Widener Library A sketch of the Parkman-Webster murder scene, circa 1850.

A man was murdered in Cambridge on the 23rd of November, 1849, his body dismembered and dumped in the furnace of a college laboratory. Thirteen days later, a suspect was arrested. What followed became known as the Parkman-Webster case, a sensational trial that horrified the public not only because of its gruesome details, but because the victim and the accused belonged to Cambridge’s elite. Newspapers across the country reported on every development, crowds gathered outside the courthouse daily, and Harvard Medical College found itself at the center of a scandal that threatened its reputation. The investigation would ultimately hinge on early forms of forensic science, turning the case into one of the most closely

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