Genius Unbound

Five members of an Illinois family were murdered with an axe in 1874. Their dog survived—and may have left investigators with one of the case’s strangest clues.

A dead man was found carrying two pages of coded notes. More than two decades later, even FBI cryptanalysts have been unable to explain what they mean.

Is playing a song correctly the same thing as playing it well? Kevin Kane explores what happens when musicians serve the song instead of the notes.