I Am Murdered : George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation Hardcover - 2009

He signed the Declaration of Independence, represented Virginia at the Constitutional Convention, and became America's first professor of law. With his close friend and former pupil Thomas Jefferson, who once described him as a "second father," he wrote an entire new legal code for the State of Virginia. At the age of eighty in 1806, George Wythe was loved, admired, and respected by all who knew him--all but one, that is.

In I Am Murdered, celebrated historian Bruce Chadwick tells the grisly, fascinating, and often astounding tale of Wythe's murder and America's very first "trial of the century." Brimming with fascinating details of early nineteenth-century medicine, forensic science, and legal issues, this fast-moving account features compelling portraits of all major players in the case and asks penetrating questions about the many controversies that swirled around the trial.

George Wythe lived long enough to accuse his grandnephew George Wythe Sweeney of poisoning him and two other members of his household. Why did three prominent doctors, all friends of Wythe, insist that he hadn't been poisoned at all? Why did Wythe repeatedly refuse to press charges against Sweeney, who had forged Wythe's name on checks and stolen and sold many of his rare and precious books? Wythe's maid, Lydia Broadnax, the sole survivor of the poisoning, was also the only eyewitness to the crime. Her account was entirely credible, and she was widely recognized as an honest, reliable, and honorable woman. Why was she forbidden to testify at the trial?

The answers to these questions and many more become lenses through which to view a city and a nation at a crucial and formative period of their history.

Among the many distinctive figures you'll meet in this strange and chilling true story are the two attorneys who came to Sweeney's defense. Both had been good friends of Wythe and were certain of the young man's guilt, but each man had a powerful personal motive to work tirelessly for Sweeney's acquittal. One was a former attorney general of the United States, and the other was destined to become the longest-serving attorney general in American history.

Complete with a satisfying account of Wythe's ultimate revenge and a poignant depiction of his deep and abiding friendship with Jefferson, I Am Murdered is part American tragedy, part CSI circa 1806, and all intriguing examination of the unjust death of a Founding Father.