Around New England

Who Killed Dr. Dean?

February 20, 2018

Dr. William K. Dean, 63, a prominent resident of Jaffrey, New Hampshire, was found at the bottom of a cistern one morning in August 1918, bludgeoned and garroted to death.

No one was ever charged in the murder, although theories abounded — including one having to do with a mysterious errand Dean sent a woman on, to go to Boston to get federal authorities to come to town to investigate alleged German activities there. (It was during World War I.)

Was it a German spy? The mill bosses? The victim’s demented wife? A friend he had spent an evening with and then later sported a black eye?

Now, the Jaffrey Historical Society has commissioned a play and is asking for clues about the murder, including any stories and documents that might have been forgotten or suppressed, according to the Keene Sentinel.