Innocent by Reason of Constipation

February 10, 1843: As the Philadelphia ferry docked at Camden, self proclaimed “ladies man” Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton was shot dead by a Paterson-made Colt revolver in the hands of Singleton Mercer, in revenge for Heberton’s seduction of Mercer’s sixteen-year-old sister Sarah.  A New Jersey jury subsequently acquitted Mercer of murder on the grounds that he was mentally unstable at the time, due, one physician testified, to constipation.