Boston, Massachusetts, December 20th, 1911. Reverend Clarence Virgil Thompson Richardson,

former pastor of the ultra-fashionable Emmanuel Baptist Church of Cambridge,

attempted to commit suicide at 2.30 o'clock this morning.

He may recover.

Richison stabbed himself in the groin with a piece of tin in an apparent attempt to remove his genitals,

just as his guards were changing. He was rushed to the prison

hospital in a critical condition. Physicians tried to reattach his mutilated genitals, but were

unsuccessful, and so finished the job that Richison had started by removing them completely.

There is no escape from confession but suicide once declared Daniel Webster in a famous New England murder trial,

and suicide is confession.

Though Richison is not known to have confessed, many believe his attempted suicide today was impelled by a conscience

which gave him no rest. Several efforts were made by the prison officials to prevent the news of

his attempted suicide from becoming known. When Richison was found in his cell in a pool of blood,

writhing in pain, he was carried immediately to the

hospital ward, and all the guards and attendants were sworn to secrecy.

The story leaked out late in the morning when a short-term prisoner, who had seen the wounded man on his way to the hospital,

went to the newspaper office, and sold the information.

Later, it was denied by prison officials, but even as they were denying it, there came

ringing through the prison corridors, Richison's wild voice,

My God, I'm dying! He shrieked again and again.

My God, I am dying!

It was only then that county officials would confirm the story. Medical examiners for the county and a number of physicians were hurried to the jail

...