The deaths took place in the fall and winter of 1909, in the family's 26-room gothic mansion.
Author Giles Fowler presents evidence that at least two of the deaths were murders, committed by Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde, who was married to a Swope heiress.
The first Hyde trial, for the murder of philanthropist Thomas Hunton Swope, was covered by virtually every major newspaper in the United States.
Fowler's book, published by the Truman State University Press, was winner of the Jackson County, MO.
[1] The 2009 Best True Crime Book of the Year [1] The Sewanee Review, Spring 2010 [2] Jackson County, Mo., Historical Society [3]