to conceal her real whereabouts for a considerable time before and after the murder. Williamson continued, If the evidence shall satisfy you beyond a reasonable doubt that the woman who went up the Nickerson Hill committed this murder and that that woman was Mrs. Raymond, then she is guilty. If you should find that Mrs. Raymond committed the crime but are convinced that she was then temporarily insane, she would be not guilty by reason of such insanity, unquote. The state's case was essentially this.

Mrs. Elsie Raymond, in her advanced phase of pregnancy that they referred to as her delicate condition, murdered Maddie Hackett but did so only because her advanced phase of pregnancy rendered her temporarily insane. The state went on to present a cast of witnesses, some of them from the medical profession, who testified that pregnant women can experience, quote, an abnormal mental condition bordering on insanity, unquote, as they approach motherhood. The defense challenged this testimony, ultimately getting the same expert witnesses to concede that the, unquote, mental condition bordering on insanity is dependent upon the individual, casting doubt on that element of the state's case. The other state witnesses included Elsie's niece,

who testified that she saw her aunt burn a pair of tan shoes on the kitchen stove, the same tan shoes she wore on the night of August 17th. Perhaps the most compelling of the state's witnesses included Mrs. Sarah J. Swan, the former cook at the Reedfield Hotel. Mrs. Swan testified that when she and Elsie and Mr. Burt Raymond all worked at the hotel together, she often saw Elsie kneeling by the window, watching for Burt to return with the hotel's team of horses. He transported guests to and from the train station, and some nights his hours were later than others. Elsie and Bert were not yet married,

but were keeping company, as Mrs. Swan put it. One night, about a year or two before the murder, Mrs. Swan asked Elsie why she waited there by the window, always looking for Bert. Elsie responded with anger, seemingly out of context, quote, If Maddie Hackett ever crosses my path, I will kill her, unquote. Maddie would have been about 15 or 16 at the time that alleged threat was made. Elsie Raymond herself took the stand on the fifth day of the trial. She seemed calm and ready as she answered the questions from her attorney.

Elsie explained away the burning of those tan shoes. She said she always burned rubbish and that the shoes were rubbish. She also offered more details of her time sitting in the orchard, apparently hiding from her husband after their fight about money on the night of the murder. She said, quote, I thought that if I fretted my husband a little, he would appreciate me more, unquote. When asked if she ever made that threat, the one that Mrs. Swan claimed to have heard, Elsie answered plainly, no. The trial concluded on November 27, 1912, and the fate of Mrs. Elsie Raymond was in the hands of the all-male jury. She only had to wait two hours to hear their decision. A crowded courtroom listened intently as the clerk asked,

Mr. Foreman, have you agreed upon a verdict? We have, he replied. So what say you, Mr. Foreman? Is Elsie Hobbs Raymond guilty or not guilty? To which the foreman replied, Not guilty. The courtroom erupted, clearly favoring the decision of the jury. Elsie was as composed as ever,

though a smile revealed her relief to know that that evening, she would be a free woman once again. I searched and searched for quotes or comments or even one line of a reflection about or from the Hackett family upon the acquittal of Elsie Raymond. I found none. Who killed 17-year-old Maddie Hackett? She lies in rest at Reedfield Corner Cemetery. But as the 116th anniversary of her murder approaches, Maddie is still without justice and answers.

It's not a cold case you'll find on any list. It's not likely the over-century-old case would ever receive any sort of new investigative attention. All key parties are now deceased, and investigative resources are simply reserved for more contemporary, solvable cases. Knowing that, I just felt called to her story. If Elsie was responsible, if jealousy was the ultimate motive, if she did manage to walk two miles one way to strangle a 17-year-old girl just before nightfall on a main summer's eve, then Elsie Raymond got away with murder. But after reviewing the testimony and robust reporting on her trial, a vast majority of which I simply couldn't fit in this episode, I have to say, my doubts as they relate to Elsie's guilt are many.

I believe there could be another reasonable explanation for the murder of Maddie Hackett, and that explanation comes from a bit of an obscure confession. The details of that confession could not be presented in their entirety to the jury during Elsie's trial. However, the judge was able to hear elements of that story. August 7th, 1906, six years before a grand jury returned an indictment for Elsie Raymond, the Bangor Daily News published an article with the headline, Did Willie Heard Carry Secret to the Grave? The following discusses dying by suicide using terminology common for the early 1900s time period. I'll read it as written, but please be aware that the language might be upsetting for some listeners. The story reads in part, quote,

When Willie Heard, in a drunken frenzy, ended his life last Monday in Lincoln by shooting himself in the head with a Winchester rifle, did the true story of Matty Hackett's death go down to the grave with him? Was it drink that inspired the deed? Or was it the haunting fear of discovery and arrest that caused Heard to kill himself? They are questions that will never be answered by him. Death has sealed his lips and the grave will hold his secret, if secret he had. That Hurd knew something about the murder of Maddie Hackett seems probable, unquote. The piece goes on to reveal an alleged confession made by William Hurd to his brother-in-law, Wallace Dolly.

William had deserted the army in 1905, and on the night of Maddie Hackett's murder, he and two other men were making their way through Reedfield, Maine. They stopped at the Hackett home to carry out their alleged pre-orchestrated scheme. One of the men got Mr. Hackett out of the house, while the other two lured Maddie outside in the other direction. Wallace Dully kept the secret of this confession until William died. This story of the confession was apparently known. After his death, other family members recounted the version of events that they'd heard from William, each with slightly different details, but all following

nearly the same plot. It's hard not to wonder if the story William heard told was based in any sort of fact, or if the ramblings of a man, influenced by liquor, were only retellings of details he'd read in the abundant newspaper reporting at the time. According to the sheriff and the county attorney, William Hurd was not among the transient men detained in the earliest days of the murder investigation. Harry Jones was not an alias used by William Hurd. As written by the Bangor Daily News, how much or how little William Hurd may have known of the Hackett murder is, and always will be, a mystery. If you find yourself in Reedfield, perhaps on your way to a late summer swim in Maranacook Lake or winding through the more rural back roads of Kennebec County just exploring, maybe you could pay a visit to Maddie Hackett where she rests.

Let her know we haven't forgotten. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Source material for this episode, including reporting by the Bangor Daily News, the Evening Herald, Boston Globe, and others are listed at darkdowneast.com. Follow Dark Down East on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. But if you are an Apple Podcasts user, pop open the Apple Podcasts app, go to the Dark Down East show page, and tap five

stars if you love listening to Maine and New England true crime stories. If you feel like writing a short review while you're there, even better. Thank you for supporting this show and the stories I cover by leaving a rating and review. 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 murder 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.