Agents of the RI Department of Charities and Corrections paid a routine visit to the RI State Hospital for the Insane, in Cranston, in Dec. 1906. There, they discovered William Stevens Morse, 32, confined in a restraining jacket. The jackets, meant to control unruly patients until they calmed down, were only to be utilized for short periods of time. Staff admitted to the agents that the hospital’s superintendent, Dr. Fred Bryce Jewett, had ordered Morse fitted into the jacket eight days prior.

Morse’s first incarceration had been at the age of 11 when he was sentenced to the reform school for seven years after attempting to kill his younger sister with a carving knife.  A native of Britain, Conn., Morse later moved to RI where he obtained a job as a nurse at the Butler Hospital for the Insane. He eventually met and befriended a beautiful typesetter named Julia Elizabeth Toombs who lived with her siblings and widowed mother Delphina (Burdick) in Providence.

Morse soon left his job at the hospital and, in 1902, began working as a streetcar operator. Standing at almost six feet tall and weighing nearly 200 pounds, Morse developed a romantic interest in Toombs and proposed marriage. When she rejected him, he became furious. He repeatedly visited her home, threatening to kill her and Delphina.    

Police began to watch the Toombs house for signs of Morse. On Oct. 22, 1902, they arrested him on the property. A body search showed that he was carrying a revolver. Morse was admitted to the RI State Hospital for the Insane. On Jan. 13, 1903, he was paroled from the facility under agreement that he would join the US Navy. Morse joined the military as instructed but the Toombs family soon contacted police to report that they were receiving threatening letters from him. The house was put under surveillance again and he was soon arrested on the property, carrying a razor. 

Morse was again committed to the State Hospital. On Feb. 19, he was allowed to leave and return to the Navy. The Navy, however, didn’t want Morse. Military personnel reported that he suffered from melancholia, acted very childlike and cried a lot. He then went to Boston, sold his jacket and purchased a gun with the money. He loaded all six chambers and went to Providence.

On the morning of March 15, Morse followed Toombs and attempted to make conversation. Toombs stopped a man passing by and asked if he would walk her to church as she was afraid of Morse. Morse issued a threat of bodily harm to the stranger and the man continued on his way.

Toombs ran to the opposite side of the street and, as she did, Morse pulled out the gun, aimed it at her back and rapidly fired. The first bullet felled the 23-year-old woman at the corner of Dexter Street and Bellevue Avenue, and another three bullets were fired as she lay on the ground.

The witness chased Morse. Eventually believing he had successfully dodged the man; Morse sat down on the side of the road and pulled his lunch out of his pocket. As he began to eat, the man approached and seized him. Nearby police officers came to assist, and Morse was arrested.

Brought before the judge, Morse was asked how he pleaded. He nodded his head. The judge asked for a verbal response but none was forthcoming, so a not guilty plea was entered on his behalf. After he returned to his cell, the police chief and the judge conversed about changing the plea to save everyone concerned a lot of time. When they went to Morse’s cell to procure him again, he began crying hysterically and became so physically violent, eight men were unable to safely remove him from the cell. Later that evening after he’d calmed down, he was taken before the judge again and a plea of guilty was entered on his behalf. He was judged not guilty by reason of insanity, he was committed to the hospital for the insane for life.

Jewett admitted to the board that he had indeed confined Morse in the restraining jacket for eight days. He explained that Morse had uttered some foul words to an attendant during a verbal outburst and the attendant had complained. Jewett instructed Morse to apologize. When he said nothing, Jewett ordered him placed in the restraining jacket and informed him that he would remain tied until he apologized. An apology had not come.

A couple of weeks later, the Board unanimously voted to ask Jewett for his resignation due to charges of causing unnecessary punishment to be inflicted on a patient, cruelty, inhumane treatment and negligence. Jewett agreed to resign.

In 1909, the board withdrew their original resignation request and appointed Jewett as superintendent of the state almshouse, the house of correction and the state workhouse. He later moved to Melrose, Mass. where he served as superintendent of the sanitarium there. He died in 1936.

After 34 years at the hospital for the insane, Morse died one morning in 1937 of heart disease. He was buried beneath State Farm grave marker #1417.