Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In last week's episode, slide Away, we journeyed into the so called Bennington Triangle in the Green Mountains region of Vermont in the United States to hear the tragic story of eighteen year old Paula Jean Weldon,
who disappeared around there in November nineteen forty six. The term Bennington Triangle was coined due to a spate of unexplained disappearances that occurred in the region between nineteen forty five and nineteen fifty. Weldon was one of four who vanished without trace during this time. To make things a little more eerie, the third person to vanish after her, James Tedford, who was last seen on a bus heading to the town of Bennington in nineteen fifty, disappeared precisely
three years to the day that Paula went missing. Further to this, there was in fact a fifth individual named Frieda Langer, who also disappeared in nineteen fifty. However, her body was eventually found a year later. Other reports of strange vanishings have also entered the narrative, including the tale of three men said to have mysteriously disappeared while out hunting near Glastonbury Mountain in nineteen forty eight, and a thirteen year old boy named Melvin Hills who went missing
in nineteen forty two. As others have pointed out, the hunters in fact emerged safe and well the day after being declared missing, having been stranded on the mountain for just one night. As for Melvin Hills, or Hill Even, he was eventually found riding his bicycle in Massachusetts a
few weeks after his supposed disappearance. There are plenty of other stories, however, that successfully lent themselves to the Triangle mystique, such as the report of a stagecoach that was apparently attacked by a huge and terrifying creature sometime in the nineteenth century while en route between the towns of Woodford
and Glastonbury. But perhaps the strangest and most mysterious story of all was that which took place in the early eighteen hundreds, which ultimately led to the first officially recorded case of the wrongful conviction for murder in the United States, but was it. The year was eighteen twelve in the town of Manchester, one of the recent spate of towns alongside Bennington that had been established in the area by
the colonial governor of New Hampshire. Bennington Wentworth. Like most European settlers who came to the area, the family were people of the land who'd worked hard to establish themselves as successful sheep and potato farmers. The job was very much a family business, with family patriarch Barney Bourne keen to involve both sons and daughters on the farm, at
least until his daughters could be married off. Things became complicated, however, when his second older's daughter, Sally, became involved with the local man named Russell Colvin. Described as a flighty drunk who struggled to hold down work, Colvin could not be relied on to support his wife, a situation that only
became worse when the couple had children. In an effort to help, Barney is said to have offered the couple the opportunity to live rent free on the farm, while also giving Colvin a job there for as long as he needed it. Needless to say, this did not go down well with Sally's brothers, twenty three year old Stephen and nineteen year old Jesse, both of whom had to
pay their own way elsewhere. Added to the fact that both despised the way Colvin treated their sister, constantly walking out on her for months at a time without telling her where he was going, it was clear to many that trouble was steadily brewing. When Colvin disappeared suddenly on
May tenth, eighteen twelve. No one at first thought anything of it, after all, he'd done it countless times before, but when a few months turned to years, some began to wonder if the born brothers might have had something to do with it. In eighteen fifteen, Sally got pregnant again, this time to another man, the problem being that, since she was still technically married to Russell, the other man had no legal requirement to provide any child support. But
Sally wasn't to worry. According to her brother, Stephen allegedly tell her that her husband was long dead and had been put deep in the ground. Whether potatoes don't freeze, Whether there was any truth to this, however, or whether it was just talk, as Stephen later claimed, would take a few more years to come out, and it all
started with a dream. It was sometime seven years after Russell Colvin's disappearance in eighteen nineteen that his uncle Amos awoke in a cold sweat one morning, claiming to have been visited by his nephew in a dream. The visits occurred over a number of nights, during which Amos was apparently informed by Russell's ghost that not only had the born brothers murdered him, but he could also lead Amos
to the precise spot where they'd buried his body. Sure enough, after alerting the authorities, Amos led them out into the middle of one of the Bourne's fields to the place he'd seen in his dream, an old cellar hole about four foot long, where a farm building had once stood. That morning, Russell's wife, Sally, watched expectantly as pile after pile of dirt was dug out of the hole, but
no body materialized. Instead, they found only some crockery, a penknife, a jackknife, and a floral shaped button within the dirt. But when Sally was called over to examine the pieces, she gasped in horror the items all belonged to her husband. She claimed it was only a few days later, when a devastating fire mysteriously broke out on the Born farm,
destroying an entire sheep barn. One morning soon after, a young boy was walking his dark when the dog became suddenly excited at the base of a tree stump close to where the ruins of the barn were still smoldering. When the boy went over to investigate, he was horrified to find what looked like charred human bones protruding out of the ground. When a team of physicians later confirmed that the bones were indeed human, the Born brother's fate
was sealed clearly on hearing about Amos's dream. They'd moved Russell's remains to the barn and set the whole thing on fire. When that hadn't destroyed them completely, they attempted to hide them elsewhere. By then, Stephen appeared to have fled the state, so only Jesse was arrested. Over the next few days, law enforcement officials tried unsuccessfully to extract
a confession. Jesse's cell mate, Silas Merrill, however, claimed to have succeeded in doing the job for them, and in return for his release, he promised to tell them everything, to which the county agreed. According to Merrill, Jesse told him that it was Stephen who first attacked Brussell, hitting him over the head with a wooden club. Their father, Barney, had then finished the job by slitting his throat after he heard the men fighting and came over to see
what was happening. Confronted with this version of events, Jesse finally confessed to the crime, perhaps hoping for a reduced sentence and that Stephen wouldn't be caught. However, he amended Merrill's story to say that Stephen had orchestrated everything and that their father had nothing to do with it. When Stephen was eventually arrested himself a few weeks later, Jesse recanted his confession, but the damage had already been done.
