A TALE FROM THE SUMMER OF ’58
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They weren’t all found. No; they weren’t all found. And from time to time wrong assumptions were made.
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From the Derry News, June 21st, 1958 (page 1):
Edward L. Corcoran, of 73 Charter Street, Derry, was reported missing last night by his mother, Monica Macklin, and his stepfather, Richard P. Macklin. The Corcoran boy is ten. His disappearance has prompted new fears that Derry’s young people are being stalked by a killer.
Mrs Macklin said the boy had been missing since June 19th, when he failed to return home from school after the last day of classes before summer vacation.
When asked why they had delayed over twenty-four hours before reporting their son’s absence, Mr and Mrs Macklin refused comment. Police Chief Richard Borton also declined comment, but a Police Department source told the News that the Corcoran boy’s relationship with his stepfather was not a good one, and that he had spent nights out of the house before. The source speculated that the boy’s final grades may have played a part in the boy’s failure to turn up. Derry School Superintendent Harold Metcalf declined comment on the Corcoran boy’s grades, pointing out they are not a matter of public record.
“I hope the disappearance of this boy will not cause unnecessary fears,” Chief Borton said last night. The mood of the community is understandably uneasy, but I want to emphasize that we log thirty to fifty missing-persons reports on minors each and every year. Most turn up alive and well within a week of the initial report. This will be the case with Edward Corcoran, God willing.”
Borton also reiterated his conviction that the murders of George Denbrough, Betty Ripsom, Cheryl Lamonica, Matthew Clements, and Veronica Grogan were not the work of one person. “There are essential differences in each crime,” Borton said, but declined to elaborate. He said that local police, working in close co-operation with the Maine State Attorney General’s office, are still following up a number of leads. Asked in a telephone interview last night how good these leads are, Chief Borton replied: “Very good.” Asked if an arrest in any of the crimes was expected soon, Borton declined comment.
From the Derry News, June 22nd, 1958 (page 1):
In a bizarre new twist to the disappearance of Edward Corcoran, Derry District Court Judge Erhardt K. Moulton ordered the exhumation of Corcoran’s younger brother, Dorsey, late yesterday. The court order followed a joint request from the County Attorney and the County Medical Examiner.
Dorsey Corcoran, who also lived with his mother and stepfather at 73 Charter Street, died of what were reported to be accidental causes in May of 1957. The boy was brought into the Derry Home Hospital suffering from multiple fractures, including a fractured skull. Richard P. Macklin, the boy’s stepfather, was the admitting person. He stated that Dorsey Corcoran had been playing on a stepladder in the garage and had apparently fallen from the top. The boy died without recovering consciousness three days later.
Edward Corcoran, ten, was reported missing late Wednesday. Asked if either Mr or Mrs Macklin was under suspicion in either the younger boy’s death or the older boy’s disappearance, Chief Richard Borton declined comment.
From the Derry News, June 24th, 1958 (page 1):
Under Suspicion in Unsolved Disappearance
Chief Richard Borton of the Derry Police called a news conference yesterday to announce that Richard P. Macklin, of 73 Charter Street, had been arrested and charged with the murder of his stepson, Dorsey Corcoran. The Corcoran boy died in Derry Home Hospital of reported “accidental causes” on May 31st of last year. “The medical examiner’s report shows that the boy was badly beaten,” Borton said. Although Macklin claimed the boy had fallen from a stepladder while playing in the garage, Borton said the County Medical Examiner’s report showed that Dorsey Corcoran was severely beaten with some blunt instrument. When asked what sort of instrument, Borton said: “It might have been a hammer. Right now the important thing is the medical examiner’s conclusion that this boy was struck repeated blows with some object hard enough to break his bones. The wounds, particularly those in the skull, are not at all consistent with those which might be incurred in a fall. Dorsey Corcoran was beaten within an inch of his life and then dumped off at the Home Hospital emergency room to die.”
Asked if the doctors who treated the Corcoran boy might have been derelict in their duty when it came to reporting either an incidence of child abuse or the actual cause of death, Borton said, “They will have serious questions to answer when Mr Macklin comes to trial.”
Asked for an opinion on how these developments might bear on the recent disappearance of Dorsey Corcoran’s older brother, Edward, reported missing by Richard and Monica Macklin four days ago, Chief Borton answered: “I think it looks much more serious than we first supposed, don’t you?”
From the Derry News, June 25th, 1958 (page 2):
Henrietta Dumont, who teaches fifth grade at Derry Elementary School on Jackson Street, said that Edward Corcoran, who has now been missing for nearly a week, often came to school “covered with bruises.” Mrs Dumont, who has taught one of Derry’s two fifth-grade classes since the end of World War II, said that the Corcoran boy came to school one day about three weeks before his disappearance “with both eyes nearly closed shut. When I asked him what happened, he said his father had “taken him up” for not eating his supper.”
When asked why she had not reported a beating of such obvious severity, Mrs Dumont said, “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen such a thing as this in my career as a teacher. The first few times I had a student with a parent who was confusing beatings with discipline, I tried to do something about it. I was told by the assistant principal, Gwendolyn Rayburn in those days, to stay out of it. She told me that when school employees get involved in cases of suspected child abuse, it always comes back to haunt the School Department at tax appropriation tune. I went to the principal and he told me to forget it or I would be reprimanded. I asked him if a reprimand in a matter like that would go on my record. He said a reprimand did not have to be on a teacher’s record. I got the message.”
Asked if the attitude in the Derry school system remained the same now, Mrs Dumont said, “Well, what does it look like, in light of this current situation? And I might add that I would not be speaking to you now if I hadn’t retired at the end of this school year.”
Mrs Dumont went on, “since this thing came out I get down on my knees every night and pray that Eddie Corcoran just got fed up with that beast of a stepfather and ran away. I pray that when he reads in the paper or hears on the news that Macklin has been locked up, Eddie will come home.”
In a brief telephone interview Monica Macklin hotly refuted Mrs Dumont’s charges. “Rich never beat Dorsey, and he never beat Eddie, either,” she said. “I’m telling you that right now, and when I die I’ll stand at the Throne of Judgment and look God right in the eye and tell Him the same thing.”
From the Derry News, June 28th, 1958 (page 2):
A local nursery-school teacher who declined to be identified told a News reporter yesterday that young Dorsey Corcoran came to his twice-weekly nursery-school class with bad sprains of his right thumb and three fingers of his right hand less than a week before his death in a purported garage accident.
“It was hurting him enough so that the poor little guy couldn’t color his Mr Do safety poster,” the teacher said. The fingers were swelled up like sausages. When I asked Dorsey what happened, he said that his father (stepfather Richard P. Macklin) had bent his fingers back because he had walked across a floor his mother had just washed and waxed. “Daddy had to take me up “cause I’m bad” was the way he put it. I felt like crying, looking at his poor, dear fingers. He really wanted to color his poster like the other children, so I gave him some baby aspirin and let him color while the others were having Story Time. He loved to color the Mr Do posters-that was what he liked best-and now I’m so glad I was able to help him have a little happiness that day.
“When he died it never crossed my mind to think it was anything but an accident. I guess at first I thought he must have fallen because he couldn’t grip very well with that hand. Now I think I just couldn’t believe an adult could do such a thing to a little person. I know better now. I wish to God I didn’t.”
Dorsey Corcoran’s older brother, Edward, ten, is still missing. From his cell in Derry County Jail, Richard Macklin continues to deny any part in either the death of his younger stepson or the disappearance of the older boy.
From the Derry News, June 30th, 1958 (page 5):
