Renee Mallett - The Peyton Place Murder: The True Crime Story Behind The Novel That Shocked The Nation

THE PEYTON PLACE MURDER published by:

WILDBLUE PRESS

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Denver, Colorado 80250

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Copyright 2021 by Renee Mallett

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ISBN 978-1-952225-62-8 Trade Paperback

ISBN 978-1-952225-61-1 eBook

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Dedication

This book is for Robin, who gave me a place of respite when I didnt know I needed it the most, and because she always makes me laugh.

Introduction

Its an odd book to come from the typewriter of a plump, 32-year-old mother of three children. But Mrs. Metalious is no ordinary housewife.

Hal Boyle, August 29, 1956

The first time I ever visited the grave of Peyton Place author Grace Metalious it was to take pictures for my book Wicked New Hampshire (2020, The History Press). The book was a look at all of the more scandalous bits of the Granite States history the odd, the quirky, and the little bit criminal. Tucked into a chapter all its own, between centuries-old murders and the like, was a brief recount of the wild life and times of Peyton Place author Grace Metalious. Her uniquely New Hampshire upbringing, and certainly her eyebrow-raising bestselling book, seemed like a perfect addition to my own book.

It had been repeated often in news articles and websites that before she died Grace Metalious had used some of that Peyton Place payout to buy her own plot in the Smith Meeting House Cemetery in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. To be more precise, the stories said that Grace had bought herself a plot and that she had then bought all of the plots around it so she wouldnt end up, in death, crowded by the neighbors who detested her in life. Another popular tale told about her gravesite was that readers left coins on her simple headstone as a mark of respect for the author.

I didnt expect either of these things to be true.

Wicked New Hampshire was far from my first book. I have spent a good chunk of my adult life chronicling the local legends, lore, and ghost stories of the New England states. Its an offbeat but agreeable kind of work, but it leaves a girl more than just a little jaded. I had also heard that, after she got rich writing, Grace would scandalize the town by roaming around wearing a fur coat with nothing on underneath. Just as the let them eat cake! anecdote had been used against several women in the French nobility before becoming interminably attached to Marie Antoinette, the scandalous naked woman in a fancy coat story has been told about several different New Hampshire women. It was just oddly specific enough that you knew it couldnt be true about all of them; the state just wasnt big enough or populated enough to justify these mobs of hypersexualized nouveau riche. In my time collecting local New England myths, I couldnt even count how many stories Id heard about a cemetery that always this , or a graveyard that always that . I can much more easily count how many times Ive come across the thiss and the thats. Because it had happened exactly zero times. Add in the apocryphal stories that were known to always have swirled around (and sometimes been promoted by) Grace, then add in the age of the book that made her famous... and, well, it was sure to be a lovely bit of fiction to share in a book of folklore, but it was not anything I really had any faith in. It was exactly the sort of story I came across often when I was researching my books, and those stories always ended up being cut from the whole cloth.

It was an especially fine day the afternoon I drove out to the cemetery in Gilmanton. Late summer, bright sun, but with none of the humidity or heat that New Hampshires summers are increasingly becoming known for. I drove down a series of roads, each one more backroad than the one before it, surrounded by lush green forests with no houses or signs of life to mar my solitude. New Hampshire is a gorgeous place to live and, if youre not the anxious type that worries about breaking down or running out of gas, it is a beautiful place to wander. As the paved streets turned to dirt and back to asphalt again, I figured my GPS could be letting me down. But it didnt seem to matter all that much. I had the top down on my little red MINI Cooper convertible, hair tied casually back in the same sort of ponytail Grace Metalious had always been known for, and was driving just slow enough to really admire the increasingly rural landscape I was traveling through. It was the perfect day to get a little bit lost and sing along with the radio, with my camera and notebooks thrown haphazardly on the passenger seat next to me.

I was surprised when the woods suddenly parted and I saw a large black gate framing the entrance to Smith Meeting House Cemetery. It was bigger than I had been led to suspect and more modern. I had heard that the oldest headstones dated back to the Revolutionary War and had been expecting more of a collection of jumbled together, broken stones rather than an actual cemetery with carefully trimmed grass and drivable roadways. I doubted even more that I would find Graces grave. I didnt know the exact location, just a vague direction, and the cemetery spun off far into the distance, dotted with tombstones and trees. I was astonished to not only find the grave very easily but to see that it was set, at least somewhat, further away from its neighbors on all sides. Grace was surprising me right from the start.

I left the car door open behind me as I trekked over to the gravesite, as I always have a paranoid vision of somehow locking my keys in the car in the middle of a cemetery in the middle of nowhere. Its a strange consequence of spending so many years writing ghost stories, I think. The radio played lightly from the car behind me, but low enough that I could still hear birds whistling from the trees. The tombstone was a simple solid block of white, darkened here and there with time, with Metalious in large letters above the authors first name and the dates of her birth and death. Camera clutched in one hand I suddenly broke out in laughter. Grace was officially two for two. The grave was set apart from the rest of the cemetery residents and the top of the stone was indeed speckled with the very coins I doubted I would see.

There werent many. Just four or five of them, all different denominations, but one was even a British pound. I clicked off a few pictures of them from a couple of different angles, making sure I got the Metalious name in the shot with the coins, before walking back to my car. One picture down for Wicked New Hampshire , thirty-five or so left to go. I wondered if my luck would hold, if Id be able to find the cottage Aleister Crowley had stayed at one strange summer near Lake Winnipesaukee or if the light wouldnt last and Id have to make a second trip the next weekend. As I passed by the final resting place of Grace Metalious I reached out with one hand, almost superstitiously, and lightly tapped the top of the stone. One, two, three. Then I dutifully trudged back to my car, felt around under the seats, and found one lone dime hiding along with what seemed like a bucketful of ocean sand and nearly as many desiccated French fries. I reminded myself to vacuum out the car when I got home (spoiler alert: I did not) and walked back to the grave. I carefully placed my dime amid the other offerings, swirling the coins around lightly with one finger, and went on my merry way.