Judge George Wythe had a stellar career. In addition to being one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, he had also been a member of the House of Burgesses and during the French and Indian War, he was the overseer of military expenses. He came from a wealthy Virginia plantation family and, troubled by slavery, freed his family’s slaves at the end of the American Revolution. He was also a professor at the College of William and Mary and a friend of Thomas Jefferson.
In 1806, Wythe informed his 17-year-old, philandering, forging, grandnephew, George Sweeny, that Sweeny would get none of the family’s money. Wythe’s money would go instead to several of Wythe’s freed slaves. Sweeny did not take the news well and poisoned Judge Wythe with arsenic. A servant, Lydia Broadnax, saw Sweeny put the poison in the cup of coffee Sweeny served to the judge.
But there was a problem. Broadnax was black and Virginia law restricted blacks from testifying against whites. So, George Sweeny went free.
“How can a flatcar of gold bullion being
watched by the police ……….. v-a-n-i-s-h?”
www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi
(I autograph all my books from this site.)