2012: One city, one book, two murders

Off New Hampshire's coast, on a foul night 139 years ago, two women were killed in the only occupied house on Smuttynose Island. One was strangled, one killed with an ax. A third woman, Maren Hontvet, fled the home she shared with her Norwegian fisherman husband, John, and passed the night hiding in a sea cave. The women, Maren Hontvet later testified, were killed by Louis Wagner, a fisherman bent on stealing the Hontvet's savings, and on June 25, 1875, Wagner was hanged. But was he guilty, or can a dark place and a dark past incite an otherwise docile… 0