By Marilyn Fish
On a rainy day in October, 1891, A. B. Pomeroy was hunting with his dog, Jack, in a wooded area of Washington. Suddenly Jack ran toward a leaf-covered area and began digging frantically. When the hound pulled a man’s suspender out of the earth, Pomeroy, further noting the sickening odor of decomposing flesh, dashed to the telegraph office and wired authorities. Word spread quickly and reporters arrived at the scene along with a dozen villagers in time to witness Sheriff Crosby uncover a gruesome sight: the nude body of 30-year-old John Whalen of West Becket, nearly decapitated, with his skull brutally bashed in. His legs, having been crudely hacked off above the knees, were found on top of his body. The next day the Fall River Herald described in sensational detail the signs of “a murder of the most revolting kind.” The story was to be headline news for the next two years.
When all the evidence was revealed, the public learned that Whalen, a single man, had boarded in Washington for the summer with 35-year-old William Coy, a co-worker on the Boston and Albany Railroad, and his pretty, young wife Frances Coy and her two sons. The Coys and Whalen occupied a ramshackle house near the tracks. Whalen was last seen with Coy at the Washington railroad station on August 29th at about 8 pm. According to Coy, he and Whalen had quit work at noon that day, taken the train to Pittsfield and Westfield, and visited several saloons. After returning together to Washington at about 8 pm, Whalen staggered off to the Coy house while Coy returned to Pittsfield for a few hours. During their day of drinking, Whalen had confessed that he had been intimate with Coy’s wife. He also admitted that they planned to meet in Albany and elope to Kansas. Meanwhile, Frances Coy had left home the day before, telling her husband that she was going to visit relatives.
Later that same evening, Coy returned home from Pittsfield in a drunken rage and hit a sleeping Whalen over the head with the butt of an axe, slitting his throat for good measure. He took Whalen’s valuables and attempted to carry his body to a wagon for disposal. Finding the corpse too heavy, he hacked off the legs and carried them separately to the burial site.
Three days later Coy intercepted his wife in Albany and brought her home. Alarmed by the blood-spattered walls, mattress, and rug, she refused to stay. The couple lodged briefly in the home of a neighbor and then relocated to Westfield. Not long after, a bloody coat was found in the nearby woods. This alerted Whalen’s brother, who then inspected Coy’s house, observed the bloody scene, and notified police that he suspected Coy of murder. Just one day before the discovery of Whalen’s body, Detective Pease apprehended Coy in Westfield, found him in possession of Whalen’s gold watch and $150, and arrested him. Mr. Coy insisted that Whalen had given him the items as an appeasement for his affair with Mrs. Coy. He later admitted to the murder but claimed that it was in self-defense during a violent quarrel.
Coy’s trial began on March 21, 1892. Five days later a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death by hanging. Despite two stays of execution and his lawyers’ strenuous efforts, the sentence remained unchanged. Coy believed that he would somehow escape punishment but was executed on March 3, 1893, at the Berkshire County Jail in Pittsfield in front of 300 spectators. According to news accounts, he behaved stoically while on the scaffold. His last words, directed to his former prison guard, were “good bye.” This was to be the last execution to take place in Berkshire County.
Sources: Genealogical records and contemporary accounts in newspapers including The Pittsfield Sun, The Berkshire Eagle, The Fall River Herald, and The Boston Globe
