Levi Weeks

Levi Weeks (1776–1819) was the accused in the infamous Manhattan Well Murder trial of 1800, the first murder trial in the United States for which there is a recorded transcript. At the time of the murder, Weeks was a young carpenter in New York City. He was the brother of Ezra Weeks, one of New York's more successful builders of the time.

Early life

Levi Weeks was born in 1776 in Greenwich, Massachusetts. He moved to New York City in 1798 to work for his older brother Ezra.

Murder trial

Weeks was accused of murdering Gulielma "Elma" Sands, a young woman whom he had been courting. Elma disappeared on the evening of December 22, 1799. Some of her possessions were found two days later near the recently created Manhattan Well in Lispenard Meadows, located in today's SoHo near the intersection of Greene and Spring Streets. Her body was recovered from the well on January 2, 1800. Before leaving her boarding house on the 22nd, Elma told her cousin Catherine Sands that she and Levi were to be secretly married that night.