True Murder Mysteries of Southwestern Pennsylvania

A SENSE OF EVIL

WASHINGTON COUNTY’S OLDEST UNSOLVED MURDER

March came that year, 1795, as it often does, with a wind whipping up the Ohio River Valley, drying grass and bramble so long covered by snow. It whooshed through stands of pine, lifting dry leaves to swirl in brief little tornadoes and to skitter across a rutted road along which a team of draft horses pulled a heavily loaded wagon.

A man held the reins in his raw and reddened hands, a child and a woman seated next to him on the buckboard bundled in a woolen blanket. Water gushed along Chartiers Creek, its shady bank still covered with snow, and the thawing earth released a subtle scent of promised spring. The road beside the creek led north toward the town called Washington. The little family would pass through there in late morning, turning the team west toward Cross Creek and their new home.