Nearly a century ago, America’s most famous defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, came to Vermont to fight for the life of a convicted murderer. Now, that forgotten chapter of legal history is the focus of a new book from the Vermont Historical Society.

Winters’ Time: A Secret Pledge, a Severed Head, and the Murder That Brought America’s Most Famous Lawyer to Vermont, by former Vermont Attorney General and Chief Justice Jeffrey L. Amestoy, recounts the brutal 1926 killing of Cecelia Gullivan, treasurer of the Cone Automatic Machine Company of Windsor. Local machinist John Winters was swiftly convicted of her murder—but his appeal attracted none other than Darrow, who stepped into the case after Winters’ family called in an old favor.

Known for defending Leopold and Loeb, labor leaders, and death penalty defendants, Darrow brought his formidable reputation to the Vermont Supreme Court in what became one of the state’s most sensational legal battles.

“This isn’t just a true-crime thriller—it’s a window into Vermont’s justice system, its industries, and its culture during a time of rapid change,” said VHS publications editor Alan Berolzheimer.

The book delves into the grisly crime, the high-stakes courtroom drama, and Darrow’s unique role as an outsider in a small New England state wrestling with questions of justice and punishment. Amestoy, drawing on his own years on Vermont’s high court, examines how the justices confronted the challenge of weighing the evidence while resisting the pull of Darrow’s national renown.

Paul S. Gillies, author of The Law of the Hills, called the book “a story of the time Clarence Darrow appeared before the Vermont Supreme Court on behalf of a defendant accused of murder. That court had to work hard to ignore the reputation of America’s greatest advocate.”

VHS Executive Director Steve Perkins said the manuscript read like a page-turner: “I couldn’t put it down and was left on the edge of my seat wanting more.”

The book will be released in September and will retail for $19.95 through the Vermont Historical Society, local bookstores, and online.

For Darrow, who built a career on questioning the morality of capital punishment and the fairness of America’s courts, the Winters case was one more battle in a lifetime spent testing the boundaries of justice. For Vermont, it was a moment when the nation’s most celebrated lawyer came north—and left behind a story still worth telling.

The Vermont Historical Society publishes a range of books about the history of the Green Mountain State, including the recently-released Life Became Very Blurry: An Oral History of COVID-19 in Vermont, edited by Garrett M. Graff, Ira Allen: A Biography by J. Kevin Graffagnino, and “Vermont for the Vermonters”: The History of Eugenics in the Green Mountain State by Mercedes de Guardiola. You can find more details about these titles on our website.