The crime

It's more complicated than the book jacket's rendering, what with the voodoo rumors and the insurance fraud and whatnot, but the inside cover of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee makes a start: "Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted -- thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend."

…Well, and thanks to the situation having long since shaped up as one of those "ain't a court in the land"-ers in which the local constabulary had to pretend Robert Burns hadn't done them, his prospective future wives and in-laws, and a dozen insurance claims adjusters a huge solid. But there's also the figurative crime that is Harper Lee's meticulous research into the various cases that she just couldn't turn into a book.

The story