Murder at Rocky Point Park:: Tragedy in Rhode Island's Summer Paradise Read online

  Published by The History Press

  Charleston, SC 29403

  www.historypress.net

  Copyright © 2014 by Kelly Sullivan Pezza

  All rights reserved

  First published 2014

  e-book edition 2014

  ISBN 978.1.62585.160.4

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pezza, Kelly Sullivan.

  Murder at Rocky Point Park : tragedy in Rhode Island’s summer paradise / Kelly Sullivan Pezza.

  pages cm. -- (True crime)

  print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-625-4 (paperback)

  1. Murder--Rhode Island--Warwick--History--19th century. 2. Rocky Point Park (Warwick, R.I.)--History--19th century. I. Title.

  HV6534.W475P49 2014

  364.152’3092--dc23

  2014025440

  Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For my babies, Tatiana Maryhelen Pezza and Josef Roland Pezza.

  I love you.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1: The Murder: I Have Killed My Daughter

  2: The Park: The People’s Popular Place

  3: The Family: A Wife Immaculate

  4: The Abduction: Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?

  5: The Arrest: I Can’t Remember of Killing but One

  6: The Hearing: He Might Have Brought It upon Himself

  7: The Drug Rumor: On Coca

  8: The Trial: I Don’t Think the Man Is Crazy

  9: The Aftermath: Guilt Is the Motive, Not the Result

  10: Those Left Behind: Shadows Flee Away

  11: The Players: Ministers, Medicine Men and Millionaires

  12: The Site: Fires, Lawsuits and Baseball

  13: The Hand of Fate: Hurricanes and Other Disasters

  14: A Final End

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am eternally grateful to Greg Pezza, Marylou Fiske, Helen and Roland Baton, Page Sullivan, Mary McCrea and A.J. Nausch of Pawcatuck; the staff and patrons of the Bottom Line Bar in Warwick; Mark Sand of Mystic; the wonderfully helpful staff at the Warwick Town Hall; Kathleen Madrid, Carol Graziano, Steve Grimes, John Davis, Katherine Lowenstrom, Larry Webster, Hope Andrews, Charlie Wright, Lorraine Arruda, Jane Mahoney, Eric White, Matt Wunsch and the staff of Southern Rhode Island Newspapers; Pam Lavoie of Jules Antiques & General Store; and my beautiful children, who taught me how much love the human heart is capable of holding.

  INTRODUCTION

  From my days as a child, accompanying my grandfather to dusty antique stores or tagging along behind my mother as she did gravestone rubbings, I have been enthralled by history. From this early age, it was instilled in me to have a great love and respect for all things past.

  My interest in true crime cannot be as easily explained. Perhaps it is the same adrenalin-inducing addiction that caused my great-grandfather to lose himself in detective novels or that led my grandfather, and later myself, to become involved in law enforcement. When I found it difficult to choose between pursuing my interest in true crime, devoting myself to my love of history or taking advantage of the literary ability I had been given, I luckily found a way to combine all three.

  Seventeen years ago, I began working as a newspaper journalist, writing a weekly column on historic local crimes and unsolved mysteries. This necessitated poring over old records, letters, diaries and newspapers for hours every night. On one particular evening, I ventured to the library at the University of Rhode Island to go over its old newspaper collection, in the hopes of finding a lead on a new article. I had been browsing over the reels of microfilm for only a few minutes when my eyes began to hurt, and I decided that I’d locate just one page of interesting material, print it out and call it a night. The moment I noticed an old article bearing the name of a local town alongside the word “murder,” I printed out the page without even reading it. I figured it might be interesting or it might not, but I would read it the next morning after my headache had departed.

  When my rested eyes later moved over the words on the paper, I realized I didn’t have the makings of an article. I had the foundation of a book. The story was shocking, and as a historian, I was amazed that I’d never heard it before. A local man had bludgeoned his little girl at everyone’s favorite Rhode Island amusement park. There had been thousands of articles and stories written about the park; why had none of them ever mentioned Maggie Sheffield?

  My ensuing research was not easy, not only because the case received very little news coverage and a fire had allegedly burned most of the official records, but also because I found it hard to remain professional. Over the years, I had researched hundreds of murders—terrible, sickening, unspeakable murders. But like a doctor must keep a professional distance from his patients, I had always been able to keep myself from having any emotional feeling toward the people I wrote about. This time, I couldn’t do that for some reason.

  I was kept awake at night by visions of Maggie in my head, of her last moments and what they must have been like for her. It filled me with despair to write about this child and try to come to terms with the fact that I would never know what she had been thinking as she looked up at her father that day. I could only imagine, and it pained me to imagine it. Very unprofessionally, I cried for Maggie more than a few times.

  As I always do when writing about someone deceased, I went to see Maggie’s grave. Kneeling there at the small stone engraved with the name “Maggie Segur Sheffield,” I swallowed the lump in my throat and reached out to touch it. She was only six feet away from me—this innocent child I had researched, written about, ached for, cried over. She was right here. And this was as close as I could ever get to her.

