The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death

05/10/2026

If you enjoyed "Murder in a Nutshell," you can learn more about Frances Glessner Lee and her work revolutionizing forensic medicine in the U.S. reading 18 Tiny Deaths.

05/10/2026

Do you know the woman with New Hampshire ties who helped invent modern forensics… using dollhouses?

Frances Glessner Lee—often called the “Patron Saint of Forensics”—created eerily detailed miniature crime scenes that trained investigators to solve real cases. At a time when women were largely shut out of science and policing, she helped bring scientific methods into criminal investigations.

Murder in a Nutshell: The Frances Glessner Lee Story explores her strange and fascinating legacy—and the real woman behind the miniature crime scenes.

📺 Airs Thursday, May 7 at 9 PM on NHPBS or STREAM NOW on the PBS App.

For fans of true crime, unsolved mysteries, and strange pieces of history you can’t stop thinking about.

05/10/2026

Watch the new documentary film Murder in a Nutshell: The Frances Glessner Lee Story by the same documentary filmmakers who made Of Dolls and Murder. Let's keep FGL's story alive and keep celebrating her contributions to a better, more interesting world.

The enigmatic and ever mysterious, Frances Glessner Lee, is affectionately revered as the Patron Saint of Forensics. But outside the criminal justice system,...

04/24/2026

It’s happening!!

03/29/2026

New documentary film on Frances Glessner Lee coming soon!

11/03/2025

Something new for fans of the Nutshell Studies.

The Untold Story of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death’s First and Only Public Exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery

10/23/2025

Get it!!

Send a message to learn more

07/14/2025

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You don't want to miss this!

Join us on Wednesday, July 16th at 10am for a presentation from Bill Tyre, Executive Director of the Glessner House in Chicago.

This presentation will explore the lives of John and Frances Glessner, with a focus on their two homes. It will also look at the life of their son George, who served several terms in the New Hampshire state legislature, and their daughter, Frances Glessner Lee, the mother of forensic science, who created her famous Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death at The Rocks in the 1940s and 1950s.

07/11/2025

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Frances Glessner Lee was a wealthy heiress who could have spent her life in drawing rooms and charity committees, but she chose instead to devote herself to a field that few women touched: forensic science. In her 50s, she turned her keen mind and inheritance toward revolutionizing crime scene investigation, determined to bring precision and logic into a field riddled with carelessness and bias.

She created a series of intricate miniature dioramas, known as the “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.” Each one was a meticulously crafted dollhouse-sized crime scene, complete with tiny working drawers, blood spatters made of red paint, miniature clocks stopped at exact times, and lifelike figures in positions of death. The details were stunning and unforgiving: a broom propped against a wall, a crease in a bedspread, a window cracked open just slightly. These weren’t just models—they were teaching tools designed to train detectives to look closely, to see past assumptions, and to learn that a scene tells a story if you know how to listen.

At a time when women were rarely respected in scientific spaces, Lee became a captain in the New Hampshire State Police and was known for her insistence on accuracy and the value of careful observation. Her work helped push law enforcement toward a more scientific approach, emphasizing the importance of preserving a crime scene and paying attention to the smallest details. These dioramas, which took months to build, were used for decades to train detectives in recognizing clues and avoiding tunnel vision during investigations.

Frances Glessner Lee’s work reminds us that the pursuit of truth requires patience, skill, and the ability to notice what others overlook.

05/23/2025

https://thebaffler.com/fiction/scores-and-transgressions-daitch

It will make things worse. This I know for a fact.

05/20/2025

The pandemic helped supercharge a niche craft into a fine arts movement. Now the scene is more detailed and thoughtful than ever before.