the sausages

The sausages are a small but decisive piece of physical evidence in the case against John Coffey, a detail that ultimately helps reveal his innocence. Found as a scrap of cooked link sausage beside the Dettericks' dead dog, Bowser, they were used by the real killer to charm the animal before breaking its neck. The absence of sausages in Coffey's own lunch, which he could not have re-tied, becomes a key clue pointing to his innocence.

Discovery and Role in the Crime

On the morning of June 1932, when Klaus Detterick and his son Howie discovered that the twin girls, Cora and Kathe, had been abducted from the screened porch, they found the family dog, Bowser, lying half in and half out of his doghouse with his head turned most of the way around on his neck. Beside the dog lay a scrap of cooked link sausage. The theory, which Paul Edgecombe later considered sound, 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. The sausages were thus the killer's tool for silencing the watchdog without raising an alarm.

The Missing Sausages in Coffey's Lunch

When Deputy Rob McGee apprehended John Coffey on the riverbank, he found a bulge in the chest pocket of Coffey's bib overalls. Coffey said it was "just a little lunch I have," and McGee pulled out a bundle wrapped in newspaper and tied with butcher's twine. Inside were a bacon-tomato sandwich, a jelly fold-over, and a pickle wrapped in a piece of a funny page. There were no sausages. The sausages that had been used to bait Bowser were not part of Coffey's lunch. This absence is critical: if Coffey had opened his lunch to feed the sausages to the dog, he could not have re-tied the newspaper bundle with butcher's twine, because he was unable to tie even a simple granny knot.

The Sausages as Evidence of Innocence

Paul Edgecombe, reflecting on the case years later, realized that the sausages were a key piece of evidence pointing to Coffey's innocence. The real killer had used the sausages to pacify the dog, then broken its neck. Coffey, who could not tie his own shoes, could not have re-wrapped his lunch after removing the sausages. The sausages were never introduced as evidence at the trial, and the prosecution's narrative that Coffey had fed them to the dog was accepted without question. Edgecombe's realization that the sausages were missing from Coffey's lunch, combined with Coffey's inability to tie the bundle, became a cornerstone of his belief that Coffey was innocent and that the real killer was William Wharton.