The Detterick Twins Murder

Paul Edgecombe researches the crime for which John Coffey was convicted by reading old newspapers in the prison library. He learns the details of the abduction and murder of nine-year-old twins Cora and Kathe Detterick from their family farm in Tefton, Trapingus County. The girls were taken from their screened porch, their dog Bowser was found with its neck broken, and a posse led by Deputy Rob McGee tracked the abductor to the Trapingus River. There they found John Coffey sitting on the riverbank, holding the dead, violated girls in his arms and wailing in grief. Coffey was arrested, tried, and quickly convicted, with the jury out only forty-five minutes. Edgecombe is disturbed by the case, sensing something amiss.