Case of the Autographed Corpse

"e;Jack El-Hai grippingly recounts the story of the murder and [Erle Stanley] Gardners efforts to exonerate Edwards. El-Hai reveals how a series of intense encounters between the celebrity author and the healer reopened a closed case, turning a standard legal crusade into a deeply personal rescue mission. In chronicling their unlikely alliance, El-Hai movingly shows how a real-life story of prejudice and perseverance provided the pulp-fiction master with his ultimate plot. Joshua Hammer, The New York Times Book Review The true-crime saga of the intertwined lives of a Native spiritual leader and a prominent literary figureand their shared work in their pursuit to right a tragic wrongful conviction.Silas John Edwardsa charismatic Apache medicine manwas known as a controversial figure on Apache reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, where white authorities determined to maintain control over reservation life. When his wife, Margaret, was brutally murdered in 1933, Silas John was tried and convictedreceiving a sentence of life in prison. The key piece of evidence against Silas John was a rock found near Margaret's body, scratched with his initials, S. J. E."e;. Were the scratched initials an attempt to frame a man whose independent path was deemed troublesome? Eighteen years into Silas Johns sentence, the celebrated writer of the Perry Mason mysteries, Erle Stanley Gardner, received a desperate letter from the incarcerated medicine man. Gardner and Silas John met in prison and joined forces to reinvestigate the case. Under the auspices of Gardners Court of Last Resort, an organization like todays Innocence Project that investigated cases of wrongful conviction, Gardner traveled through Arizonas varied reservation landscapes to hunt for clues. Together Silas John and Gardner attempted to unravel the flimsy evidenceincluding dubious footprint casts and questionable claims of Apache customto shatter the "e;cement silence"e; of prison and fight for the freedom of a historically important spiritual leader. The Case of the Autographed Corpse details a dramatic and little-known episode in American history and two mens unwavering commitment to the truth.