Of those murderers to capture the spotlight in the 1930s, Winnie Ruth Judd was one with whom the public and media became obsessed. Women murderers were rare; moreover, this one was young, attractive, and involved in a macabre plot. Dubbed "The Trunk Murderess," the 26-year old Judd transported the corpses of two former friends on a 400-mile train ride, a malodorous ooze seeping out the side of the two trunks and leading to her discovery. Her trial was a sensation with its themes of betrayal, lust, and murder. Convicted of murdering a former friend, Judd repeatedly escaped from a mental hospital over the next forty years and also raised perplexing doubts about her guilt.

Born in Darlington, Indiana, in 1905, Judd was the daughter of a Methodist reverend. At age seventeen, she fell in love with a man twenty-six years her senior. But her marriage to Dr. William C...