Newbern Spectator, New Bern, North Carolina, May 31, 1833

Reverend Ephraim Kingsbury Avery was one of the first clergymen to be tried for murder in the United States. 

In December of 1832, Sarah Cornell, a factory worker, was found by a farmer inside his barn hanging in from a stack pole, used to dry hay. Her family had been rather prosperous but she had to go out to work when her father deserted them. When Sarah’s belongings, in the lodging house she stayed in, were searched a note was found which read “ If I should be missing, inquire of the Rev. Mr. Avery of Bristol, he will know where I am.’’ Sarah had met the reverend in 1929.

Avery was a married Methodist minister, and suspicion was turned against him when it came to light that, in addition to speaking to her landlords about their relations, Sarah had told a doctor that she was pregnant with the Reverend’s child. The jury found that Sarah’s death was a suicide.

Once the body was exhumed and an autopsy was performed, however, it was found that Sarah was four months pregnant. If that wasn’t enough, bruises were found on her abdomen suggesting that an abortion may have been attempted, and the knot from which the rope was hung was not a type that would tighten on it’s own.

A warrant was sworn out, but when the sheriff went to deliver it, it was discovered that Avery had fled.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s body, now that she was shown definitely to be pregnant, was not to be allowed back to it’s resting place. The Methodist minister who was buried it refused to do so again, because she was unmarried.

While public opinion was strongly against Avery, with people going so far as to burn him in effigy, he was acquitted both by the court and the church. He spent a good portion of the rest of his life touring the Eastern States trying to clear his name.