BeforeTwin Peaks‘ Laura Palmer, There Was the Mystery of Hazel Drew

Twin Peaksfans all knowthe tragical tale of Laura Palmer , the diminished - townspeople dish queen who died hiding some rather dark secrets . But did you have it off thatMark Frost , who co - make the serial publication withDavid Lynch , in reality took inspiration from a actual - living historic unsolved murder ?

A new ledger , Murder at Teal ’s pool : Hazel Drew and the Mystery That Inspired Twin Peaks , have an introduction by Frost and offers a deep - nosedive investigation into the 1908 murder of Hazel Drew , a beautiful young womanhood line up floating in a pool in Sand Lake , New York . Though the pressure seized upon the flaky lawsuit , and local investigators appear to be doing their best to solve it , her killer was never savvy . It ’s a fascinating tale only made more fascinating by its Twin Peaks connection , so io9 hopped on a telecasting chat with authors David Bushman ( who also co - wrote Twin Peaks FAQ : All That ’s Left to Know About a Place Both Wonderful and unknown ) and Mark T. Givens ( who hosts the Twin Peaks podcastDeer Meadow Radio ) , to learn more .

Cheryl Eddy , io9 : The Good Book is bill as being about “ the mystery that enliven Twin Peaks , ” which will surely be an accounting entry breaker point for fans of the show . Can you explain briefly the connection between Hazel Drew ’s murder and the slaying of Laura Palmer on the television set series , and how one came to invigorate the other ?

Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.Screenshot: New Line Cinema

David Bushman : When Mark Frost , who co - produce Twin Peaks , was contributing his portion of eruptive arc that [ was ] the death of Laura Palmer , he had in creative thinker two experiences that he had been through in person that played a big part in the development of that story . One was the story of Hazel Drew . His grandmother used to exist in a house by [ Teal ’s Pond]—she was quite a character and quite a fibber , and in fact , we dedicated the book to her — and she would recite Mark and his brother , Scott , about this ghost in the Sir Henry Joseph Wood flop outside her house , of a youthful noblewoman who had been polish off and the murderer had never been identified . The way Mark and Scott separate the narrative now is that it was intend as this form of monitory tale to get them to not stay out too recently because they had to add up home through the Wood .

So Mark Frost love only very general information about it ; he even had the name wrong when he talked about it , he called her “ Hazel Gray . ” But he bang that it was in the woods and that it was by this pond and that she was a vernal woman . So that ’s really the connection to Twin Peaks . He did tell David Lynch about it , but he tell he doubt Lynch think him talk about it – and , you bang , obviously , if you go back and calculate at Lynch ’s oeuvre , you ’ll see that he has his own obsessions with young light-haired woman who are in trouble . But it turns out , as Mark [ T. Givens ] and I dug much deeper into it , that there were all sorts of other connections between [ the shell of Hazel Drew and Twin Peaks ] that Mark Frost was not consciously aware of , but [ from visiting his grandmother every summertime ] he find a full signified of what Sand Lake and Taborton hamlet were like and soaked up a lot of that . So a deal of the sense that you get of Twin Peaks as a small Ithiel Town with these kind of idiosyncratic characters , and what small town sprightliness is like in an old lumber Ithiel Town , were things that Frost contribute to the story from his clock time there .

io9 : As you write in the book , the question of “ Who was Hazel Drew ” is almost as perplexing as “ Who killed her ? ” What were your main seed and methods when it came to search this instance ?

Image: Thomas & Mercer

Image: Thomas & Mercer

Mark T. Givens : We started with the newspapers from the time . Contemporaneous newspaper coverage was very extensive ; for about two and a half weeks it made newspaper headline across the land . I think we finish up with 12 or 13 sort of unlike gospels covering this , and each one had different perspectives and biases and different fact and reporting . So that was great . That was stress to get a baseline — put together this jigsaw puzzle from a hundred - plus years ago , and getting down what happened : How did the investigation go ? The pitfalls , the twists and turns , and finally the nonstarter as it went unresolved ? And then there was kind of a phase two : I used Ancestry.com extensively , and outside of the newspaper publisher coverage of the case [ specifically ] , a lot of these people were sort of semi - famous topically at the sentence , politicians and things of that ilk . So we were able to get hold all kinds of little titbit that informed the background character .

And then we went to Troy and Sand Lake to do inquiry and talk to people , probably almost a twelve trips between us . There were some great resources up there ; we connect with local historians who told us what 1908 was like and filled in a lot of detail that way . In particular , the Sand Lake historian Bob Moore would host these roundtables where he was kind of looking into this himself [ along with ] other people up there . Some citizenry who really were distant full cousin of Hazel that we go after down were also concerned in the case and looking into it , so [ we were also able to get ] their position and sort of collaborate with them . It was five or six year we were at this , so we used everything we could . You know , there ’s a lot of fact in the papers , but it did n’t give us all the color , so talking to citizenry who in reality live some of these masses — like Minnie [ Taylor , Hazel ’s aunty ] in picky , who endure a long life and had some honorable stories [ about her and ] anecdotes about her way-out personality .

io9 : In the book , you present a possibility as to who did it and why . What was the most compelling evidence that led you to that conclusion ?

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Givens : I think my mindset from the outset was , yeah , at the closing of this , we ’re kick the bucket to come up with something they did n’t . They did n’t puzzle out it . We ’re going to make our best speculation . Maybe the police detective at the time had their good guess , but we do n’t get it on what that was . That being allege , certainly the solution we get up with by the end was not something we started with and it was n’t , you sleep together , a “ let ’s pick a hypothesis and then find the fact ” form of thing . When we were first investigating , we were just trying to understand what had happened . That laid the groundwork , and then you ’re just kind of wait at it from all unlike angles . You feel like you know this case and then you may kind of go to the next layer in terms of the solution .

We kind of actually come up with the constituent that lead us there betimes — I was very sceptical about it . It seemed a piffling outrageous to me , but [ without giving anything away to reader ] , eventually you start to see this kind of grounds piling up and then it just kind of leads that fashion . I think we always want a resolution , and I believe [ what we came up with is ] beyond plausible . I ’m always interested in feedback about our solution and if people can kind of pick holes in it , but I have n’t get a line anyone do that yet , so I ’m really happy with how we uncovered this .

Bushman : When multitude read a book like this , they ’re kind of expecting a answer . I signify , I ’ve even heard people [ ask ] , why could n’t they solve it definitively , without any dubiousness ? And you know , it ’s a 114 - class - erstwhile slaying with no endure physical evidence , no desoxyribonucleic acid or anything of that nature . The evidence is gone . The people who were around are all beat . So . But I agree with Mark that we definitely went in mentation we were go to proffer our best possible solution . You know , you intend about books [ about ] Jack the Ripper or the Black Dahlia , all those Quran are proposing some solution . I think that ’s what people are pretty much expecting in a book like this .

Ugreentracker

io9 : What do you desire readers take away from Murder at Teal ’s Pond ?

precondition : If you are a Twin Peaks fan , this is sort of significant historically for you . But you do n’t have to be a David Lynch fan . There ’s no saltation little man or killers from other proportion in our story , but it is a really good secret with winding and turn , lawful offence , and story . I think it ’s just a enthralling story , and I hope we did justice to it .

Bushman : I feel like the [ 1908 ] investigation itself was not first - rate , and I also finger like if Hazel had been a person of prerogative and possibly a man — if she ’d been a man of perquisite , I opine there ’s no way that they would have blockade before solving this murder . And , you know , I believe she was just kind of blank out . And that ’s kind of one of the reasons that we wrote the book , I think , was that we do n’t experience that she should be forgotten .

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