Book Review: Secrets of the Congdon Mansion, by Joe Kimball (Updated 2017 edition)

The Glensheen mansion in Duluth, journalist and author Joe Kimball, and his book Secrets of the Congdon Mansion, first published in 1985, and updated most recently in 2017.

For decades, the 1977 murders of heiress Elisabeth Congdon and her nurse Velma Pietila have fascinated Minnesotans. Why? Well, the murders occurred in Elisabeth’s house, the beautiful mansion her father Chester Congdon built on the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth. The mansion, known as Glensheen, has been open for tours since 1979. To see the crime scene, all you have to do is buy a ticket for a tour. But for decades, the tour guides never discussed the murders. As a nosy kid, I tried to trick them into revealing some information. Standing in the bedroom where Elisabeth was murdered, I innocently asked “Whose bedroom was this?” Because at Glensheen it is forever 1908, the year the family moved into the mansion, the Glensheen floorplan, and the tour guides, refer to that room as “Helen’s Room.” Apparently now the guides will answer questions about the murders at the end of the tour.  

In addition to the murders being committed in the most picturesque mansion this side of the board game Clue, another source of fascination is that the person found guilty of the murders was Roger Caldwell, Elisabeth Congdon’s son-in-law. Roger was married to Marjorie, Elisabeth’s adopted daughter who was always short of money. If you want to know more about the murders, and all of the subsequent craziness, you should start by reading Joe Kimball’s book Secrets of the Congdon Mansion. First published in 1985, and most recently updated in 2017, the book details the murders and the legal aftermath. In 1977, Kimball was a rookie reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune (now the Minneapolis Star & Tribune) who was going to cover a strawberry festival but heard a news bulletin about a homicide in Duluth and thus became one of the first reporters at the crime scene. Kimball has detailed all of the many twists and turns of the case since then.  

If Kimball continues to update Secrets of the Congdon Mansion, he’ll have to add a section about the fantastic musical Glensheen, written by Jeffrey Hatcher and Chan Poling, that premiered at the History Theatre in Saint Paul in 2015. I reviewed Glensheen here in 2018, and while the summer 2023 production just closed, there is a cast recording available. Glensheen is both funny and touching, and it continues to breathe new life into this most bizarre tale, which goes a long way to proving the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction.  

Kimball’s book is only 104 pages long, but it does an excellent job of summarizing the events, and Marjorie’s subsequent legal problems. Kimball also quotes extensively from Roger Caldwell’s 1983 confession. Long story short, after serving 5 years in prison, Caldwell was going to get a new trial. Rather than go through all that trouble, in a case they might not win, the state offered Caldwell a deal: confess to the murders and we’ll let you off with time served. As Roger asks in the play Glensheen, “What does the state get out of it?” An exasperated prosecutor replies “We get OUT of it!” Caldwell’s confession raised more questions than it answered, and it shows a man living in a deep state of denial. Caldwell was asked: “What did you do then after beating the nurse to death?” Roger’s response was: “Well, I didn’t beat her to death. I beat her and she died.” (p.92) Those lines are repeated verbatim in Glensheen and provide a moment that is both funny and deeply tragic at the same time.  

Kimball also shares the tales of how he got these stories, offering an interesting glimpse at old-school journalism. If you’re fascinated by the Glensheen murders, you need to read Secrets of the Congdon Mansion.