The Ceely Rose Murders at Malabar Farm By Mark Sebastian Jordan

The people of mid-Ohio’s Pleasant Valley went on with their normal lives that cold and rainy spring of 1896, not knowing that young Ceely Rose was brooding. She’d been told to forget her obsession with handsome Guy Berry. She’d been told about the danger of Rough-on-Rats poison. She’d heard about murdering those who stand in the way of love. By the time she was done, her family would be dead and others threatened. Later, the place where these crimes took place became Malabar Farm, the estate of Pulitzer Prize–winning author and conservationist Louis Bromfield. Historian, playwright and storyteller Mark Sebastian Jordan examines the story of the Poisoner of Pleasant Valley, Ceely Rose, and how it has resonated throughout the years.

Mark Sebastian Jordan is an award-winning playwright, poet, music critic, historian and storyteller who lives near Loudonville in Appalachian Ohio. He has received awards from the Ohio Arts Council, the Ohio Poetry Association, the Associated Press, the Richland County Foundation, the Ohio Theatre Alliance, as well as the Jesse Stuart Memorial Award, the Gerald B. Rice Theater Award, the Florence B. Allen Literary Award and the Case Reserve Review Award, among others. He has been seen on such television programs as Ghost Hunters, Mysteries at the Museum, My Ghost Story and House of the Unknown. He writes a weekly local history column, “History Knox,” for KnoxPages.com and has performed extensively throughout Ohio as a storyteller, living history reenactor and poet.

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