The Attleboro Sensation.

(Illustrated Police News, April 3, 1886.)

Agnes Anastasia Long moved out of her parents’ home in East Attleboro, Massachusetts, in April 1882. With her many male suiters, she was considered the black sheep of the family. Her father had enough of her bad behavior and, according to the Boston Herald, “refused to permit her to darken the threshold of his humble home.”

She took a job at Streeter Brothers’ Jeweler Store in East Attleboro and roomed with Edith Cole, another Streeter Brothers’ employee, at the lodging house run by Mrs. Brown. They took their meals at a nearby boarding house run by Mrs. E. Arnold. There she met George E. Stowers who was quite attentive to Agnes. They saw each other often, and Agnes became so attracted to Stowers that she seemed unhappy when not in his presence. 

Stowers worked for Handy’s Grocery Store delivering orders to customers. He drove by Mrs. Brown’s house with his horse and wagon nearly every day to see Agnes and he called upon her three or four evenings a week. Those who knew Agnes believed that they were destined to marry, and she told her friends that Stowers had promised marriage.

Edith Cole said Stowers would often call at Mrs. Brown’s. At first, she would join them in the parlor, but when she realized they had a romantic attachment she left the couple to themselves. The door was never locked, and she did not think Stowers ever visited in their chamber. When the weather turned warm, they would stroll outside or go on carriage rides.

Around the Fourth of July, Agnes told Edith she was going away for a day’s pleasure with Stowers but would be home that night. She did not return that night or the night after.

“This conduct,” said Edith, “in addition to other rather unfeminine acts, rather turned me against Agnes, and at the earnest solicitation of my mother I left her about July 17 and took a room by myself in another portion of the town.”

(Illustrated Police News, April 10, 1886.)

Over time, Stowers’s attention to Agnes waned and he became more attentive to Annie E. Godfrey who also took her meals at Mrs. Arnold’s. Annie owned a millinery and dressmaking store in town. Though he did not stop seeing Agnes, he began spending more time with Annie. Agnes noticed the change in Stowers and became quite jealous and did everything she could to win back his affection. She still asserted to her friends that she and Stowers would be married, but by September the romance was all but over.

Around this time, Agnes realized that she was pregnant. She went to see Dr. Batenshill, asking for medicine to relieve her condition. The doctor refused to have anything to do with her and recommended she see a lawyer. The lawyer she hire tried, several times, to persuade Stower to marry her, but he always declined. Then Agnes wanted him to swear out a bastardy warrant against Stower, but it is unclear whether the warrant was ever issued.

Then, that fall, it appeared that Agnes would get her wish. She told her friends that she and Stowers had reconciled and were going to be married. One day in November 1882, Agnes told Mrs. Brown she was going to party that evening. Agnes had been ill and Mrs. Brown replied, “I don’t think you are able to be out. You would look better in bed than at a party.” Nevertheless, Agnes went out that night between 8 and 9 o’clock. Mrs. Brown never saw her again. 

Sometime later, Mrs. Brown received two letters dated from Providence, Rhode Island, purporting to be from Agnes. They said she had moved to Providence and would come back later to settle her bill and pick up her belongings.  She never came. Mrs. Brown thought that Agnes could not write, and firmly believed the letters were written by George Stowers.

Mrs. Brown tried to find Agnes in Providence, with no luck. Agnes’s family took no interest in finding her. The disappearance of Agnes Long was soon forgotten.

On March 16, 1886, nearly three and a half years later, two brothers Thomas and John Odie were rabbit hunting in the woods of Wrentham, Massachusetts, eight or ten miles from Attleboro. They chased a rabbit who ran into a heap of brush. Thomas jumped on it to startle the rabbit and something white rolled out. Thomas picked it up, thinking it was the skull of a dog. 

Suddenly he dropped it and shouted, “It’s a human skull, and there’s a bullet hole in it.”

They notified Deputy Sheriff Coleman, who went with others to the site. There they discovered a braid of dark brown hair and the skeleton of a woman. The skull showed marks of a bullet from a thirty-two-caliber revolver which passed through the right temple and out the left temple. 

For several days, identifying the skeleton seemed hopeless. Josep Petrovski, from Providence, Rhode Island, believed it was his sister Katie, who kept company with a man in North Attleboro, but this could not be confirmed.

Then gradually people began to remember Agnes Long. Mrs. Fannie Briggs, a dressmaker, positively identified a portion of a brown flannel dress found upon the skeleton. It was part of a dress she made for Agnes in October 1882 to be worn at her wedding. Two corset springs found with the body were hooped at the bottom which a prominent physician in town said indicated that the wearer was pregnant. The skull had an upper plate of false teeth which her mother identified. Other pieces of clothing and jewelry were identified as belonging to Agnes.

Some people, including Edith Cole, believed that Agnes had gone into the woods and committed suicide. The police rejected this theory because the body had been covered over with brush after death and the revolver was not found.

(Boston Globe, March 22, 1886.)

