EPISODE 9: SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE

On today’s episode, Paul and Kate take us to Revolutionary War times where we explore the case of an affluent woman trapped in an unhealthy marriage who meets a young wayward soldier.  Adding the politics of the time, multiple hit men, and an American judicial landmark, this case is not to be missed. 

Sources:

THE DYING DECLARATION OF JAMES BUCHANAN, EZRA ROSS, AND WILLIAM BROOKS, Who were executed at Worcester, July 2, 1778; FOR THE MURDER OF Mr. Joshua Spooner. 

“Vermont Case Recalls a Tragedy of Revolution” (The Saint Paul Globe) 1904. 

“Murdered by his Wife” by Deborah Navas

“The Case of Bathsheba Spooner” by Samuel Swett Green (American Antiquarian Society) 

“The Story of Bathsheba Spooner” by Sarah Murder (All Things Georgian)   

“Women and Capital Punishment in the United States” by David V. Baker

“American Criminal Trials” by Peleg W. Chandler 

“Timothy Ruggles – The Rise and Fall of a Massachusetts Loyalist” by Bill Daley (Sandwich Historical Commission) 

“The Most Extraordinary Murder” by Chaim M. Rosenberg (Journal of the American Revolution) 

“The Hanging of Ezra Ross and Bathsheba Spooner, July 2, 1778” by Gordon Harris (Historic Ipswich)