In Episode 459, (our nine-year anniversary show!) Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the haunted Portsmouth, Rhode Island, location where the 1673 gruesome death of Rebecca Cornell lead to a haunting and a ghost whose word would be enough to convict a man to a death sentence. But whodunit?
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Voice Actors: Marv Anderson and Tracey Cosgrove
Theme Music by: John Judd
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[DRIVING IN CAR]
JEFF: Okay, make a right up here.
[BLINKAH]
RAY: Okay, we’re pulling into the parking lot of the Valley Inn Restaurant.
JEFF: That’s our destination.
[CAR STOPS]
[DOORS OPEN/CLOSE]
RAY: This looks like an older, Colonial three-story house. The building is white with chimneys on either side.
JEFF: The building only dates back to 1892.
RAY: Only?!
JEFF: Right.
RAY: Wasn’t that the year Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks?
JEFF: The same year. To be fair, when they built this in 1892, they were trying to model the 17th century farmhouse that stood here before. That’s the building we’re interested in. But this is about as close as we can get to… the scene of the crime.
RAY: Are we looking into true crime this week in Portsmouth, Rhode Island?
JEFF: We are. It’s the strange story of a murder… and a conviction that came thanks to the testimony… of a ghost.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger. Welcome to Episode 459 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger.
JEFF: Ray, this marks our nine year anniversary!
RAY: 9 years of ghosts, monsters, aliens, UFOs, roadside oddities, and all things weird. Thank you for being part of it with us! We can’t do it without you! So many of our story leads come from you, so please contact us anytime, or join our street team and record a short bit of audio from your favorite local legend and send it to us through our website. You might hear yourself on a future episode.
JEFF: We’ll investigate this Portsmouth, Rhode Island, murder and ghostly accusation right after this quick word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
RAY: Murders always haunt communities.
JEFF: They do.
RAY: Even when we know who done it, and that person is punished, no one likes to live in a town where a murder happened.
JEFF: Definitely true. That haunts us potentially forever. So where the restaurant now stands, there used to be a farmhouse owned by the Cornell Family. Where we’re standing was once 100 acres of their farmland. And this was ground zero for a very strange case.
RAY: It’s tough to imagine a sprawling farm here considering it’s now a large parking lot and popular restaurant that’s been in business for almost 70 years.
JEFF: I understand. To figure out what happened, and explore whodunit… let’s head back to the year 1673.
[TRANSITION]
[WINTER WIND OUTSIDE]
RAY: It’s early February of 1673 here in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. King Charles II is on the throne, in Rhode Island, tensions are rising between the colonists and the local Narragansett, Niantic, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc people. More Colonists continue to come over on ships, and more land is getting snatched up all over.
[WIND FADES OUT]
JEFF: But here on the Cornell Farm, things are quiet and slow. Being February, there isn’t much to do beyond caring for the animals and surviving the winter. Living here in the farmhouse is 73-year old widow Rebecca Cornell, her son, Thomas, his second wife Sarah, their two daughters, his four sons from his first marriage—sadly his first wife died—there’s a man lodging with the family, and another man who lives and works here as a servant.
RAY: It’s a full house!
JEFF: It is!
RAY: It’s Wednesday, February 8th, and Rebecca Cornell isn’t feeling well. She’s been arguing with her family today. Specifically Sarah, who seems to resent having to care for her elderly mother-in-law.
JEFF: Of course, Sarah and her family have a place to live because of her mother-in-law…
RAY: There’s that… Rebecca decides to skip dinner tonight. It’s salt-mackrill, and that doesn’t sound appetizing to her upset stomach. So Rebecca’s son, Thomas sits with her a while to visit and chat. He tries to calm her down about the argument she had earlier with Sarah. After leaving his mother’s bedroom, he heads off to wind up some yarn before the evening meal.
[DINNER SOUNDS]
RAY: It’s just after 7PM when the family sits down to dinner. Rebecca is resting in her downstairs bedroom, while the family eats their meal.
