Wenham, Massachusetts

Episode 743 / 15 October 2026 / 184 min / full

Fine Line Of Lunacy

"James says 'this is Wenham', spelt W-E-N-H-A-M, in eastern Massachusetts by the coast north of Boston, in Essex County" about 0:06:32

The case: Murder of Karen Sharp (July 14, 2000). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2026

Population

5,006

Median age

34

Median household income

$154,375

Median home value

$868,300

Two-bedroom rent

$2,180

Cost of living

131

Religious

57%

Property crime

▼ about 80% under the national average, about 20% of the usual

Violent crime

▼ about one-third of the average

History, in brief

• The town was settled in 1635. about 0:07:44
• Wenham was officially incorporated in 1643. about 0:07:59
• Before settlement the area was home to the Agawam people, of the eastern Algonquian tribe, whose numbers were greatly reduced, probably by smallpox, before the town was settled around 1617. about 0:08:19
• Wenham was originally part of Salem. about 0:08:40
• Salem's minister Hugh Peters preached to a group on a hill by the great pond around 1638 to encourage settlement in the area. about 0:09:01
• In 1774, before the Revolutionary War, the town voted to select 15 men as minutemen, and loyalists to the crown were not welcome in Wenham from then on. about 0:09:32
• In 1909 the steel magnate Henry Clay Frick bought the Iron Rail property so that his daughter Helen could create a vacation home for mill girls. about 0:09:55
• Helen Frick transferred the Iron Rail vacation home to the Girls Clubs of America in 1954, and the town bought the house in the 1970s; it is now like a museum. about 0:10:17

The reviews read out

Open the episode file