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):
TEACHER SAYS EDWARD CORCORAN 'OFTEN BRUISED'
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):
'DADDY HAD TO TAKE ME UP 'CAUSE I'M BAD,'
TOT TOLD NURSERY TEACHER BEFORE BEATING DEATH
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):
MACKLIN QUESTIONED IN DEATHS
OF GROGAN, CLEMENTS
Produces Unshakable Alibis, Source Claims
From the Derry News, July 6th, 1958 (page 1):
MACKLIN TO BE CHARGED ONLY WITH MURDER
OF STEPSON DORSEY, BORTON SAYS
Edward Corcoran Still Missing
From the Derry News, July 24th, 1958 (page 1):
WEEPING STEPFATHER CONFESSES TO BLUDGEON DEATH OF
STEPSON
In a dramatic development in the District Court trial of Richard Macklin for the murder of his stepson Dorsey Corcoran, Macklin broke down under the stern cross-examination of County Attorney Bradley Whitsun and admitted he had beaten the four-year-old boy to death with a recoilless hammer, which he then buried at the far end of his wife's vegetable garden before taking the boy to Derry Home Hospital's emergency room.
The courtroom was stunned and silent as the sobbing Macklin, who had previously admitted beating both of his stepsons 'occasionally, if they had it coming, for their own good,' poured out his story.
'I don't know what came over me. I saw he was climbing on the damn ladder again and I grabbed the hammer from the bench where it was laying and I just started to use it on him. I didn't mean to kill him. With God as my witness I never meant to kill him.'
'Did he say anything to you before he passed out?' Whitsun asked.
'He said, "Stop daddy, I'm sorry, I love you,"' Macklin replied.
'Did you stop?'
'Eventually,' Macklin said. He then began to weep in such a hysterical manner that Judge Erhardt Moulton declared the court in recess.
From the Derry News, September 18th, 1958 (page 16):
WHERE IS EDWARD CORCORAN?
His stepfather, sentenced to a term of two to ten years in Shawshank State Prison for the murder of his four-year-old brother, Dorsey, continues to claim he has no idea where Edward Corcoran is. His mother, who has instituted divorce proceedings against Richard P. Macklin, says she thinks her soon-to-be ex-husband is lying.
Is he?
'I, for one, really don't think so,' says Father Ashley O'Brian, who serves the Catholic prisoners at Shawshank. Macklin began taking instruction in the Catholic faith shortly after beginning his prison term, and Father O'Brian has spent a good deal of time with him. 'He is sincerely sorry for what he has done,' Father O'Brian goes on, adding that when he initially asked Macklin why he wanted to be a Catholic, Macklin replied, 'I hear they have an act of contrition and I need to do a lot of that or else I'll go to hell when I die.'
'He knows what he did to the younger boy,' Father O'Brian said. 'If he also did something to the older one, he doesn't remember it. As far as Edward goes, he believes his hands are clean.'
How clean Macklin's hands are in the matter of his stepson Edward is a question which continues to trouble Derry residents, but he has been convincingly cleared of the other child-murders which have taken place here. He was able to produce ironclad alibis for the first three, and he was in jail when seven others were committed in late June, July, and August.
All ten murders remain unsolved.
In an exclusive interview with the News last week Macklin again asserted that he knows nothing of Edward Corcoran's whereabouts. 'I beat them both,' he said in a painful monologue which was often halted by bouts of weeping. 'I loved them but I beat them. I don't know why, any more than I know why Monica let me, or why she covered up for me after Dorsey died. I guess I could have killed Eddie as easy as I did Dorsey, but I swear before God and Jesus and all the saints of heaven that I didn't. I know how it looks, but I didn't do it. I think he just ran away. If he did, that's one thing I've got to thank God for.'