I've been working on transcribing the newspaper articles of the Murder of Sarah Ware for 2 years in my spare time. A little more then a hobby, more of a part time job. At some point down the road, maybe worthy of publishing.

In researching every available theory, rumor or story, you tend to get a wealth of information about a certain individual, that might have all or nothing to do with the case. The only way to find out is research it.

Sarah Ware on September 17th, 1898, after visiting a friend, and stopping at a store on her way home walked off into the night, never to be seen alive. Unless of course, you include the person, or persons who killed her.

She lay in the elements for 2 weeks and a day, before she was finally discovered by a search party, smelt before seen, 1480 feet from her home, at Mrs. Miles up the Miles Lane. That October 2nd was a Sunday.

Monday morning the Coroner called an Inquest. Besides the well known witnesses, and suspects, Mrs. Miles, Will Treworgy, the men who found her, the man she visited, John Bulduc, and the store keepers, a man Mrs. Miles claimed owed Sarah money was questioned.

Charles Williams, a local merchant and family man who had known Sarah Ware for 20 years, and whom she had worked off and on as a housekeeper, and sitter for his child Myrtle. She had spent the previous winter with him, in that capacity.

He always paid her on a Saturday night. When she left him he owed her some, it is not known how much, money.

When she left Mrs. Miles that last time around 7:30 p.m., she said she would be back in 2 hours and that she had to do some business.

I had read about Charles Williams in the inquest. Then I had forgotten about him. As I believe the entire detective squad and most of those interested in the case.

Once the bloody hammer with W.T.T. and a bloody canvas was found in Mr. Treworgy's wagon, later lost by one of the lead detectives Dennis Tracy, they had their man. They weren't sure if they had enough to convict, but they for the most part, stopped investigating other avenues.

Charles Williams was never mentioned in any of the newspaper reports, the hearing that took place in May of the following year that left Will Treworgy in jail, awaiting trial for murder, and only briefly in the final Murder Trial in 1902, 4 years after the fact. Certainly was never a suspect in any trial.

This was his testimony in the Inquest:

Charles A. Williams (Sworn) Bucksport - Age 45 -

“Known Sarah Ware 20 years. She lived at my house 8 months. left last May, seemed nervous at times, she smoked - never left at night - used to stay out late - known men to call - paid her 2.50 per week for 8 months -

Was not crazy, was prudent and accurate - felt safe to leave children with her.

Said she had $50.00 in Bangor Bank -

Two men called to see her, Charles Tribou once - Mike Cohen she said called on her -

Twelfth paid her $65.00.

She always had her money by her. She went to her room sometimes to get money.

Total money I paid her, should say $75.00

Eyesight poor - hearing good used to wear glasses sewing -

Did not seem to be afraid to go out nights -

Do not know of an enemy said she gave her daughter 1.00 once -

Don’t think she would give her much money - Never knew her to use liquor.”

Charles A. Williams

This is his only mention in as a witness in the 1902 trial:

This kind of testimony shows what kind of person Sarah truly was. It doesn't mention why the 2 parted company. This is after all a day after her dead body and crushed in skull were recovered.

Most of the later generations of townspeople came up with all kinds of wild tales of what kind a person she was. Partly, these stories were put out by those involved with the cover up of the truth, and then later by the descendants of these people.

Mrs. Almira Miles on the other hand should be the furthest from suspicion. Sure she almost sued the Boston Globe for claiming she confessed to stealing the 45$ taken from Sarah's trunk that later magically reappeared.

From day one Mrs. Miles had a story to tell, sure it took almost 2 weeks to make it to the ears of Deputy Sheriff Genn, but she did have a story. This is her testimony that mentioned Mr. Williams:

“I heard her say that Mr. Williams had paid her all but $13. April 1^st. Never knew her to go to Mr. Williams since.

She told me, she says, I wonder why Mr. Williams don’t come up and settle.

She left me at my house. She told me she wanted to go out at 7:30. Can’t you go tomorrow - she says no.

Left Charles Williams April 1898.

Mr. Williams has not been to my house since last April. Williams paid her $2.50 per week or said he would in my presence - I think she would put most of her money in the bank. Don’t know about bank book - can’t be found -”

Not to single out Mr. Williams. Just to point out the connection. Since I have been investigating the case, I concentrate on the facts. The original Coroner's Inquest has to be the most factual account. By the time the later trials and hearings rolled around, there was a whole new set of agendas.

By 1902, the Deputy Sheriff was dead. The undertaker, Sarah's Brother-in-Law George Ware, had also died. Most of the officials, were either voted out of office, or no longer worked the same positions, or had retired. Its no wonder, mention of a fist sized quartz stone found at the murder scene, last in the possession of Deputy Genn, was never recovered. Or the University Professor who had analyzed the bloody hammer, and canvas had also died.

It has always been my goal to obtain all the facts. It has always been stated, since the first trial, that there is no known photos in existence of Sarah Ware. The only image, is a drawing taken from an old tin-type, and published in the papers of the day.

My other goals, besides the obvious, getting the truth out there, having future generations remember an innocent victim for what she was. Finding a photograph of her, if one ever existed. Eventually, through forensic science and DNA, finding the murderer.

I study every old photo I can, looking for faces that seem familiar. We obtained a photo collection, from a great historian/genealogists, Mary Redman. In this collection there was a photo of an Elephant named Charlie. He broke loose and rampaged the countryside and town of Bucksport, for 2 weeks in 1892.

When he was finally caught, by a pit bull terrier, Charlie was marched down to the train yard, and prepared to be returned to his Carnival. A photo of Charlie was taken in front of a house on upper main street. It has been in plastic since we first received it.

