Herman Melville witnessed in London the hangings of the Mannings, a married couple who murdered the wife's lover--for money. Melville's father-in-law was the titan of 19th-century Massachusetts jurisprudence, West Barnstable's Lemuel Shaw, who presided over two murder trials, within weeks of each other, the latter being the famous Murder at Harvard: a tale of murder, a grisly cover-up, and a sensational trial that established the reasonable-doubt standard that continues today.