  My connection with Maggie was unlike any I had ever experienced with a research subject before. I felt angered that there seemed to have been more concern for Frank Sheffield than there had been for his daughter. Reporters had not been horrified enough to report on the case any more than necessary, and the memories of her seemed to be extinguished almost as quickly as her life was. I felt driven, more than one hundred years later, to tell her story, her whole story, to make certain her life and death are never forgotten. Perhaps my endeavor was to create the mournful feeling of loss that should have been felt at the time of her unspeakable death.

  I know that I will never forget her. In my memory, she is safe. When I returned to visit her grave for a second time, I left for her the last thing she ever asked for in her earthly life. At Rocky Point that fateful day, she had requested that her father give her his handkerchief so that she might tie it into the shape of a doll. Beside a dozen pink carnations, I placed a doll against her gravestone. “Sleep peacefully, angel,” I whispered. “Your story will be told.”

  1

  THE MURDER

  I Have Killed My Daughter

  All the laughter and gay chatter of the massive crowd drifted on the salt air toward the ledges. However, strangely, those sounds seemed to be enveloped somewhere in the center of the music. It was not too far in the distance tha
t carousels and flying swings and roller coasters and train rides rang with the melody of barrel organs.

  Closer by, there was only one sound that seemed real, and that was the gentle sound made by the rippling water that lapped against the slippery rocks, slapping them softly before quickly retreating back and dispersing into the vast Atlantic Ocean.

  The gaiety and the cheerful din, the music and the ocean, what was real and what was not real all swirling together in amplified chaos—this is what Frank Sheffield heard for a moment. Then he bent down and picked up a large rock that had crumbled from the tall, jagged ledge behind him. He turned to face his five-year-old daughter. The next sound he heard was a scream.

  Two young couples, sitting on a knoll not far from the ledge, had been enjoying the beautiful summer day there at Rocky Point Amusement Park in Warwick, Rhode Island. They were immediately startled by the chilling sound that had come from the other side of the ledge, shattering the peaceful atmosphere. One of the boys, Arthur Skirron, quickly got up and rushed toward the area from which the scream had come. When he was about halfway there, Frank came out from behind the ledge, looked at Skirron and then kept right on walking without uttering a single word.

  Well aware that something horrific had probably just taken place, Skirron didn’t stop to talk to Frank but instead continued on toward the ledge. Once there, he peered over the rocky edge, shock befalling him at what he saw there. Skirron stared in horror. A little girl lay still on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding her. Neatly clad in a pretty dress and shoes, her head was crushed terribly. A gaping hole on the upper part of her forehead continued to gush blood as it accumulated in a scarlet mass on the ground around her small body. Unbelievably, the child was still alive.

  Having no idea what type of terrible accident might have just occurred, Skirron nervously hurried toward the main office of the park. Once he arrived there, he notified the park manager, thirty-nine-year-old Randall Augustus Harrington, that a child was severely injured on the northwestern section of the grounds.

  A twenty-one-year-old house painter named Robert J. Quinn was standing nearby as Skirron talked and happened to overhear the conversation. Going along with Harrington, he rushed to the scene, where they found the little girl unconscious but still breathing.

  With no time to waste, the two men gently but quickly picked the small, limp body up off the hard ground and carried it into the nearest building, which was the park’s large theater. They immediately summoned a doctor for help. However, it took twenty minutes for medical assistance to arrive, and by that time, the young life before them had already slipped away.

  Leaving his daughter dying painfully on the ground, Frank Sheffield had calmly walked out of the park and begun heading in the direction of the nearby Warwick Club, a private association of local jewelry manufacturers and other successful businessmen. Once in the club’s parking lot, he approached fifty-five-year-old Newell Warren Belcher, a hardware dealer from Providence, and another man named Daniel Remington.

  “I want to be turned over to an officer,” Frank boldly announced to the men. “I have killed my child.”

  Belcher and Remington were totally unprepared to hear such an utterance come from the stranger’s mouth. They weren’t sure what to think as Frank went on.

  “Why I did it, I don’t know. I did not know that I had done anything until I had killed her. I did not know I had struck her until I saw the blood.”

  At that point, Frank suddenly began to shake quite badly and act in a manner so strange that Belcher and Remington believed the person before them was simply a victim of insane delusions, spouting out words that had no basis in reality. However, when Frank made his request again, asking that he be turned over to authorities, the men figured it was better to be safe than sorry and complied with his wishes.

  They walked him back onto the grounds of Rocky Point Park and delivered him into the custody of manager Harrington, who also happened to be a police constable.

  They reported what Frank had just told them, and as Harrington had just left the scene of the dreadful crime and witnessed the agonizing death that followed, he immediately placed Frank under arrest. While awaiting transportation to the county jail, Frank was held in the lockup cell that was kept on the grounds of the park.

