Thomas W. Piper was the sexton of a Baptist church in Boston. In May 1875 a five-year-old girl, Mabel H. Young, was fatally injured in Boston, and she died the next day. Piper was arrested, indicted for her murder and convicted. In March 1876 the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts overruled the exceptions he had taken at trial. On a Sunday in May 1876, with an execution date set, he told his lawyers that he had also been responsible for the death of a young woman in 1873 and for an earlier assault on another woman. He was executed on May 26, 1876.
Only one of these events produced a verdict. The conviction for Mabel Young's murder is the one part of the case that rests on a court record. The 1873 death of Bridget Landregan, the assault on M. T. and the other crimes Piper described were never tried.
According to the City of Boston's Parks and Recreation Department, Piper was born on April 22, 1849, in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, the son of a farmer. His family moved to Boston in 1866. He was a churchgoer and a Baptist, and he became sexton of a Baptist church in the South End. The Massachusetts Historical Society describes him as a well-respected sexton who was known for his literacy and for the black cloak he wore.
His schooling and family life are not on record. He held a position of trust in the congregation when the events of 1873 to 1875 took place.
The first death later linked to Piper was that of Bridget Landregan, a young woman, on December 5, 1873. The name appears in the record with several spellings, including Landrigan and Landergan. The City of Boston's account places her death on that date.
Nothing connected Piper to the death at the time. A University at Albany archival record says he was the leading suspect but was never charged. The first link between Piper and the death is his own statement in May 1876, after he had been convicted of another murder. A New-York Tribune editorial of May 9, 1876, reporting the confession, placed Landregan's death at Dorchester in 1873.
In early 1874 a woman, M. T., was assaulted in Boston. The City of Boston's account says she survived, was confined to a mental asylum, died about a year later, and never identified her attacker. The Massachusetts Historical Society lists the assault among the crimes Piper later confessed to.
The accounts disagree on what Piper said about this case. The Tribune editorial of May 9, 1876, describes him admitting to the killing of a woman named M. T. about two years before, which does not match the survival reported by the City of Boston. No court heard any charge arising from it.
Mabel H. Young was five years old. On Sunday, May 23, 1875, she was fatally injured in Boston, and she died the following day. The indictment against Piper, quoted in the Supreme Judicial Court's opinion, charges murder of Mabel H. Young in Boston, Suffolk County, on May 23, 1875.
A witness came forward. When that man heard that a child had died, he went to the police, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society. Piper was arrested, indicted and brought to trial.
The case was tried in Suffolk County before Justices Colt and Lord of the Supreme Judicial Court. The jury convicted Piper of murder. The date of the verdict is not on record. The Massachusetts Historical Society says that Piper kept calm through the trial and showed nervousness only after he was convicted.
The trial judges allowed Piper's bill of exceptions, which sent the questions raised at trial to the full court. Those questions concerned how the trial was run.
In Commonwealth v. Piper, 120 Mass. 185, Justice Morton wrote for the court. The court overruled every exception and left the conviction standing. The points it decided were these.
First, the order of challenges to jurors. The trial court had allowed the Commonwealth to challenge a juror after Piper had apparently declined to challenge him. The court held that no statute or rule fixed the order, that the matter lay in the trial judge's discretion, and that no exception could be taken to its exercise.
Second, part of a police officer's evidence. The court held that it identified a point the witness had shown him and did not corroborate the witness, and that the order in which evidence is received is also for the trial judge.
Third, a witness's description of Piper's behavior after the death. The witness said that Piper showed no interest in what was going on around him. The court held that this was a description of conduct and appearance, not an opinion, and could be received.
Fourth, the statements Piper made to another witness. His counsel argued that they were produced by promises from the officer who held him. The court restated the rule that a confession induced by a threat or promise from a person in authority cannot be used, and that the judge decides the preliminary question. The trial judge had at first found that promises had been held out and had ruled the confession out. The Commonwealth then offered Piper's conduct and declarations as evidence of his consciousness of guilt, and the court allowed it. The statements in question were a denial of guilt, not an admission. After the officer was recalled and clarified his account, the judge found that no inducement had been offered. The jury was nevertheless told to disregard any statement it found had been made under such an influence. The Supreme Judicial Court held that this protected Piper and that there was no error.
Fifth, the evidence of three physicians who had examined the child. The court held that their opinions fell within their expertise and could be received.
Sixth, an offer of evidence about experiments with a measuring instrument. The court upheld the trial judge in refusing it, because the conditions of the experiments had not been shown to resemble those of the case, and the question was one of discretion.
The disposition was short: exceptions overruled.
After the decision, Piper's counsel applied for a new trial. On Sunday, May 7, 1876, Piper told his lawyers that he was guilty of Mabel Young's murder, which he had denied until then. According to the New-York Tribune editorial of May 9, he also admitted to two earlier crimes, one in Dorchester in 1873 and one in Boston about two years before. The Massachusetts Historical Society reports that after two days of questioning he also confessed to several fires, to the assault on M. T. and to the death of Bridget Landregan.
The Tribune said the application for a new trial had been formally abandoned as a result. The editorial was cautious about the statement. It described Piper as a habitual liar, questioned whether his claims of remorse could be trusted, and said that a confession from a man of his record should be treated carefully unless something else supported it. It also said that only the account of the child's death was available in an authentic form at that point.
The City of Boston's account says the earlier crimes were linked to Piper only after this confession, and that he described a strong urge and called himself a bad man.
Piper was executed in Boston on May 26, 1876.
A broadside poem about his "confession and execution" circulated afterward under the name of a poet who had died in 1873, the Readex Report notes. Walter L. Sawyer, who attended the trial, put together a scrapbook of drawings, photographs and newspaper accounts of the case, now held by the Massachusetts Historical Society.
The number of victims is not settled by any court. One person was convicted: Mabel H. Young. Bridget Landregan's death was confessed in May 1876 and never charged. The assault on M. T. is reported as something he confessed to; the reports differ on whether she was killed or survived. Several fires and at least one other assault were also admitted or attributed to him. Accounts differ on whether he confessed to anything beyond the child's murder.
The Tribune editorial of May 1876 treated the confession with open doubt, and none of the confessed crimes other than the child's death had been tested in court. The opinion refers to one trial and conviction; the number of trials is not otherwise on record.
April 22, 1849: Thomas W. Piper is born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
1866: His family moves to Boston.
December 5, 1873: Bridget Landregan dies in Boston; no one is charged.
Early 1874: a woman, M. T., is assaulted in Boston.
May 23, 1875: Mabel H. Young is fatally injured in Boston; she dies the next day. Piper is arrested.
March 20, 1876: the Supreme Judicial Court overrules Piper's exceptions in Commonwealth v. Piper, 120 Mass. 185.
May 7, 1876: Piper confesses to Mabel Young's murder and to earlier crimes.
May 9, 1876: the New-York Tribune reports the confession and the abandoned application for a new trial.
May 26, 1876: Piper is executed.