Q&A with Craig Brandon

By DAVE DELLECESE
Observer-Dispatch

Craig Brandon’s 1986 non-fiction book “Murder in the Adirondacks, An American Tragedy Revisited” brings to life Chester Gillette, Grace Brown and his trial for killing her.

As a reporter for the Utica newspapers, Brandon wrote a lengthy article on the 75th anniversary of the murder. Now living in New Hampshire, Brandon will attend several events this year marking the murder’s centennial.

Here he takes time to answer a few questions about the case, its impact and what it’s meant to him.

Observer-Dispatch: Why do you think people are still fascinated with this case 100 years later?

Brandon: Unlike the Scott Peterson case, which it superficially resembles, the Gillette case was more than just a sensational murder trial. For one thing you had those remarkable letters from Grace Brown that had such an impact on everyone in the courtroom and readers around the world.

Spectators at the trial said it was as if the voice of the victim had returned from the grave to bring her murderer to justice. Her words have since then been immortalized in (Theodore) Dreiser’s novel and last year’s opera.

There is also an unsolvable puzzle. While most people agree that Gillette was guilty, the evidence has always been contradictory and no one has ever been able to figure out a theory of what happened that ties up all the loose ends.
And then, of course, there is the fact the story was turned into a classic American novel, two famous movies and even an opera. What other murder case can claim that level of attention?

O-D: Do you think by today’s standards that Chester Gillette would have been convicted?

Brandon: It’s an excellent question. By today’s standards Gillette's conviction would surely have been overturned. District Attorney George Ward broke all the modern rules about how to obtain evidence. He took the love letters from Chester’s room without a search warrant. He tore pages out of hotel registers without permission and even brought a glass bottle containing the fetus from the autopsy into the court room.

Any of those things would have been grounds to toss out the conviction. But those kinds of things were common in 1906, and by those standards he certainly got a fair trial. He had two competent court-appointed attorneys and they did an excellent job of poking holes in Ward’s case. The problem was that Gillette was his own worst witness. He chewed gum, admitted that he was a habitual liar and told a very unconvincing tale. The jury really had no choice.

O-D: Do you think the report in the Utica Daily Press of a “Tempest on Fourth Lake” on the afternoon/evening of July 11th (which was reported as causing problems for a steamboat) could have played some sort of role in turbulent weather and water for the little rowboat the night of the incident?

Brandon: This was never mentioned at the trial. In fact, the witnesses all said July 11 was a bright sunny day. The storm must have happened later in the day.

O-D: Some people and accounts believe that Grace's letters displayed a sense of depression and possible suicidal tendencies. Do you think there is any merit to this?

Brandon: Absolutely. I counted 14 separate sections in the letters in which Grace said she wanted to die or welcomed death and even at one point threatened to throw herself into the river. While the letters were very influential in stirring up sympathy for the victim, they were also the best evidence for the defense’s case that Grace committed suicide. But I think it's difficult for readers to separate out true depression and suicidal tendencies from a late Victorian tendency towards melodrama.

After all, the purpose of her letters was not to honestly describe her emotional state, but to convince Chester to keep his promise to take her away.

O-D: Do you think it was presumptuous of District Attorney Ward to tell the court he had a witness to the murder, when he had a witness who had only heard a cry? (A witness who, some accounts say went back and forth as to whether it was a woman's cry or a young boy’s, finally settling on not only a woman’s cry, but a woman's cry of grief.)

Brandon: Certainly the newspapers, the novel and the movies made a lot of this incident. From the transcript it’s hard to tell if Ward intended for it to be that. Certainly he had nothing to gain by building up expectations and then letting everybody down. I think it’s more likely that the newspapers played up the idea of a star witness to build up expectations about the next day’s story.

O-D: What do you see as the biggest questions left unanswered one hundred years later?

Brandon: There are a lot of them. For me, the biggest mystery is what on earth Grace and Chester were planning for their trip to the Adirondacks. Her letters are frustratingly silent on this point. She never mentions marriage, which seems odd if that is what was planned. Chester testified that they really had nothing more than vague ideas. That seems unrealistic given the level of Grace’s desperation.

My guess is that the plan was to find a place for her to stay until the baby was born and she could give it up for adoption. That would explain why Chester brought only a small suitcase and she brought an entire trunk. He was just there to find a place for her to stay. There is absolutely no evidence for this theory, however.

And then there is the question of whether Gillette actually confessed just before his execution. His mother said he did, but the written statement Gillette distributed is not a confession but a statement to the youth of America. If his mother knew what happened why didn't she tell anyone?

O-D: The Chester Gillette/Grace Brown case is filled with a myriad of interesting characters and personalities. Do you have a particular favorite character or characters?

Brandon: One of my favorites is Austin Klock, the Herkimer County undersheriff who was in charge of Chester from his arrest until his imprisonment at Auburn Prison. He seems to have developed an interesting relationship with Chester, both as a confidant and friend, even though he never doubted Chester was a cruel murderer.

There is also the Herkimer County coroner, the aptly named Isaac Coffin, who forgot to order an autopsy until after Grace Brown’s body was embalmed. Here was the case of a lifetime for him, his chance to show his stuff before the national media, and he blew it big time.

O-D: Where do you as an author and specialist in this case go from here? Is there another book in there somewhere that you're working on?

Brandon: Well there is unlikely to be this kind of interest in the case again in my lifetime. The 100th anniversary only comes once in a lifetime. I’m grateful to the tens of thousands of readers of “Murder in the Adirondacks” who have made it such a success. This year I published a sequel, “Grace Brown's Love Letters,” that contains all the words of the Gillette-Brown correspondence and attempts to explain the obscure references in them. This information had been the most common request from readers.

I've also toyed with the idea of doing some kind of tour book for people interested in the case who want to visit all the scenes of the story from Cortland, South Otselic, through Utica, Big Moose and Herkimer. Efforts are being made to protect some of the sites that are endangered, especially in Herkimer, and I would hope that a book of that sort might help preserve them for future generations.