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Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony - before even Lizzie Borden - there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in our nation's debut media circus.. On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home - and then covered up the crime with hellfire. When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin's sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new "penny press" explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she's a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions.