America’s First "Murder by Mail"

In August 1898, a package wrapped in plain brown paper landed on a front porch in Dover, Delaware. Inside was a box of premium chocolates and a note signed simply, "Mrs. C." Within hours, a quiet afternoon turned into a living nightmare. This is the shocking true story of Cordelia Botkin, John Preston Dunning, and the coldest case of jealousy in American history. It became a massive media circus, exposed a wild prison scandal in San Francisco, and officially went down as the first known case of murder by mail in U.S. history.