[CLEANING UP PLATES]
JEFF: With dinner finished, young Edward heads off to check on his grandmother and see if there’s any food he can bring her.
[WALKING ON WOODEN FLOOR]
[DOOR CREAKS OPEN]
JEFF: Edward steps into Rebecca’s bedroom…
[FIRE BURNING]
RAY: Oh my God! This is awful!
JEFF: Rebecca is lying face down in the hearth of the fireplace! Her entire upper body is burnt up!
RAY: Somebody get some help!
[RUNNING ON WOODEN FLOORS]
JEFF: The family rushes to Rebecca’s bedroom to see the horrific scene. (BEAT) Thomas is covering his mother in a blanket to dowse the flames.
[SOUNDS FADE]
JEFF: By the time the flames are extinguished, Rebecca is unrecognizable. Her body has been blackened by the fire. (BEAT) She’ gone.
RAY: This looks like a horrible, tragic accident. The best Thomas can figure, his mother must have gotten out of bed, either gotten light-headed or tripped, fell, hit her head on the hearth of the fireplace, was knocked out cold, then burned up.
JEFF: The family prepares Rebecca’s body for her funeral. Being the middle of winter, her body is wrapped in a shroud, placed in a casket, and stored in the barn where it will have to wait for spring’s thaw to be buried in the family plot.
JEFF: It’s now February 10th. Two days since the death of Rebecca.
RAY: We’re at the home of John Briggs, Rebecca’s 64-year-old brother. He’s broken-hearted at the tragic loss of his sister. As Briggs is lying in his bed trying to sleep… he sees something strange.
JEFF: Look! The shadow of a woman is standing by his bed! (BEAT) Briggs sits up with a start!
BRIGGS: In the name of God, what art thou?!
REBECCA: I am your sister. See how I was burnt with fire… SEE HOW I WAS BURNT WITH FIRE!?
JEFF: It’s the following day. The rattled Briggs seeks out the local constable to tell him he suspects foul play based on his sister’s ghost visiting him the night before. It’s enough that the constable agrees to investigate.
[KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK]
[DOOR OPENS]
RAY: The constable arrives with a doctor at the Cornell home and asks to inspect Rebecca’s body. (BEAT) The family brings him out to the barn.
[WALKING ON SNOW]
[DOOR OPENS]
[SLIGHT HAMMERING ON WOOD]
RAY: They pull the nails off the coffin lid, and open the casket for the constable.
[CREAK OF CASKET DOOR]
JEFF/RAY: Oh that smell! It’s pretty bad.
JEFF: It’s cold out here, enough to make decomposition slow, but not cold enough to freeze her solid.
RAY: The constable is removing the funeral shroud and… uhhh this is awful. It smells like burnt meat that’s beginning to rot…. The doctor is looking over the body of Rebecca.
JEFF: This is tough to watch and tough to smell. The doctor seems focused on the midsection of Rebecca’s corpse. (BEAT) Huh….
RAY: What is it?
JEFF: The doctor believes he’s found a puncture wound in Rebecca’s stomach. And suddenly…
RAY: And suddenly this looks like it could be a murder covered up by burning the body.
JEFF: Exactly. In the coming days, the constable investigates the Cornell family. He learns how Thomas’s wife, Sarah never got along with her mother-in-law. He learns that Thomas wasn’t too fond of his mother either. Thomas has the house, sure, but he always resented the fact that he had to divide her massive fortune among his siblings, while he had to stay and care for the farm and his mother. Between that, the suspicious wound on Rebecca’s stomach, and Rebecca’s strange ghostly visitation to her brother, John Briggs, the Constable believes he has enough evidence to arrest Thomas for the murder of his mother.
[CELL DOOR SLAMS]
RAY: Thomas claims he’s innocent. There are two doorways that offer entrance to Rebecca’s bedroom. He said it could have been local Indians who snuck in to exact some kind of revenge killing on the family. But the judge doesn’t buy it.
