Criminal · Vox Media Podcast Network

Fall River

December 5, 2025·44 min·3 clips

Nathaniel Hawthorne saw a wax tableau of Sarah Cornell and her minister, then later wrote The Scarlet Letter.

A death is called suicide. After Sarah Cornell's funeral, John Durfee starts hearing about details the coroner's jury missed. The first is a note, found in a hat box in Sarah's trunk and signed SMC, asking that Reverend Ephraim Avery be questioned if she disappears. Durfee is shaken. Then comes the broken comb near the haystack where Sarah's body was found. The pieces appear to match, and a woman at Sarah's boarding house recognizes it because Sarah had recently taken it to a jeweler for repair. The case keeps tightening. Two neighbors say they saw a strange man on the night Sarah died, and some of their twine had gone missing. That matters because the noose used the same kind. Durfee returns to the coroner and says the first jury got it wrong. This time, the coroner listens. Sarah's body is dug up. At the second inquest, Thomas Wilbur and Dr. Hooper examine her in front of a group of uneasy men. They remove her clothing, look more carefully, and find the violence women had already described. Then another fact lands: Sarah had been pregnant, about four months along. Dr. Wilbur knew the father. The excerpt ends with the easy ruling gone and one name moving closer to the center.

As heard by us

A restrained historical true crime story where a note, a comb, and missing twine start to undo a suicide ruling.

Criminal's "Fall River" starts with Catherine Williams, a respected writer turning toward a grim 1833 case, then settles into the death of Sarah Cornell and the official ruling that did not hold.

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Why you'd press play

A reverend, a letter in a hat box, and a coroner's jury that had to look again.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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