A Series: Evolution of the Criminal Justice System
This article is part of a series examining the early workings of the criminal justice system before the modern age of police work. A version of it originally appeared in the summer 2022 issue of the Newsletter of the Salem County Historical Society.
As church bells rang out, calling people to worship on a peaceful Sunday morning in February 1874, horrifying news about a dreadful, mysterious murder in Lower Penn’s Neck spread across Salem County. John Lloyd had discovered the battered, lifeless body of Abigail Dilks, his housekeeper, in the yard, soon after daybreak. Stunned, he gave the alarm, sending a messenger to Salem for the coroner, the officer responsible for investigating suspicious deaths in the 19th century.
As news of the grisly homicide circulated, lawmen, neighbors, and people from adjoining areas dashed to the locality, about a mile south of Harrisonville. First, they came in ones and twos, Coroner W. H. Lawson and Constable Hancock, arriving shortly after neighbors on foot and in carriages descended on the grizzly spot. Soon Sheriff John Hires, Justice Wood, City Officers Gosling and Haines, Prosecutor Slape, and others reached the scene.((“The Dilks Murder,” National Standard, Feb. 28, 1874))
Murder, any murder, is unsettling, but this bloody, baffling one was even more so–the circumstances surrounding the crime were shrouded in the deepest veil of mystery. At this isolated place on a meadow about a half-mile from a neighbor, the middle-aged woman, her throat cut from ear to ear, was cold and dead on the lawn. She had been alone in the house Saturday evening as Lloyd and his hired hands went to Salem.
This tragedy, one unequaled since the Treadway murder almost 23 years earlier, alarmed everyone, and lawmen recognized it as a baffling case. Promptly, the entire 19th century Salem County Criminal Justice System started working the case, beginning an unremitting night and day effort to ferret out the perpetrator of the cruel assault. Since local law enforcement officers seldom handled complex, perplexing killings, they called in a private detective, a homicide expert from Philadelphia.
Coroner’s Inquest
Starting in the hands of the coroner, the investigation into the violent untimely death began immediately that Sunday morning in Lower Penn’s Neck. The constable rounded up good and lawful men to serve on the Coroner’s Jury, and Coroner Hancock swore them in. Upon their oath, the panel swore they would inquire on behalf of the State of New Jersey when, how, and in what manner Abigail came to her death.((“Murder in Lower Penn’s Neck, A Woman Found Dead With Her Throat Cut,” The Sunbeam, February 20, 1874))
The inquest followed the practices of the day, beginning with the jurors viewing the body and the crime scene. They carefully eyeballed it for marks of violence, taking note of the wounds, before retiring to the house to continue the inquiry. Seated inside, witnesses testified, and scant evidence was exhibited as doctors Waddington and Morgan conducted the postmortem on the kitchen table.
Home postmortem examinations were common in the 19th century, and a guide, Practical Pathology, published in 1883, included a section on how to do them:
A good firm kitchen table is to be placed in the room where the cadaver is lying. (If this cannot be obtained, the coffin lid or a door removed from its hinges and supported on a couple of chairs is a good substitute. The room should be well-lighted, and as large and air as possible; in a small room, the windows should be thrown wide open. A piece of stout mackintosh should be spread over the table. A couple of wash-hand basins must be procured, two empty pails, and a plentiful supply of water, hot and cold.((Woodhead, German Sims. Practical pathology. A manual for students and practitioners. Edinburgh: 1883))
After the autopsy, the physicians testified that her throat was cut sometime after she had been slain on Saturday evening, Feb. 13, 1874, either to create the impression of suicide or to make sure of her death. They believed she had been slain elsewhere, and her body had been carefully placed in the yard as they found little blood and no indication of a death struggle. There were also two stab wounds and marks on her neck and arms as if some person had tightly choked her, the physicians noted.((“A Woman Mysteriously Murdered,” Savannah Morning News (GA), Feb. 28, 1874, p. 4))
The coroner’s jury then rendered its verdict: “The deceased came to a violent death at the hands of some person or persons unknown to this jury,” they swore upon their oath.
Investigating a 19th-Century Murder
Once New Jersey’s 19th-century equivalent of CSI or medical examiner determined the cause and manner of death, the lawmen had to find out who did it, as this judgment triggered a full homicide investigation. So parties of men organized by Sheriff Hires started searching the farm and adjoining fields for weapons or other clues. The body was taken to Mantua on Tuesday, followed by her relatives and a few friends who grieved deeply at the loss of one who but a short time since they left in health and happiness.
“Murder will out,” the Salem Sunbeam optimistically reported, as the “murderer has all humanity as detective on his tracks.” But on all fronts, the 1870s criminal justice system struggled with mysterious cases. They had none of the modern tools that are available today; there were no crime scene protocols to be followed, labs for analyzing the evidence, or depth of knowledge on how to handle a murder, the occurrence of which was infrequent for the rural South Jersey Officers. In addition, the crime scene, trampled by the morbidly curious, was compromised, with no one taking care to isolate the place from gawkers.
Tension hung over Salem County — a lone woman had been murdered, and there were no witnesses and scant evidence. Who might have killed her? Without any substantial leads, suspicion quickly turned to the “usual types,” the lawmen rounding up every imaginable suspect who might have had even the remotest connection to the victim. Within days of discovering the carefully placed body, officers said they would crack the case. They had taken several people into custody for questioning while chasing down dozens of unproductive leads. It was a grueling process with little rest, but within a week, four suspects were locked in the county jail for grilling.
