The story that captured nationwide interest continues to spark curiosity one hundred years later

By TIM BLYDENBURGH
Observer-Dispatch

In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt and his rambunctious six children filled the White House. The world didn't yet know the horrors of world war.

Ragtime music - no violent lyrics here - was the hit of the nation. The Chicago Cubs were on their way to 116 wins and a record season, with steroid scandals a century away.

An age of innocence?

Not if you were talking about a remote Adirondack lake one summer day, when a dashing young man smacked a tennis racket into his pregnant lover as they rowed together on a small boat - a blow that's echoed through the years to this day.

One hundred years have gone by since Chester Gillette killed Grace Brown and went to trial for her murder. After his conviction, he was executed in the electric chair at Auburn prison in 1908. Many sensational newspaper reports, books, songs and movies later, the case continues to fascinate people.

"I call it the murder that will never die," said Sue Perkins, the Herkimer County Historical Society's executive director, who said events marking the centennial of the case will create a new interest among young people.

What does this case have that's so special?

What doesn't it have?

Illicit love, remote locations, an upwardly mobile defendant, the victim's haunting and surprise love letters and an unlikely murder weapon.

People note the similarities with the trial of Scott Peterson, the Californian found guilty in 2004 for the murder of his pregnant wife, and the magnitude of O.J. Simpson's murder trial.

"What fascinates me about this case is that in 100 years people still know the case because of the written words of Grace," said Jennifer Pokon, who has been portraying Grace in local theater productions and helping organize centennial events. "(And) how powerful Grace's letters have been in keeping the mystery alive, and the questions abounding. Did Chester kill Grace? If so, then how, and why? Perhaps we will never know, but Grace still speaks through her letters."

Also keeping the Gillette case vivid is that many of the sites that figured prominently in the case are still here: the looming Herkimer County Courthouse and the thick-walled jail across North Main Street. Big Moose Lake's South Bay, where the murder happened and the murderer dashed off, has a couple of camps on it, but much of the shore remains undeveloped. District Attorney George Ward's home still stands in Dolgeville.

The County Clerk's office has the original trial transcripts.

The original Glenmore, where the couple stayed before the murder, burned down in 1950, but a supply house next to it was transformed into the current Glenmore.

Gail Murray, director of the Town of Webb Historical Association in Old Forge, has a front-room display about the case.

Some mysteries - Gillette said he was innocent and that Grace committed suicide - give the case lingering intrigue.

"The main thing people ask me is, 'Do you think he did it?" Murray said. "I think he did… he went off for two days (before he was caught), even took a hike. That doesn't seem like something an innocent person would do."