April 25, 2025 • 24 mins
In 1911, the tiny farming town of Tyre, Michigan, was rocked by a string of mysterious deaths in the Sparling family. Over the course of two years, four men from the same household died of sudden, agonizing illnesses. At first, it seemed like a tragedy. Then suspicion. And finally, murder.
In this episode, we unravel the haunting story of “The Dying Sparlings”—a tale of poison, scandal, and a courtroom drama that captured the attention of a state. Was it the family doctor? The grieving mother? Or someone else entirely? This 20-minute narrative walks you through one of Michigan’s most notorious historical murder cases—and the ripple effects it had across the Thumb.
In this episode, we unravel the haunting story of “The Dying Sparlings”—a tale of poison, scandal, and a courtroom drama that captured the attention of a state. Was it the family doctor? The grieving mother? Or someone else entirely? This 20-minute narrative walks you through one of Michigan’s most notorious historical murder cases—and the ripple effects it had across the Thumb.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the end of the road in Michigan, the podcast that brings you bite
(00:03):
size pieces of Michigan history you likely never heard before.
In today's extended episode, we journey back over a century to a quiet corner of Michigan's
thumb region, where a family's tragic demise still haunts local memory.
This is the story of the Sparling family of Tyre Michigan, a tale of mysterious deaths
on a rural farm, a sensational murder trial, and a legacy that changed the community.
(00:25):
We'll explore who the Sparlings were, the backdrop of life in early 20th century Michigan,
the circumstances under which Albert and Henry Sparling, along with other family members,
died, the ensuing investigation and trial, and how the aftermath left an indelible mark
on Michigan's thumb, join us as we piece together the facts of the dying Sparlings, a true
murder mystery that rattled a small town and captivated the entire state.
(00:49):
What was life like in Michigan's thumb in 1909?
To understand the Sparling case, we first set the scene in the thumb region of Michigan
in the early 1900s.
The thumb, Huron, Tuscola and Sadalac counties was a rural patchwork of farms and tiny villages.
Tyre, the Sparling family's hometown, was a humble hamlet carved out of stony ground.
(01:09):
This community had risen from the ashes of devastating wildfires in 1871 and 1881, and
by 1909, it was a quiet place defined by dirt roads, a grain elevator by the railroad,
and close knit farming families.
Life was hard but simple.
Neighbors helped neighbors, church on Sundays was a given, and news from the wider world arrived
slowly by newspaper or word of mouth.
(01:32):
Daily life for families like the Sparling centered on the land.
Morning to night, there were chores, milking cows, feeding horses, plowing fields by horse-drawn
plow, tending vegetable gardens, and putting up canned goods for winter.
Travel was by foot, horseback, or wagon, the automobile had yet to transform these country
roads.
In the summer, children might work in the fields.
(01:53):
In the winter, they huddled by wood stoves after trampling through the snow.
It was an era on the cusp of change, but in 1909, the old ways still firmly held.
The Sparling family was one of Tyre's own.
Patriarch John Wesley Sparling was a farmer, his wife Carrie Body Sparling kept the home.
They had four sturdy sons, Peter, Albert, Cyril, and the youngest, Raymond.
(02:15):
The Sparlings were of the stock that settled Michigan's thumb, likely of English or Irish
to send via Canada, like many families drawn by lumber jobs and new farmland decades earlier.
By all accounts, the Sparlings were ordinary folk of their time and place, living off the
land and weathering life's challenges.
They could not have imagined the dark fate that was about to befall their household.
(02:35):
What brought on the Sparling family's mysterious illnesses?
It all began with an unexpected illness on a warm June day in 1909.
John Wesley Sparling, the 53-year-old family patriarch, was outworking in his fields when suddenly
he doubled over with severe stomach pain.
Neighbors later recounted how John "quit-work" midday, clutching his abdomen, his face
ashen, alarmed, his eldest son Peter leapt on to a horse and rode at breakneck speed to fetch
(03:00):
the local physician, Dr. Robert A. McGregor, from the nearby town of Ubley.
Dr. McGregor had been the Sparling family's doctor for several years and was highly respected
in the community.
He arrived and diagnosed John with a kidney ailment.
Despite treatment, John Wesley's condition worsened over the following days.
On July 8, 1909, to the shock of everyone, the hardworking father of four was dead.
(03:22):
The entire community of Tyre turned out for his funeral at Tyre Cemetery.
It was a telling tale to how beloved, or at least well-known, this family was.
At first, John's death seemed like a tragic but natural loss.
It was not unheard of in those days for a seemingly healthy man to be struck down by
sudden illness.
Maybe it was his heart or his kidneys, ruralful could see neighbors die from appendicitis
(03:44):
or summer complaint before modern medicine could save them.
But in hindsight, John's Sparling's death was the first act of a mystery that would only
grow deeper.
About a year later, in the summer of 1910, tragedy struck the Sparlings again.
Peter Sparling, the same son who had frantically summoned the doctor for his father, was now
a 25-year-old taking care of the family farm and his widowed mother.
(04:06):
One day while hanging afield, Peter staggered and collapsed in agony, much as his father
had.
He had been in strong, but now he was vomiting and riving with abdominal pain that no one
could explain.
Dr. McGregor was called once more to the farm, and he tended to Peter as the young man's
condition deteriorated.
Five days later, Peter Sparling was dead, two healthy men in the same family, gone within
(04:28):
a year of each other, both felled by a swift, brutal sickness.
Neighbors whispered in concern and confusion.
Was it something genetic?
A curse upon the family?
Tyre had known it's share of misfortune, but this was perplexing.
By now, the Sparling family and the community were on edge.
John's widow Carrie was bereaved and frightened.
She had lost her husband and her eldest son.
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She still had three boys left, Albert, Cyril, and Little Ray.
One can imagine how tightly she must have held her remaining sons, praying that whatever
befell her husband and Peter would not strike again.
Life tried to carry on as usual entire, perhaps to ease her financial worries.
