Richard Parmelee Robinson Trial: 1836

The Jewett murder rapidly became one of the era's most sensational crimes. Prominent New, York Herald editor James Gordon Bennett himself examined and reported on the crime scene, noting that "Jewett was well known to every pedestrian in Broadway." Another visitor, New York City Mayor Cornelius W. Lawrence, made his distress clear: New York, a city of 270,000, had seen only seven official homicides the year before. The crime immediately boosted the circulation figures of a dozen or more New York newspapers, all of which vociferously argued the likelihood of Robinson's guilt.

Research by editor Bennett disclosed that Helen Jewett was a Maine native named Dorcas Doyen. She had wended her way to Massachusetts as an apprenticed servant girl, learning "gentle manners" and an appreciation of the arts and literature. Seduced at 16, she had taken the first of four assumed names as she moved into brothel life in Portland, Maine, then in Boston. She had worked in New York for three years.

Joseph Hoxie, proprietor of the store where Robinson clerked, hired a prominent lawyer, Ogden Hoffman, to defend him. As the trial opened on Thursday, June 2, some 6,000 would-be spectators thronged the city hall courtroom and corridors. Twenty reporters strained to catch the testimony (no official transcripts were made) as Judge Ogden Edwards repeatedly demanded quiet. Next day, the judge summoned 50 extra marshalls to maintain order. When only 21 of 59 called jurymen appeared and only seven were seated, the judge ordered the drafting of "talesmen"—individuals rounded up from streets and stores nearby. All but one were established businessmen.

Opening for the prosecution, District Attorney Thomas Phoenix called on Rosina Townsend. She testified that Robinson had visited Jewett frequently in recent weeks but that George Marston, known as Bill Easy, was Jewett's usual Saturday-night client. Cross-examination by defense lawyer Hugh Maxwell failed to shake her story of admitting Robinson, seeing him in Jewett's room, and discovering the murder and fire.