The Enigma Woman

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The Enigma Woman

The Death Sentence of Nellie May Madison

Kathleen A. Cairns

Women in the West Series

328 pages
16 photographs

Paperback

April 2009

978-0-8032-2450-6

$16.95 Add to Cart
eBook (PDF)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

May 2007

978-0-8032-0692-2

$16.95 Add to Cart

About the Book

“Crack shot.” “Enigma woman.” “Good with ponies and pistols.” “A much-married woman.”
What if such an unconventional woman—and the press unanimously agreed that Nellie May Madison was indeed unconventional—were to get away with murder? Shortly after her husband’s bullet-riddled body was found in the couple’s Burbank apartment, police issued an all-points bulletin for the “beautiful, dark-haired widow.” The ensuing drama unfolded with all the twists and turns of a noir crime novel.  
 
In this intriguing cultural history, Kathleen A. Cairns tells the tale of Nellie May Madison, the first woman on Death Row in California. Her story offers a glimpse into law and disorder in 1930s Los Angeles while bringing to life a remarkable character whose plight reflects on the status of women, the workings of the media and the judiciary system, and the stratification of society in her time. Cairns’s re-creation of the case from murder to trial to aftermath also casts an eye forward to our own love-hate affair with celebrity crimes and our abiding ambivalence about domestic violence as a defense for murder.

Author Bio

Kathleen A. Cairns is a lecturer in the Department of History at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She is the author of Front-Page Women Journalists, 1920–1950 (Nebraska 2003).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1. A Girl from Montana
2. Midnight Alibi
3. Outlaw Woman
4. Enigma Woman
5. The Ultimate Penalty
6. The People v. Nellie Madison
7. The Defense
8. Lady Macbeth
9. The Verdict
10. A Condemned Woman
11. An Abused Woman
12. The Reprieve
13. Life in Prison
14. A Traditional Woman
Notes
Bibliographic Essay
Index

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