Around this time Carrie Sparling took out life insurance policies on her sons.
He wasn't unusual in those days to ensure family members, and life insurance was actively
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sold by traveling agents.
However, given what followed, this fact would later take on a sinister cast.
By 1911, each of Carrie's boys was insured for a modest sum, with their mother as beneficiary.
Then, in the spring of 1911, the nightmare resurfaced, Albert Sparling, 23 years old and, like
his late brother, a picture of health, was attending church one Sunday when he suddenly
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fell violently ill.
Albert is recalled Albert doubled over with the same awful symptoms, vomiting, stomach pain,
weakness, ward of Albert's condition spread quickly through the community.
"Not again," people said.
Surely this family is cursed.
Despite medical care, Albert only lasted a short time.
He died after a brief struggle on May 3, 1911.
(05:57):
Three Sparling men, father and two sons, had now died in a span of just under two years.
Each time, the onset was sudden and the pattern of symptoms eerily alike.
Others' residents were no longer simply perplexed.
Many grew suspicious.
Was it a hereditary illness?
Something wrong with the well water?
Or could these deaths be the result of something more sinister?
(06:17):
As Gossip's world, some began referring to the tragedy as the dying Sparlings, a local
label for the mysterious string of family deaths.
Dr. McGregor, who had been present at all three deaths, publicly suggested an explanation.
He told people that the Sparling men might have suffered from syphilis, than an untreatable,
hypnotized disease, which could cause systemic illness.
He even insinuated that the Sparling children's health was undermined by their parents' excessive
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sexual indulgence, a scandalous implication in that devout farming community.
These claims of bad blood were shocking, and many, including some of the Sparlings' extended
family, did not believe them, but in the absence of proof of foul play, what could anyone
do?
People were wary but had no choice except to take the doctor at his word.
He was, after all, the one with medical training.
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Unfortunately, the Sparling families or deal was not over.
In August 1911, just three months after Albert's death, the youngest remaining son, Cyril
Sparling, fell gravely ill.
Cyril was only twenty years old, a young man with his whole life ahead of him.
When on August 4, 1911, he was struck with the same dreaded symptoms as his father and
brothers.
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This time, the circumstances were a little different.
Multiple doctors became involved.
Dr. McGregor was tending to Cyril, but as Cyril's condition worsened day by day, McGregor
called in other physicians for consultations.
Dr. William E. Conboy from nearby Badax, along with Dr. Harrington and others, came to examine
the boy.
What they saw raised immediate alarm, Dr. Conboy, in particular, noted the pattern of several
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family members with identical symptoms and grew suspicious that poison might be the cause.
On August 7, a few days into Cyril's illness, Conboy confided to Dr. McGregor that he suspected
arsenic poisoning.
McGregor claimed he, too, had considered that possibility, and pointed a finger at mother
carry Sparling, implying she could be administering poison.
(08:06):
With foul play now a very real concern, the authorities became quietly involved even before
Cyril passed.
At the doctor's urging, a nurse named Margarit Gibbs was hired on August 9, 1911, ostensibly
to tend to Cyril, but also to ensure no one could surreptitiously poison him further.
One can imagine the tense atmosphere in the Sparling household during Cyril's final days,
(08:27):
the gravely ill young man writhing in bed.
His anxious mother carried his side under the watchful eye of nurse Gibbs, Dr. McGregor
coming and going, and other doctors checking in.
Some of them harboring suspicions but trying to keep the patient stable.
Despite their efforts, Cyril Sparling died on August 14, 1911, after about 10 days of suffering,
he was the fourth and last of the Sparling men to die under these baffling circumstances,
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leaving only 12-year-old Raymond alive.
Now the pattern could no longer be ignored or attributed to coincidence, for deaths in
one family, all with similar agony.
This was not a curse or bad luck.
This looked like murder.
The community's worst fears were confirmed when Dr. Conboy and the others pressed for an autopsy
on Cyril.
McGregor performed a limited post-mortem exam immediately after Cyril's death, concluding,
(09:14):
perhaps hastily, that the boy had died of liver cancer.
Notably, he did not remove Cyril's stomach for analysis, but suspicious samples from
Cyril's organs were soon sent to the University of Michigan's Pathology Department for a thorough
examination.
Renowned pathologist Dr. Aldrich Worthen and chemist at the U of M got to work.
The results came back with Bonshell evidence.
(09:34):
Cyril's organs showed clear signs of poisoning, specifically arsenic.
Chemical analysis found more than trace amounts of arsenic in his body.
In response, investigators exhumed the recently buried body of Albert Sparling.
When Dr. Worthen and his team examined Albert's remains, they found the same tell-tale evidence
of arsenic poisoning.
Any remaining doubt was erased.
(09:54):
John, Peter, Albert, and Cyril Sparling had not died of natural causes.
They had been poisoned.
Tire's quiet cemetery now held four victims of what was clearly a horrific crime.
We will return to the story after this brief message.
The investigation and community reaction to this story, news of these findings spread
(10:14):
like wildfire.
The notion that a whole family had been methodically poisoned over time was both terrifying and
riveting to the public.
Law enforcement in Huron County sprang into action, and the case moved quickly.
By late 1911, suspicion had fallen on two people.
Dr. Robert McGregor, the family's physician who had treated all the victims, and Carrie Sparling,
(10:34):
the mother who stood to gain insurance money from her son's deaths.
In November 1911, police arrested Dr. McGregor, along with nurse Marguerite Gibbs, who
was thought to have potentially helped cover up evidence.
In December 1911, Carrie Sparling herself was indicted on first-degree murder charges as
a possible co-conspirator in her son Cyril's death.
The community of Tire and the Greater Thumbregion reacted with shock, anger, and morbid curiosity.
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How could such heinous acts happen in their midst?
The Sparlings had been a regular farm family.
Now, mother Carrie was suspected of plotting to kill her own kin, and the trusted town doctors
stood accused of betraying his oath in the worst possible way.
