What happens
In 1778 in Brookfield, Massachusetts, Bathsheba Spooner plots with her lover Ezra Ross to kill her husband, Joshua Spooner. She enlists two British deserters, James Buchanan and William Brooks, who meet Joshua at the tavern and are later directed along the road past the elms and the well. Bathsheba is a loyalist's daughter, and the town already regards her with suspicion. This episode of Crime Classics presents the story from the records and newspapers of the time, told by host Thomas Highland, and follows the events through the discovery of the body.
Brookfield, Massachusetts, 1778: the Spooner home on the road to Worcester, and Cooley's tavern
Characters: Bathsheba Spooner, Joshua Spooner, Ezra Ross, James Buchanan, William Brooks, Dr. King, Mr. Cooley
Listen for: Bathsheba and Ezra's plotting in the living room, and the deserters' arrival and the directions they are given to the well
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.