"A high-profile murder can function as a mirror of an era. Attorney and crime researcher Virginia McConnell provides a view of Connecticut in Victorian times, as glimpsed through the unrelated, but disturbingly similar murders of two young women near New Haven in the late 1800s.

The colorful characters involved in the commission, investigation, and prosecution of these crimes emerge as real, vibrant individuals, and their stories, reveal much about Victorian sex and marriage, drugs from arsenic to aphrodisiacs, early forensic medicine, and 19th-century courtroom procedures." "Arsenic Under the Elms meticulously reviews the evidence, the personalities involved, and the society that produced them, resulting in a contribution to the literature of true crime."--BOOK JACKET.