Times ran high, many in Huron County could not believe a woman, and a mother at that, could
do such a thing.
Nor could they fathom that the amiable Dr. McGregor, who had come whenever called, might
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secretly be a murderer, counts people crowded around to get updates, and newspapers from
bad acts to Detroit carried lurid headlines about the case.
Indeed, local papers reported sensational details as they emerged.
One headline proclaimed two more Sparlings were poisoned after the Examations confirmed
arsenic, sending chills through readers across Michigan.
In the Thumb, the reaction was a mix of fear and fascination.
(11:46):
The case caused great excitement in Huron County, one account later noted, as rumors flew and
residents realized a serial poisoner had been active among them.
Many recalled how everyone in Tire had attended the Sparling Funerals, mourning innocently
alongside a possible perpetrator.
Churches and Grange Hall's buzzed with debate was Carrie an unfortunate widow or a blackhearted
killer, was Dr. McGregor a scapegoat or the mastermind.
(12:09):
With each new revelation, the insurance policies, the suggestion of an illicit romance between
the doctor and Mrs. Sparling, and the grizzly forensic evidence, the community's bewilderment
grew.
Families began checking their own pantries for toxins and scrutinizing every tragedy with suspicion.
For law enforcement, assembling the case was a challenging task.
This was 1911, forensic science was in its infancy.
(12:31):
Yet, Huron County's prosecutor, Zinophana Boomhauer, built a narrative from the clues
at hand.
The theory of the crime posited a collaboration between Dr. McGregor and Carrie Sparling.
Allegedly, the doctor and the widow were carrying on a secret affair and conspired to eliminate
her husband and sons for insurance money.
McGregor's role, prosecutors argued, was to supply or administer arsenic under the guise
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of treating the victims.
At the same time, Carrie consented to, or even helped with, the deeds, motivated by financial
gain and perhaps the doctor's attention.
Notably, Carrie had indeed collected insurance payouts after Albert's death, part of which
she used to buy a house that Dr. McGregor rented from her, and she had given McGregor cash
that he used to purchase a new car.
These suspicious money trails, combined with the doctor's curious behavior during Cyril's
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illness, such as discouraging a complete autopsy of the stomach, painted a damning picture.
On the other hand, both Dr. McGregor and Carrie Sparling vehemently maintained their innocence,
Carrie, now having lost her husband and three sons, insisted that her family died of natural
causes and that she had done nothing wrong.
She claimed to be a victim of horrific misfortune and was now being unjustly accused, Dr.
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McGregor likewise denied any wrongdoing.
Caught in the middle was nurse Gibbs, who had only been brought in at the end, her role,
if any, was murky, and many felt she was just an unlucky bystander pulled into the drama.
It was called the trial of the century in Badax.
By the time the case went to trial in the spring of 1912, the Sparling murders had become
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one of the most famous criminal cases in Michigan.
It was often referred to as the trial of the century in the local press.
In April 1912, the Huron County Courthouse in Badax was besieged by crowds, curious citizens
from all over the state traveled to attend or at least loiter outside for news, reporters
packed the courtroom, and headlines from Chicago to New York carried updates on this real-life
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murder mystery playing out in a normally sleepy rural county.
Inside the courthouse, Judge Watson Beach presided over a packed courtroom, the prosecution,
headed by Zineffan Boomhauer, with special counsel Ernest Snow, laid out its case methodically,
they called Dr. Conboy to testify about how he immediately suspected arsenic and how McGregor
had behaved oddly during Cyril's illness.
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Conboy recounted McGregor's inquiries about whether he suspected poisoning and McGregor's
hinting that Kerry was responsible.
Other doctors from the University of Michigan took the stand to explain the scientific evidence
of arsenic found in the victim's bodies.
The insurance agents and documents were presented to show motive, those policies and payouts
on the sparring son's lives.
Townsfolk and neighbors might have been called to speak to the relationship between the doctor
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and Mrs. Sparling, and indeed, some witnesses asserted there was an improper intimacy between
them.
Even the undertaker, Hector McKay, testified, noting that McGregor hadn't prevented others
from examining Cyril's body, which introduced some doubt about the doctor's supposed cover-up.
Dr. Robert McGregor took the stand in his own defense, a critical moment.
For five grueling days, he faced examination and cross-examination.
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McGregor denied poisoning anyone.
He insisted he had done everything he could as a doctor to save the Sparlings, that he had
only ever given them proper medicines.
He explained the insurance money he received as legitimate payment of medical bills or unrelated
financial dealings.
His wife also testified, likely to counter the allegations of an affair with Kerry Sparling.
The defense attorneys, initially George Clark, later Joseph Walsh, tried to poke holes
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in the prosecution's circumstantial case.
There were no eyewitnesses to any poisoning, no one saw McGregor administer arsenic, and
indeed, arsenic was a common ingredient in certain medicines of the era.
Could the positive tests have come from something else?
The defense also highlighted that McGregor had invited other doctors and hadn't fled, implying
that he had nothing to hide.
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As for Kerry Sparling, she was not on trial alongside McGregor, her trial was severed and postponed,
but her presence loomed large.
The defense suggested that if anyone had a chance to administer poison in the home, it
might have been someone in the family, subtly casting suspicion back on Kerry or others.
It was a tense, dramatic affair, pitting scientific evidence against passionate denials.
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After weeks of testimony and arguments, the jury delivered its verdict on June 5, 1912,
Dr. Robert McGregor was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Cyril Sparling.
The verdict implied he was responsible for all the Sparling deaths as part of one murder
as scheme.
Five days later, Judge Beach sentenced the 34-year-old physician to life in prison.
It was a sensational outcome.
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Outside the courthouse, throngs of spectators, who had waited on the lawn and even climbed
onto window-sills to hear the news, reacted with a mix of triumph and turmoil.
Some cheered that justice had been served, while others murmured uneasily, wondering if
the right person had been punished.
Kerry Sparling, the grieving mother now publicly painted as either a monster or a dup, never
got her day in court.
