I Have Struck Mrs. Cochran with a Stake: Sleepwalking, Insanity, and the Trial of Abraham Prescott

After creeping out of bed on a frigid January night in 1832, teenage farmhand Abraham Prescott took up an ax and thrashed his sleeping employers to the brink of death. He later explained that he'd attacked Sally and Chauncey Cochran in his sleep. The Cochrans eventually recovered but-to the astonishment of their neighbors-kept Prescott on, fully accepting his strange story. This decision would come back to haunt the family. While picking strawberries with Sally in an isolated field the foll...