The Trial of Levi Weeks: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the First Recorded Murder Trial in US History

In January 1800, just weeks after the death of George Washington, the body of a young New York woman was recovered from the depths of Manhattan Well—so called because it had been dug by Aaron Burr's Manhattan Company.

The woman was Gulielma "Elma" Sands, who on December 22 had left the boardinghouse where she lived, never to return. Suspicion immediately fell on another boarder, Levi Weeks, who according to Sands's cousin and landlady was to marry the victim the very night she disappeared.

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