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Her trial was repeatedly delayed amid the fallout of McGregor's conviction.
Throughout, she proclaimed McGregor's innocence and, by extension, her own.
In interviews with newspapers, Kerry resolutely insisted that her husband and boys had died
from natural causes, recounting their medical histories to anyone who would listen.
Perhaps she believed it, or perhaps it was a desperate defense, the full truth remains
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elusive.
By January 1914, the authorities quietly decided to drop the charges against Kerry Sparling,
as well as those against nurse Gibbs.
The prosecutor may have felt that, with McGregor convicted and sentenced, pursuing Kerry further
was unnecessary or unlikely to succeed, especially without McGregor's testimony, as he had by
then lost his appeals and wouldn't implicate her.
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And so, Kerry Sparling was never tried, legally, she was acquitted and walked free.
She soon had another battle to fight.
In 1914, she had to sue one of the insurance companies, in this case, the Gleiners, which
had refused to pay out on Cyril's policy due to the murder allegations.
It's unclear how that lawsuit ended, but one imagines Kerry lived under a cloud of suspicion
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for the rest of her days, the community likely remained divided in opinion about her.
This story did not end with the verdict.
The Sparling murders case did not end with the 1912 verdict, in a move that keeps this story
controversial to this day, Michigan's governor Woodbridge and Ferris took a personal interest
in Dr. McGregor's fate.
Senator Ferris, elected in 1913, had received petitions and an appeal on McGregor's behalf,
(18:48):
many believed that the trial might have gotten it wrong, or at least that there was more to
the story.
Perhaps it was the lingering doubts voiced by local citizens, or McGregor's own persistent
claims of innocence from behind bars.
Ferris ordered a comprehensive re-investigation of the case in 1914.
For two years, state authorities quietly re-examined evidence and interviewed witnesses.
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Strangely, the findings of this inquiry were never made fully public, but the outcome was dramatic,
on November 27, 1916, Governor Ferris granted Dr. Robert McGregor a full and unconditional
pardon based on innocence.
Ferris went so far as to bring McGregor to Lansing and hand him the pardon certificate in
person.
I am firmly convinced that Dr. McGregor is absolutely innocent of the crime for which
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he was convicted, the governor announced.
This stunning reversal flipped the narrative once again.
McGregor, who had spent four years in prison, walked out a free man, officially exonerated,
in an almost poetic twist, the state of Michigan hired him as the resident physician at Jackson
State Prison, the very institution where he had been an inmate.
He served as the prison doctor until he died in 1928, never publicly offering a different
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explanation for the sparring deaths.
Governor Ferris never thoroughly explained what evidence convinced him of McGregor's innocence,
leaving historians and amateur sleuths to speculate.
Some wonder if new evidence pointed to another culprit, perhaps carry or someone else entirely,
or if doubts about the arsenic tests emerged.
Others think political pressure or public sympathy played a role.
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Whatever the reason, McGregor's pardon meant that, in the eyes of the law, no one was ultimately
held accountable for the sparring murders.
For the people of Michigan's thumb, the sparring case left a lasting impact.
Culturally, it became one of those cautionary tales passed down through generations, the
kind of story grandparents would recount in hushed tones about the murderous doctor and
the unfortunate family.
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The case has been called the "dying sparlings ever since", a grim legend of the thumb.
The town of Tyre, which faded in later decades as the railroad route changed and farms
consolidated, is remembered chiefly for this tragedy.
If you visit the Tyre Cemetery today, you'll find the weathered grave stones of John,
Peter, Albert, and Cyril Sparling standing among the pines, silent witnesses to a mystery
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over a hundred years old.
The site draws local history buffs and true crime enthusiasts, many of whom are keenly aware
that the Sparling graves mark one of Michigan's most perplexing unsolved crimes.
Legally, the Sparling case was an early example of forensic science, the detection of arsenic
by university chemists playing a crucial role in securing a conviction.
It also highlighted the potential for miscarriages of justice in an era before modern investigative
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techniques, after all, a man convicted by jury was later declared innocent by the governor.
This case was significant enough to be included in later studies of wrongful convictions.
Some argue it led to improvements in how such cases were handled, encouraging more thorough
investigations before trial and better preservation of evidence, for instance, not allowing a primary
suspect to conduct a loan autopsy.
(21:43):
It certainly taught the community in Michigan's law enforcement a hard lesson about the dangers
of circumstantial evidence in public hysteria.
As one historian mused, the Sparling mystery also underscores how justice can sometimes
take us or cue at its root.
The court of public opinion had condemned Carrie Sparling, the legal court convicted McGregor,
and yet officially, the case ended with no killer on record.
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The truth, many feel, was buried with the Sparlings.
And so, the story of the Sparling murders ends not with neat closure, but with lingering questions.
Who really poisoned the Sparling men?
Was it a calculated plot by a doctor and a mother, or a tragic miscarriage of justice
fueled by gossip and coincidence?
For a century later, we still debate these questions in Michigan's thumb.
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What remains indisputable is the impact on the community, for lives lost, an entire family
devastated, and a small town's name etched into history for something it would rather
have never endured.
In the aftermath, young Raymond Sparling, the soul surviving son, grew up under the shadow
of this history.
One can only imagine the weight he carried, having lost all the men in his family and living
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with the whispers about why.
Sparling, however, itself dwindled to a virtual ghost town over the ensuing decades, but the
tale of the dying Sparlings ensures that this little place is not forgotten.
As author Jackie Howard, a distant relative of the Sparlings, noted the interest in this
case remains intense even now, with local families handing down recollections of jurors
and sheriffs who took part, it's a story that resonates because it happened in an ordinary
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town to ordinary people, reminding us that even the most buccolic landscapes can harbour
dark secrets.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The End of the Road in Michigan.
We hope you've enjoyed this deep dive into a bite-sized piece of Michigan history, the tale
of the Sparling Family Murders, a story at once heartbreaking and thought-provoking.
