McDONOUGH – The year is 1903, and as the wedding bells ring for Tracy Barrows’ daughter and her groom, so does gunfire on his farmstead in the “Village of McDonough.”

Tracy lay dead on his front lawn. His wife Hattie and her “lover” Frank Gale head to the doctor. Frank is wounded by a shot fired by Tracy.

In a time where horse back was the primary means of travel and medical care was minimal, Barrows lay dying of internal bleeding following an argument where Gale literally beat him to death.

After being charged with murder in the first degree, Gale was convicted of manslaughter in the second degree, tried in the Chenango County Courthouse, and sentenced to five years on a work crew in the State Prison at Auburn.

The story, although apparently cut and dry, takes twists and turns. Some believe the whole thing was a conspiracy.

What ever happened to Hattie and her two children? Why did neither parent attend their daughter’s wedding the same afternoon of the murder? Was the murder really in self defense or was it a plan masterminded by Gale and Hattie? And, how and why did Gale’s (the murderer) defense attorney’s gain the Barrows property just shortly after their client was sentenced to prison? Will what really happened that September day ever be known for certain?

These are only a few of the very questions two women, twin sisters named Bonnie Sherman and Betty Murray, are asking. After beginning to trace their family’s genealogy, Sherman and Murray realized their grandfather, Frank Gale, had committed murder.

“We have a lot of very nice people in our family, too,” said Sherman, jokingly. “We want to research this more and eventually write a book. We think it was a conspiracy between Hattie and our grandfather,” added Murray.

After beginning to review newspaper clippings from the murder, the two sisters came to conclusions all their own. “Barrows was said to have been a heavy drinker and his wife, we suppose, was not very faithful,” said Sherman.