Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Joseph Jenkins Napp Junior was expecting to receive a sizeable inheritance upon the death of his eighty two year old great uncle, Captain Joseph White, but with debts piling up, Napp decided he couldn't wait for natural causes. He and his brother, John Francis Knapp also known as Frank, hired a hitman to murder him, and then things got way out of their control. Welcome to Criminalia, I'm Maria Tremarky.
And I'm Holly Fryme in eighteen thirty When This Tail Unfolds. Captain Joseph White was a wealthy retired shipmaster and trader who lived in a grand home at one hundred and twenty eight Essex Street in Salem, Massachusetts. He employed Benjamin White, a distant relative who was house handyman Lydia Kimball, a domestic worker, and Mary White Beckford, his niece and housekeeper.
Mary White Beckford's daughter, also named Mary, lived a short distance away in the town of Wenham, and she was married to Captain White's grand nephew Joseph Jenkins Nap Junior.
Joseph Junior learned through his mother in law that White had changed his will, and he was angry that he would be getting less inheritance than he had expected and that his wife's family too had been impacted. He had an idea. He got greedy is what he got. White was a widower and had no children. He did have potential heirs, though the children of his siblings. His brother had four children and his sister had one. If he didn't name an heir, his wealth could legally have been
split in basically one of two ways. If Captain White's assets were distributed per capita, each niece and nephew would receive an equal one fifth of the total fortune. Alternative, if it was divided for sturpys, then each branch of the family would receive an equal share of his estate, meaning his brother and his sister would both receive fifty percent.
Joseph Junior convinced himself that if his great uncle died without a will, his mother in law White's niece would be in a position to inherit a significant amount of that fortune, and he believed that money would go directly to write into his own pocket. He was incorrect on all of this, but he didn't know that.
The Captain was a wealthy member of the White family. But he wasn't necessarily a beloved family member. He was known to be a bit of a tyrant when it came to his money, and he was known to weaponize and exploit how he would distribute his assets after his death to get what he wanted while he was still alive. The Captain did not much like Joseph Junior, who had worked for him, and he considered him a quote lazy
cow fortune hunter. When his grand niece Mary Beckford married Joseph Junior without White's consent, he disinherited her and fired Nap from his employment. This event is what sets our story in motion.
Joseph Junior conspired first with his brother Frank to hire local criminal Richard Crowninshield to murder Captain Joseph White. The Knapp brothers had known Richard and his brother George since they were all teenagers, and Frank made the deal next to decide. When, on the night of April second, eighteen thirty, they finalized the plan, it was decided it would take place on April sixth, a night when they knew Mary White Beckford would be in Wenham at Joseph Junior's home with her daughter.
Four days before the murder, so pretty close to the time they made this decision, Joseph Junior looted the Captain's iron chest, stealing what he erroneously believed to be White's legal will. An iron ches generally was used to store important and sometimes secret papers, but there was another will, a newer version favoring his nephew, Stephen White, and that will was not in his home. It was secured in
the office of his lawyer. Unaware of his mistake, Joseph Junior hid the will that he had and then burned it after the murder. Basically, he ordered White's death to get his hands on a fortune that would never be his to have.
On April sixth, Joseph Junior visited the Captain's home and before leaving, he unlocked the back parlor window. That night, murderer for hire, Richard Crouninshield, entered the house through the unlatched window, reaching it by climbing a wooden plank. He went to the Captain's bedroom, where he then clubbed White in the head and stabbed him multiple times with a long dagger known as a dirk while he slept. Neither of the Knapp brothers entered the house that night.
The next morning, Benjamin White woke at six am, and upon opening the shutters the kitchen window, observed that the back window of the parlor was unexpectedly open. Also unexpectedly, a plank was raised to the window from the backyard. The captain's bedroom door, upon investigation, was also unexpectedly open. White was lying in his bed, his clothing and bedding saturated with blood. Nothing in the house, including valuables, appeared to have been tampered with. Nothing seemed to be missing.
