A master storyteller presents a riveting drama of America''s first "crime of the century"-from murder investigation to a church sex scandal to celebrity trial-and its aftermath.In December 1832 a farmer found the body of a young, pregnant woman hanging near a haystack outside a New England mill town. When news spread that Methodist preacher Ephraim Avery was accused of murdering Sarah Maria Cornell, a factory worker, the case gave the public everything they found irresistible: sexually charged violence, adultery, the hypocrisy of a church leader, secrecy and mystery, and suspicions of insanity. Murder in a Mill Town tells the story of how a local crimequickly turned into a national scandal that became America''s first "trial of the century."After her death-after she became the country''s most notorious "factory girl"-Cornell''s choices about work, survival, and personal freedom became enmeshed in stories that Americans told themselves about their new world of industry and women''s labo
