'The Murder Of Helen Jewett'

The nonfiction novel, “The Murder of Helen Jewett”, by Patricia Cline Cohen took place in New York City on April 9th, in 1986 at a brothel. Rosina Townsend, the owner of the brothel, found Helen Jewett, a prostitute, dead in Helen’s bedroom. It began with Rosina locking up the brothel and once she locks up no one is allowed to get in or out without the key. She was woken up by a noise and got up to check on everything. She ended up going to the second floor and saw smoke coming from her room. She goes to call for help and opens the door and finds Helen’s body. Not only was the body burnt from the fire, but also hard large gashes in her head. George Noble and Dennis Brink are two of the officers that help in this investigation to find the murderer. The begin to question Rosina to get clues from the investigation to find the murder. They ask about who was the last one that was with her last night. Their main suspect happens to be a man named, Frank Rivers, who is supposedly to have been the last one to see her before she was killed. Throughout the story we end up realizing that Frank Rivers is an alias and his real name is Richard P. Robinson. …show more content…
When he was confronted about the murder, he seemed uninterested and when we was told by Brink that he was being arrested for the murder of Helen Jewett he denied the charge. Robinson was taken to the body of Helen Jewett to see if he would touch the body of the corpse because if he was it would show guilt, which started in the 17th century in New England. When shown her body he seemed unimpressed and continued to say he was innocent, which shocked the officers, Dr. David L. Rogers and Dr. James B. Kassam performed the autopsy on Helen. They found that the four wounds on her head and concluded that she died instantly and without a struggle. Also, discovered that she was burnt she was