Will to Murder

Book excerpt: On June 27, 1977, an intruder entered Glensheen, the stately manor built along the Lake Superior shore by Chester A. Congdon, patriarch of one of Duluth, Minnesota's, most generous and respected families. Before leaving with a basketful of stolen jewelry, the intruder used a satin pillow to smother Chester's last surviving daughter, Elisabeth Congdon, after killing the heiress's valiant nurse, Velma Pietila, by beating her with a candlestick -- crimes set in motion by a hastily hand-written will penned just days before the killings. For the first time the story of the Glensheen killings and the crimes and trials surrounding Marjorie Caldwell Hagen, Elisabeth Congdon's notorious adopted daughter, is told through the eyes of former Duluth Police Detective and St. Louis County Sheriff Gary Waller and St. Louis County Prosecutor John DeSanto, the men who led the investigation and prosecution of Marjorie and her husband, Roger Caldwell.