What makes a Murderer's Mind tick? Killer Psyche is a true crime podcast from Wandry that explores these types of
questions about the crimes that killers and criminals commit. Killer Psyche covers high profile cases that shocked the world, and host Candice de Long uses her five decades of experience as a clinical psychiatric nurse and FBI criminal profiler to dissect the motivations and behaviors of the most terrifying felons in history, and you'll definitely want to listen to a recent episode of Killer Psyche where Candice looks into the mysterious murder of Ted Ammon, a wealthy Wall Street financier.
Ted had been going through a divorce with his wife of thirteen years, Generosa, and child custody and millions in assets were at stake. Generosa and her new boyfriend Danny Pelosi were the prime suspects, but Generosa died of cancer before police could prove her involvement. In twenty oh four, Danny was convicted of second degree murder, but still maintains his innocence. How does hatred drive a person to murder
the father of their children? Listen to Kill a Psyche on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen to one Week and Free by joining Wandry Plus in the Wandry app As it transpired, a second examination of the bones found by the tree stump concluded that they weren't human after all. However, owing to Jesse's confession, the Born
brothers were promptly put on trial for murder. Stephen's constantly changing story didn't help either, After first stating that he and Jesse weren't even working the same farm when Russell disappeared, before saying they had, in fact all had dinner together the night that Russell got up to leave the table
and was never seen again. Multiple witnesses came forward to attest to the fractious relationship between the men, and when Russell's own son, Lewis, testified that he'd seen Stephen strike his father over the head with the club, the game was up. In the end, Stephen too confessed, claiming he'd merely acted in self defense. It took the jury just over an hour to find both defendants guilty of murder.
Although at first sentenced to hang, Jesse's sentence was eventually reduced to life imprisonment, but Stephen was not so lucky. He was sentenced to hang on January twenty eighth, eighteen twenty.
As the ominous day drew nearer, Stephen, who despite his confession maintained his innocence, attempted one last throw of the dice to prove it, and so it was that in November eighteen nineteen, he instructed his lawyer to place an advert in the paper asking any one to come forward who might have seen Russell Colvin a lie in the last seven years. Then, incredibly, somebody replied in a letter written to the New York Evening Post who syndicated Stephen
Bourne's plea. A man named tab Or Chadwick claimed that he was in the lobby of a hotel in New York when he overheard a group of men discussing the Bourne's case. Chadwick was writing because he believed the description of Russell Colvin in the advert matched the description of a man who was living in Dover, New Jersey with
his brother in law at the time. Chadwick's letter was published on December sixth, where it was in turn read by another man named James Wellpley, who came forward as one of the men that Chadwick had apparently overheard talking about the case in the hotel lobby. Wellpley was originally
from Manchester and was well aware of Russell Colvin. It was late in December when news reached Manchester that Wellpley had not only managed to locate the man that Tabor Chadwick believed to be Russell Colvin, but that the man was in fact Russell Colvin. On December twenty second, only
a month before Stephen Bourne's execution date. A stagecoach pulled up outside the Black Tavern in Manchester in front of a heavy and expectant crowd, from out of which stepped James Wellpley and the apparent Russell Colvin, returning to Manchester after being assumed dead for seven years. It is said that Colvin recognized people in the crowd and even conversed with a number of them, who all happily verified his identity.
Colvin did, however, failed to recognize his own children when they stepped forward to greet him, and when asked about his wife, stated simply that that was all over now, all of which was quickly washed over. When a few minutes later Stephen Born was presented to him with his hands and feet in chains, Colvin reportedly looked on confused and asked what on earth he was in chains for, to which Stephen replied frankly, because they say I murdered you.
Colvin screwed up his face and made plain to all who were there that Stephen and his brother Jesse had done no such thing. Clearly, as most concluded, a terrible injustice had been meted out to the Born brothers. As a result, the pair were quickly retried and acquitted of
all charges before finally being set free. As for the newly returned Russell Colvin, he remained in Manchester for a little over a week before leaving again, never to return and there, according to many, the story is said to end. According to Michael Dooling, however, writing in his twenty eleven book Clueless in New England, it was some forty years later when an undercovered Deputy US Marshall, attempting to infiltrate a gang of counterfeiters, got talking to one of the gang,
who went by the name of Jesse Bourne. At some point, Borne, who would have been in his late fifties by then got to talking about past crimes, recalling with a slight twinkle in his eye, the crazy time that he and his brother murdered their brother in law and got away with it by using an impostor to claim the man was still alive. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now do so via Patroon. To receive access to add three episodes, just go to
patron dot com forward slash Unexplained Pod to sign up. Unexplained, the book and audiobook featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com, Forward slash Unexplained Podcast