The jury took the oath. Then, with a bang of the judge’s gavel, Elizabeth’s trial began.
Theophilus was asked to present his case first. Though he’d busied himself since 1860 collecting documentation to support his position, he’d never wanted to see this day. He had an unfortunate record of coming off badly whenever his behavior was judged in court. Notably, he always gave a familiar excuse as to why. “The case was tried amid great sectarian prejudice,”9 he’d once complained of a previous brush with the law in which he’d lost the case. But whether he wanted it or not, the legal spotlight was squarely on him now.
The first witness called was Christopher Knott, the certificate-issuing doctor on whose word Elizabeth had been committed in 1860.
“I am a practicing physician in Kankakee City,” Knott testified. “Have been in practice fifteen years. Have seen Mrs. Packard; saw her three or four years ago. Am not much acquainted with her.” He described the two half-hour visits he’d made to her home in which Elizabeth had not even been told she was being examined and concluded, “I thought her partially deranged on religious matters, and gave a certificate to that effect.” He finished, “I have never seen her since.”10
Which rather made his opinion as to her present state of mind somewhat questionable.
Moore began his cross-examination—and he elicited a gem from the doctor. “She was what might be called a monomaniac,” Knott opined. “Monomania is insanity on one subject. Three-fourths of the religious community are insane in the same manner, in my opinion.”
It was an outrageous thing to say and likely raised a ripple through the courtroom. “Hisses even from the females,” observed Theophilus, “threats and outrageous language pervaded the atmosphere.”11
Perhaps that was why the doctor hurriedly added, “Her insanity was such that with a little rest she would readily have recovered from it.”12
That was an intriguing opinion. It certainly did not support a three-year incarceration in the Jacksonville asylum, nor Theophilus’s current plan of lifelong commitment.
Bonfield had to cross-examine after that account. He grilled Knott on Elizabeth’s hatred of her husband, which had been such an obvious symptom to McFarland. But at this line of questioning, Knott qualified his answer.
“Insanity produces, oftentimes, ill-feelings towards the best friends, and particularly the family,” he acknowledged, “but not so with monomania… I had no doubt that she was insane [but] I only considered her insane on that subject, and she was not bad at that. I thought if she was withdrawn from conversation and excitement, she could have got well in a short time.”
But surely, her committal to the asylum was necessary?
“Confinement in any shape, or restraint, would have made her worse,” testified Dr. Knott. He repeated, “I did not think it was a bad case; it only required rest.”
It was not exactly the testimony the pastor’s legal team had planned. Thank goodness, then, for Dr. J. W. Brown, who took the stand thereafter.
Elizabeth’s brow likely furrowed as his name was called. She knew of no doctor by this name. As she watched him enter, her jaw probably dropped. She may not have known the name, but she’d have recognized that face anywhere—having recently spent three hours sitting opposite it.
For into the courtroom strode the “sewing-machine salesman” she’d met just before Christmas.
Elizabeth reassessed what she’d thought was paranoia at their meeting. She’d been right to fear some calamity from his presence. He’d been intending to help her husband lock her up.
And now he had the perfect opportunity to do so.
Brown strutted to the stand with the confidence of a man who liked to boast he had achieved “almost unparalleled”13 success in his chosen field. He loved to talk in “the high-flown language of an expert”14 and seemed ready to enjoy his moment on the stand.
He was sworn and confirmed he was a physician from Kankakee. He gave a full account of his recent “extended conference”15 with Elizabeth.
“I had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion, in my mind, that she was insane,” he announced emphatically.
Bonfield retired, his shoulders relaxing, having gotten the killer statement in the bag.
Stephen Moore rose to cross-examine. Perhaps at Elizabeth’s prompting, he drew out from Brown that strange, underhanded tactic of concealing his true identity from his client.
“She asked me if I was a physician,” Brown confirmed, “and I told her no; that I was an agent, selling sewing machines, and had come there to sell her one.” In a rare moment of levity, he continued, “The first subject we conversed about was sewing machines. She showed no signs of insanity on that subject.”