Edith Maxwell

Edith Maxwell (1914 - 1979) was a Virginian schoolteacher who, at the age of 21, was convicted of murdering her father in rural Appalachia, triggering a nation-wide media sensation.

On July 20, 1935, the young teacher spent the evening with friends at "the Little Ritz" in Wise, Virginia. When she returned home late at night in Pound, Virginia, Trigg Maxwell, her coal miner father, and she had an argument. Trigg attempted to whip his daughter for staying out late. According to Edith Maxwell, during the fight, she hit her father with a high heeled shoe, accidentally killing him. Other accounts asserted variously alternate scenario, including that she hit her father with an iron skillet, that he fell and banged his head on a butcher's block, or even that he had a stroke and died. In any case, Edith was found guilty in November 1935, and when that decision was overturned, a second trial later found her guilty of murder and sentenced her to 25 years in jail.

The case became a national sensation, since recent movies at the time, including The Trail of the Lonesome Pine and the best selling novel of the same name, made rural Appalachia exotic to the rest of America, with tales of family abuse, moonshining and family feuds. She became known as Appalachia's "slipper slayer" and a cause célèbre, and even Eleanor Roosevelt appealed for her release. The Washington Post raised funds for her legal defense. Hollywood created a movie loosely based on her story, Mountain Justice (1937 film), which fictionalized her account by adding new elements to the story, including the heroine narrowly avoiding being lynched by her family and neighbors.

The governor of Virginia, James Hubert Price, pardoned her in 1941. After her release from prison, she left Virginia and under a new name, Ann Grayson, settled in Indiana, where she died in 1979.

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