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Alfred Lester Belding may have intended to try to claim the protection of the “Unwritten Law” when he made his plans for revenge. But, reviewing the historical record, it seems more likely he didn’t give a single thought to anything beyond the four murders he had planned. It would have been a long shot anyway. The “Unwritten Law” was a social convention that “allowed” a man to murder another man if he sincerely believed the victim had been intimate with his wife, or had adulterously “ruined” a close female relative. It didn’t have much to say about murdering mothers-in-law, fathers-in-law, and/or the wife herself. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1902) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1804e.UL-alfred-belding-murderer-493.html)