The doghouse

The doghouse at the Detterick farm was a small, barnboard structure built from leftover lumber, with a signboard reading "Bowser" neatly printed over the curved entrance hole. It stood behind the barn, in a patch of bare, beaten ground. This unremarkable shelter became the site of the first violent act in the abduction of nine-year-old Cora and Kathe Detterick on a warm June night in 1932.

The Killing of Bowser

Bowser, a large half-breed collie, was a good barker but not much of a biter. On the night the twins were taken from the screened side porch, he did not bark. Klaus Detterick, the girls' father, found Bowser the next morning lying half in and half out of his doghouse, his head turned most of the way around on his neck. The prosecutor at John Coffey's trial argued that it would have taken a man of enormous power to break the neck of such a big animal. Beside the dog, Klaus and his son Howie found a scrap of cooked link sausage. The theory presented to the jury was that the abductor had first charmed the dog with treats, and then, as Bowser began to eat the last one, reached out and broke its neck with one mighty snap of his wrists.

Evidence at Trial

The doghouse and the dead dog were central to the prosecution's case. The prosecutor used the image of the powerful, silent killer who could subdue a large watchdog to paint John Coffey, a man of immense size, as the only possible perpetrator. The dog's broken neck was presented as proof of the abductor's superhuman strength, a strength that matched Coffey's. The scrap of sausage found beside the doghouse was also introduced as evidence, linking the killer to the "little lunch" Coffey was carrying when he was captured on the riverbank, a lunch that contained sandwiches and a pickle but no sausages.

Narrative Significance

The doghouse and the killing of Bowser serve as a crucial piece of circumstantial evidence that helped convict John Coffey. The incident is later re-examined by Paul Edgecombe, who realizes that Coffey, who could not even tie his own shoelaces, could not have re-tied the butcher's twine around his lunch after feeding the sausages to the dog. This detail becomes a cornerstone of Edgecombe's growing conviction that Coffey was innocent, and that the real killer was William Wharton. The doghouse thus marks the point where the narrative's central miscarriage of justice begins, a seemingly damning piece of evidence that, upon closer scrutiny, unravels the entire case against Coffey.