2 weeks ago on a Friday night, it came to me, kind of like a light bulb turning on in my head. Rescan the Charlie Photo. We had scanned it when we first received it. With my improved photo capabilities, I knew we could get a better scan.

I took the photo out of the plastic, and flipped it over reading the print on the back. Something besides the pen holes poked in the faces of some of the townspeople, had always made the hair stand up on the back of my head.

The photo read, Charlie the Elephant on main street, Bucksport. Charles Williams’ house in the background. My eyes got wide, and I ran like a school kid, to tell my mother, excitedly screaming, "Chas!" which was how they abbreviated Charles back then.

Charles Williams, his daughter Myrtle, who grew up to marry a Bridges, and his wife Maggie M. Saunders, who would die 4 short years later, at 26, was obscured by a man on a horse. Next to them was a woman in her forties, with gloves tucked into her waist, and next to her was an ancient looking woman of seventy or so.

Sarah Ware is the lady in white. If she hadn't been working for him that exact day, which the gloves tend to give the impression, that she had been working, and then had to quickly go out to see the spectacle, she certainly had known him well enough to stand next to him at the best place to view the Elephant, up high next to the house. She had been a housekeeper since arriving in town. Certainly, she had worked for dozens of townsfolk, including Charles Williams.

Almost positive before the scanning and enlarging, by appearance alone. When I overlaid the drawing over her image and changed the transparency the features matched exactly. Neck, chin, shape of head, mouth, nose, dimples, ears, eyes. The only thing different, was the lady in the photo was wearing a hat, or it might have been the photo the drawing was made from.

Short of hiring a forensic photographic expert, or police sketch artists, there is no other proof that I can think of, that I haven't tried, to disprove the photo. Will there be a dispute? I can almost guarantee it. Does it matter? Not to me. Short of materializing a 120 year old witness to the photo, I can think of no way of disproving the photo.

A more in depth write-up with photos and vids can be found on Maine Supernatural website. As the song goes, "She walks these hills, in a long black veil, she visits my grave when the night winds wail. Nobody knows, nobody sees, nobody knows but me!"

Weird, Wicked Weird: In search of Sarah

By Lindsay Tice , Staff Writer

Saturday, February 9, 2008

In the fall of 1898, Sarah Ware vanished from the quiet evening streets of Bucksport.

Searchers found her body two weeks later, beheaded and badly decomposed, a raincoat tucked like a pillow under her severed head.

Rumors about her death swirled as town gossips claimed the 52-year-old divorcee had been a drinker, a gambler and worse. Although a local store owner was eventually tried for her murder, neither he nor anyone else was convicted.

A century later: enter ****** *******. A Bucksport librarian and amateur investigator with a penchant for the paranormal and the historical, he was piqued by the gruesome murder, by the fact that no one was ever punished for the horrific crime, by the fact that Ware was all but forgotten in the small town, known only through a bad ghost story and a faded headstone in a pauper's grave.

He's worked for two years to put a face - literally - on her murder.

"She was just a house cleaner heading home," he said. "She was an innocent."

******* started a Web site dedicated to Maine's greatest unsolved mysteries a few years ago. He looked into local ghost stories, paranormal events and area murders, posting the information and evidence he'd gathered for anyone to see. Two years ago, he turned to the 1898 Ware case.

"In the later years the people involved covered it up. They had their own stories, like she was a card player, she was drinking, carousing and all that. She wasn't," he said. "It kind of gets lost to history, the actual facts of what happened."

Scouring old documents, court records, news articles and the coroner's inquest, ******* painstakingly pieced together the life and death of Sarah Ware, spending up to two hours a night on the project. He found she was a mother of four, a divorcee who "caught the eye of the town gossips." She worked as a cleaning woman and lent money to townspeople, including a local store owner she worked for, William Treworgy.

On the evening of Sept. 17, Ware left a friend's house and began walking home. She stopped briefly at a town store. She was never seen alive again.

Two weeks passed before anyone officially reported her missing. Search parties found her badly decomposed body by smell, following the rancid odor to an alder swamp just off Miles Lane, not far from her home. Her skull was broken in several places and had a hammer-sized hole in the temple. She was beheaded.

A Lewiston detective was called to be lead investigator in the case, and a Bangor detective joined him. They soon found a bloody hammer (engraved with the initials W.T.T.) and a bloody tarp in Treworgy's wagon. A man told them Treworgy had paid him to move a body to the swamp.

"They had intent, they had motive and they had Treworgy," ****** said. "He's the one they finally took to trial."

But the trial took place four years after the murder, and by that time the Bangor detective had lost both the bloody hammer and the tarp, ******* said. And the man who claimed Treworgy paid him to move a body? He recanted, saying he was forced by a selectman and members of the citizens' committee to lie.

Treworgy was acquitted.

Newspapers abounded with theories:

Treworgy killed Ware because she spurned his advances. Also, he owed her money.

She got in the middle of a fight between a drunken gang and the guy they were waiting for on the town bridge.

She got in the middle of a neighborhood fight over a poker game and was killed accidentally.

More than 100 years later, ******* continues the investigation. He has his own theories.

"There's just too many things involved with Treworgy. If he didn't do it he helped move the body," he said.

Although he hasn't come up with a concrete answer yet, he recently found something almost as good - the only known photograph of Sarah Ware.

He discovered the 1892 black-and-white photo in an old library scrapbook. He compared it to the only other image of Ware he had, a tintype drawing featured in an old newspaper. For the first time, he could put a real face on the victim.

******* now highlights the photo on his Web site, giving it its own page below an 1876 triple homicide and above pages dedicated to a Bangor murder and various historical hauntings. He keeps looking for her murderer.

"I'm just trying to get the facts out there," he said. "She was an innocent."