It all began on the evening of Feb. 8th when Marion Lambert didn't return home.
The next morning her father Frank found the 18-year-old dead on the snow-covered ground at Helm's Woods, still holding her text books under her left arm with her gloveless hand clutched to her chest. Her mouth and lips were blackened from acid burns. An examination determined that she had died of cyanide consumption, according to news reports from the time.
Lambert was a senior at Deerfield Shields Township High School in Highland Park. She had met wealthy and handsome William Orpet when she was a freshman and he a senior.
Orpet had begun seeing a woman while at college and had tried to break off his relationship with Lambert by letter, but his efforts were unsuccessful.
"He thought they were breaking up and she didn't,"