Some guys have major commitment issues. For Chester Gillette, that would’ve been an understatement. He was a typical playboy: rich family, star athlete, and too handsome for his own good. So no one was surprised when sweet, naive Grace Brown fell for him – hard.
In 1906, Grace was 19 years old and worked for the Gillette family in their upstate New York skirt factory. She was flattered when the town heartthrob wanted to take her out, but they always seemed to meet up when it was convenient for him. Plus, he never took her out in public like he did with other girls. Still, Grace continued to see him, and eventually she got pregnant.
After months of avoiding commitment, Gillette finally suggested a weekend getaway to the Adirondacks. It was the moment Brown had been waiting for; they were finally going to elope.
When the young couple got to the mountains, they rented a rowboat and took it out on Big Moose Lake, promising to be back before dinner. They failed to return. A search party set out to find them the next morning and came across an overturned boat. Brown’s corpse was floating in the water nearby.
Police tried to track down Gillette and finally found him a couple days later at a hotel in the area. When questioned about the victim, he said he didn’t know anyone by that name. Later, he changed his story and said that after he told Brown there was no future for them, she had been so distraught she jumped out of the boat, drowning herself.
During the trial, it came out that Gillette had hit her over the head with a tennis racket, which was reason enough for a jury to find him guilty and sentence him to execution in the electric chair.
It was also reason enough for Brown to haunt the living daylights out of him until he was electrocuted. In fact, guests of the nearby Covewood Lodge say they still see her floating through the woods to the edge of the lake, crying over her love story gone wrong.
[via Unsolved]
