The Frozen Handprints: How a Bookkeeper's Ledger Exposed a Killer

The Frozen Handprints: How a Bookkeeper's Ledger Exposed a Killer

Cold, meticulous, and staged: a twenty-six-year-old bookkeeper found face-up beneath four inches of clear ice, with her coat untouched and no water in her lungs. Eight words in her own handwriting on a company dispatch sheet suggested a missing eight hundred pounds of ice - but who signed for it, and why would that note cost her life?

In this episode, we walk through the discovery, the missing-coat morning, and the ledger discrepancy that pulled a clerk into a murder inquiry. What did the eight-word note on the back of a dispatch sheet reveal, and how did a county clerk use it to break a man's alibi?

Person: Julie Peterson
Date: November 14, 1893
Location: Aldenmere Lake, Grover's Bend
Age: 26
Clerk: Marie Weber

- At 7:08 AM on November 14, 1893, a man found a human hand pressed against the underside of roughly four inches of clear ice.
- Julie Peterson had been dead for at least ten days and was found face-up, arms at her sides, with no water in her lungs.
- Julie had been a bookkeeper at the Aldenmere Ice Company for fourteen months and paid her boarding house every week without fail.
- The October 30 ledger entry showed 40 blocks signed out for Fond du Lac by driver Jeffrey Dalton, while the receipt recorded only 32 blocks received.
- On the back of the dispatch sheet, in Julie Peterson’s handwriting, were eight words: "J.D. - account short, Oct 30, verify before month close."

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