Murdering Holiness: The Trials of Franz Creffield and George Mitchell Hardcover - 2003

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Murdering Holiness explores the story of the "Holy Roller" sect led by Franz Creffield in the early twentieth century. Creffield, a charismatic, self-styled messiah, taught his followers to forsake the worldliness of material goods and their families and seek only salvation. As his teachings became more extreme, the local community reacted by tarring and feathering him and incarcerating his mainly female followers in the asylum and other institutions. Creffield himself was imprisoned after a conviction for adultery, but shortly after his release he revived the sect. George Mitchell, the brother of two of Creffield's female followers, pursued him to Seattle and shot him dead. In a trial that made headlines across America, Mitchell was acquitted, ostensibly on the basis of insanity but in reality because of the "unwritten law" that justified killing in defense of a female relative who had been sexually "wronged." Mitchell himself was murdered two days after his acquittal by his own sister, Esther, whom he had claimed to be defending. In the final twist to this gripping story, Esther did not stand trial for the murder of her brother but was placed in the asylum, ultimately taking her own life by poison a few years later.

In this fascinating micro-history, Phillips and Gartner explore the relationships among formal and informal law, gender relations, and religious repression. It will interest scholars and general readers in law, religion, and gender, as well as anybody interested in the history of Oregon and Washington in the early twentieth century.

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