As days passed to weeks and months, the authorities finally arrested William Sadler, a Black man who was one of John Lloyd’s hired hands. When the June quarter session of the Court of Oyer and Terminer opened, Prosecutor Slape moved for a postponement because the state had not yet secured the necessary evidence. Judge Van Syckle granted the request, setting it down for the October term. A dozen witnesses in custody in jail were discharged on their recognizance.((“The Salem Murder,” New York Daily Herald, June 23, 1874, p 5))
Trial
There was no concrete evidence against Salder, and he was speedily acquitted during the trial in October. The Wilmington Daily Commercial reported that after Prosecutor Slape presented all the evidence, he “abandoned the case.” The judge charged the jury to return an acquittal verdict, saying there was not a single circumstance to connect the prisoner with the supposed murder. “. . . This case is still wrapped in the most profound mystery,” the reporter noted.((“Acquitted of a Charge of Murder,” Wilmington Daily Commercial, Oct. 24, 1874 p 4)),((“Murder Trial,” The Sunbeam, Oct. 30, 1874, p. 3))
With Sadler acquitted, the mystery attending Abigail’s death was greater than ever, the Sunbeam observed. The newspaper suggested that the county “offer a reward for information that might lead to the guilty party, which with the sum offered by the state ($600) might induce an accomplice in this great crime to divulge.”
As one generation gave way to another, this unsolved Salem County cold case faded from memory. The killer was never found. No motive seemed to exist, and no one could provide the slightest information that might lead to a credible suspect. Questions that had stumped law enforcement lingered for years, but those were forgotten in time. Still, the coroner’s verdict remained. Abigail Dilks died at the hands of an unknown person nearly 150 years ago.
Evolution of the Crime Justice System
Certain foundational elements of Salem County’s Criminal Justice System have survived the passage of centuries and are used today to maintain peace and investigate crimes. But other parts are unfamiliar, so we are using this forgotten 1874 cold case to analyze these changes.
In the late 19th century, investigations of complex crimes were primitive, with police having little or no experience in dealing with a baffling crime of this nature. Because local officers were on their own when they were confronted with an inexplicable or high-profile homicide, it was common practice to turn to private detectives for help. County officers did what they could to investigate a homicide, but their investigative tools were limited when there was no smoking gun or eyewitness to help crack the case. So, Salem County frequently hired a private detective, someone more skilled in these crimes.
These detective agencies had resources that vastly exceeded the capabilities of the county’s top law enforcement officer, the sheriff. They maintained networks of informants, could place undercover agents in the community, and kept records of known criminals. Plus, they had some of the best “third-degree men” around, and they could stay the course until they had run down the offender and secured a conviction. The sheriff, who had limited resources as the county’s top law enforcement officer, soon had to turn his attention back to overseeing the jail, serving warrants, providing court security, maintaining the peace, and handling sheriff’s sales.
The coroner handled the crime scene or death investigation. For over three hundred years in New Jersey, coroners investigated unnatural or mysterious deaths. When someone raised the alarm after discovering a corpse, this county official hurried to the locality to examine the death scene, gather evidence, and figure out how the loss occurred. Colonists brought this grim job over from England, it being a part of ancient British jurisprudence. While the duties waned as the centuries passed, the coroner primarily conducted a legal and medical inquiry to determine whether the loss of life came from foul play, suicide, accident, or natural cause.
Adhering to the same general practices handed down over the ages, he went to where the body was discovered to take charge of the remains. There, he checked the corpse for signs of foul play, inspected where it was found, interviewed witnesses, followed up on leads, and sometimes sought expert testimony. Once he completed the initial work-up of the case, he impaneled a jury to view the body.((Lee, John Grigg. “Hand-book for Coroners: Containing a Digest of All the Laws in the Thirty-eight States of the Union,” 1881.))
The coroner became a recognized officer of New Jersey counties in 1682, and the Constitution of 1776 provided for an elected coroner, the legislature providing for three in each county. His income was based on fees for services rendered, the officer receiving $5.00 for viewing a body, $3.00 for conducting an inquest, and $15 for burying a body in 1880.((Honeyman, Abraham Van Doren. “An Abridgement of the Revised Statutes of New Jersey: And of the Amended Constitution. United States,” Honeyman & Rowe, 1878.)),((Lee, John Grigg. Hand-book for Coroners, 1881))
The candidate did not need to know anything about medicine – or law for that matter – as the only requirement was to be a freeholder. While acceptable for the part-time nature of the post, the fee-based pay system did not make anyone wealthy in rural Salem County. Still, it could be a stepping stone for higher political aspirations.
20th-Century Advances
However, in the 20th century, enormous advances in medicine, forensics, police procedures, and crime scene investigations provided death investigation capabilities far beyond what untrained officeholders and their juries could provide. On January 1, 1968, the corner system, which was still in existence in Salem and some other counties in New Jersey, was eliminated. “Sponsors said it would pave the way for modernization of New Jersey’s ‘horse and buggy’ methods of investigating sudden and unexplained deaths.” The coroners in Salem County at the time were Hubert T. Layton, Horace Anderson, and William B. Adams. Layton and Adams were funeral directors, the Salem Sunbeam reported.((“Coroner System Replaced,” Salem Sunbeam, November 23, 1967. P. 1))
Eventually, this ancient English institution, the coroner and the coroner’s inquest faded from the criminal justice system as reliance on professionally trained police detectives and forensic experts made this part of British jurisprudence obsolete.
In conclusion, the investigation into the murder of Abigail Dilks in Salem County in 1874 highlights the evolution of the criminal justice system over the centuries. The case highlights the challenges of the 19th-century Salem County Criminal Justice System in solving complex cases and how limited their tools and resources were. Today’s criminal detection mechanisms involve modern scientific methods to help solve complex crimes.