Murder he wrote: 1893 claim to clubbing death on display
By Jennifer Wilson , The Gazette
Published March 6, 2008 at 7:27 a.m.
Updated March 6, 2008 at 11:33 p.m.
Photo by Jerilee Bennett / The Gazette
Larry Martin, an investigator in El Paso County, holds molding that had an 1893 murder confession scrawled on the back of it.
A 19th century murder confession scrawled on the back of a piece of window molding nailed to a bedroom wall went unseen by human eyes for almost 100 years.
Now it's available for all to see at the Fountain Valley Historical Society Museum.
The 4th Judicial District attorney's office donated the foot- long section of decorative molding to the museum Wednesday, 22 years after its discovery in 1986.
The wood tells the story of the murder of John Sebastian, who died at John Spicer's hand in March 1893.
In pencil, using compact cursive writing, Spicer detailed his crime on the unfinished flat back of the molding, which he nailed to the wall of the house he was building at the intersection of El Paso Street and Alabama Avenue in Fountain.
The message reads:
To whoever may happen to find the confession, I, John W. Spicer of the City of Fountain, State of Colorado, being about to shuffle off this mortal act to make this my full confession in the hope that when I am gone it may be found and at last clear up the darkest mystery that ever embraced one in human murder.
Spicer wrote that he clubbed John J. Sebastian "four miles north of this city and two miles east of the foot of Cheyenne Mountain," which puts the crime scene somewhere on today's Fort Carson, Martin said.
Sebastian's body was not found.
Spicer's note remained hidden until 1986, when the house's new owner started remodeling.
The man called a reporter from the Gazette-Telegraph newspaper, and the reporter took the wood to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Spicer's confession will be displayed behind glass at the Fountain museum. The house where he nailed it still stands.
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March 6, 2008
3:28 p.m.
Suggest removal
HOTAIR writes:
Maybe we ought to tear up OJ's house and see where his confession is scrawled.
March 7, 2008
11:54 a.m.
Suggest removal
arby writes:
OJ already confessed in his book. He can't be tried again under the double jeapordy rule. So that's why they're going after him on the Las Vegas assault charge.