MACKLIN ARRESTED IN BEATING DEATH

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):

 

 

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,”

 

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