Stephen White was a prominent Salem merchant and political leader, and he was also the captain's favored nephew. We've seen him referred to as White's adopted son. They were that tight. He was also the principal heir to the captain's fortune. Immediately upon hearing of the death, Stephen sent for William Ward, who had been Joseph White's clerk and business assistant for
many years, and Samuel Johnson, a prominent Salem position. Ward made an interesting note from the crime scene near the plank left at the open window, he discovered two footprints. This was still decades before footprints were considered important evidence, or evidence at all, but Word covered them with a milk pan to secure them from tampering and from weather in case they could be helpful.
Upon cursory examination of the body, doctor Johnson concluded that the death had occurred as little as three to four hours earlier. He noted thirteen stab wounds, five in the region of the heart, three near the left nipple, and five others placed as though White's arms had been lifted up and he had been stabbed underneath. He also determined a blow to the head was the initial wound, and
he concluded that a full autopsy should be conducted. Doctor Johnson, assisted by his colleague doctor Abel Pearson, performed the autopsy on April eighth. It was agreed that the skull fracture was due to a single severe blow from something like a cane or a bludgeon. The chest wounds they determined were caused by a dirk, and noted that its crossguard had struck the ribs with enough force to break them. Though Johnson believed there was one assailant, Pearson was not
so sure. Stephen White gave the Salem Gazette permission to publish the autopsy findings, no matter how gruesome, and that report read, in part quote, A fracture of the skull bone was discovered, the largest diameter of which was three and a half inches. This portion of bone was depressed below the level of the surrounding skull and was somewhat loose and moveable. On examining the heart, there were found at its apex two wounds. Also, a little nearer the
base of the heart were two long slits. The slits were found connected with the perforations and were evidently produced by the same blows. The posterior and inferior portion of the left lung was likewise perforated in several places.
The residents of Salem were shocked, one that there'd been a murder, but two a murder of such a prominent citizen, contrary to his behavior with his family. People in town
considered White to be quite amicable. They organized a twenty seven member group they called a Committee of Vigilance, also known as the Vigilance Committee, to investigate Vigilante groups like this are typically citizens who organize outside of legal authority to keep order and punish criminals because they believe the usual legal agencies to be inadequate, or in some cases
those agencies just don't exist. The committee was sanctioned to do things law enforcement could not, such as quote, search any house without a warrant and interrogate every individual. So if you're thinking, but yes, you are right. This was in direct opposition to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. But that's not what the citizens of Salem were worried about in that moment. They were worried about a brutal murderer.
At large.
Rewards and some quite sizable, were offered for information leading to the perpetrator or perpetrators and for any information about the crime. Immediately after the Captain's death, Stephen White offered a one thousand dollars reward. Soon after, the town fathers offered five hundred dollars for information about the crime.
There were many articles published addressing moral outrage in Salem, as well as general confusion among its residents, and the press seemed to print more commentary than actual news. On April ninth, the Salem Gazette published quote, A murder has been perpetrated so horrible and atrocious that we should in vain search the records of crime in any country for a case exceeding it in the single purpose of the
perpetrator seems to have been the taking of life. The next day, the Salem Observer reported on the climate this created among residents of Salem, stating, quote, the imagination of everyone is busy not only devising possible ways in which the assassin proceeded to execute his hellish purpose, but also in framing adequate motives for his conduct.
About three weeks after the murder, while emotions were still running very high, the Knap brothers came forward to falsely testify before the Vigilance Committee that on the night prior to the murder, they were approached near Wenham Pond by three robbers who had come upon their carriage while they were returning from Salem to their home and Wenham, a
journey that's less than ten miles. One of them grabbed the horse's bridle, and the other two stole a small trunk they were carrying in the bottom of their carriage and that tall tail. That just added to the confusion of the scene, and it led many to fear that there was a gang of criminals at work. In their village.
We're going to take a break here for a word from our sponsors. When we return, we will talk about how authorities started to close in on the perpetrator, who sent blackmail letters to whom and who gave a detailed written confession about the whole thing.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's keep moving along with the case, specifically when and how investigators finally got their first clue.
