A Hand Rises Through the Ice: The Murder of Emily Morgan

A Hand Rises Through the Ice: The Murder of Emily Morgan

Ice thicker than nature allowed hid a murder: an eleven-inch block carved with saw marks was floated into Harlan Lake and revealed only when a gaff hook broke the surface at first light. Who shaped that slab, carried it, and miscalculated the weight that would keep a body hidden until a woman with no title chipped a tiny sample into a tin that would change everything?

In this episode, we follow the discovery and early inquiry into Emily Morgan's death, from the moment Pamela Meyer pulled a hand through cracked ice to Christine Draper's careful measurements and notes that proved the block could not have formed on Harlan Lake naturally. How did a block of ice become a tomb, and where did it come from?

Person: Emily Morgan
Date: November 9, 1893 (disappearance); November 15, 1893 (ice sampled)
Location: Harlan Lake; Mill Road; Crestfield
Person: Christine Draper
Location: Crestfield Ice Company icehouse

- The block of ice encasing Emily Morgan's body measured eleven inches thick when Christine Draper recorded it.
- Harlan Lake in early November could naturally produce three inches of surface ice, four inches in a hard freeze.
- Pamela Meyer discovered the hand and ring just before first light after checking trotlines she had checked "a hundred times."
- Christine Draper chipped a sample from the ice block into a sealed tin and recorded the time, date, and exact location on November 15.
- Christine Draper walked to the Crestfield Ice Company icehouse with Coroner Henry Henry on November 17 to pursue where the ice might have originated.

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