In revisiting these events, we honor the memory of those who lost their lives and acknowledge
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the lessons learned from a community's pursuit of truth.
Join us next time for another journey into Michigan's hidden past.
Until then, stay curious and keep exploring the stories that lie just beyond the end of
Hello and welcome to the end of the road in Michigan, the podcast that brings you bite
(00:03):
size pieces of Michigan history you likely never heard before.
In today's extended episode, we journey back over a century to a quiet corner of Michigan's
thumb region, where a family's tragic demise still haunts local memory.
This is the story of the Sparling family of Tyre Michigan, a tale of mysterious deaths
on a rural farm, a sensational murder trial, and a legacy that changed the community.
(00:25):
We'll explore who the Sparlings were, the backdrop of life in early 20th century Michigan,
the circumstances under which Albert and Henry Sparling, along with other family members,
died, the ensuing investigation and trial, and how the aftermath left an indelible mark
on Michigan's thumb, join us as we piece together the facts of the dying Sparlings, a true
murder mystery that rattled a small town and captivated the entire state.
(00:49):
What was life like in Michigan's thumb in 1909?
To understand the Sparling case, we first set the scene in the thumb region of Michigan
in the early 1900s.
The thumb, Huron, Tuscola and Sadalac counties was a rural patchwork of farms and tiny villages.
Tyre, the Sparling family's hometown, was a humble hamlet carved out of stony ground.
(01:09):
This community had risen from the ashes of devastating wildfires in 1871 and 1881, and
by 1909, it was a quiet place defined by dirt roads, a grain elevator by the railroad,
and close knit farming families.
Life was hard but simple.
Neighbors helped neighbors, church on Sundays was a given, and news from the wider world arrived
slowly by newspaper or word of mouth.
(01:32):
Daily life for families like the Sparling centered on the land.
Morning to night, there were chores, milking cows, feeding horses, plowing fields by horse-drawn
plow, tending vegetable gardens, and putting up canned goods for winter.
Travel was by foot, horseback, or wagon, the automobile had yet to transform these country
roads.
In the summer, children might work in the fields.
(01:53):
In the winter, they huddled by wood stoves after trampling through the snow.
It was an era on the cusp of change, but in 1909, the old ways still firmly held.
The Sparling family was one of Tyre's own.
Patriarch John Wesley Sparling was a farmer, his wife Carrie Body Sparling kept the home.
They had four sturdy sons, Peter, Albert, Cyril, and the youngest, Raymond.
(02:15):
The Sparlings were of the stock that settled Michigan's thumb, likely of English or Irish
to send via Canada, like many families drawn by lumber jobs and new farmland decades earlier.
By all accounts, the Sparlings were ordinary folk of their time and place, living off the
land and weathering life's challenges.
They could not have imagined the dark fate that was about to befall their household.
(02:35):
What brought on the Sparling family's mysterious illnesses?
It all began with an unexpected illness on a warm June day in 1909.
John Wesley Sparling, the 53-year-old family patriarch, was outworking in his fields when suddenly
he doubled over with severe stomach pain.
Neighbors later recounted how John "quit-work" midday, clutching his abdomen, his face
ashen, alarmed, his eldest son Peter leapt on to a horse and rode at breakneck speed to fetch
(03:00):
the local physician, Dr. Robert A. McGregor, from the nearby town of Ubley.
Dr. McGregor had been the Sparling family's doctor for several years and was highly respected
in the community.
He arrived and diagnosed John with a kidney ailment.
Despite treatment, John Wesley's condition worsened over the following days.
On July 8, 1909, to the shock of everyone, the hardworking father of four was dead.
(03:22):
The entire community of Tyre turned out for his funeral at Tyre Cemetery.
It was a telling tale to how beloved, or at least well-known, this family was.
At first, John's death seemed like a tragic but natural loss.
It was not unheard of in those days for a seemingly healthy man to be struck down by
sudden illness.
Maybe it was his heart or his kidneys, ruralful could see neighbors die from appendicitis
(03:44):
or summer complaint before modern medicine could save them.
But in hindsight, John's Sparling's death was the first act of a mystery that would only
grow deeper.
About a year later, in the summer of 1910, tragedy struck the Sparlings again.
Peter Sparling, the same son who had frantically summoned the doctor for his father, was now
a 25-year-old taking care of the family farm and his widowed mother.
(04:06):
One day while hanging afield, Peter staggered and collapsed in agony, much as his father
had.
He had been in strong, but now he was vomiting and riving with abdominal pain that no one
could explain.
Dr. McGregor was called once more to the farm, and he tended to Peter as the young man's
condition deteriorated.
Five days later, Peter Sparling was dead, two healthy men in the same family, gone within
(04:28):
a year of each other, both felled by a swift, brutal sickness.
Neighbors whispered in concern and confusion.
Was it something genetic?
A curse upon the family?
Tyre had known it's share of misfortune, but this was perplexing.
By now, the Sparling family and the community were on edge.
John's widow Carrie was bereaved and frightened.
She had lost her husband and her eldest son.
(04:49):
She still had three boys left, Albert, Cyril, and Little Ray.
One can imagine how tightly she must have held her remaining sons, praying that whatever
befell her husband and Peter would not strike again.
Life tried to carry on as usual entire, perhaps to ease her financial worries.
Around this time Carrie Sparling took out life insurance policies on her sons.
He wasn't unusual in those days to ensure family members, and life insurance was actively
(05:13):
sold by traveling agents.
However, given what followed, this fact would later take on a sinister cast.
By 1911, each of Carrie's boys was insured for a modest sum, with their mother as beneficiary.
Then, in the spring of 1911, the nightmare resurfaced, Albert Sparling, 23 years old and, like
his late brother, a picture of health, was attending church one Sunday when he suddenly
(05:36):
fell violently ill.
Albert is recalled Albert doubled over with the same awful symptoms, vomiting, stomach pain,
weakness, ward of Albert's condition spread quickly through the community.
"Not again," people said.
