This Disturbing Murder In New York Was So Creepy It Inspired A Movie

A young girl that grew up on a dairy farm in New York's Otselic Valley, Grace Brown was someone who longed for a faster pace of life, one that would take her away from the secluded farmland she had been raised on. When Grace was old enough, she moved out to Cortland and began working at the Gillette Skirt Factory in Cortland.

As one of the Gillette's, Chester was someone who was well-known and sought after in town. As a wealthy, handsome looking man with such a well-known last name, Chester found most of the girls in town swooning over him. A bittersweet victory for Grace Brown, she won the affection of Chester Gillette but only to be kept a secret. Chester felt as a factory working, Grace would not be someone suitable to join the Gillette family and would never go on to acknowledge their relationship or let anyone know of it.

Keep in mind that this entire fiasco was one that took place over a hundred years ago, long before things like teenage pregnancy had become so normalized that television shows were being created about it. When Grace realized that she was pregnant in 1906, she began to feel the pressure of getting Chester to marry her. During this era, unwed women with children were not greatly welcomed into society. After telling Chester about the pregnancy, Grace would move back home to be with her family in the Otselic Valley.

With Chester's child in her womb and her hopes set high, Grace had assumed this trip to the Adirondacks was leading up to the grandest gesture of all - a proposal. After spending the night up north and making their way through the Adirondacks, the young couple stopped at Big Moose Lake. After renting a boat to take out onto the lake in July, Chester brought Grace onto the water and hit her over the head with his tennis racket - knocking her overboard into the lake.

During the search for the missing boat and the young couple who had rented it, the capsized boat and the body of Grace Brown was found out on Big Moose Lake. With the man who had accompanied her nowhere in sight, the search continued that led officials to find Chester hiding away in a nearby hotel. When initially questioned, Chester claimed to not even know how Grace was nor know anything about the capsized boat that had been rented.

During the trial of Grace Brown's murder, it was revealed that during their exchange of letters, Grace had let Chester know she was unable to swim. Knowing Grace was pregnant and in his eyes, unfit to marry into his family, Chester knocked Grace's pregnant body into the water and left her to drown. The trial was one that became famous and led to Chester's execution in 1908 after he was found guilty and had even reportedly admitted to the murder to those who were close to him.

But the trial wasn't the only thing to put Grace Brown's murder in the spotlight! 40 years later, the scandalous and heartbreaking murder of a young pregnant woman would be the inspiration for the Hollywood hit A Place In The Sun that came out in 1951 and starred Elizabeth Taylor. Did you know about the murder of Grace Brown or that it inspired this movie?