There were no clues in the case until Stephen White received a letter from a jailer roughly eighty miles away in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was holding a relatively un own petty thief who stated that he knew a man named Richard Crowninshield who had told him that he intended
to kill Captain Joseph White in Salem. Following up on this lead, the Vigilance Committee learned that the prisoner named Hatch had been arrested for shoplifting and had been in jail the night of White's murder, but had some interesting information about White's death. During questioning, the committee learned that a few months before the murder, back in February, before Hatch was incarcerated, he had overheard Richard and George Crowninshield
discussing their intent to steal Joseph White's iron chest. He also overheard them discussing their murderous intentions at the gambling house that night. The Crown and Shields were a notable and wealthy local family. Richard and George, though preferred spending their time in quote haunts of vice.
The Committee of Vigilance brought Hatch to testify before a Salem grand jury, after which on May fifth, Richard Crowninshield was indicted for murder. George Crowninshield, as well as two men who'd been in the gambling house that same night as Hatch, were charged with abetting the crime. The two men, Selman and Chase, were soon discharged.
About a week later. On May fourteenth, Joseph J. Knapp, senior, father of the Nap brothers, received correspondence from a mister Charles Grant of Belfast, Maine, who was demanding a large sum of money to avoid quote ruinous disclosures regarding the Naps. Grant wrote, quote, I am acquainted with your brother Franklin and also the business that he was transacting for you on the second of April last and that I think you were very extravagant in giving one thousand dollars to
the person that would execute the business for you. You see, such things will break out. This letter, a blackmail letter, made no sense to Joseph Senior. He didn't know anyone by the name of Charles Grant, he had no acquaintances in Belfast, Maine, and he was completely boggled why he
needed to pay three hundred and fifty dollars. Alarmed, he consulted with his sons, and Joseph Junior, the letter's intended recipient, called it quote a devilish lot of trash, and he advised his father to take it to the Vigilance Committee, and Joseph Senior did just that.
And then Joseph Junior wrote two letters, both claiming to be from Charles Grant. The first letter was sent to the Committee of Vigilance, in which he claimed that he now remember Joseph Junior is pretending here to be Grant had been hired to murder Joseph White by the Captain's nephew,
Stephen White. The second letter from the fake Grant was sent to Stephen White, demanding payment for the murder and read as follows, quote, mister White sent five thousand dollars or part of it before tomorrow night, or suffer the painful consol sequences Grant.
Things were getting tense. According to one published account, one of Stephen White's brothers in law, discovering that Stephen had inherited the bulk of the captain's estate quote, seized White by the collar, shook him violently in the presence of family, and then he accused him of being the murderer. And as we know, he got that wrong.
The Vigilance Committee sent fifty dollars anonymously to Grant, promising to send more. They also sent a messenger to Belfast, Maine, where they'd arranged to arrest at the post office whomever came to retrieve Grant's mail. When a man identifying as their target collected the extortion money, he was taken into custody. But Grant, it turned out, wasn't Charles Grant either. He was an ex convict named Palmer, and he was a
friend and associate of Richard Crowninshield. He had been privy to the whole murderous plot, and he knew it was the Knap brothers who instigated the entire thing. Palmer was detained as a possible accessory to the Captain's murder and was promised immunity for his testimony against the perpetrators.
Palmer made the following statement quote, I have been an associate of George and Richard Crown and Shield, and on April second, eighteen thirty, I was sitting by a window in their house and saw Frank Knapp drive up the Crown and Shield brothers and Nap then went for a walk. Upon their return, George and Richard informed me that Frank Knapp had asked them to kill mister White and that Joseph Napp Junior would pay one thousand dollars for the job.
Several different modes of executing it were discussed, but it was finally decided to kill him at night when Missus Beckford was not home. After his testimony and the discovery that the false letters written to the committee and to Stephen White were in Joseph Junior's handwriting, warrants for the arrests of the Nap brothers were procured.
Richard Crowninshield initially was certain that he would be found innocent. He kept quiet after his arrest. After all he knew if he implicated Frank or Joseph Jr. He would be confessing to his own role in the crime. During his imprisonment, he asked for books on mathematics as well as Cicero's orations, But everything changed for him when Joseph Junior confessed to his role in the murder plot. It was on his third day of imprisonment when Napp made a full confession.