  News of the terrible tragedy that had just occurred made its way around the busy amusement park quickly. Suddenly, most of the visitors at the park that day were much more interested in learning about the grisly details of the murder than they were in popcorn, cymbal-playing monkeys or famed trapeze performer Madame Zoe. It was later reported that Zoe herself had conversed with patrons about the shocking event and stated that whoever killed the child should be hanged by the neck.

  While awaiting the arrival of police officers, Harrington returned to the bloody scene near the water. There, he retrieved a broken piece of ledge that was lying on the ground and that he assumed could very well be the murder weapon. The club-like piece was nearly ten inches long and two inches wide on one end. The other end was tapered to a point with square edges. The thicker portion was smeared with Maggie’s blood, and strands of the little girl’s hair had adhered to it.

  Sitting in the park’s cell, Frank began to act extremely nervous. This soon gave way to his behavior becoming completely bizarre. Repeatedly, he asked aloud why he had committed the deplorable act that had resulted in the death of his daughter. Each time he posed the question, he waited for someone else to give him reasons for his own violent behavior. No answers were offered by anyone present, and finally, he begged to be shot.

  At about seven o’clock that evening, thirty-year-old police officer Sanford Eldredge Kinnecom and another officer, Frank Holden, arrived to take Frank to the East Greenwich County jail, located on King Street. Frank explained to the officers that he had a history of mental problems and believed that he had killed his daughter while under the influence of something beyond his control. Great efforts by him, later joined by the great efforts of his attorney, to rid himself of all responsibility in the murder would begin at this time.

  “I could not have struck her if I knew that I was hurting her,” he said.

  The officers began to pose specific questions to Frank in an attempt to gain some type of understanding concerning his ability to kill his own daughter. They asked him what it was that had caused him to bring Maggie to Rocky Point that day. He stated that he did not know the answer to that question and claimed he had no recollection at all of when he got there or even how he got there.

  “I remember going to Attleboro to bring her home,” he admitted. But the hours between his departure from Attleboro, Massachusetts, and the fatal blow to his daughter’s head were allegedly missing from his memory. It was the sight of his daughter’s blood that finally snapped him back into reality, he said.

  Authorities sent telegraphs out to Frank’s family, informing them of all that had transpired. Frank had been incarcerated. And their little Maggie was dead.

  2

  THE PARK

  The People’s Popular Place

  Before and after the unspeakable occurrence on August 28, 1893, Rocky Point Amusement Park was one of the country’s premier destinations. It was known as the place to go for exciting rides, amazing attractions and the most delicious seafood dinners money could buy.

  During the early 1800s, the Warwick, Rhode Island seaside property was merely an untouched portion of the beautiful estate owned by two daughters of Thomas Stafford and Polly Rhodes, who had a total of twelve children. Thomas had purchased the magnificent land with the breathtaking ocean view in 1726. Phebe Smith Stafford, who married Jasper Lyon, and Mary Eliza Stafford, who married Thomas Holden, had inherited the serene property that would eventually be transformed into a nationally famous Rhode Island park.

  In the 1840s, it was common for pleasure boats to take passengers sailing down the picturesque Narragansett Bay. Sea captain William Winslow had recently arrived with the Argo, a short, wide boat he co-owne
d with Captains Barton and Drown out of Newark, New Jersey. Winslow ran the boat between Warren and Providence and always marveled at the beauty of the Stafford sisters’ land as the boat passed calmly by.

  Situated along the shore between Conimicut Point and Warwick Neck Light, the property was a picture of beautiful confusion, appearing as if Mother Nature had simply tossed ledges, caves, plants and bushes into a hasty disarray of enchanting wonder. One summer day, Winslow decided to approach Jasper to ask if his wife and sister-in-law might give him permission to anchor there during his sails so that his passengers could enjoy stepping into the wondrous scene. The sisters consented, and Winslow’s first passengers to disembark on the land were a small group of students from Dr. Hall’s Sunday school. The following week, he arrived with another class of Sunday school children and 520 members of the Providence First Congregational Church, all ready to enjoy a memorable picnic. He began to make stops there often, sending parties from the Argo ashore via smaller boats.

  By 1847, Winslow’s pleasure sails, with their added attraction, had become so popular that he made arrangements with forty-three-year-old Mary Eliza to buy her half of the eighty-nine-acre estate for $1,200. Not long after, he made the same deal with Phebe and became the new owner of the property in its entirety. Twice a day, he transported passengers from Providence to the new “Winslow’s Rocky Point” for just twenty-five cents per person. Admission to the park was free.

  While the view was enough to be appreciative of, Winslow wanted to offer his passengers even more enjoyment. In 1852, he added a sea swing to the grounds. A large apparatus, built several feet out into the water, it spun around in a circle to the delight of those seated in its suspended swings. Adding further excitement, a Spanish Fandango roller coaster was also erected. Winslow built a wharf that jutted out into the sea so that the Argo and other boats carrying passengers bound for Rocky Point were able to sail directly to the park without having to use the smaller boats to get everyone on dry land.