Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat&nbsp;El Capitan&nbsp;was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows and strode across the crowded deck. Reaching under her veil, she drew a small pistol and aimed it directly at a well-dressed man sitting quietly with his wife and children. The woman fired a single bullet into his chest. &ldquo;I did it and I don&rsquo;t deny it,&rdquo; she said when arrested shortly thereafter. &ldquo;He ruined both myself and my daughter.&rdquo;Though little remembered today, the trial of Laura D. Fair for the murder of her lover, A. P. Crittenden, made headlines nationwide. The operatic facts of the case&mdash;a woman strung along for years by a two-timing man, killing him in an alleged fit of madness&mdash;challenged an American populace still searching for moral consensus after the Civil War. The trial shone an early and uncomfortable spotlight on social issues while jolting the still-adolescent metropolis of 1870s San Francisco, a city eager to shed its rough-and-tumble Gold Rush-era reputation.Today&rsquo;s guest is Gary Krist, author of &ldquo;Trespassers at the Golden Gate: A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco.&rdquo; The story is an exploration of a nation still scarred by war and for a city eager for the world stage.See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

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