In the dirt-rich farmland of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the small settlement of Churchtown, a boy named Alexander Hamilton Balentine was born in January 1817. His father, recorded in later family accounts as James Ballentine and of Irish stock with Scots-Irish roots, and his mother both died before the child reached the age of six. Left without means, he and his siblings, Samuel, Sarah Ellen, William, and at least one other brother, were placed with local families. Yo

In the remote foothills of the Sans Bois Mountains of Haskell County in the winter of 1941, a shotgun blast ended the life of Walter McDonald inside a lonely mountain shack, leaving behind a puzzle that local officials never solved. The body was found near noon on February 17. The top of Walter’s head had been torn away by the force of the shot. Little else remained at the scene to explain what had happened. The killer left almost no trace, and an exhaustive search by county