Nameless Indignities: Unraveling the Mystery of One of Illinois's Most Infamous Crimes by Susan Elmore is a true story set in the 1800s. Emma Bond, a young schoolteacher, was raped and left for dead in her schoolhouse. There were no witnesses to the crime. She survived the attack but the rest of her life was to suffer through hysteria, physical complications and a touch of amnesia. Indeed, some of the wounds that she received were unusual and sadistic, called 'nameless indignities' by the press of the time. Eighteen months after the attack, three out of six suspects were brought before the court but, after the verdict is brought, the public begin to believe that there was no crime committed; the victim had made it all up. The case itself was never really solved and had so many unanswered questions, some of which may just be answered with this book.

Nameless Indignities: Unraveling the Mystery of One of Illinois's Most Infamous Crimes by Susan Elmore was a good book. I like true crime, I like legal stories, and this was a good mix of both. I did get a little lost in the scene setting, and the describing of the area, but it didn’t deter me from continuing with the book. I found it to be well written, pretty concise and an interesting read. The ending may just surprise a few readers but you do need to read the whole book to understand how Ms. Elmore came to her conclusion. Good book, which would make an excellent TV film.

When Susan Elmore discovered a family connection to the victim of one of the most notorious crimes in Illinois history, Emma Bond, her curiosity got the better of her. So began Elmore's search into records available about Emma, the "nameless indignities" the press mentioned were inflicted upon her, the small Illinois community that was the setting of the crime, and more. Emma's story was incredible in that as a young school teacher she told of how, after someone covered her head so that she could not see, two (or was it three?) men pulled her up into the attic-like space of the schoolhouse, then assaulted her, all late in the afternoon on a typical June day. Thereafter, Emma wavered between life and death for an extended period. Meanwhile, three (and later more) local men were charged with the crime. But were they the responsible parties, or had a crime, in fact, even been committed?

We take for granted in many ways today the technology that makes it possible to identify criminals, the procedures we use to investigate crimes and crime scenes, and so on. As Susan Elmore rightly points out in Nameless Indignities, however, investigating and solving crimes in days gone by was a very different matter. In the case at hand, a part of a toenail was examined by eye, to determine if it might belong to one of the defendants. Today, a simple DNA test would be the first order of business. On the other hand, this history shows how our media plays a similar part in events as it did in those long ago days. Susan Elmore's new theory of the crime and careful and complete rendition of events is certainly an interesting and most readable glimpse into a sensational crime from the past.