The Leavenworth Case | Page 5

congratulate myself
upon our good fortune in having so intelligent a coroner.
As for his jurymen, they were, as I have intimated, very much like all
other bodies of a similar character. Picked up at random from the
streets, but from such streets as the Fifth and Sixth Avenues, they

presented much the same appearance of average intelligence and
refinement as might be seen in the chance occupants of one of our city
stages. Indeed, I marked but one amongst them all who seemed to take
any interest in the inquiry as an inquiry; all the rest appearing to be
actuated in the fulfilment of their duty by the commoner instincts of
pity and indignation.
Dr. Maynard, the well-known surgeon of Thirty-sixth Street, was the
first witness called. His testimony concerned the nature of the wound
found in the murdered man's head. As some of the facts presented by
him are likely to prove of importance to us in our narrative, I will
proceed to give a synopsis of what he said.
Prefacing his remarks with some account of himself, and the manner in
which he had been summoned to the house by one of the servants, he
went on to state that, upon his arrival, he found the deceased lying on a
bed in the second-story front room, with the blood clotted about a
pistol-wound in the back of the head; having evidently been carried
there from the adjoining apartment some hours after death. It was the
only wound discovered on the body, and having probed it, he had found
and extracted the bullet which he now handed to the jury. It was lying
in the brain, having entered at the base of the skull, passed obliquely
upward, and at once struck the medulla oblongata, causing instant
death. The fact of the ball having entered the brain in this peculiar
manner he deemed worthy of note, since it would produce not only
instantaneous death, but an utterly motionless one. Further, from the
position of the bullet-hole and the direction taken by the bullet, it was
manifestly impossible that the shot should have been fired by the man
himself, even if the condition of the hair about the wound did not
completely demonstrate the fact that the shot was fired from a point
some three or four feet distant. Still further, considering the angle at
which the bullet had entered the skull, it was evident that the deceased
must not only have been seated at the time, a fact about which there
could be no dispute, but he must also have been engaged in some
occupation which drew his head forward. For, in order that a ball
should enter the head of a man sitting erect at the angle seen here, of 45
degrees, it would be necessary, not only for the pistol to be held very

low down, but in a peculiar position; while if the head had been bent
forward, as in the act of writing, a man holding a pistol naturally with
the elbow bent, might very easily fire a ball into the brain at the angle
observed.
Upon being questioned in regard to the bodily health of Mr.
Leavenworth, he replied that the deceased appeared to have been in
good condition at the time of his death, but that, not being his attendant
physician, he could not speak conclusively upon the subject without
further examination; and, to the remark of a juryman, observed that he
had not seen pistol or weapon lying upon the floor, or, indeed,
anywhere else in either of the above-mentioned rooms.
I might as well add here what he afterwards stated, that from the
position of the table, the chair, and the door behind it, the murderer, in
order to satisfy all the conditions imposed by the situation, must have
stood upon, or just within, the threshold of the passageway leading into
the room beyond. Also, that as the ball was small, and from a rifled
barrel, and thus especially liable to deflections while passing through
bones and integuments, it seemed to him evident that the victim had
made no effort to raise or turn his head when advanced upon by his
destroyer; the fearful conclusion being that the footstep was an
accustomed one, and the presence of its possessor in the room either
known or expected.
The physician's testimony being ended, the coroner picked up the bullet
which had been laid on the table before him, and for a moment rolled it
contemplatively between his fingers; then, drawing a pencil from his
pocket, hastily scrawled a line or two on a piece of paper and, calling
an officer to his side, delivered some command in a low tone. The
officer, taking up the slip, looked at it for an instant knowingly, then
catching