04285cam a2200373 i 4500 1167064704 TxAuBib 20240308120000.0 240308s2024||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 9781639363919 30.00 1639363912 30.00 TxAuBib rda Hortis, Alex. The Witch of New York [Book] : The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice. New York : Pegasus Crime, 2024. xx, 315 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier sti rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Contains index. Author's note on sources -- The docket sheet -- Prologue: Christmas night 1843 -- Islands in the stream -- Sex and the 1840s city -- Incendiaries -- Low-speed chase -- They would hang her without judge or jury -- Confessions of the sun -- The living jury of the nation -- Dream teams -- Poe cracks the case -- The people v. Mary Bodine -- Ghosts of Granite Village -- Trial by water -- Breaking news -- Consciousness of guilt -- Playing the Jew card -- Sisters -- The man in the Spanish cloak -- The runaway juror -- Undue prejudice -- Barnum's witch -- Eldridge street jail -- Trial by fire -- Mayor Harper -- The weight of the baskets -- Gala night at the Park Theatre -- To conceal the circumstances of her pregnancy -- The opposite counsel -- Cruel and unbecoming curiosity -- Judge Edmonds's charge -- April thunderstorms -- The hanging of Polly Bodine -- Witch trial interlude -- The appeal -- Six thousand jurors -- National police gazette -- Whitman's sympathy -- George Washington camped here -- Fragment of the mother's dress -- Orange County House v. United States Hotel -- The gangs that infest New York -- Judgment night -- Polly Bodine in the popular imagination -- Epilogue: another prison -- Afterword: lawyers will not save us -- Acknowledgments -- List of illustrations -- Select bibliography -- Notes -- Index. On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home—and then covered up the crime with hellfire. When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin’s sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new “penny press” explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she’s a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions. Between June 1844 and April 1846, the nation was enthralled by her three trials—in Staten Island, Manhattan, and Newburgh—for the “Christmas murders.” After Polly’s legal dream team entered the fray, the press and the public debated not only her guilt, but her character and fate as a fallen woman in society. Public opinion split into different camps over her case. Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman covered her case as young newsmen. P. T. Barnum made a circus out of it. James Fenimore Cooper’s last novel was inspired by her trials. The Witch of New York is the first narrative history about the dueling trial lawyers, ruthless newsmen, and shameless hucksters who turned the Polly Bodine case into America’s formative tabloid trial. An origin story of how America became addicted to sensationalized reporting of criminal trials, The Witch of New York vividly reconstructs an epic mystery from Old New York—and uses the Bodine case to challenge our system of tabloid justice of today. 20240308. Bodine, Polly Trials, litigation, etc. Infanticide New York (State) New York 19th century. Murder New York (State) New York 19th century. Tabloid newspapers New York (State) New York 19th century. Trials (murder) New York (State) 19th century. Trials (Arson) New York (State) 19th century. True crime stories.