Chilean heiress Blanca Errázuriz gunned down her ex-husband John de Saulles in front of several witnesses on August 3, 1917. As the former football star lay bleeding on the porch of his Long Island home, she handed her empty gun to the sheriff. "I hope he dies," she calmly confessed.

The murder shocked the nation, bumping World War I from the newspaper headlines. Her trial whipped up a frenzy of public sympathy for a young mother driven to desperation by a cheating husband. When a jury of middle-aged men declared her not guilty, she strolled out of court a free woman and regained full custody of her young son.

The author's years of research into English- and Spanish-language sources uncovered rare documents and unpublished photographs. Lady in White is the first detailed analysis of the events leading up the shooting, with fresh insights and a startling theory about the involvement of silent film star Rudolph Valentino.