"This is an extraordinary and ground-breaking book, a wonderfully creative mix of fact and theory, imagination and drama…The startling origin of the complex 'intention exception' to the hearsay evidence rule becomes canvas on which a grand and marvelously detailed tale is told. This is modern narrative at its best: a marriage of spectacular writing and hard, documented truth presented by a brilliant author who doubles as a gifted and fastidious legal scholar and historian." —Andrew Popper, American University One winter night in 1879, at a lonely Kansas campsite near Crooked Creek, a man was shot to death. The dead man’s traveling companion identified him as John Hillmon, a cowboy from Lawrence who had been attempting to carve out a life on the blustery prairie. The case might have been soon forgotten and the apparent widow, Sallie Hillmon, left to mourn—except for the $25,000 life insurance policies Hillmon had taken out shortly before his departure. The insurance companies refused to pay on the policies, claiming that the dead man was not John Hillmon, and Sallie was forced to take them to court in a case that would reach the Supreme Court twice. The companies’ case rested on a crucial piece of evidence: a faded love letter written by a disappeared cigarmaker, declaring his intent to travel westward with a “man named Hillmon.” In A Death at Crooked Creek, Marianne Wesson re-examines the long-neglected evidence in the case of the Kansas cowboy and his wife, recreating the court scenes that led to a significant Supreme Court ruling on the admissibility of hearsay evidence. Wesson employs modern forensic methods to examine the body of the dead man, attempting to determine his true identity and finally put this fascinating mystery to rest. This engaging and vividly imagined work combines the drama, intrigue, and emotion of excellent storytelling with cutting-edge forensic investigation techniques and legal theory. Wesson’s superbly imagined A Death at Crooked Creek will have general readers, history buffs, and legal scholars alike wondering whether history, and the Justices, may have misunderstood altogether the events at that bleak winter campsite. Marianne Wesson is Professor of Law and President’s Teaching Scholar, University of Colorado Law School. She is the author of best-selling and prize-winning legal novels including Render up the Body, A Suggestion of Death, and Chilling Effect. She lives in a Colorado mountain valley with her husband, llamas, dogs, and visiting wildlife.

Jessie O'Bourne is delighted to be the invited guest artist at the Crooked Creek Art Expo held annually in Montana during March. Mother Nature is still blasting the area with snow and ice, however, so Jessie moves herself and her tomcat, Jack, out of her cold, but beloved motorhome, the Hawk, into the warmth and luxurious accommodations of the old log lodge hosting the art show. When Jessie discovers a dead body was hidden in the Hawk during her absence, she's thrown into a complex murder investigation tied to the death of a teenager. Soon, threatening notes and tiny toy tractors are delivered to her door and she calls on her big Norwegian friend, Detective Sergeant Arvid Abrahmsen, and old flame, Sheriff Russell Bonham, of Sage Bluff, to help investigate. Surrounded by painters and sculptors, Jessie is horrified to think that one of her talented friends is a killer. FBI art theft agent, Grant Kennedy, arrives in Crooked Creek to attend the auction and joins forces with Arvid and Russell. Their goal is to find the murderer before the latest death threat slipped under Jessie's door becomes a reality.

2012 Eric Hoffer Book Awards for General Fiction Honorable Mention 2011 Utah Book Award Finalist "Maximilian Werner is a fresh and grounded writer, a welcome and original new voice." —THOMAS MCGUANE Crooked Creek takes place during the latter part of westward expansion and chronicles the lives (and deaths) of the Wood family. The Woods—Preston and Sara—must flee Arizona when they, along with Sara's parents and little brother Jasper, unwittingly get caught up in the plunder and sale of American Indian corpses and funerary objects. Preston, Sara, and Jasper end up in the Heber Valley of Utah, where they seek the support of Sara's Uncle Neff until they can be reunited with Sara's mother and father. But from the moment they ride into Heber, Preston and Sara learn that life in the valley is not as it appears, and that no matter how far we run, we cannot escape the past.

On a cool, rainy night in November, 1959, retired farmer Sam Millers solitude is shattered by a shrill scream coming from the hollow outside his home. When he goes to investigate, another piercing scream rises through the air, then ends abruptly as two gunshots echo in the night. Henry Chatsworth, Washington County Sheriff, is called to the scene, where he and the local game warden make a gruesome discoverythe body of a teenage girl, two small-caliber bullet holes in her back, lies in the hollow, partially covered up with leaves.As the investigation gathers momentum, Sheriff Chatsworth becomes convinced that a serial killer is on the loose in his countyand the body count has only just begun.

Chloe Humphrey, 24, is a fish out of water as the computer whiz living in Ohio's Amish Country. She's stretched even further when a local accident turns to murder, and she's in a position to solve the case.

Donna Waterman just graduated with a journalism degree and was hired by a community newspaper in the small town of Crooked Creek, Mississippi. In her first week on the job she will uncover fraud and help investigate a few murders. What she does not know is that the serial killer has targeted her as his next victim.

This book is a compilation of obituaries and death notices transcribed from issues of the Crittenden Record-Press dating from 03 January 1918 through 29 August 1918 and issues of The Crittenden Press dating from 07 August 1919 through 22 December 1922. An Addendum is located at the end of this volume and includes issues of The Crittenden Record dating from 15 July 1904 through 08 February 1907 which were made available after Volume II and Volume III were published.