Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1882 — LIVING ON HUMAN FLESH. [ARTICLE]

LIVING ON HUMAN FLESH.

Horrible Details of the Crimes of Beckwith, of Alford, mass. Boston, Mass., Jan. 30. It is now believed that the murder of Simon A. Vandercook, near the town of Alford, this State, a few weeks ago was the result of the cannibalistic longings of a powerfully built man of fine personal appearance named Beckwith, between 55 and 60 years of age, and weighing something over two hundred pounds. On the day when the constable and posse broke into Beckwith’s hut some sicaening sights were presented. In the stove were discovered the head, feet and one hand of a human body, charred and blackened by fire. In an adjoining room was found the rest of the body, the trunk split through, several ribs split off, and the entrails taken out and lying in a basket near by. Great slices of flesh had been cut from the arms and legs, and there were evidences of a ghastly and fiendish purpose having been completed. The theory is, and it is said to be well founded, that Beckwith is a cannibal. It is thought he intended to eat a portion of Vandercook’s body, the liver of the victim having been found in his frying-pan and a portion of it gone. The murderer had also, it is said, washed his victim’s remains and otherwise prepared them for salting down in a barrel, to serve for a supply of food during the winter. That Beckwith’s stomach was not too fastidious for this sort of diet would seem to be implied by the remark of a stage-driver that Beckwith ate one of his horses that died from disease early this winter.” Some of the people of Alford say they have heard the murderer boast that he had eaten human flesh in Australia, and that he could do it again, if necessary. It is called to miud that an old lady, named Mrs. Willeby Peck, went berrying on the mountains in the vicinity of Beckwith’s cabin several years ago, and has never since been seen. At’ the time of her disappearance 100 men made search for her. Now Beckwith’s recent crime gives color to a suspicion that he also murdered this woman, aud, perhaps, ate portions of her flesh. When Beckwith was last in Great Barrington, a few weeks ago, he inquired of one of the butchers whether the latter wished to purchase some pork. When the cabin was reached, soon after the murder, no pork or other provisions of any account could be found, and the startling query now raised among those possessed of vivid imaginations is whether he intended to sell human flesh as pork. Beckwith’s cabin has been burned, and it is reported that there has been found beneath the rubbish a subterranean passage, iu which it is thought that the remains of 190 persons have been burned.