9

THE AFTERMATH

Guilt Is the Motive, Not the Result

In order for Frank Sheffield to be found not guilty of the crime of murder, he had to have legally been found to suffer from insanity. Guilty people are not let back out onto the streets, but neither are insane people. Therefore, the verdict did not free Frank back into society but earned him a bed at the Rhode Island State Hospital for the Insane, located on Howard Avenue in Cranston.

The hospital was part of the Rhode Island State Institutions complex, situated in the village of Howard. The complex was an effort to separate the poor, the insane, the feeble, the criminals and the inebriates who had all been lumped together in institutions for generations.

In 1869, the state had purchased two adjacent pieces of property: the Stukeley Westcott farm and the William Howard farm. A workhouse, an almshouse, a prison, a county jail, a reform school for boys, a reform school for girls and the hospital for the insane were built on the land. Some of the structures were of the rustic wooden variety, while others reached high into the sky, in Gothic brick-and-stone fashion. The complex, in its entirety, was managed by the Board of State Charities and Corrections.

Exactly one week after Maggie had been bludgeoned by her father behind the beautiful cliffs of Rocky Point, the matter had seemingly been all but forgotten by the vast majority of the public. On that particular day, the park had its biggest turnout of the year. A new holiday, Labor Day, had been added to the calendar, and the masses were ready to celebrate.

On that cool, crisp September morning, nearly ten thousand Rhode Islanders gathered together at half past nine to march through the streets in honor of this new yearly occasion that celebrated the workingman. It had taken a great deal of petitioning to accomplish, but at last, laborers had managed to legally establish the first Monday in September as their day. The rhythm of drumbeats and the piercing melody of fifes set the pace for decorative floats and elated marchers to weave their way toward Dyer Street in Providence. There, on the wharves, they happily assembled to board the steamboat for Rocky Point.

The Rhode Island State Hospital for the Insane, where Frank Sheffield was locked away for life. Vintage postcard, author’s collection.

The crowd that day was much larger than what had been expected, and the Continental Steamboat Company actually had to enlist the help of its competitors in order to carry the thousands of passengers down the bay to the park. Once the steamships docked, the excited masses headed toward the grove beside the park pavilion where they began a two-hour rally. A delicious clam dinner followed at the Shore Dinner Hall, and then the revelers dispersed in all directions, taking in the rides, animal menageries and performances.

The gaiety and laughter went on as usual. Nothing but a single rocky ledge separated the celebration of that day from the site of the mournful tragedy that had occurred there the week before.

On March 14, 1901, Frank died at the state hospital.

Nancy remained living in the 27 Liberty Street house for the rest of her life. By that time, she had invited her fifty-seven-year-old widowed sister, Wealthy Pendleton Sisson, to come live with her. Wealthy had been married to John Edward Sisson, a veteran of the Civil War who had served in Company M of the Sixth Connecticut Artillery.

The grave of Frank Sheffield at Elm Grove Cemetery in Mystic, Connecticut. Photograph by Kelly Sullivan Pezza.

Their sixty-one-year-old brother, Charles, who had served in Company C of the First Cavalry during the Civil War, also moved in. In addition to her two children and two siblings, Nancy housed two boarders, John Wilcox and Roland B. Gavitt, who worked as machinists at a local company, and a seven-year-old girl named Lillian M. Gardner.

Nancy continued to work as a dressmaker for most of her life, visiting the homes of clients who sought her skills as a seamstress. However, in 1917, her son, Amos, who was employed as a teamster on the farm of F.L. Merritt in Noank, asked to be exempted from the draft for World War I due to the fact that he had an elderly widowed mother who was dependent on him for support.

By 1920, Amos had gained work at a local lumberyard, and the only occupants of the house at that time were himself, Nancy and Wealthy. Wealthy passed away on April 29, 1925. Nancy followed on June 25 of the following year at the age of seventy-four. Two months later, the Liberty Street house passed into the hands of a new owner.

Nancy and her sister were both laid to rest at the Thompson Family Cemetery in North Stonington, Nancy being separated from her husband even in death. Nancy, who was born on September 17, 1852, was one of nine children born to Amos Sheffield, who had died on December 4, 1888, and Sarah Warner, who had died on March 15, 1887, at the age of forty. In addition to her brother Charles, Nancy’s other siblings included brothers James and Joseph, as well as four sisters: Sarah, who died in 1865 at the age of twenty-four; Mary, who died two months later at the age of nineteen; Phebe, who passed away at the age of seven in 1862; and two-year-old Harriet, who died in 1852.

Frank and Nancy’s daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, went on to marry William Woodward Goff, a piano tuner, fourteen years her senior. The couple lived in Providence, Rhode Island, for a while before settling down in Westerly.

The Palmer Street School, which had been the stage for an injury that would become a subject of court testimony, was sold to the Lorraine Manufacturing Company in 1900, when the much larger West Broad Street School was constructed. Having opened its doors in 1875, Palmer Street School was initially a small institution of learning with just four classrooms and 150 students. Growing attendance necessitated the need for an addition to the building in 1890.

On September 21, 1911, the empty schoolhouse caught fire. The blaze began somewhere in the lower hallway and worked its way up three flights of stairs to the clock tower, where the bell was housed. That bell, which had apparently caused Frank a lifetime of misery, crashed down so loudly from the burning tower that it awoke half the town. By the time the flames had been put out, only one wall of the school still stood in its entirety. The other three walls remained partially standing. The entire third floor was gone, and the interior of the building contained nothing but charred wood fragments and ash.

