Join The Rocks for a special advanced screening of Murder in a Nutshell: The Frances Glessner Lee Story!
This new documentary by filmmaker Susan Marks delves into the life of Frances Glessner Lee, known as "the mother of forensic science." Frances Glessner Lee was the daughter of John Jacob Glessner, who established The Rocks as his family's summer estate and working farm.
Frances Glessner Lee spent her childhood summers at The Rocks, where she lived full-time later in her adult life. After her parents and older brother died, Frances used her wealth and new autonomy to endow Harvard with a Department of Legal Medicine. It was at The Rocks in the 1940s that she began to create a set of miniature models depicting highly accurate crime scenes, which she used as police training tools. Frances named her project the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, after an old police saying to "convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell."
Join us to celebrate Susan Marks' new film and the ongoing legacy of Frances Glessner Lee's contributions to the field of forensic medicine.
About Susan Marks
Susan Marks is an author, documentary filmmaker and screenwriter. She and her filmmaking team produced the film, Of Dolls & Murder, about Frances Glessner Lee and the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death starring the legendary John Waters as narrator. The filmmakers created a followed-up documentary, Murder in the Nutshell: The Frances Glessner Lee Story. A rough cut of the film screened at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2018 as part of the Murder is her Hobby exhibit. To learn more about Susan’s projects, visit www.themarksmystique.com
