The Electrocution of Baby Lawrence: A Murder That Shook a New England Town

Overmyer (Cum Posey of the Homstead Greys) revisits a 1943 murder case in this propulsive true crime account. Well-respected Pittsfield, Mass., attorney John F. Noxon Jr. claimed that his six-month-old son, Lawrence, who had Down syndrome, died by electrocution after accidentally becoming entangled in a poorly insulated extension cord. Authorities initially accepted Noxon’s account, but grew suspicious when they discovered he burned evidence, including the cord and the clothes Lawrence was wearing, before it could be examined. That led to Noxon’s arrest, and he hired former Massachusetts governor Joseph Ely to represent him. Noxon was initially convicted of first-degree murder in 1944 and sentenced to the electric chair. That sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment, which Noxon appealed, and he was released on parole after just four years. Overmyer supplements the case’s gut-wrenching details with research about contemporaneous attitudes toward developmentally disabled people, including a chilling section on so-called “mercy killings.” Excerpts from the judge’s notebook and prosecutor’s personal files add depth to the court transcripts, and Overmyer convincingly posits that Noxon killed Lawrence because of his Down syndrome. It adds up to an enlightening and discomfiting account of a horrific crime. (July)