#MiddleburyCT #BessieWebster #Wakefield
This image shows the headline from a Meriden Morning Record (Meriden, Connecticut) front page article published Wednesday, July 2, 1913. The story made headlines in newspapers across the country and in Canada. (Middlebury Historical Society image)
By DR. ROBERT L. RAFFORD
Part III of V – The April 1913 move from Middlebury to South Street in Bristol for Bessie (Webster) Wakefield and her husband, William, and two children, was a wise one. William’s brother Frederick and family were living in nearby New Britain, and he would feel safer there than remaining in Middlebury and working on the Dwight Wheeler Farm with James Henry Plew. The move held open the possibility of ending Bessie’s affair with Plew, who remained in Middlebury, working on the farm. But Plew was just too infatuated with Bessie to let her go, and Bessie apparently reciprocated the attraction.
About Monday, June 23, 1913, Bessie Wakefield contacted police to report her husband had gone missing the previous day, expressing a fear that he may have killed himself. Police initiated a manhunt, and after a week of searching, William was found the following Saturday in the woods on the farm of Judge Frederick Merrick Peasley and his wife, Elizabeth (Brooks) Peasley, of Cheshire. He was quite dead, and the conditions were suspicious, to say the least.
The previous day, James Plew had arrived at the home of Bessie and William. According to later reports, James told Bessie of his plot to do away with William so that the two could live together. William, who was somewhat meek and easily swayed, was persuaded to go along on a walk with Plew. Before they left the house, they had quarreled, and Plew choked Wakefield. Plew administered chloroform to Wakefield, which dazed him. When they had reached the woods of northern Cheshire, about 12 miles away, James carried out his scheme. He shot Wakefield twice in the back of his head, and took Wakefield’s knife from his pocket and stabbed him through the heart. He took shoe laces from Wakefield’s pocket, made a thong, tied it around Wakefield’s neck, and dragged his body and attached it to a bough in an effort to give the appearance of suicide. Returning to Bristol after the murder, Plew told all the events to Bessie.
Upon finding his body, it is not difficult to understand why police had become suspicious. Subsequent questioning by police extracted a confession by Bessie of taking part in the murder, saying she dutifully followed Plew’s requests in the scheme, including reporting her husband missing the next day. On Tuesday, July 1, Bessie J. Wakefield, 24, was taken into police custody, driven to Waterbury, and charged with being an accessory to the murder of William O. Wakefield, 43. James Plew, 47, was arrested in Middlebury the same day and was charged with Wakefield’s murder. The two were then taken together to the New Haven County jail and placed on “murderers’ row.” Arriving in New Haven, Plew remained silent, but Bessie seemed quite unperturbed, even remarking that this had been her first ride in an automobile.
The news of the murder was carried across the nation and Canada by most newspapers, often on the front page. As more facts continued to emerge from police and coroner Eli Mix, Bessie and Plew were subjected to questioning. Bessie detailed her involvement almost immediately, and Plew ultimately confessed and corroborated Bessie’s story concerning Wakefield’s death. The initial story of the murder, involving people in the small, rural town of Middlebury, Connecticut, had suddenly become a gruesome, national news story. But, it seems, that was only the beginning of a story that continued to grow much larger.
You are urged to join the Middlebury Historical Society by going online at MiddleburyHistoricalSociety.org or visiting them on Facebook. Questions about membership can be sent to Bob at robraff@comcast.net.
You must be logged in to post a comment.