On Dec. 2, 1887, the trial of 27-year-old William Gorman for the murder of Newark police officer Thomas Roach Jr. continued with testimony from his 22-year-old sister Mary. She stated that William had been a “habitual drunk” for a year.
Mary then gave the following testimony on Gorman’s actions the week preceding the shooting: He worked Monday and came home that night drunk and refused to eat or go to bed until he finally laid down about 4 a.m. She noticed his face was swollen and purple and that he seemed apprehensive. When he woke up the next day at 11 a.m., he seemed to still be intoxicated. He left the house and didn’t return until about 3 a.m. Wednesday, drunk and trembling. Gorman wouldn’t eat and he kept throwing up. He left the house about 11 a.m. Wednesday and didn’t come home until 3 or 4 a.m. Thursday.
Licking County history: Murder trial of suspect in Newark’s first police officer line-of-duty death begins in 1887
Mary stated he was “very drunk.” Gorman again wouldn’t eat but he did go to sleep. At about 5 p.m. he came out into the living room and appeared confused looking around the house like he lost something. He wouldn’t answer anyone when they asked him what he was doing. She said when he left he was still drunk. He came home at 4 a.m. Friday morning, “drunk, worse than he was when he left.” He sat in a chair and jerked and twisted around until about 7 p.m. when he left. She didn’t see her brother again until he came home seven hours later after the shooting.
At 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, the jury received the case. Five hours later they announced they reached a verdict. The Newark Advocate reported the proceedings on Dec. 9:
“The Judge took his place upon the bench and amidst a death-like stillness, during which every spectator leaned anxiously forward, with bated breath to catch every sentence. Clerk Lennox asked, ‘Gentleman, have you agreed upon a verdict?’ ‘We have,’ came the answer and the awful moment of uncertainty seemed to hold everybody the prisoner included with the sense of awful importance.”
With that, the jury announced their verdict finding Gorman not guilty of first-degree murder but guilty of murder in the second degree. The judge sentenced him to life in the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus.
Licking County history: Suspect in Newark’s first line-of-duty officer death got whiskey 2-3 times a day in jail
Five years later, on Jan. 21, 1893, after receiving an executive pardon from the governor, Gorman returned to Newark a free man One might think that the pardon would have caused an outrage locally but the reporter in the Jan. 21 Newark Advocate had this to say:
“It was not Gorman, the open-hearted genial Bill who shot poor Roach … It was Gorman drunk. Gorman under the influence of intoxicants, which robbed him of his reason, and left him no more able to control his actions than we are to govern the weather. In such a condition the mad deed was done. And now when Ohio’s Governor has found that his punishment has expiated the crime, Newark people who knew both Gorman and Roach will endorse his action.”
After more justification for Gorman’s forgiveness, the reporter added, “In view of the fact that the mental anguish he has undoubtedly suffered must have caused him to sincerely repent of an action done while not master of himself, it would be well ‘to let the dead bury it’s dead.”
Three years later, on Nov. 26, 1896, Gorman married his longtime girlfriend Anna Keeley. In 1898, Anna gave birth to their only child a daughter they named Nellie.
On July 28, 1902, 39-year-old William Gorman died of tuberculosis. His remains were interred in an unmarked grave at Mt. Calvary Cemetery, the same cemetery where his victim was buried 16 years before.
Doug Stout is the local history coordinator for the Licking County Library. You may contact him at 740-349-5571 or dstout@lickingcountylibrary.org. His book “Never Forgotten: The Stories of Licking County Veterans” is available for purchase at the library or online at bookbaby.com.
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Former Newark police officer’s sister testifies in his murder trial