We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper

When Becky Cooper was a college student at Harvard University in 2009, one of her classmates forwarded her an email linking to an information blog about the 1969 murder of a Harvard student named Jane Britton. While researching the case, Becky uncovered a half-century of silence surrounding the cold case, and the story of a woman whose life was cut short decades before.

In We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence, Becky Cooper recounts her journey of tracking down the clues of the decades-old mystery and struggling to speak the unspeakable. After researching the case for nine years and uncovering hundreds of previously unaccounted pieces of evidence, Cooper tells the raw and riveting story of Jane Britton, a brilliant woman whose promising life was cut short.

The book begins with the fateful evening of January 7, 1969, when Jane Britton returned to her Harvard apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The 23-year-old was expected to graduate with honors in May, and celebrate with a few drinks at a faculty party in the upcoming weeks. But when the police found Jane dead in her apartment, she held in her hands the shattered remains of an ancient artifact, laden with unknown symbols.

The chaotic investigations that followed Jane's death were carried out in secrecy, and nobody seemed willing to talk about what happened to the young woman that night. When the case went cold and the details faded from public memory, two Harvard professors were identified as potential suspects, although neither were ever charged with her death.

The police files were archived - along with the archaeological artifact Jane had been studying—for decades. This is how the mystery stayed silent for 50 years.

But during her college semester, Becky Cooper launched her own investigation into the case, scouring the Harvard archives for clues, consulting such legal and historical experts as the head of the Boston Police Homicide Department, and speaking with Jane’s friends and classmates.

What follows are some of the questions posed by Cooper during her extensive probes that yielded new evidence, leading her closer to solving the mystery that has haunted generations of Harvardians: Was an eerie archaeological artifact the connection to Jane’s death? What kind of power struggle occurred within the Harvard community in the days and months following the tragedy? And most importantly, did the university have a role in covering up her death?

The evidence Cooper gathered points to a history corner-cutting, incompetence, and callousness. In We Keep the Dead Close, Cooper vividly portrays the injustice of a half-century of silence and offers an intimate account of her pursuit of justice for an unsung victim of the powerful.

Through her exhaustive and captivating research, Becky Cooper provides readers with an unprecedented look into the complexities of a cold case shrouded in mystery for fifty years. In this compelling work, she reveals the powerful intricacies of an unsolved murder, the impact of institutional responses, and the bravery of a woman determined to uncover the truth.