Murder at Teal's Pond: The Real-Life Crime That Inspired Twin Peaks

LAURA PALMER REALLY EXISTED.

Her name was Hazel Drew.

And she was killed in the same way, just as mysteriously.

In the summer of 1908, the murder of Hazel Drew shocked the northern part of the state of New York. Her mutilated body of a twenty-year-old girl was found in a pond, and the more investigators examined her origins, habits, and surroundings, the more incomprehensible the story became… The unsolved murder spawned rumors, speculation, ghost stories—and almost a century later, the phenomenon of the TV series “Twin Peaks.” One of the series’ screenwriters, Mark Frost, brought to life the image of Hazel Drew—about whom, as a child, he often heard from his grandparents—portraying her as Laura Palmer…

Who killed Hazel Drew? Like Laura Palmer, she was a mysterious girl leading a double life. David Buschman and Mark Givens reopen her case and name the likely killers. The story of a girl drowned in Tilz Pond turns into a vast canvas of strange relatives, unreliable witnesses, a corrupt metropolis, and influential officials tangled up in the events. A brilliantly developed investigation of a mysterious murder that inspired one of the most important cultural phenomena in the history of cinema and television.