In The Sinners All Bow (Putnam, Jan.), historian Kate Winkler Dawson examines the 1832 killing that inspired The Scarlet Letter and America’s first true crime book.
How did you first become interested in Sarah Maria Cornell’s murder?
One of the listeners of my podcast, Tenfold More Wicked, emailed me about a case that she called “the haystack murder.” I searched for it and discovered the story of Sarah Maria Cornell. I was horrified by Sarah’s story, frankly, and I’ve covered loads of historical true crime cases. She died alone on a desolate New England farm in the dead of winter, and then, months later, few people defended her character when her suspected killer stood trial. Some of her harshest critics were other women. And then I discovered that Sarah’s most ardent defender was a poet named Catherine Read Williams, a woman from high society who committed to writing a scathing nonfiction book to make sure Sarah received justice. The story really moved me.
How accurate was Williams’s reporting? What effect do you think it had on the trial?
I think Williams’s reporting was remarkably accurate, especially for someone who wasn’t trained as a journalist. Her interpretations of her own reporting sometimes felt problematic, though. She was excellent at conflating information to skew the story toward her point of view—that’s not what good journalists do. The book was published after the trial, so it impacted the public’s perception of the case and Sarah, but it didn’t sway the outcome. But Catharine was really vocal about her distaste for the suspect, so who knows who heard her opinion before the verdict.
You write about Williams almost as though you know her. What similarities do you see between you and her?
Oh, I felt very connected with Catharine. We felt a similar passion for Sarah’s case. Catharine was career-driven, and she was a mother who wanted to provide for her child. She was also proud and fallible, and I can be both of those things. I think I certainly check myself more often than she did, though.
How did Williams’s book influence future true crime books?
I think Fall River laid the groundwork for advocacy-driven narratives, told like fiction but grounded in facts. No book had ever been written like it before, particularly one written by a woman and one that defended the victim. It was groundbreaking and, in many ways, it’s helped me evaluate my own motives for picking the cases that I choose. Why am I drawn to a certain story? True crime shouldn’t be simply entertaining, it should be illuminating, educational, and most importantly, respectful.
