[1] His parents were financially comfortable, but deeply religious, and eventually renounced material wealth to join The Salvation Army.

After leaving school, he worked at odd jobs until 1905 when he took a position at another uncle's skirt factory in Cortland, New York.

One popular story involved Miss Harriet Benedict, a wealthy acquaintance of Gillette who the newspapers later speculated was the "other woman" for whom Chester had left Grace.

"[2] As the spring and summer of 1906 progressed, others noticed an increasing frequency of Gillette's raised voice and Brown's tears at the factory or at each other's homes.

On July 11, Gillette took Brown in a rowboat on Big Moose Lake, where he clubbed her with his tennis racquet and left her to drown.

Meanwhile, Gillette, carrying a suitcase, hiked through the woods to Fulton Chain Lakes, where he checked into the Arrowhead Hotel under his real name.

An autopsy revealed she had suffered major head trauma, turning an accidental drowning case into a murder investigation.

A New York State Appeals Court upheld the verdict,[4] and Governor Charles Evans Hughes refused to grant clemency or give a reprieve.

Eleven of the letters were addressed to Bernice Ferrin, a friend of the family who moved to Auburn, New York, to stay with Gillette's sister, Hazel.

Also based on the case is the Ballad of Big Moose Lake, a 1926 folk song of the Adirondack Mountains area that explicitly mentions Gillette in the first and last verses.