A locket found with the body, opened to reveal photographs of two men. The man on the left, smoking a cigar, was identified as Samuel Snell, and he was briefly considered as suspect in Agnes’s murder. Snell told Boston Globe he had known Agnes before she moved out of her parents’ house. They had gone out together, but he cared no more for her than for many others whom he met. He could not identify the other man in the locket.

The prime suspect soon became George E. Stowers. Rebury Manchseter, who managed Gardner’s Stable in Attleboro, said that on November 22, 1882, Stowers hired a buggy and a horse named Sukey, returning at 2:00 AM. The next day Manchester found the cushion covered with blood and blood on the floor of the buggy.

(Boston Globe, March 21, 1886.)

Following the disappearance of Agnes Long, George Stowers married Annie Godfrey. On the evening of March 15, Detectives Pratt and Seaver went to their home in North Attleboro. Stowers received them pleasantly but denied all charges against him.  This is what he told the detectives:

 

I knew Agnes A. Long as well as I did many other girls in the town. I took her to ride once or twice but that was all. I never took her to a party and knew nothing of her condition or whereabouts. I remember paying for a team hired at Gardner’s Stable and being obliged to pay an additional amount for overdriving, but that is all. No blood as far as I know was ever found on the carriage I used…I deny everything tending to show I was implicated in any way with the fall or condition of Miss Long.

The detectives told Stowers they had more questions and would be back the next day. When they went to his house the next morning he was gone, and his wife did not know where he went. Detective Pratt issued the following statement:

George E. Stowers of Attleboro, wanted for the murder of Agnes A. Long. Description: Height, 5 feet 10 inches: weight,170 pounds; light complexion, auburn hair, mustache same, medium height, eyes inflamed, wears gold-bowed spectacles. Had on when last seen dark clothes, round top hat. Has large hands; usually works on farm. Arrest and notify George C. Pratt, or Elijah Capron, state detectives, office district police, Commonwealth building, Boston. 

Rufus R. Wade, Chief

The manhunt began but was somewhat hindered by the fact that neither the town, nor Agnes’s family offered a reward for Stowers’s capture.

On March 17, Stowers visited McGrory’s saloon in Boston’s Northend. He had shaved his mustache and worn less conspicuous glasses. Henry McGrory, a friend of Stowers, said he came in drunk. McGrory took him to his private office and read the last news of the investigation. 

Stowers said, “I did not kill her. I know all the facts in the case, yet I did not do the deed and was not a party to it.”

McGrory claimed he tried to signal one of the patrons to go for a policeman, but it didn’t work. Sowers left soon after in the direction of train station. While in the saloon, Stower wrote a letter to his mother:

Dear Mother: I am going away for a time to avoid being arrested, but I am innocent of the crime with which I am charged. Do not worry about me, as I will come out all right. Your affectionate son, G. E. Stowers.

After his escape, and when it was too late, the Norfolk Grand Jury found an indictment against Stowers for murder. The police were soundly criticized for not arresting him when they had the chance. "I shouldn't think they would have cheek enough to walk up and down the street as they do and look people in the face after letting Stowers get away from them," said one prominent Attleboro citizen.

Three years later, Stowers was positively identified as living with his wife in the State of Maine, in the wilderness near the Canadian border, engaged in lumbering. Back in Attleboro, the police were still accumulating evidence against Stowers, but, apparently, no effort was made to arrest him in Maine.

The chase effectively ended in 1893, when it was stated that George Stowers had gone to Uruguay.

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Sources: 

“"He Cannot be Guilty",” The Boston Globe, March 19, 1886.
“"I'll Sacrifice my Life",” Boston Herald, March 19, 1886.
“"Save Him",” The Boston Globe, March 17, 1886.
“"Stowers Shall Be Mine",” Boston Herald, March 20, 1886.
“Agnes' Friend,” The Boston Globe, March 17, 1886.
“Agnes Long's Lover,” The Boston Globe, March 16, 1886.
“The Attleborough Sensation,” The Standard-Times, March 16, 1886.
“Captured in a Swamp,” The New York Times, March 23, 1886.
“Eastern Massachusetts,” Springfield Republican, March 16, 1886.
“George E. Stowers, Murderer of Agnes A. Long,” Illustrated Police News, April 10, 1886.
“George Stowers Seen at the North End,” Boston Evening Transcript, March 19, 1886.
“Hidden in a Brush Heap,” New York Herald, March 17, 1886.
“Identified,” Boston Herald, March 15, 1886.
“Legislative Acts/Legal Proceedings,” Boston Evening Journal, February 19, 1889.
“Located at Last,” The evening world, February 8, 1889.
“A North Attleborough Tragedy Recalled,” Boston Evening Transcript, July 28, 1893.
“One or More?,” The Boston Globe, March 16, 1886.
“The Police Want Stowers,” Boston Herald, March 17, 1886.
“The Skeleton Mystery,” The New York Times, March 19, 1886.
“The Strong Room Got Ready,” Boston Herald,, March 16, 1886.
“The Wrentham Mystery,” Boston Evening Journal, March 14, 1886.