Battered Bodies In Stetson Pond
True Crime Historian
Richard O Jones
4.4 • 729 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Episode 334 is a simple tale: Three men go fishing on a boat, one man comes back the next day saying the other two were drowned in an accident on the pond. But was it an accident? We’d let the jury decide but for a rare motion with unusual timing by the prosecuting attorney that makes the outcome a certainty.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Popular.com |
| 0:02.0 | Stetson, Maine, August 13, 1890. |
| 0:15.3 | The finding of the bodies of Will Colbath of Exeter and Harry Quimby of Stetson in the Goodwin stream, a small |
| 0:23.8 | tributary of Stetson Pond, and the circumstances surrounding the affair have caused much comment |
| 0:30.8 | in this town today. |
| 0:33.1 | On Friday, Will Colbath, age 29, Harry Quimby, 16, and Arthur Sargent, 29, went fishing, |
| 0:43.3 | and nothing further was heard of them until Saturday morning, when Sergeant appeared at the home of his employer, Charles Goodwin, in a bedraggled condition, and stated that Colbath and Quimby had been drowned in the stream about five the night before. |
| 1:00.6 | Mr. Goodwin at once went to the locality indicated by Sargent and there in about seven feet of water found the bodies. |
| 1:09.3 | He secured help and towed the bodies to a wharf. |
| 1:12.6 | The faces of both were badly battered and bruised. |
| 1:17.6 | Coroner George M. Barrows of Newport was sent for, and he ordered an autopsy. |
| 1:24.6 | A jury was impaneled and several subpoenas issued for the giving of evidence at the inquest. |
| 1:30.3 | The autopsy on the body of Quimby disclosed bruises on the back, ecomosis about the right eye, |
| 1:38.3 | and indications that a heavy blow had been inflicted on the upper lip. The right ear was badly torn, the mouth mutilated, and the skin of the nose partially removed. |
| 1:51.3 | There was no water in the lungs, and this, with the condition of the heart, indicated that death came suddenly. |
| 1:59.3 | Coal bath's eyes were both badly cut and the face considerably bruised, and no water was found in the lungs. |
| 2:08.0 | Sargent was very willing to tell his story. He is married. He was in bed and said he was |
| 2:14.8 | suffering from a wound in his foot, which had been inflicted |
| 2:18.3 | by stepping on a sharp rock while wandering about in the woods Friday night. |
| 2:23.3 | Dr. Tibbitts said today that the bodies had, in his opinion, been in the water seven or eight hours, |
| 2:31.3 | and that the appearances were that death had come more suddenly than in an ordinary case of drowning. |
| 2:37.0 | ...during. True Crime Historian presents yesterday's news, classic tales of scandals, scoundrels, and scourges told from historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism. |
... |
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