- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Icon Books Ltd (1 July 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1848311656
- ISBN-13: 978-1848311657
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.2 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 511,657 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
"A detailed and very readable account" --The Crime Writers' Association 26 May 2011
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
Sing Sing Prison, New York, July 1916. Charles Frederick Stielow, a 37-year-old farmhand with the mind of an infant, is just minutes away from the electric chair for a double murder he didn't commit. With a vengeful legal system baying for blood, his situation looks hopeless. Eight blocks away, Stielow's wife sobs helplessly in her hotel room, certain she will never see her husband alive again. "Slaughter on a Snowy Morn" is the first full account of how Charles Stielow, convicted of murdering a wealthy landowner and his housekeeper, became the central figure in one of the most fascinating yet little-known stories in criminal history. The cast list includes New York state Governor Charles Seymour Whitman - ambitious for the White House - and his nemesis, Sing Sing warden Thomas Mott Osborne, a passionate opponent of the death penalty, convinced of Stielow's innocence. The crooked 'expert' testimony of Albert H. Hamilton, a jumped-up druggist, condemned Stielow to death row, where the battle to save his life is led by America's most celebrated female lawyer, Grace Humiston. But the story's undung hero is the obsessively secretive, quietly spoken Charles E. Waite - the great mystery man of American forensic science - whose experts tore Hamilton's testimony to shreds. Colin Evans presents a nail-biting true story of wrongful conviction and redemption in an age of bare-knuckle politics and cynical courtroom manoeuvering, which changed for ever the face of American justice.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling and nail-biting account of a flawed justice system at work.,
By
This review is from: Slaughter on a Snowy Morn: A Tale of Murder, Corruption and the Death Penalty Case That Shocked America (Paperback)
Charlie Stielow was a German immigrant farmhand in New York State. 1915 saw him move his family into a small house across the road from his new employer, Phelps the farmer. Soon afterards Phelps and his housekeeper were killed, and, desperate to find the killer, the authorities first alighted on, and then fixed on, Charlie and his brother-in-law. The book describes the trials, shenanigans and death-row tribulations of Charlie, and the three-year struggle to save him.
The case was significant because it relied on expert firearms testimony (far from 'expert' as it transpired), and thus triggered the birth of forensic ballistics. It relied even more on bullying the suspect into confession and placing career interests before justice, though it probably had less positive influence on those matters... And it was unusual too in drawing huge public concern for the predicament of a poor and unknown man. However, it is not only the legal milestones that hold the reader to the page; it is the gripping blow-by-blow account of the process and the close study of the many people involved. The author studiously avoids commentary on the story, even when there is ample cause to decry the abuses on display; instead he allows the facts to speak for themselves. Charlie himself stares glumly out from the photograph section, silently demanding justice. It's a great picture of a time and place, and a cautionary tale of how far we have, and haven't, come. Apparatus includes 8 photographs, 2 maps, 3 appendices of 'confessions', a timeline, a 'cast of characters' and citations - though no index.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slaughter on a Snowy Morn,
By
This review is from: Slaughter on a Snowy Morn: A Tale of Murder, Corruption and the Death Penalty Case That Revolutionised the American Courtroom: The Death Penalty Case that Revolutionised Forensic Science (Paperback)
This book is about the biggest miscarriage of justice in American history! It brings shame to some of the legal profession and politicians of the time and was the harbinger of ballistics and forensic science in America. Based of historical fact it tells the story of a somewhat slow witted farm hand , Goerge Stielow of German descent, who is accused and found guilty of the murder of his boss and his housekeeper in 1915, a difficult time as war with Germany was in full swing!
He was coerced into making a confession, by officials of the county, keen for a quick conviction to enhance their own political careers, evidence was hopelessly incorrect, witnesses were offered incentives to stretch the truth, and supposedly expert witnesses were absolutely useless at giving clear and accurate evidence. The case went on for 3 long years, with Steilow, at risk of the electric chair for most of that time. He was reprieved 4 times! It cost Orleans County thousands of dollars and brought shame to many connected to the case. A really fascinating read, which takes your breath away sometimes with the injustices brought to the fore. Although having said that there are a few heroes in the telling of the story who refused to give up and allow an innocent man to go to the electric chair, and who realized that a new system of forensic science was what was needed to stop this happening again. I can highly recommend this to anyone interested in not only history, but the legal profession and who enjoys a story of the little man winning in the end!!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Lesson From History,
By
This review is from: Slaughter on a Snowy Morn: A Tale of Murder, Corruption and the Death Penalty Case That Shocked America (Paperback)
Slaughter On A Snowy Morn is the true story of Charles Steilow, the itinerant farm worker who was charged with the double murder of his employer and their aide, imprisoned, and sentenced to death.
The book follows the 1900s murder case as it unfolds, from the sketchy first hand reports of gunshots and a woman begging for help at Charlie Steilow's door, through the authorities' determination to execute Steilow for the crimes, to the equal determination of lawyers and detectives to prove that in fact, he was not the murderer and to rescue him from the chair at the eleventh hour. It's a tale of prejudice, power and crass injustice; Steilow, with what would nowadays be termed 'special educational needs', was believed to be an easy target - and a populist one, as his German background proved, as America entered the First World War. But those who would see him executed had their own agenda for framing him. In regional and national power politics the life or death of one man could win or lose an election, and those seeking power were intent on getting the outstanding murder case out of their way. Evans writes extremely well, with a prose that has the ability to captivate and to stir up powerful emotions, as the sheer outrageousness of the authorities' behaviour - the lies, blackmail, beatings and ultimately a genuinely nasty desire to see an innocent man executed - hits home on the reader. It's a powerful story that while ostensibly looks at the first use of forensics in revealing the truth (and also perhaps one of the first examples of pseudo-science being used to obscure it), is possibly much more about the depths that human beings can sink to in their own quest for personal power. An historical murder mystery that documents not only a milestone in forensic science, but exposes the dark side of human nature and political ambition.
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