This is the fifth in a series.

One of the cases that catapulted Burlington County detective Ellis Parker to national fame as the Sherlock Holmes of the Pines was the murder of circus owner John Brunen, as he sat reading his newspaper in his Riverside, N.J. home. Parker’s bloodhound approach led to the capture of the shooter, Charles Powell, who confessed to a conspiracy that included Brunen’s wife and her brother Harry Mohr.

The fame of the victim plus the conspiracy angle attracted the attention of the nation’s newspapers, and the trial in…