Surely this family is cursed.
Despite medical care, Albert only lasted a short time.
He died after a brief struggle on May 3, 1911.
(05:57):
Three Sparling men, father and two sons, had now died in a span of just under two years.
Each time, the onset was sudden and the pattern of symptoms eerily alike.
Others' residents were no longer simply perplexed.
Many grew suspicious.
Was it a hereditary illness?
Something wrong with the well water?
Or could these deaths be the result of something more sinister?
(06:17):
As Gossip's world, some began referring to the tragedy as the dying Sparlings, a local
label for the mysterious string of family deaths.
Dr. McGregor, who had been present at all three deaths, publicly suggested an explanation.
He told people that the Sparling men might have suffered from syphilis, than an untreatable,
hypnotized disease, which could cause systemic illness.
He even insinuated that the Sparling children's health was undermined by their parents' excessive
(06:42):
sexual indulgence, a scandalous implication in that devout farming community.
These claims of bad blood were shocking, and many, including some of the Sparlings' extended
family, did not believe them, but in the absence of proof of foul play, what could anyone
do?
People were wary but had no choice except to take the doctor at his word.
He was, after all, the one with medical training.
(07:03):
Unfortunately, the Sparling families or deal was not over.
In August 1911, just three months after Albert's death, the youngest remaining son, Cyril
Sparling, fell gravely ill.
Cyril was only twenty years old, a young man with his whole life ahead of him.
When on August 4, 1911, he was struck with the same dreaded symptoms as his father and
brothers.
(07:23):
This time, the circumstances were a little different.
Multiple doctors became involved.
Dr. McGregor was tending to Cyril, but as Cyril's condition worsened day by day, McGregor
called in other physicians for consultations.
Dr. William E. Conboy from nearby Badax, along with Dr. Harrington and others, came to examine
the boy.
What they saw raised immediate alarm, Dr. Conboy, in particular, noted the pattern of several
(07:46):
family members with identical symptoms and grew suspicious that poison might be the cause.
On August 7, a few days into Cyril's illness, Conboy confided to Dr. McGregor that he suspected
arsenic poisoning.
McGregor claimed he, too, had considered that possibility, and pointed a finger at mother
carry Sparling, implying she could be administering poison.
(08:06):
With foul play now a very real concern, the authorities became quietly involved even before
Cyril passed.
At the doctor's urging, a nurse named Margarit Gibbs was hired on August 9, 1911, ostensibly
to tend to Cyril, but also to ensure no one could surreptitiously poison him further.
One can imagine the tense atmosphere in the Sparling household during Cyril's final days,
(08:27):
the gravely ill young man writhing in bed.
His anxious mother carried his side under the watchful eye of nurse Gibbs, Dr. McGregor
coming and going, and other doctors checking in.
Some of them harboring suspicions but trying to keep the patient stable.
Despite their efforts, Cyril Sparling died on August 14, 1911, after about 10 days of suffering,
he was the fourth and last of the Sparling men to die under these baffling circumstances,
(08:51):
leaving only 12-year-old Raymond alive.
Now the pattern could no longer be ignored or attributed to coincidence, for deaths in
one family, all with similar agony.
This was not a curse or bad luck.
This looked like murder.
The community's worst fears were confirmed when Dr. Conboy and the others pressed for an autopsy
on Cyril.
McGregor performed a limited post-mortem exam immediately after Cyril's death, concluding,
(09:14):
perhaps hastily, that the boy had died of liver cancer.
Notably, he did not remove Cyril's stomach for analysis, but suspicious samples from
Cyril's organs were soon sent to the University of Michigan's Pathology Department for a thorough
examination.
Renowned pathologist Dr. Aldrich Worthen and chemist at the U of M got to work.
The results came back with Bonshell evidence.
(09:34):
Cyril's organs showed clear signs of poisoning, specifically arsenic.
Chemical analysis found more than trace amounts of arsenic in his body.
In response, investigators exhumed the recently buried body of Albert Sparling.
When Dr. Worthen and his team examined Albert's remains, they found the same tell-tale evidence
of arsenic poisoning.
Any remaining doubt was erased.
(09:54):
John, Peter, Albert, and Cyril Sparling had not died of natural causes.
They had been poisoned.
Tire's quiet cemetery now held four victims of what was clearly a horrific crime.
We will return to the story after this brief message.
The investigation and community reaction to this story, news of these findings spread
(10:14):
like wildfire.
The notion that a whole family had been methodically poisoned over time was both terrifying and
riveting to the public.
Law enforcement in Huron County sprang into action, and the case moved quickly.
By late 1911, suspicion had fallen on two people.
Dr. Robert McGregor, the family's physician who had treated all the victims, and Carrie Sparling,
(10:34):
the mother who stood to gain insurance money from her son's deaths.
In November 1911, police arrested Dr. McGregor, along with nurse Marguerite Gibbs, who
was thought to have potentially helped cover up evidence.
In December 1911, Carrie Sparling herself was indicted on first-degree murder charges as
a possible co-conspirator in her son Cyril's death.
The community of Tire and the Greater Thumbregion reacted with shock, anger, and morbid curiosity.
(10:59):
How could such heinous acts happen in their midst?
The Sparlings had been a regular farm family.
Now, mother Carrie was suspected of plotting to kill her own kin, and the trusted town doctors
stood accused of betraying his oath in the worst possible way.
Times ran high, many in Huron County could not believe a woman, and a mother at that, could
do such a thing.
Nor could they fathom that the amiable Dr. McGregor, who had come whenever called, might
(11:23):
secretly be a murderer, counts people crowded around to get updates, and newspapers from
bad acts to Detroit carried lurid headlines about the case.
Indeed, local papers reported sensational details as they emerged.
One headline proclaimed two more Sparlings were poisoned after the Examations confirmed
arsenic, sending chills through readers across Michigan.
In the Thumb, the reaction was a mix of fear and fascination.
(11:46):
The case caused great excitement in Huron County, one account later noted, as rumors flew and
residents realized a serial poisoner had been active among them.