He laid it all out, from his motive to his role in planning the murder, to fabricating the story of being robbed and for forging blackmail letters. The confession document was penned by the Reverend Henry Coleman, a close friend of the White family, but was signed by Napp.
That confession was nine pages long, and we'll share some of the details that he provided. Quote. I knew that mister White had made out a will in which he gave my mother in law, Missus Beckford, a legacy of fifteen thousand dollars, according to my understanding of the law, which I have since learned was erroneous, I believed she would get two hundred thousand if no will was found. I therefore decided to steal the will and have mister
White assassinated. My brother Frank negotiated with Richard Crown and Shield, who agreed to do the deed for one thousand dollars. Crown and Shield and my brother Frank met at ten o'clock that night by appointment and proceeded to a spot where they could observe the movements in White's mansion. It was a beautiful moonlit night. Crown and Shield requested Frank to go home. He left, but soon returned.
His confession continued quote. During his absence, the lights in the mansion were extinguished, and shortly afterward, the hired assassin placed a plank against the house, entered the window, and crept upstairs to White's sleeping chamber. Crown and Shield swung his bludgeon and struck White on the left temple, probably killing him instantly, but to be certain, he lowered the bedclothes and stabbed him repeatedly in the region of the heart. He then felt his pulse, and, being satisfied that the
job was well done, he departed. He met Frank on a side street. After hiding the bludgeon under the steps of a meetinghouse on Howard Street, he returned to Danvers. I was home in Wenham on this night.
Joseph Junior continued, quote. A few days later, Crown and Shield, accompanied by my brother Frank, called on me at my home in Wenham and demanded his money. I was only able to pay him one hundred five franc pieces. He related to me all the details of the assassination, and I informed him that our work had been all in vain, that the will I stole was not the last one, and even if it had been, my object would not have been accomplished because of my misunderstanding of the law.
The story my brother and I told the Vigilance Committee on April twenty seventh in regard to the alleged robbery was a sheer fabrication, and he added quote it was I who wrote the two anonymous letters.
Of the weapons used. Joseph Junior described them as quote. The bludgeon was two feet long, turned of hardwood, and ornamented with beads at the end to keep it from slipping. The dirk was about five inches long on the blade, sharp at both edges and taboring to a point. Officers immediately proceeded to the meetinghouse on Howard Street, where they found the bludgeon described by Nap exactly where he said under the steps.
We're going to take a break here for a word from our sponsors, and when we're back we will introduce lead prosecutor Daniel Webster and why it was such a big deal that he signed on to this case.
Welcome back to Criminalia. We're going to talk about the details of the trial, but before we do, we have to address another life taken.
This story is just tragedy upon tragedy, and here we have another. When he learned about Joseph Junior's confession, Richard, seeing no hope, on June fifteenth, took his own life in his jail cell. That act, in the eyes of the law, created a problem. Here's why the Knapp brothers were to have been tried as accessories to murder. But under the existing law of the time, accessories to murder couldn't be convicted unless the actual murderer was first convicted.
Crown and Shield had been the actual murderer, the principal in the crime, and now he couldn't be tried.
But still they went on with the trials. And will explain how that problem was resolved. In just a moment. The case was heard by judges Marcus Morton, Samuel Putnam, and Samuel S. Wilde and tried before the Salem Division of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Frank Knap's trial began during the court's July term. His brother, Joseph Juniors began
in November that same year. Joseph Junior was promised immunity if he would testify for the prosecution, but when he was called to the stand, he refused to testify against his brother. A strong case was made, however, without his assistance.
And that's because Stephen White asked lawyer, lawmaker, and future Secretary of State Daniel Webster to prosecute the case. Webster didn't immediately jump at the chance. Not yet fifty, he had already served several terms in the House of Representatives before being elected to the United States Senate in eighteen twenty seven. He was known as a distinguished defense attorney and called the Great Daniel Webster because his courtroom skills
were impeccable and his oration very persuasive. Will emphasize again defense attorney. He also considered that his personal connections with the victim's relatives raised some issues over legal ethics, but In the end he agreed, and he was paid a fee of one thousand dollars by Stephen White to assist the prosecution, although this really meant that he was leading the prosecution.
