The Case of the Autographed Corpse

The true-crime saga of the intertwined lives of a Native spiritual leader and a prominent literary figure—and their shared work in their pursuit to right a tragic wrongful conviction.

Silas John Edwards—a charismatic Apache medicine man—was known as a controversial figure on Apache reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, where white authorities determined to maintain control over reservation life. When his wife, Margaret, was brutally murdered in 1933, Silas John was tried and convicted—receiving a sentence of life in prison. The key piece of evidence against Silas John was a rock found near Margaret's body, scratched with his initials, “S. J. E.".

Were the scratched initials an attempt to frame a man whose independent path was deemed troublesome? Eighteen years into Silas John’s sentence, the celebrated writer of the Perry Mason mysteries, Erle Stanley Gardner, received a desperate letter from the incarcerated medicine man. Gardner and Silas John met in prison and joined forces to reinvestigate the case. Under the auspices of Gardner’s Court of Last Resort, an organization like today’s Innocence Project that investigated cases of wrongful conviction, Gardner traveled through Arizona’s varied reservation landscapes to hunt for clues.

Together Silas John and Gardner attempted to unravel the flimsy evidence—including dubious footprint casts and questionable claims of Apache custom—to shatter the "cement silence" of prison and fight for the freedom of a historically important spiritual leader. The Case of the Autographed Corpse details a dramatic and little-known episode in American history and two men’s unwavering commitment to the truth.