Resistance -- A parish to run -- Until death do us part -- A city reacts -- A killer speaks -- The building of a defense -- The engines of justice turn -- Black robes, white robes -- Trials and tribulations -- Shadow boxing -- A jury's verdict
Summary
It was among the most notorious criminal cases of its day. On August 11, 1921, in Birmingham, Alabama, a Methodist minister named Edwin Stephenson shot and killed a Catholic priest, James Coyle, in broad daylight and in front of numerous witnesses. The killer's motive? The priest had married Stephenson's eighteen-year-old daughter Ruth--who had secretly converted to Catholicism three months earlier--to Pedro Gussman, a Puerto Rican migrant and practicing Catholic. Having all but disappeared from historical memory, the murder of Father Coyle and the trial of Rev. Stephenson that followed are vi
