Woodstock's Infamous Murder Trial: Early Racial Injustice in Upstate New York

A local historian uncovers a racially charged murder trial in upstate New York in this examination of prejudice and punishment in the early twentieth century.

In 1905, the quiet rural community of Woodstock, New York, was shocked by the murder of Oscar Harrison, a member of a prominent local family. A suspect, Cornell Van Gaasbeek, was quickly identified. As a black man accused of killing a white man, Van Gaasbeek knew that he was doomed. Amid racist animus in the press, he fled across two c...