SAND LAKE – Fans of the show “Twin Peaks” know the 1990 drama opens with the death of Laura Palmer. Her body was found by a lake in a small town. What many people may not know is the inspiration behind the television show came from right here in the Capital Region. Specifically, it was the small Rensselaer County town of Sand Lake. While Laura Palmer’s killer was eventually discovered more than 100 years later, Hazel Drew’s case remains unsolved.

The mystery dates to 1908. Drew was found face down in Teal’s Pond on July 7, her skull crushed. She was just 20 years old.

Drew grew up in East Poestenkill and went on to work for some high-powered men in the city of Troy. Some believe she was involved with some of these men. Many agreed Drew was living a double life. She was well-traveled and dressed well beyond her means as a domestic worker. Her murder drew crowds to the small community, many renting carriages to travel to the pond to see where her body was found. It didn’t take investigators long to zero in on their first suspects, and they didn’t have to look far. William Taylor was Drew’s uncle, and he lived on the nearby Mosher Road.

“Hazel was thought to have been in trouble, and so she spent part of the winter with her aunt and uncle,” Sand Lake Historian Bob Moore said. “So William Taylor was a suspect, a major suspect.”

There was a large patch of woods between the pond and Taylor’s house. “He could have avoided the roadway in bringing the body to the pond, but then they dismissed him as a suspect,” Moore said.

Several suspects were investigated and dismissed. A motive for the crime was never discovered. Investigators at the time were accused of ignoring leads, and even burying evidence to protect several high-powered suspects. The unsolved crime inspired rumors, speculation and nearly 100 years later, a television show.

The unsolved murder has inspired several books and films as the search for her killer continues to this day. Most notably, it inspired author Mark Frost to create the popular television show “Twin Peaks”, based upon his childhood summers in Sand Lake. His grandmother would tell him stories about Hazel Drew’s ghost legendarily haunting the woods.

“It wound up that Mark Frost, who worked with David Lynch, heard stories from his grandmother up on Taborton about the ghost of a young woman that haunted the hills and, you know, to get him home on time,” said Moore. “So there was the connection.”

A book published in 2022, “Murder at Teal’s Pond: Hazel Drew and the Mystery that Inspired Twin Peaks,” claims to reveal who exactly killed the young woman.

Historians and amateur investigators have kept the case alive by researching the events and talking about who might have been the killer.

Moore said they’ve come pretty close.

“We’ve done a lot of work. We had roundtable discussions, David Bushman and Mark Evans, the authors of “Murder of Teals Pond” came up to visit us a number of times. We had community people come talk about what they knew, and what they had heard from relatives, or what they knew about the murder.”

NewsChannel 13 did our own investigation. We reached out to the Rensselaer County District Attorney’s Office about the status of this now cold case. District Attorney Mary Pat Donnelly told us her office would be open to reopening the investigation if any concrete evidence turns up.

NewsChannel 13 also reached out to the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Kyle Bourgault believes any evidence that might have been in the custody of the sheriff’s office after the initial investigation has been destroyed over the last 116 years.

However, the community in Sand Lake is keeping Drew’s memory alive. Perhaps, she never even left. This month, a “Legends and Lore” marker was placed on Taborton Road, a short distance from where Drew was killed. It reads:

“GHOST OF A YOUNG WOMAN SAID TO WALK THE WOODS ALONG THE ROAD TO NEARBY POND, WHERE HER BODY WAS FOUND AFTER MYSTERIOUS DEATH JULY 1908”.

Along with Mark Frost’s grandmother, Moore said he has been hearing ghost stories about Drew since he became the town historian back in 2013.

“I got a call from an Albany cop who said that he saw a – something. He called it an apparition at a party not far, maybe, 100 yards in that direction,” Moore told us, while standing by Hazel’s final resting place. “He asked his wife, who was that lovely woman with the long white dress, and she thought he was crazy,” said Moore. “He asked somebody else, and that’s where he said, ‘I must have. I must have seen an apparition.’”

That wasn’t the only story.

“There was a woman who was driving a car through Averill Park near the Jiffy Mart and the top of the hill…of Orient Avenue, and she thought she hit a person. It was early evening, and she pulled over and she went back to look, and there was no one there and nothing was there. And right away I connected it with Hazel coming in on a trolley…walking up Orient Avenue.”

NewsChannel 13 asked Moore if he thinks Drew is at peace.

“There are too many unanswered questions,” he said. “If it were today and a body was found of a young woman, that crime would be solved… 1908, there was not as much attention given, which is also a crime.”