With a bit of legal paperwork. An indictment for murder was found against Frank Knapp, with Joseph J. Knapp Junior and George Crowninshield named as accessories to that murder. Webster began by addressing the jury regarding his switch from defense to prosecution, as follows quotes, I am a little accustomed gentleman to the part which I am now attempting to perform.
Hardly more than once or twice has it happened to me to be concerned on the side of the government in any criminal prosecution whatever, and never until the present occasion, in any case affecting life.
He described Captain White's murder as quote a most extraordinary case in some respects. It has hardly a precedent anywhere, certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion like temptations springing upon their virtue and overcoming it before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance or satiate long settled and deadly hate. It was a cool,
calculating money making murder. It was all higher in salary, not revenge. It was the weighing of money against life, the counting out of so many pieces of silver again, so many ounces of blood.
Frank Knapp's defense attorneys, Franklin Dexter and W. H. Gardner, argued that Knapp had been outside the house, standing in the street, at least three hundred feet away from the bedroom where the murder took place. Trying to keep the focus of the trial on the fact that Webster had not satisfied the legal requirements for conviction, the defense stated, quote, upon this evidence, the prisoner cannot be convicted as a
principle in the murder. A principle in the second degree, according to the law of England, is by our statutes an accessory before the fact, and cannot be tried until there has been a conviction of the principle.
In response to this, Webster stated, quote, to constitute a presence, it is sufficient if the accomplice is in a place either where he may render aid to the perpetrator of the felony, or where the perpetrator supposes he may render aid. If they selected the place to afford assistance, whether it was well or ill chosen for that purpose is immaterial. The perpetrator would derive courage and confidence from the knowledge
that his associate was in the place appointed. Technically, the law supported the defense, so it was not an easy case for Webster to argue or for a jury to decide. Without Richard as the principal in the murder case, Webster had to establish that Frank Knapp had been more than an accessory. He argued that Frank wasn't just casually waiting outside on Brown Street. He asserted that Frank gave direct aid to the murderer. The jury deliberated for twenty five
hours before announcing that they were deadlocked. The judge declared a mistrial and the case was retried two days later.
It was reported that the crowds of people trying to enter the courtroom to watch Webster were like quote, the tide boiling up on the rocks. He was arismatic, and he was a force of nature. Webster addressed the jury again stating, quote, are the Croninshields and the Naps innocent? What is innocence? How deep stained with blood, how reckless in crime, how deep into pravity may it be, and
yet retain innocence. The law is made if we would speak with entire accuracy to protect the innocent by punishing the guilty. But there are those innocent out of court as well as innocent prisoners at the bar.
This time, it took just five hours of deliberation. The jury agreed with Webster that John Francis Knapp, whom we have been calling Frank, was principal to the crime, and convicted him of murder. Four months later, Joseph Junior was convicted as well. The Knap brothers were both sentenced to execution by hanging Frank on September twenty eighth, eighteen thirty and Joseph Junior on December thirty first, eighteen thirty and George Crown and Shields. Don't worry. We did not forget
about him. But he dropped out of the story when he proved that he had spent the night of the murder with two women. Both of those women provided him with an alibi, and he was acquitted.
In the end, this became one of the first cases in which accessories to murder were tried, convicted, and executed, despite the fact that the actual murderer was never convicted. So also, it's true that fictional murder mysteries are often based on real murders, right, and this is one of those murders, not for its outcome or that White had been wealthy, but because of Daniel Webster and his outstanding
legal performance. The trials spawned pamphlets and broadsides, and many scholars believe that American writer Edgar Allan Poe relied heavily on Webster's oratory prowess when writing the dramatic and deliberate speech of the narrator in his short story The Telltale Heart, which he first published in eighteen forty three. Poe pops up a lot on the show Poe Is everywhere. It takes influence on a lot of things in life.
