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Murder at Green Springs: The True Story of the Hall Case, Firestorm of Prejudices

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Over the last few months a rather large stack of books has been accumulating on my bedside table -- books I'm eager to read but haven't found enough time for. So I wasn't exactly thrilled when a friend pushed a copy of MURDER AT GREEN SPRINGS into my hands and told me "You gotta read this!" I've never been a fan of accounts of true-life crime, being more an aficionado of general history books (or, my heart be still, mysteries) and having always found true crime accounts to be dry and gossipy in tone. But as I began reading the first few pages of MURDER AT GREEN SPRINGS, I was immediately struck by the ease with which I sank into Brandau's prose; the book zips along like one of those cleverly written novels designed to keep the unwitting reader from getting enough sleep. M at G S is equal parts crime scene investigation and gothic romance (I say the latter because Brandau unravels a dark, generations-old family secret concerning the plight of a woman who's as tragic a figure as any gothic heroine.) -- with a dollop of conspiracy theory thrown in for good measure. All this unfolds against a well-painted canvas of life in Virginia circa WWI, firmly placing the story into a much broader historical context. Clearly, the author is an adept storyteller, but it certainly doesn't hurt that he picked a cracker of a true tale to tell us -- involving (are you ready for this?) a skeleton long hidden in Brandau's own family closet. It's the story of Elizabeth Hall (great-grandmother of the author's wife), who was falsely accused of the 1914 murder of her husband in rural Louisa County; of her arrest and conviction, of the grossly mishandled investigation in which the evidence was made to fit the verdict, of scandal in a small town, and of the long legal battle to free an innocent woman. It's also a story as surprising and compelling as any thriller I've read, and one that reminded me that fact is always stranger than fiction. I'll stop here: anymore might undermine Brandau's skilled account of this thoroughly researched story. Certainly it would spoil the reader's pleasure of reliving what surely must go down as one of the most bizarre crime cases in Virginia history.

"Murder," J. K. Brandau writes, "was relatively rare and shocking." You don't have to know the era he's describing to know that it is not a recent era. Murder is so common these days, and our fascination with it so accomplished, that only the most bizarre of murders are able to shock (if at all). The most popular TV show in recent years not only shows that, but also shows, in scientifically explicit detail, how such murders are solved. It is hard to imagine a time when modern forensics did not exist; harder still to imagine how a murder--especially one of any complexity--was handled investigatively in such a pre-forensic time.

On both accounts, Brandau leaves little to the imagination in recounting a murder case that unfolded in Virginia in the early 1900s, in his debut book, Murder At Green Springs. A former analytical chemist and material failure investigator, Brandau applied laser-like focus to researching what data exists about the murder of one Victor Hall in Louisa County (northwest of Richmond), Virginia. The massive research shows, as he recreates, in somewhat novel fashion, the world of the infamous Hall murder.

He wastes no time immersing the reader in that world long gone--a world before computers, before modern forensics and even investigation (in the formal sense of the word). Over 350 pages later, when he lets the reader out of that world, he concludes with a brief but fascinating series of observations about the Hall murder. If there is sweat to wipe from your forehead at that point, you half expect to see it mingled with dust from a passing railroad car--blown right up off of the page. Brandau's immersion is that complete.

Think Little House On the Prairie crossed with A Few Good Men and...well, let's leave the rest of that to the imaginations who have yet to read it. And it is well worth reading. It's an antiquated CSI episode--or miniseries, rather--except it's a true story. This isn't quite Lawrence Schiller's Perfect Murder, Perfect Town--the crisp book that breezed through the vast Ramsey murder case in all of its infamy--but it's close. The Hall case was, in its own way, equally infamous, but Brandau's book is a slower breeze. It's meant to be, for it's a slower time, more than a stone's throw away from the "jet-set" air that the 20th century would soon become known for. Once you're acclimated into the 1914 atmosphere, you can see why the Hall murder dropped like a torch into the Virginia environs, sucking up air and causing grasps.

There are closer similarities worth making here between Brandau and Schiller. Where Schiller gives you Boulder, Colorado as context for the Ramsey case, Brandau gives you Louisa County, Virginia as context for the Hall case. Where Schiller gives you the twists and turns, from detective and court points of view, about the case evidence, Brandau does the same. There are fewer pieces of evidence for Brandau to deal with, yet the evidentiary back-and-forth is just as compelling--perhaps even more so than the Ramsey case, with its convoluted unfolding at a DNA level of investigation. The reason why is easy to see once you grasp how officers of the law and the courts dealt with blood and bullets before there were even such terms as bloodstain pattern analysis and ballistics. There are other points to be compared here: the local politics, the multiple detectives, personal histories and more. It is curious to see, at the very least, the things that haven't changed--the incendiary role of the press, for example. On that point alone, Murder At Green Springs might find itself amid college coursework reading about the effects of the media.

As a historian and former crime scene investigator, I tip my hat to Brandau. It is a Virginia Tech hat--not because I went there, but because I am a lifelong Virginian--and for the slice-of-Virginia-history alone, I was intrigued, like one standing at an engraved historical marker never seen before until someone finally brushed away the leaves and grime to invite reader's eyes. Seeing how he amassed and arranged such a moth-eaten mass of information about a murder case that, apparently, many people from that time were content to leave to the moths, I was duly impressed. Seeing how a murder investigation was handled in a time just before modern investigations as we know it began dawning on that century, I was even more intrigued--all the way to Brandau's endnotes. You will be too. It is a historical marker worthy of being read by many.

Imagine yourself a middle aged woman of untarnished reputation, known for charity and good works, a mother of teenage daughters and recently widowed. You suddenly find yourself accused of murder, the subject of newspaper headlines statewide, then convicted by public opinion and imprisoned. This was the plight of Elizabeth Hall.

The author captures readers with an unlikely tale and unveils the unusual circumstances which sparked local hysteria. He also presents a list of suspects from which to deduce the killer. Well researched and thoroughly documented, the travesty of justice is obvious. This serious history reads like a novel to unveil a significant event covered up for nearly a century.

The rediscovery of the Hall Case stands as a unique warning that as long as politics and public opinion can override our legal system, no one is truly safe. As a former trial lawyer, railroad enthusiast and life-long Virginian, I most heartily recommend this book on its merits as human history worth reading.

I was born in Richmond, VA and wanted to know more about the history of the area. This book gave me a lot more than that. While the book is very historical, Brandau does an even better job of exploring the characters of that age (of not that long ago) and how they were affected by the times. The times were different from now, but I know people like those in the book. Somethings don't change easily, like our countries legal system. What a grand system it is, but yet so easily influenced by a single individual or the press! So, the injustice goes on. So, do yourself a favor and learn something about your self. Get the book!

Very well written; holds ones attention for long stretches of time; good court case coverage and review.