Original, handwritten letter from “Boy Fiend” Jesse Pomeroy. Very rare, revealing letter circa late 1800's to a fellow inmate, Willie Baxter. In full:
"Friend Willie, I received your note and wish you to reply to this when you can. About the boy in the Marsh [one of Pomeroy's victims was killed in a marsh], well I met the boy and said something to him I have forgotten what and he went with me and I took him there and killed him. Willie I remember you now have you not changed some during the last 2 or so years. Now you will please reply to the questions Iwrote in my last letter of last night. You are a good looking fellow and look as though you could not do wrong or ever get punished. Do you get a licking very often? I never used to much. Tell me if you do and tell me of the hardest whipping you ever got. Tell mel all the particulars of it and I will tell you of the hardest flogging I ever got. Don't forget to tell me for if we are to be friends in here we ought to tell each other everything about ourselves. Will you tell me as I ask you about the hardest whipping you got if it hurt much how it was done to you and I will tell you about the hardest one I got also tell me all you have heard of about my doing to these boys on Powder Hill and Railroad. Don't forget to write me a long letter. Jesse Pomroy Tare all my notes up".
A clear insight into Pomeroy's very disturbed mind. This letter was used as source material by book author Harold Schechter while writing his biography of Jesse Pomeroy and formerly belonged to the artist Joe Coleman.
COA included
(1859 - 1932) Serial murderer, the youngest person to ever be convicted of murder in the first degree in Massachusetts. At the age of 12, he had already abducted, beaten and tortured several young boys. In 1874, Pomeroy confessed to the brutal murders of a younger boy and girl, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Governor William Gaston would not sign his death warrant due to Pomeroy's youth, and the Governor's Council, which could legally commute Pomeroy's sentence, finally did so in 1876. The "Boy Fiend" would spend the next 56 years in prison.
