The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice
Author: by Alex Hortis (Author)
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Publication Date: 2024-03-05
Language: English
Print Length: 336 pages
ISBN-10: 1639363912
ISBN-13: 9781639363919
Book Description
Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony—before even Lizzie Borden—there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in our nation’s debut media circus.
On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home—and then covered up the crime with hellfire.
When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin’s sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new “penny press” explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she’s a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions. Between June 1844 and April 1846, the nation was enthralled by her three trials—in Staten Island, Manhattan, and Newburgh—for the “Christmas murders.”
After Polly’s legal dream team entered the fray, the press and the public debated not only her guilt, but her character and fate as a fallen woman in society. Public opinion split into different camps over her case. Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman covered her case as young newsmen. P. T. Barnum made a circus out of it. James Fenimore Cooper’s last novel was inspired by her trials.
The Witch of New York is the first narrative history about the dueling trial lawyers, ruthless newsmen, and shameless hucksters who turned the Polly Bodine case into America’s formative tabloid trial. An origin story of how America became addicted to sensationalized reporting of criminal trials, The Witch of New York vividly reconstructs an epic mystery from Old New York—and uses the Bodine case to challenge our system of tabloid justice of today.Review
“A lively history of early New York through one woman’s horrendous ordeal. Hortis has combed the archives for material related to Bodine’s three explosive trials, and he makes palpable the shameful character assassination that Bodine endured.” --
Kirkus Reviews“In
The Witch of New York, Alex Hortis invites us along on a bumpy yet entertaining ride that features the dueling attorneys and unscrupulous shysters who transformed the terrible murder of a mother and child into this country's seminal tabloid trial. Meticulous research and concise writing adroitly capture the zeitgeist of 1840s New York City, in the end effectively demonstrating how "tabloid justice would, one way or another, alter American law." -- David Dominé, author of A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City“Against a backdrop of scandal sheets and tabloid justice in 1840s New York, Alex Hortis deftly chronicles the sensational murder trials of Polly Bodine, the most infamous woman in America, and their lasting effects on the public’s imagination.” --
Susan Wels, Author of Assassin in Utopia Praise for The Mob and the City:“Hortis retells the story of the famous Apalachin incident, in 1957, when several dozen mobsters from around the country gathered at the upstate New York property of Joseph Barbara, Sr., for a weekend retreat.” ―
Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker“But what is less amusing is the way that this ‘man of honor’ denies any involvement in narcotics trafficking, a claim that is convincingly debunked by mob historian C. Alexander Hortis in his deeply researched book
The Mob and the City.” ― Ronald Fried, The Daily Beast“If there’s a better book on the early history of Cosa Nostra in America, I haven’t seen it.” ―
Jerry Capeci, Gangland News
About the Author
未经允许不得转载：Wow! eBook » The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice
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