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| The township of Cheshire |
Shoe Box Road
Hidden within the wooded and hilly region surrounding
the ominous Broad Brook Reservoir are the remnants of a dirt path, known as Shoe Box Road. Legends speak of a man who
lived along this road in the 1800s who murdered his lover and then took a saw to her body, cutting her up into small pieces
and storing the gory parts in a shoe box. Secreting the box in his shed, he was later arrested by authorities and his
property confiscated by the township. In the early 1900s, the house was demolished. Later, around the 1950s, the
entire area was purposefully flooded with the waters of Broad Brook Reservoir. It is believed that the foundation of
this gruesome home lies hidden beneath the dark waters at the end of Shoe Box Road.
The Investigation
When we arrived in Cheshire, we were able to quickly locate
both the Town Hall and the Cheshire Historical Society, which sat directly across the street from the Cheshire Academy.
The ladies in the Town Clerk's office, Laura and Judy, were extremely helpful and very enthusiastic as they scattered to retrieve
maps and information regarding our investigation. In the middle of perusing the maps, in walked a very interesting gentleman
by the name of Bob Thatcher, who proclaimed that he knew exactly where Shoe Box Road was and could give us a background on
the story.
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| Our helpful friend, Mr. Bob Thatcher |
As we began to coallate the information being thrown our way, Laura
explained that an old dirt road used to snake its way in and out, criss-crossing Route 68 and ending up very close to the
area where one may find the foundations beneath the water. She went on to explain that people had witnessed these foundations
underneath the reservoir while flying over the area. We realized as we delved into the investigation that the Shoe Box
Road in Wallingford (which is part of a complex of newly constructed homes) may in fact have been the site of a former dirt
road that led through the woods and joined the old dirt path that leads to the water's edge near the submerged foundations.
If this was true, then this part of the legend, at least, can be corroborated. What we needed now was evidence of the
murder and of the homes (or what was left of them) that once stood along this dirt road.
We crossed the street to the Cheshire Historical Society, but found
that it was closed during the months of June, July and August. GHOST members climbed in the
car and drove south along Route 68 (Academy Road) locating a very tough-to-find dirt trail leading toward the water's edge
through the woods. We began to follow it, but saw a "No Trespassing" sign. We departed the area, a bit disappointed,
but we will returning to obtain the proper permission to tour the site in the near future.
Conclusion
While we are sure that a Shoe Box Road does exist, and that there used
to be a dirt road that was near to a series of foundations (now underwater) we cannot know if the legend of Shoe Box Road
is true. We attempted, without success, to find information on the web, but to no avail. We will be returning
to the Historical Society in Cheshire in a couple of weeks, as well as the Town Hall, to obtain records on property holders
and so forth. We will continue to update you on this story as more information becomes available.
GOOSEBUMP FACTOR: 0
Barry A. A. Dillinger
August 20th, 2006
UPDATE: Creepy
Connecticut was recently contacted by a woman named Maureen Clarke from Wayne, Pennsylvania,
who was keen for information regarding Shoe Box Road. She had grown up in Wallingford and recalled as a child having
heard the story of the grisly murders. She also remembered once upon a time having played on the wooded path known as
Shoe Box Road. Within a few weeks, her dogged research led her to the truth about the murders and she has kindly submitted
the following work for our many readers:
The Wallingford Shoe Box Murder
On Sunday, August 8, 1886, Joseph Terrill, Edward Terrill, and Joseph
Samson, all of Wallingford, went out to pick berries. As they wandered through the swampy woods near the Cheshire border,
Edward’s dog suddenly became agitated, and began to bark furiously. Responding to the dog’s alarm, the men
discovered a wooden packing box half-hidden in the bushes.
The box was about 30 inches long, 12 inches wide and 10 inches deep,
and gave off a horrible odor. Undeterred, they pried the top off the box – and discovered a nude, headless, limbless
torso resting on a bloody bed of straw.
The arms, legs and head had been clumsily hacked off – the
work of a butcher, not a surgeon.
Authorities began an intense investigation, but clues were few.
The box had originally been used for shipping shoes. On the
outside were stenciled the words, “One half doz. Pair men’s seamless Cong., one half doz. machine sewed, six to
ten five wide fine stitched: No. 7. 149 No. 1.139”. The box once bore an address, which had been carefully scraped
off.
The Wallingford Medical Examiner speculated that the man had been
dead no longer than 48 hours. Aside from the gashes where the limbs and head had been removed, there were no bruises
or cuts. From the great quantity of blood in the box, it was surmised that the torso had been placed in the box immediately
after death. An autopsy yielded nothing other than the fact that the deceased had been between 20 and 30 years old, and
healthy.
The shoe box was found in the Parker Farms District, about three
miles from the center of Wallingford, in a wooded, out-of-the-way place, far from usual travel routes and almost a mile from
the nearest house. It was believed that the murderer knew the area, because of the remoteness of the woods.
The area was hilly and swampy; the nearest road was a little-used
cart-track through the woods. (This path later became known as “Shoe Box Road.”) Although authorities visited
the site to look for footprints, there were none; news had spread quickly, and curiosity had drawn so many people to the site
that any footprints had been obliterated.
The shoe box was taken by horse-cart to various storekeepers in
the area who sold shoes, but none of them could identify it.
On September 27, Wallingford farmer David Gaylord found a bag on
his property, near the place where the box had been found. The bag, made of rough cloth, contained human arm and leg
bones. Upon inspection, it was discovered that the forearms and hands were missing. The bones were bare, but fragments
of flesh were found in the bag, which also contained tarpaper similar to tarpaper found in the shoe box.
Despite a long investigation, using all the forensic techniques
available at the time, the identities of the murderer and his victim were never discovered.
All of the recovered body parts were buried in the Wallingford town
plot.
The hands, forearms and head were never found.
Information for this story was taken from a series of articles in
the New York Times and the Hartford Courant, 1886-87.
Maureen Clarke grew up in Wallingford, and as
a kid, spent a great deal of time wandering in the woods along a dirt path that everyone called Shoe Box Road.
NOTE: Maureen's letters and links to the original NY Times
and Hartford Courant articles regarding this murder can be found in the Letters to the Webmaster section under "Cheshire".
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