Image Credits: Jennifer green image via LinkedIn
In a quiet corner of Chester County, author and historian Jennifer Green spends her days bringing the past back to life, one story at a time. Green earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware, where she double majored in anthropology and history. After her time at Delaware, she decided she wanted to focus her career on American history, particularly in museums and historical sites, and went on to earn her master’s degree at West Chester University.
As a historian, Jennifer never imagined herself writing about true crime. During her master’s program, she focused on industrial history, specifically flour milling. Later, while working at a historical site, now called Colonial Pennsylvania Farmstead, she was asked to help create something special for Halloween, like ghost stories. Green said, “I’m not really comfortable doing ghost tours. I really rather do something rooted in history.” This was when she got the idea to create tours based on historical local crimes.
Green describes herself, “getting really invested in not just the crime, but the victims and the victims’ families and how the community reacted and realizing there’s so much nuance, there’s so much history within it that was really interesting for me to explore.”
Her latest works are her two books “Dark History of Penn’s Woods: Murder, Madness and Misadventure in Southeastern Pennsylvania” and “Dark History of Penn’s Woods: Unusual Deaths, Crimes and Hauntings in Southeastern Pennsylvania.” Both were published by Brookline Books, based in Havertown, Pennsylvania. She gives a lot of credit to her publishers, saying, “They supported me the whole time, so I really appreciate the fact that I get to partner with a publisher that is also deeply enmeshed in this area’s history and supports telling the stories that should be told, that need to be told.”
Some of the biggest challenges Green faced included finding information about old trials and locating transcripts and newspaper articles. When asked which authors and historians inspire her, she mentioned Kate Winkler Dawson, a writer, journalist and podcaster. Dawson hosts the podcast, “Buried Bones” with Paul Holes, where Green says, “they tackle these old cases, these cold cases, but from a very personal, not sensationalist attitude. And that’s, you know, that’s another fine line I try and walk, to make it matter in a historical sense and not just to talk about it for the sake of talking about it, not to sensationalize.” She also credits Kathryn Canavan, another local true crime author, for inspiring her work.
One case that stayed with her concerns a Hungarian family. Green says, “During the course of investigating it, I felt like I became part of that community.” Her ability to focus not only on the crime but on the people and the community involved sets her apart from other true crime writers. When investigating these tragedies, she handles the emotional weight of these events by focusing on the humanity behind them. Green stated, “I think focusing on that is the only way you can do this without kind of internalizing all of that tragedy. I try to put myself in a position of trying to do right by these people and tell their story in a way they would be proud of.”
On Oct. 21, Green will host an event called “True Crime on Trial” (2025). This program will explore a 1902 case in which one spouse was accused of murdering the other. The case was tried in the Chester County Courthouse in West Chester. She chose this case because it was one she had researched but could never decide her own verdict on, so she wanted to hear what others thought. She says, “It scratches the detective brain in everybody, and it speaks to everyone at a personal level. Everyone will come to know the people involved in this case and feel a personal connection to them. And that’s why this case is perfect for this.” She also notes that the event involves murder and domestic abuse.
This event was inspired by her earlier walking tours, where she had to condense cases to around ten minutes. Wanting to explore some cases more deeply, she developed the “True Crime on Trial” series. For these events, she partnered with a company called Mentimeter. She says, “Through Mentimeter, it’s interactive. You can scan a QR code or go to a website, sign in and then as we go through the trial, I present the prosecution. We take an intermission, one of my colleagues will present the defense, and the whole time we are asking the audience questions. Do you think this witness is reliable? Do you believe the explanation for this evidence? And then at the end, after all of these questions, they get to render their verdict.”
“During these walking tours,” Green says, “I would ask the audience, you know, what do you think? And the audience would start kind of arguing with each other and going, oh, but what about this piece of evidence? And, oh, I don’t think this is what happened. And I started to think, maybe there’s something here.” During the interactive experience, after the case is presented, audience members will have a chance to share their thoughts on what they believe happened.
When asked what she hopes people take away from the event, Green says, “I hope that they make a personal connection with a historical event. I mean, that’s what the Chester County History Center is here for. It’s here to be the liaison between history and the common day. So I hope they develop a relationship, if only for three hours of their lives, with the people we’re talking about.” She hopes her “True Crime on Trial” event becomes a program that any historical society can recreate and would love for others to host similar events.
Looking ahead, Green says, “Well, there’s always more books.” She goes on to say, “I’m probably going to take a little bit of a right-hand turn and go away from true crime. I really want to focus more on, weirdly enough, shipwrecks.” For her next project, she wants to focus on historical maritime disasters in the Delaware Bay and Delaware River, which she believes will be a fascinating subject.
Before closing, she offers some advice. “You can write a book about, you know, a local family or a local incident or a local weather event, and that’s important too. Don’t think that any story is too insignificant. Tell the story, tell all the story. They deserve to be remembered.”
Jaleih Cruz is a second-year criminal justice major. JC1046934@wcupa.edu