Many recalled how everyone in Tire had attended the Sparling Funerals, mourning innocently
alongside a possible perpetrator.
Churches and Grange Hall's buzzed with debate was Carrie an unfortunate widow or a blackhearted
killer, was Dr. McGregor a scapegoat or the mastermind.
(12:09):
With each new revelation, the insurance policies, the suggestion of an illicit romance between
the doctor and Mrs. Sparling, and the grizzly forensic evidence, the community's bewilderment
grew.
Families began checking their own pantries for toxins and scrutinizing every tragedy with suspicion.
For law enforcement, assembling the case was a challenging task.
This was 1911, forensic science was in its infancy.
(12:31):
Yet, Huron County's prosecutor, Zinophana Boomhauer, built a narrative from the clues
at hand.
The theory of the crime posited a collaboration between Dr. McGregor and Carrie Sparling.
Allegedly, the doctor and the widow were carrying on a secret affair and conspired to eliminate
her husband and sons for insurance money.
McGregor's role, prosecutors argued, was to supply or administer arsenic under the guise
(12:53):
of treating the victims.
At the same time, Carrie consented to, or even helped with, the deeds, motivated by financial
gain and perhaps the doctor's attention.
Notably, Carrie had indeed collected insurance payouts after Albert's death, part of which
she used to buy a house that Dr. McGregor rented from her, and she had given McGregor cash
that he used to purchase a new car.
These suspicious money trails, combined with the doctor's curious behavior during Cyril's
(13:17):
illness, such as discouraging a complete autopsy of the stomach, painted a damning picture.
On the other hand, both Dr. McGregor and Carrie Sparling vehemently maintained their innocence,
Carrie, now having lost her husband and three sons, insisted that her family died of natural
causes and that she had done nothing wrong.
She claimed to be a victim of horrific misfortune and was now being unjustly accused, Dr.
(13:40):
McGregor likewise denied any wrongdoing.
Caught in the middle was nurse Gibbs, who had only been brought in at the end, her role,
if any, was murky, and many felt she was just an unlucky bystander pulled into the drama.
It was called the trial of the century in Badax.
By the time the case went to trial in the spring of 1912, the Sparling murders had become
(14:01):
one of the most famous criminal cases in Michigan.
It was often referred to as the trial of the century in the local press.
In April 1912, the Huron County Courthouse in Badax was besieged by crowds, curious citizens
from all over the state traveled to attend or at least loiter outside for news, reporters
packed the courtroom, and headlines from Chicago to New York carried updates on this real-life
(14:22):
murder mystery playing out in a normally sleepy rural county.
Inside the courthouse, Judge Watson Beach presided over a packed courtroom, the prosecution,
headed by Zineffan Boomhauer, with special counsel Ernest Snow, laid out its case methodically,
they called Dr. Conboy to testify about how he immediately suspected arsenic and how McGregor
had behaved oddly during Cyril's illness.
(14:44):
Conboy recounted McGregor's inquiries about whether he suspected poisoning and McGregor's
hinting that Kerry was responsible.
Other doctors from the University of Michigan took the stand to explain the scientific evidence
of arsenic found in the victim's bodies.
The insurance agents and documents were presented to show motive, those policies and payouts
on the sparring son's lives.
Townsfolk and neighbors might have been called to speak to the relationship between the doctor
(15:06):
and Mrs. Sparling, and indeed, some witnesses asserted there was an improper intimacy between
them.
Even the undertaker, Hector McKay, testified, noting that McGregor hadn't prevented others
from examining Cyril's body, which introduced some doubt about the doctor's supposed cover-up.
Dr. Robert McGregor took the stand in his own defense, a critical moment.
For five grueling days, he faced examination and cross-examination.
(15:30):
McGregor denied poisoning anyone.
He insisted he had done everything he could as a doctor to save the Sparlings, that he had
only ever given them proper medicines.
He explained the insurance money he received as legitimate payment of medical bills or unrelated
financial dealings.
His wife also testified, likely to counter the allegations of an affair with Kerry Sparling.
The defense attorneys, initially George Clark, later Joseph Walsh, tried to poke holes
(15:54):
in the prosecution's circumstantial case.
There were no eyewitnesses to any poisoning, no one saw McGregor administer arsenic, and
indeed, arsenic was a common ingredient in certain medicines of the era.
Could the positive tests have come from something else?
The defense also highlighted that McGregor had invited other doctors and hadn't fled, implying
that he had nothing to hide.
(16:14):
As for Kerry Sparling, she was not on trial alongside McGregor, her trial was severed and postponed,
but her presence loomed large.
The defense suggested that if anyone had a chance to administer poison in the home, it
might have been someone in the family, subtly casting suspicion back on Kerry or others.
It was a tense, dramatic affair, pitting scientific evidence against passionate denials.
(16:36):
After weeks of testimony and arguments, the jury delivered its verdict on June 5, 1912,
Dr. Robert McGregor was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Cyril Sparling.
The verdict implied he was responsible for all the Sparling deaths as part of one murder
as scheme.
Five days later, Judge Beach sentenced the 34-year-old physician to life in prison.
It was a sensational outcome.
(16:57):
Outside the courthouse, throngs of spectators, who had waited on the lawn and even climbed
onto window-sills to hear the news, reacted with a mix of triumph and turmoil.
Some cheered that justice had been served, while others murmured uneasily, wondering if
the right person had been punished.
Kerry Sparling, the grieving mother now publicly painted as either a monster or a dup, never
got her day in court.
(17:19):
Her trial was repeatedly delayed amid the fallout of McGregor's conviction.
Throughout, she proclaimed McGregor's innocence and, by extension, her own.
In interviews with newspapers, Kerry resolutely insisted that her husband and boys had died
from natural causes, recounting their medical histories to anyone who would listen.
Perhaps she believed it, or perhaps it was a desperate defense, the full truth remains
(17:40):
elusive.