[GAVEL BANGS THREE TIMES]
RAY: 46 year-old Thomas Cornell is sentenced to hang for the crime of killing his mother. The motive was to be rid of the burden of caring for her.
JEFF: Thomas Cornell hangs on May 23rd. A few months later, his widow Sarah gives birth to his last child. A girl she names Innocent in honor of her father. And for the rest of the Cornell family, this is not the end of the story, either.
RAY: No it’s not. In the coming years, the Cornell family tried to bring charges against a local Indian they called Harry. Back in 1671, Thomas Cornell had larceny charges filed against Harry. Harry was punished, and the family believed he snuck into the house to exact his revenge. Harry was tried for the crime, but was acquitted.
JEFF: In 1675, Thomas’s younger brother, William, made a compelling case that his sister-in-law, Sarah, at least had a hand in the killing. He claimed she had a violent streak. But she too is acquitted. Accidental death was still a possibility, and it would later come out that Rebecca attempted to take her own life on previous occasions.
RAY: And at this point, Thomas had already been executed, so clearly if other people are standing trial, the authorities aren’t certain they killed the right person.
JEFF: No, they’re not. But he died due to circumstantial, and spectral evidence. The victim’s ghost appearing to her brother was good enough to make Thomas Cornell hang. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: So whodunit? Thomas Cornell? His wife? An accident? Someone who snuck into a house full of people murdered Rebecca Cornell, then slipped out unnoticed?
JEFF: We’re never going to know, Ray. It’s an interesting footnote that this Cornell family is related to Ezra Cornell who founded Cornell University.
RAY: Very cool! But they weren’t smart enough to save poor Thomas.
JEFF: There’s that. Another interesting footnote. This restaurant building was constructed in 1892.
RAY: Right, we said that earlier. The same year Lizzie Borden took an axe.
JEFF: Right. Remember Innocent Cornell?
RAY: Thomas Cornell’s last child. Yeah.
JEFF: Innocent Cornell was the great, great, great, great grandmother of… Lizzie Borden.
RAY: Woah… my mind is blown.
JEFF: Right? But back to this potential 1673 crime at the house. We need to remember, this was a time when people were scared all of the time because of growing tensions with the Native Americans. Plus, this murder took place about two decades before the infamous Salem Witch trials.
RAY: So spectral evidence was still very much a thing.
JEFF: Yes it was. Eventually, the Cornell farmhouse fell into ruin, and this building was constructed on the same footprint as the old farm House. And it’s been a restaurant for decades now. A restaurant where they say occasionally some things bump in the night. Which isn’t surprising considering Rebecca Cornell died tragically somewhere within feet of where we’re standing today. And her son hanged for the crime thanks to the testimony of Rebecca’s ghost.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: And that takes us to After the Legend where we dig deeper into this week’s story and sometimes we veer off course.
JEFF: After the Legend is brought to you by our patreon patrons! Thank you patrons for helping us financially with all of the expenses it takes to keep our lights on and us producing two stories each week. We don’t have a big podcast network behind us, we’ve got you! So thank you. It’s just $3 bucks per month, and for that you get early ad-free access to new episodes, plus bonus episodes and content that no one else gets to hear. It’s just a little, but if there’s enough of you it goes a long way. To sign up head to patreon.com/newenglandlegends. We also have a special 7-day trial if you want to check it out before you pay.
To see some pictures related to this week’s story, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on Episode 459
Before we part ways until next time, please help our community grow. You can do that by subscribing to our podcast if you don’t already. It’s free wherever you get your podcasts. You can post a review for us. That helps a lot. You can share our episodes on your social media. The more people listening, the more folks who share their weird story leads for us and we keep on rolling.
We’d like to thank Marv Anderson and Tracey Cosgrove for lending their voice acting talent this week, thank you to our patreon patrons, and our theme music is by John Judd.
Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.