About

Richard H. Underwood, a University Research Professor at the University of Kentucky and Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law and award-winning writer, is the author of Springtime for Sophie: Murder and Madness in a Connecticut Mill Town, Gaslight Lawyers: Criminal Trials & Exploits in Gilded Age New York, and CrimeSong: True Crime Stories from Southern Murder Ballads. He is also the co-author of several books on evidence, trial technique and legal ethics. Underwood has published numerous articles on the law, legal history, perjury, famous trials, and true crime. He has lectured or presented papers on diverse subjects at conferences across the United States and in London and Amsterdam.

Featured Work

Springtime for Sophie: Murder and Madness in a Connecticut Mill Town

2025
alt+"Cover of/"Springtime for Sophie"| by Richard H. Underwood, an illustration of a woman sitting in a chair wearing a blue dress and hat with a larger feather plum with her hand against her chin and cheek, the lower third of the cover in washed in red

A retelling of a grisly true-life crime story in a decaying New England mill town.

With meticulous archival work and rare narrative gifts, in Springtime for Sophie: Murder and Madness in a Connecticut Mill Town, Richard Underwood unearths this 1909 lost tale of death, duplicity, and personal ruin.

“The year was 1909, the setting a decaying New England mill town. A saloonkeeper was left for dead, shot a dozen times, his throat slashed for good measure, yet still babbling that a winsome music teacher and her young beau, the victim’s rival in love, had done the deed. The two murder trials that followed drew curious hordes and the attention of a nation. With meticulous archival work and rare narrative gifts, Professor Richard Underwood unearths this lost tale of death, duplicity, and personal ruin. In retelling a grisly true-life crime story, Underwood delivers a rich ethnography of Naugatuck, Connecticut, and a law school seminar on evidence, criminal procedure, trial strategy, and lawyers’ ethics. It is a lesson too in the gnawing uncertainty of true-life crime stories, where some witnesses lie and others honestly forget, and crafty lawyers win fame by torturing the truth into submission to their designs.”

– GEORGE FISHER, Stanford Law School

Other Works

  • Gaslight Lawyers: Criminal Trials & Exploits in Gilded Age New York

    2017

  • CrimeSong: True Crime Stories From Southern Murder Ballads

    2016

Awards and Recognition

  • 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award Silver Medal (True Crime) for Gaslight Lawyers: Criminal Trials & Exploits in Gilded Age New York
  • 2017 Foreword Reviews INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist (True Crime) for Gaslight Lawyers: Criminal Trials & Exploits in Gilded Age New York
  • For CrimeSong: Tue Crime Stories From Southern Muder Ballads 2017 IPPY Winner (Silver, Southeast Best Regional Nonfiction) and 2016 Foreword INDOES Winner (Bronze True Crime)
  • Richard H Underwood selected by the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning, Lexington, Kentucky, as a Kentucky Great Writer, for CrimeSong: True Crime Stories from Southern Murder Ballads, October 3, 2017
  • Richard H. Underwood has received special awards from the Kentucky Supreme Court for his work on the Kentucky Rules of Professional Conduct (1989) and for his service as the chairman of the Kentucky Bar Association Ethics and Unauthorized Practice Committees (1998).
  • Richard H. Underwood received a number of decorations for his service in the United States army, including the Bronze Star, the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Bronze Star.