The Case of the Parlous Parlor

"Owensboro Messenger," January 29, 1911, via Newspapers.comEarly in 1910, American newspapers breathlessly carried the story of what appeared to be a particularly shocking double homicide. This account comes from the "Republican News Item" for January 6:The mystery of the death of Miss Grace Elosser, of Cumberland, Md., and Charles E. Twigg, of Keyser, W. Va. her fiance, appears as deep as it did shortly after the bodies of the couple were found on the settee in the parlor of the Elosser residence on Saturday, when the mother of the dead girl went in to speak to her.Twigg and Miss Elosser were to have been married Sunday night. It is suspected that a jealous woman rival was the poisoner, carrying out her plot in a most crafty way.The mystery begun with the discovery on Saturday afternoon of the pretty girl and her fiance sitting together, hand in hand, on a sofa in the parlor of their home—both dead.So swift, so instantaneous had been the action of the poison upon them that they sat…