Rebecca Cornell was born in 1600, she was not only my 12th great grandmother on my mothers side, but the center of one of the first murder mysteries in New England.
In 1673 after becoming the widow of Thomas Cornell, there was a mysterious house fire where she died. Earlier that day her Son also Thomas had been over visiting with her. He then later left or so the story goes. Upon his return he found his mothers body in front of the fire place chard and burnt.
At first it was assumed this had been a horrible accident that lead to her death. However upon further investigation they found that she had been stabbed mulitiple times in her stomach. It was then later assumed to be a cover up for murder. There were several different suspects when it came to her death. Including her son, who was the last person to see her alive, as well as his wife who was a "Native" American at the time, and other random townspeople. And of course the other theory which was that she may have simply caught on fire trying to stay warm in front of the fire place. Though i doubt that last one since they found the stab wounds.
At some point a relative that was testifying claimed to have been visited by Rebecca's ghost letting them know that it had infact been her son Thomas that killed her. Being the age of the witch trials this was actually considered to be spectral evidence and undeniably true! Thomas was convicted and hung for the murder of his mother. However many believe he was innocent and had nothing to do with her death.
This was such a big deal there was actually a book written about it, actually several, "killed strangely" being the most popular and still easily available on Amazon. Random extra strange tidbit, Rebecca was actually the 4th great grandmother of Lizzie Borden, yes the one your probably thinking of, the axe murderer!
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