Connie's Secret

On February 4, 1939, Connie Sommerlad was brutally butchered and her brother

left for dead in their family farmhouse in rural Tenterfield. It was a murder

that would rock the tight-knit community; a murder made all the more shocking

by the fact that their assailant was a local man working for the Sommerlads.

Jack Kelly, who was to become the last person to be hanged in New South Wales,

struggled to explain his awful crime even as he faced the gallows. Yet this

was far from the only mystery to be exposed by Connie's tragic end. What

really happened to Connie in those lost years between her move to Sydney as a

young woman and her fateful return to her home town? And what was the secret

so shameful that, even as Kelly stood trial for her murder, the Sommerlads

conspired to keep it from the public record? Vividly evoking small-town

Australia in the months leading up to the outbreak of World War II, _Connie's

Secret_ brings to life the story of a highly respectable family desperately

trying to protect their talented but wayward daughter's reputation at a time

when religion, virtue, and maintaining appearances held sway over every

thought and deed. This fascinating insight into another era is written with

the emotional force of a novel, but these events did happen—and their

devastating impact continues to be felt by those left behind even today.