The New York Times
February 17, 1857
The Detroit Murder Case.
The Alleged Victim Astonishes Everybody by Appearing in Court.
Some days since, a peddler named Samuel Kiter, age 19, entered the house of a man named Bickly, in Detroit, whose family consists of three ladies and a little son. The peddler was missed by his friends. He was traced to Bickly's house--he had never been seen to leave that house afterwards!
The three ladies in Bickly's family, Mrs. Mary Bickly, Miss Norah Bickly, and Mrs. Mary Shehan, were arrested on the charge of murder, and lodged in jail at Detroit. Old Bickly and his son were too unwell to be removed. The examination of the parties commenced on Friday.
The "murdered" man's brother testified that he had visited the prisoners' house and made a search. Saw fresh blood on the floor and wall; found bones and a piece of cloth in a barrel of ashes; he thought the cloth belonged to his brother's vest; saw blood on the barn and on the snow.
A man named Peabody saw blood and "smelt something burning."
The Free Press says that the counsel were about summing up the case on Saturday, when a male Dutchman (the peddler) who had stood with his hands in his pockets, a quiet spectator of the scene, stepped forth and protested against any such liberties being taken with his affairs, declaring that he had neither been slaughtered nor burnt up, and as to being dissolved into the small show of sheep bones and horse hair which the table before him afforded, he felt indignant at the idea.
February 17, 1857
The Detroit Murder Case.
The Alleged Victim Astonishes Everybody by Appearing in Court.
Some days since, a peddler named Samuel Kiter, age 19, entered the house of a man named Bickly, in Detroit, whose family consists of three ladies and a little son. The peddler was missed by his friends. He was traced to Bickly's house--he had never been seen to leave that house afterwards!
The three ladies in Bickly's family, Mrs. Mary Bickly, Miss Norah Bickly, and Mrs. Mary Shehan, were arrested on the charge of murder, and lodged in jail at Detroit. Old Bickly and his son were too unwell to be removed. The examination of the parties commenced on Friday.
The "murdered" man's brother testified that he had visited the prisoners' house and made a search. Saw fresh blood on the floor and wall; found bones and a piece of cloth in a barrel of ashes; he thought the cloth belonged to his brother's vest; saw blood on the barn and on the snow.
A man named Peabody saw blood and "smelt something burning."
The Free Press says that the counsel were about summing up the case on Saturday, when a male Dutchman (the peddler) who had stood with his hands in his pockets, a quiet spectator of the scene, stepped forth and protested against any such liberties being taken with his affairs, declaring that he had neither been slaughtered nor burnt up, and as to being dissolved into the small show of sheep bones and horse hair which the table before him afforded, he felt indignant at the idea.
