Episode 129: The Murder of Mary Knight
The year is 1794, and Mary Polly Pratt is born in Hebron, Maine. She is one of eight children, which is a very common family size back in these times. Not much is known about Mary’s childhood, but what is known is that she grew up to marry a man named Solomon Knight, and with their brood of children, the family moved to Poland, Maine.
Unfortunately, in 1840, Solomon died suddenly. Mary was only 46-years-old, and now a widow. This made her life challenging, because if she ever wanted to marry again, she needed someone who was not keen on having more children as she was past her prime. Luckily for Mary, however, there was one man who was ready to take her hand in marriage… and he just so happened to be her dead husband’s little brother. Exactly half her age, George Knight married Mary at the age of 23, perhaps feeling a brotherly duty to care for his once sister-in-law.
George was not much like his older brother, and did not get along with Mary quite like Solomon did. He was described as being restless with a nervous temperament. In fact, it wasn’t long into their marriage that George began joking about getting a newer, younger wife.
It wasn’t until several years into their marriage, when Mary was in her mid 50s, that she began to fall ill. She often had stomach pains and issues with vomiting. She expressed to her doctors that she believed she could be getting poisoned. But what Mary didn’t know, is that if she was getting poisoned, it wasn’t going to kill her. On one seemingly normal October night in 1856, the Poland, Maine house was filled with screams when a terrifying scene was discovered.
It was late in the evening, and the house was occupied by several people, including a few young indentured servants and George’s elderly mother, but not George. Unfortunately, in bed, lay Mary, with her throat slashed from ear to ear. News of this tragedy spread quickly, and doctors were sent for an immediate examination. George was out running a suspiciously late errand, and he was brought back to the family home only to show no emotion or even really a care.
In the days after her very brutal murder, George’s behavior became more suspicious. He was oddly calm, and he had even been caught offering bribes to people to be his alibi. It wasn’t long before the law caught up to him and he was arrested for the murder of his wife. He spent a short time in jail before he was brought before a jury in February of 1857. After a 23 day trial, where the details of Mary’s death were laid out and wild theories were tested, George was found guilty of murdering his wife. He was sentenced to life in prison, which ended up being quite sometime, as he lived until the year 1900 as Maine State Prison’s longest serving inmate.
Image Sources:
findagrave.com - “Mary Polly Pratt Knight”