Of course, he does. Would you like to have a little coercion concoction that story? Yes, consider this case. This was an interesting one for me. I accidentally made something better than I intended to. If that makes sense. It does make sense because I knew from the beginning, I wanted to call this drink blunt force, because that was the manner of death. H Ia is a little grizzly. But I thought, oh, I'll make a really strong drink that is maybe not a soft, delicious sip, but has
its own unique thing. I ended up making something delicious. I'm sorry, it's gonna also shock you because it involves we're gonna kick right off with something that I am not. Some people love, but I have been very open. I don't especially love it. I also was a little inspired by drinks like the Sasarac coming into being around this time, although in New Orleans, not in Massachusetts. But so we're gonna start with a glazed glass. That's my Sazaac inspiration here.
And you're gonna glaze your rocks glass with COMPARI whoa, I know, right, pour a little bit in, roll it around in there to glaze the whole interior, and then fill it with ice and let that sit and get cold while you were making the rest of the drink. So then into your shaker you were gonna put three quarters of an ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice. A quarter ounce of orjois a half ounce of Saint Germain or another elderflower liqueur, and then an ounce and a
half of rum. Take this and get a nice and cold and strain it into your glazed glass. Had this been the end of the drink, you would have been like, oh, yeah, this is what you wanted to do. But I didn't love it. I wanted it to be at least a little more tasty. It was just too heavy. It wasn't bad, kept going, but it was too heavy. And then I was like, you know what I bought recently on a whim, some blood orange ginger beer.
Oh my god.
So I just added not very much an ounce to an ounce and a half on top of it, and it suddenly became the most delicious interesting. It's a little complex. I get a little bit of almost a prickly effect on my lips from the campari because it's bitter and it's right there at the glass, but it's so incredibly delicious. I will say this in case you're like, blood orange ginger beer, Where am I going to find that? The answer is it's actually pretty easy these days. It's quite popular.
If you cannot, though, don't worry, I got you. If you can find blood oranges. You can add about a half ounce of blood orange juice and regular ginger beer. That's an option like an ounce of ginger beer. If you don't have that either, you can do a half ounce of grapefruit juice with a couple dashes of bitters, and then your ginger beer. And that is the blunt force. Now the mocktail for this we gotta skip the glaze. I don't know a good way to approximate COMPARI and
it's very unique, very bitter. Liqueur call it bitter again, do not worry, though, we have a delicious drink free in this instance. Start with your blood orange ginger beer as the main star. And again same substitutions. If you can't find that you can squeeze blood orange, you can use grapefruit juice and bitters if you are amenable to them. Some people don't do bitters even at all if they're
one hundred percent alcohol free. And then you are going to add a half ounce of an elderflower syrup, which is pretty easy to get. Also, same thing, quarter ounce of almond syrup, three quarters or or jia, three quarders of an ounce of lime juice, and I would actually just say, skip the rum, just double up on your blood orange ginger beer to three ounces, because in this
case we're not using a spiced rum. We're using a white rum, a clear rum, and it doesn't add to my palette in the final drink a significant element to the flavor profile. So you can skip it and just double up on your ginger beer, which is delicious anyway. That is the blunt force, which is stupidly delicious. I meant to make a drink that was mean and had, you know that thing like when there are just some
drinks that we'd joke. It felt like I got slapped by this drink, and I wanted to do that, and then I instead made something yummy in my tummy.
So I love this blood orange ginger beer addition to this.
Oh my god, me too.
Yeah.
I literally found mine in my grocery store. I wasn't even on the regular soda ale and I checked, and a lot of grocery stores in my area carry it. So I think it probably is not too hard to get just about anywhere, at least in the US. If you're outside the US, I don't know. It's because I also don't know what is available in your grocery stores that I don't have access to that would probably make me happy weekend.
Just go shopping and shoo stores.
I'm just gonna I'm gonna fly to France and see what they have in their grocery stores for the weekend.
Sounds good.
Be right back, babe, Gonna go get groceries Paris. Oh great, as long as I have time for to hit my favorite bars of Paris and my favorite restaurants of Paris. Right a little walk along the Seine sounds amazing. We are so grateful that you are hanging out with us to hear these stories and hear us talk about drinks. We will be right back here again next week with another story of blackmail and another coercion concoction. Criminalia is
a production of shondaland A in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows