Killing in the Kuyahoora Valley
Author: Lawrence P. Gooley
Publisher:
Published: 2013-08-16
Total Pages: 126
ISBN-13: 9781939216120
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Killing in the Kuyahoora Valley is the true story of a murderous attack in 1914 by a teenager in the village of Poland, New York. Kuyahoora, the native-American name for West Canada Creek, is located in Herkimer County. Poland, in the southern Adirondack foothills, is about 15 miles northeast of Utica. The death of petite schoolteacher Lydia "Lida Lou" Beecher at the hands of a former student proved to be a landmark case--the first to cite intelligence on the same level as insanity in determining a defendant's guilt or innocence. America's courts would never be the same. The viciousness of the crime, the intensity of the trial, and worst of all, the indifference and arrogance of the killer were all reasons why a public mania surrounded the proceedings every step of the way. In the wake of the Chester Gillette-Grace Brown story, the Jean Gianini case assumed the moniker, "Trial of the Century." It's a remarkable, true, and disturbing story of how evil can sneak up on those unaware, how successful family men sometimes hide the darkest of secrets, and how juries can be manipulated by silver-tongued attorneys.