Workmen from the manufacturing company later located the bell in the rubble. As the Pawcatuck Congregational Church of Westerly had been using a bell that was cracked, the company gave it the school bell. However, after it was installed in the church and rung, it was discovered that the heat from the fire had destroyed its tone. After being sent to a foundry, melted down and recast, it was replaced in the church belfry, where it remained until the highly destructive hurricane of 1938. Heavy winds caused the belfry to go crashing through the roof, bringing the bell down with it. As the costs for reconstruction were too high, the bell was stored away in the attic of the church.

When plans were made to raze the church in 1970 so that a gas station could be built on the property, the bell was discovered still in the attic. Plans were made to move it to the new Congregational church and place it atop a ledge in the yard.

The Kent County courthouse, where Frank’s trial was held, still stands at 127 Main Street in East Greenwich. Built in 1805, it served as the seat of the Rhode Island state government until 1854 and is one of the five original statehouses in Rhode Island. The learning institute that would later become Brown University was originally established in this building, and the site also marks the location from which the first U.S. Navy was commissioned. Ownership of the building was transferred from the state to the Town of East Greenwich and underwent a total restoration. In 1995, it reopened as the East Greenwich Town Offices.

The East Greenwich jail building still stands as well. If the walls could talk, they would whisper of excuses and explanations and the great regard for the well-being of Frank Sheffield while the body of his daughter lay cold in her grave, miles away. Located at 110 King Street, it now houses the East Greenwich Preservation Society. On the lower floor of the building, the cell where Frank was confined is still intact, along with the others that line the short hallway. The heavy steel doors and musty coldness of the area still feels shrouded in a dark past. Upstairs, the witness stand from the courthouse is used as a podium for meetings.

The old East Greenwich jail as it looks today. Photograph by Kelly Sullivan Pezza.

On Frank’s death certificate, his cause of death is listed as “petit mal epilepsy & pulmonary laryngeal tuberculosis.” Although there was a documented outbreak of tuberculosis in the institution at that time, it may or may not be coincidence that prolonged opium use made one more prone to contracting respiratory diseases.

While petit mal epilepsy is normally a childhood disorder that is usually outgrown by adulthood, one could argue that the blow to the head by the school bell caused brain damage that manifested as epileptic seizures. Such episodes, which can occur dozens of times per day, can include such symptoms as staring vacantly into space and short lapses in awareness as the brain’s electrical activity is briefly disrupted. Such seizures, however, last for about thirty seconds, not the duration of time it would take for a person to walk aimlessly for miles and miles. In addition, they would not cause one to have conscious or subconscious murderous intent.

There seemed to be no definite answers to the many questions left in the wake of Maggie’s death. What the world was left to understand of the tragedy was only what was documented in court transcripts and newspaper interviews. What is found there are not answers, but what seems to be a greater concern regarding the quality of life for Frank Sheffield than the five-year-old girl whose life was tragically over. From Maggie’s own family, to Frank’s co-workers, doctors, friends and complete strangers, thoughts seemed to center more on Frank’s well-being than anything else. Virtually no one could wrap his mind around the idea of Frank knowingly committing a heinous murder. He had grown up as the son of a clergyman, raised by the word of God. He had even felt the call of the ministry himself as a young man. His early life had been perfectly normal and happy, void of tragedy or hardship. He had been a beloved teacher and school principal who was adored by those he worked with and those he taught. He fell in love, married and welcomed two beautiful children into the world, including a little girl to whom he lovingly attached himself.

Life for Frank was normal and happy up until that time. But then something unexpected happened. Something went horribly wrong. The woman he had pledged his life and love to, the woman who was supposed to help him raise those two children and remain his constant companion forever, was suddenly gone. The reason she was gone, one can calculate, was because of injuries suffered while giving birth to Maggie. Frank loved Maggie, but perhaps he loved her tragically. It was never his infant son he voiced his concerns about to friends, never his son he admitted to his doctor he was afraid of not being able to support. It was Maggie.

Sigmund Freud indicated in his theories on the human psyche that our feelings toward another person actually have nothing to do with that person. Those feelings, he believed, were innately inside us already, driven by our subconscious minds to assign them to something tangible. Perhaps the immense love Frank felt for his daughter had been first assigned to his wife before her life ebbed away, leaving him with nothing to attach it to. Perhaps he transferred those feelings to Maggie. She was, after all, the tiny female embodiment of all that he had lost.

How could Frank Sheffield, a man of such good character, willfully murder the child he loved so much? He’d had absolutely no history of violent or criminal behavior in the past. Interestingly, except in the case of serial killers, most people who commit murder have no prior criminal history. In addition, up to 85 percent of all murders are committed by a friend or relative of the victim. Why would a man kill a child he loved, even if the act was for subconscious reasons? Perhaps Frank reasoned, consciously or subconsciously, that his life had been torn apart by the death of his wife. If Mary hadn’t died, he wouldn’t have been forced into the throes of depression. He wouldn’t have had to worry about who was going to care for his children. Perhaps he wanted to blame Mary for all that she had left him to handle alone. But he couldn’t blame Mary. Mary was dead.

According to Freud’s psychoanalytical research, a sense of unconscious guilt usually exists before a crime is committed, with that guilt being the motive, not the result, of the crime. He believed that people committed crimes, such as murder, to be able to fasten their guilt to something tangible, thereby providing them with final relief. Perhaps, based on Freud’s theories, Frank needed to attach those feelings of blame to someone who was present.