By January 1914, the authorities quietly decided to drop the charges against Kerry Sparling,
as well as those against nurse Gibbs.
The prosecutor may have felt that, with McGregor convicted and sentenced, pursuing Kerry further
was unnecessary or unlikely to succeed, especially without McGregor's testimony, as he had by
then lost his appeals and wouldn't implicate her.
(18:02):
And so, Kerry Sparling was never tried, legally, she was acquitted and walked free.
She soon had another battle to fight.
In 1914, she had to sue one of the insurance companies, in this case, the Gleiners, which
had refused to pay out on Cyril's policy due to the murder allegations.
It's unclear how that lawsuit ended, but one imagines Kerry lived under a cloud of suspicion
(18:22):
for the rest of her days, the community likely remained divided in opinion about her.
This story did not end with the verdict.
The Sparling murders case did not end with the 1912 verdict, in a move that keeps this story
controversial to this day, Michigan's governor Woodbridge and Ferris took a personal interest
in Dr. McGregor's fate.
Senator Ferris, elected in 1913, had received petitions and an appeal on McGregor's behalf,
(18:48):
many believed that the trial might have gotten it wrong, or at least that there was more to
the story.
Perhaps it was the lingering doubts voiced by local citizens, or McGregor's own persistent
claims of innocence from behind bars.
Ferris ordered a comprehensive re-investigation of the case in 1914.
For two years, state authorities quietly re-examined evidence and interviewed witnesses.
(19:08):
Strangely, the findings of this inquiry were never made fully public, but the outcome was dramatic,
on November 27, 1916, Governor Ferris granted Dr. Robert McGregor a full and unconditional
pardon based on innocence.
Ferris went so far as to bring McGregor to Lansing and hand him the pardon certificate in
person.
I am firmly convinced that Dr. McGregor is absolutely innocent of the crime for which
(19:30):
he was convicted, the governor announced.
This stunning reversal flipped the narrative once again.
McGregor, who had spent four years in prison, walked out a free man, officially exonerated,
in an almost poetic twist, the state of Michigan hired him as the resident physician at Jackson
State Prison, the very institution where he had been an inmate.
He served as the prison doctor until he died in 1928, never publicly offering a different
(19:53):
explanation for the sparring deaths.
Governor Ferris never thoroughly explained what evidence convinced him of McGregor's innocence,
leaving historians and amateur sleuths to speculate.
Some wonder if new evidence pointed to another culprit, perhaps carry or someone else entirely,
or if doubts about the arsenic tests emerged.
Others think political pressure or public sympathy played a role.
(20:14):
Whatever the reason, McGregor's pardon meant that, in the eyes of the law, no one was ultimately
held accountable for the sparring murders.
For the people of Michigan's thumb, the sparring case left a lasting impact.
Culturally, it became one of those cautionary tales passed down through generations, the
kind of story grandparents would recount in hushed tones about the murderous doctor and
the unfortunate family.
(20:35):
The case has been called the "dying sparlings ever since", a grim legend of the thumb.
The town of Tyre, which faded in later decades as the railroad route changed and farms
consolidated, is remembered chiefly for this tragedy.
If you visit the Tyre Cemetery today, you'll find the weathered grave stones of John,
Peter, Albert, and Cyril Sparling standing among the pines, silent witnesses to a mystery
(20:57):
over a hundred years old.
The site draws local history buffs and true crime enthusiasts, many of whom are keenly aware
that the Sparling graves mark one of Michigan's most perplexing unsolved crimes.
Legally, the Sparling case was an early example of forensic science, the detection of arsenic
by university chemists playing a crucial role in securing a conviction.
It also highlighted the potential for miscarriages of justice in an era before modern investigative
(21:21):
techniques, after all, a man convicted by jury was later declared innocent by the governor.
This case was significant enough to be included in later studies of wrongful convictions.
Some argue it led to improvements in how such cases were handled, encouraging more thorough
investigations before trial and better preservation of evidence, for instance, not allowing a primary
suspect to conduct a loan autopsy.
(21:43):
It certainly taught the community in Michigan's law enforcement a hard lesson about the dangers
of circumstantial evidence in public hysteria.
As one historian mused, the Sparling mystery also underscores how justice can sometimes
take us or cue at its root.
The court of public opinion had condemned Carrie Sparling, the legal court convicted McGregor,
and yet officially, the case ended with no killer on record.
(22:03):
The truth, many feel, was buried with the Sparlings.
And so, the story of the Sparling murders ends not with neat closure, but with lingering questions.
Who really poisoned the Sparling men?
Was it a calculated plot by a doctor and a mother, or a tragic miscarriage of justice
fueled by gossip and coincidence?
For a century later, we still debate these questions in Michigan's thumb.
(22:25):
What remains indisputable is the impact on the community, for lives lost, an entire family
devastated, and a small town's name etched into history for something it would rather
have never endured.
In the aftermath, young Raymond Sparling, the soul surviving son, grew up under the shadow
of this history.
One can only imagine the weight he carried, having lost all the men in his family and living
(22:46):
with the whispers about why.
Sparling, however, itself dwindled to a virtual ghost town over the ensuing decades, but the
tale of the dying Sparlings ensures that this little place is not forgotten.
As author Jackie Howard, a distant relative of the Sparlings, noted the interest in this
case remains intense even now, with local families handing down recollections of jurors
and sheriffs who took part, it's a story that resonates because it happened in an ordinary
(23:10):
town to ordinary people, reminding us that even the most buccolic landscapes can harbour
dark secrets.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The End of the Road in Michigan.
We hope you've enjoyed this deep dive into a bite-sized piece of Michigan history, the tale
of the Sparling Family Murders, a story at once heartbreaking and thought-provoking.
In revisiting these events, we honor the memory of those who lost their lives and acknowledge
(23:32):
the lessons learned from a community's pursuit of truth.
Join us next time for another journey into Michigan's hidden past.
Until then, stay curious and keep exploring the stories that lie just beyond the end of
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