This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

Webster (D) was a professor of chemistry, in the medical college, in Boston, attached to the university at Cambridge. D owed money to Parkman. Parkman disappeared at the same time that D was to repay his debt. Searchers found fragmentary human remains in D's chemistry laboratory and furnace. D was indicted in the municipal court at the January term, 1850, for the murder of Dr. George Parkman, on the 23d of November 1849. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts issue jury instructions for the case to the jury of which the difference between murder and manslaughter was discussed.

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