Epilogue
New York Times
Twin Sisters Break Silence as Pierce Case Closes with Fatal Confrontation
A twisted tale ripped from the headlines. The true story behind the recent bestseller Killer Twist by Savannah Brooks.
The saying “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” was never truer than in the case of Isabel Pierce, the woman convicted on four counts of murder going back years.
The families of Ms. Pierce and Bennett Cromwell (better known to readers as author Bennett Bryson) had been friends for generations.
Both are prominent families from Williamsburg, Virginia, who grew up side by side.
Ms. Pierce killed Mr. Cromwell’s girlfriend, Louisa Matthison, a case that remained unsolved for over two decades.
Later, Mr. Cromwell’s sister fell victim to Ms. Pierce when she discovered the school ring that was supposedly stolen from Ms. Matthison in Ms. Pierce’s apartment.
Years passed before the lovelorn Ms. Pierce continued her killing spree, stalking Mr. Cromwell and making him believe the women in his life had abandoned him.
In fact, Ms. Pierce was kidnapping and murdering them, disposing of their bodies on her father’s farm in Pennsylvania.
The gruesome discovery of corpses in the well cemented the case.
Poppy Morningside, thought to have died in an accidental drowning in Long Island Sound, is alive and well and has quite a tale to tell.
She and the late Bennett Cromwell left in their 55-foot Viking motor yacht from Greenwich Harbor on their way to Sag Harbor.
Halfway there, Ms. Morningside reportedly fell from the boat and was believed to have drowned.
In reality, Ms. Morningside now reports, Mr. Cromwell and she fought.
He pushed her overboard and she hit her head on the way down.
Ms. Morningside, who had never learned to swim, routinely wore a personal flotation device.
That’s what saved her as she was knocked unconscious but found floating by a local fisherman, who rescued her and took her to a nearby hospital.
Afraid for her life and the life of her unborn child, she spent the next few years in hiding, only resurfacing when she learned of her husband’s death.
In a final twist, her estranged twin sister, Savannah Brooks, married the believed-to-be-widowed Cromwell and was tricked by Ms. Pierce into believing he was the murderer of the women he had dated.
Ms. Pierce kidnapped Ms. Brooks and planned to kill her next.
Mr. Cromwell saved her but was killed in the struggle when Ms. Pierce’s gun discharged as he fought to disarm her.
The sisters, once estranged, have now reconciled. They are reportedly working together to adapt Ms. Brooks’s bestselling novel, Killer Twist, optioned by a major film production company, into a screenplay, this time telling their story together.