Free Prescription: Murder! Volume 1: Authentic Cases From the Files of Alan Hynd by Noel Hynd, Alan Hynd, George Kaczender

So Carrie and Ray decided to pull up stakes.
    A local auctioneer handled the sale held at 12 noon on Friday, November 10, 1911. Livestock included one brood mare and colt; three horses; one yearling colt; six cows; two yearlings; four calves; one boar; and 20 sheep. Farm equipment consisted of one Sterling hay loader; one Kemp manure spreader; one Champion disc seed drill; one McCormick binder; one McCormick mover; one Champion hay rake; three harrows; two John Deering plows; one Kraus riding cultivator; and two hand cultivators.
    Neighbors flocked to the Sparling farm, for the Sparling boys had had a stellar reputation for keeping their equipment in top-notch shape. Before the day was out new owners would walk away with two of the Sparling’s heavy sleighs. Also on the auction block were two sets of light sleighs; two lumber wagons; three buggies, one of which was advertised as nearly new; two cutters; and a spring cutter. Ray gathered the gardening tools, hayforks, multiple sets of harnesses, two incubators - one with a 100-egg capacity and the other 200 - and even the Empire cream separator from the barn.
    Meanwhile, Mrs. Sparling worked inside gathering the household goods. Three heating stoves and four bedsteads made the sale bill as did three kitchen tables, six dining room chairs, one rocking chair, one dish cupboard and even the organ. Mrs. Sparling had had enough – it was time to move on.
    Carrie and Ray took the cash, banked it, and moved into an easier smaller place nearby.
    Boomhower meanwhile had a genuine problem. He needed time to go to the grand jury and tell them what he suspected. Meantime, though, he wanted to tip off Ray, the last of the four Sparling boys, not to take any medicine the doctor might be giving him. Moreover, he had to tell Ray not to tell his mother that the doctor was being suspected of mass murder.
    Boomhower went out to the new Sparling residence one night. When he figured that Mrs. Sparling and Ray would be asleep, he sneaked into the house, found Ray’s room, clapped a hand over his mouth and woke the fellow up. After briefing Ray on what was in the wind, and getting Ray’s cooperation to keep mum about everything, he asked,
    “Where’s the medicine MacGregor is giving you?” Ray gave Boomhower a bottle of the stuff. “When he brings more,” said Boomhower, “pretend to take it…but pour it out, spoonful by spoonful. Then turn it over to me.”
    Ray obliged. The medicine was analyzed and found to contain lethal amounts of arsenic. Finally, Xenon Boomhower had had enough.
    Boomhower told a likely story to the grand jury: Doctor MacGregor and Mrs. Sparling had decided to live in sin. By way of removing obstacles to their amatory progress, MacGregor, with the woman’s knowledge, had dispatched the woman’s husband. Then, seeing how easy it was to feed arsenic to a victim, he had decided to put murder on a paying basis by getting the boys insured before he did them in. And so the grand jurors handed down an indictment charging Doctor MacGregor with the murder of Scyrel, and Mrs. Spading with being an accomplice. Just Scyrel, mind you, not the others. Why, nobody knew. It was January 12, 1912.
    The trial of Doctor MacGregor and Mrs. Sparling was a sensation in Bad Axe. It was held in the local opera house with the judge sitting up on the stage. The only fairly direct evidence against Doctor MacGregor, who was placed on trial first, was medical testimony to the effect that the arsenic found in Scyrel was in such quantity that it couldn’t possibly have been self-administered in patent medicine. The rest of the evidence was circumstantial: the two $1,000 checks that Mrs. Sparling had given to MacGregor and tales of Old John and others that they had seen the doctor and Mrs. Sparling in compromising situations.
    MacGregor made a good witness in his own behalf. The money that Mrs. Sparling had paid him had been for medical services. As to the arsenic, he insisted, it could so have