{"product_id":"a-death-at-crooked-creek-the-case-of-the-cowboy-the-cigarmaker-and-the-love-letter","title":"Death at Crooked Creek","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"This is an\u003cbr\u003e\nextraordinary and ground-breaking book, a wonderfully creative mix of fact and\u003cbr\u003e\ntheory, imagination and drama. Anyone with an interest in law, history, or, for\u003cbr\u003e\nthat matter, great storytelling will fall in love with A Death at Crooked Creek. The startling origin of the complex\u003cbr\u003e\n'intention exception' to the hearsay evidence rule becomes canvas on which a\u003cbr\u003e\ngrand and marvelously detailed tale is told. This is modern narrative at its\u003cbr\u003e\nbest: a marriage of spectacular writing and hard, documented truth presented by\u003cbr\u003e\na brilliant author who doubles as a gifted and fastidious legal scholar and\u003cbr\u003e\nhistorian.\"\u003cbr\u003e\n—Andrew Popper,\u003cbr\u003e\nAmerican University\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nOne winter night in\u003cbr\u003e\n1879, at a lonely Kansas campsite near Crooked Creek, a man was shot to death.\u003cbr\u003e\nThe dead man’s traveling companion identified him as John Hillmon, a cowboy\u003cbr\u003e\nfrom Lawrence who had been attempting to carve out a life on the blustery\u003cbr\u003e\nprairie. The case might have been soon forgotten and the apparent widow, Sallie\u003cbr\u003e\nHillmon, left to mourn—except for the $25,000 life insurance policies Hillmon\u003cbr\u003e\nhad taken out shortly before his departure. The insurance companies refused to\u003cbr\u003e\npay on the policies, claiming that the dead man was not John Hillmon, and\u003cbr\u003e\nSallie was forced to take them to court in a case that would reach the Supreme\u003cbr\u003e\nCourt twice. The companies’ case rested on a crucial piece of evidence: a faded\u003cbr\u003e\nlove letter written by a disappeared cigarmaker, declaring his intent to travel\u003cbr\u003e\nwestward with a “man named Hillmon.”\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nIn A Death at\u003cbr\u003e\nCrooked Creek, Marianne Wesson re-examines the long-neglected evidence in\u003cbr\u003e\nthe case of the Kansas cowboy and his wife, recreating the court scenes that\u003cbr\u003e\nled to a significant Supreme Court ruling on the admissibility of hearsay\u003cbr\u003e\nevidence. Wesson employs modern forensic methods to examine the body of the\u003cbr\u003e\ndead man, attempting to determine his true identity and finally put this\u003cbr\u003e\nfascinating mystery to rest.\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\nThis engaging and\u003cbr\u003e\nvividly imagined work combines the drama, intrigue, and emotion of excellent\u003cbr\u003e\nstorytelling with cutting-edge forensic investigation techniques and legal\u003cbr\u003e\ntheory. Wesson’s superbly imagined A Death at Crooked Creek will\u003cbr\u003e\nhave general readers, history buffs, and legal scholars alike wondering whether\u003cbr\u003e\nhistory, and the Justices, may have misunderstood altogether the events at that\u003cbr\u003e\nbleak winter campsite.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"New York University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49607388397912,"sku":"9780814784563","price":46.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/a-death-at-crooked-creek-the-case-of-the-cowboy-the-cigarmaker-and-the-love-letter","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}