This family photograph, taken just days before Christmas, appears ordinary at first. A father stands among his children.

A mother holds her baby. Everyone dressed up, wearing new dresses, and all arranged perfectly for the camera. Nothing seems out of place.

On the day the picture was taken, no one except Charlie Lawson knew why he had suddenly spent money he could barely afford.

Just days later, on Christmas Day, 1929, Charlie Lawson murdered his wife and six of his seven children before taking his own life—nearly erasing his entire family to protect a scandalous secret.

For decades, people studied that photograph, searching for answers. For some sign of what drove him to kill. It would take sixty years before the truth emerged—when a dark family secret finally came to light.

This is the story of the Lawson family murders, on Christmas Day.