title: Murder and Mayhem in Mendon and Honeoye Falls:: Murderville in Victorian New York (Murder & Mayhem)
author: Diane Ham
description: Diane Ham has been Mendon Town Historian for 35 years and has written several books and booklets on Mendon subjects. She became a registered historian of New York State in 2005 and is also president of the Monroe County Municipal Historians and a member of the Association of Public Historians of New York State. Lynne Menz is a retired middle school social studies teacher. She is currently the Honeoye Falls Village Historian and secretary of the local historical society.
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  PROLOGUE
  
  
  
  
  
  A murder was taking place.
  
  
  
  
  
  Outside the privacy-screened windows, and some forty-six floors below death,
  life -- noisy, oblivious, irritable -- rushed on.
  
  
  
  
  
  New York was at its best on fine May evenings when flowers burst out of
  beautification troughs along the avenues and spilled from vendors' carts. The
  scent of them very nearly overpowered the stink of exhaust as street and air
  traffic clogged both road and skyways.
  
  
  
  
  
  Pedestrians scurried, strolled, or hopped on people glides, depending on their
  frame of mind. But many did so in shirtsleeves or the neon-colored T-shirts
  that were the season's rage in this pretty slice of spring 2059.
  
  
  
  
  
  Glide-carts sold fizzy drinks in those same violent hues, and the steam from
  grilling soy dogs rose merrily into the balmy evening air.
  
  
  
  
  
  Taking advantage of the waning light, the young danced and leaped over the
  public sports' courts, workin