Kill the Son of a Bitch: The Story of Blanche Connors

In the wee hours of Sunday, December 25, 1887, the body of a "colored" man identified as Joseph Peters was found in Kansas City in a pool of blood near Ninth Street and State Line Road on the Missouri side of the line. Peters had two deep cuts and a severed artery.

Shortly after daylight, a police officer followed a trail of blood from the scene and found a second pool of blood a block or two away outside the home of “Aunt Jane” Grisby. Upon inquiry, he learned that Aunt Jane had hosted a Christmas Eve party on Saturday night at which “bad whiskey flowed freely” and that there had been a serious disturbance.

About 1:00 a.m. an “octoroon named Blanche Connors” had been playing the organ when Peters approached and whispered something to her. Almost instantly, a Black man named Paul Enders struck Peters, and the two ran out of the house, followed by Blanche and a third man, later identified as George Thomas, alias Bony George. 

The officer found Enders and the woman at a nearby house. Blanche was wearing an apron that had a blood on it and had a cut in it, and a knife that appeared to have been recently washed was lying on the bed.

Blanche and Enders both denied knowledge of the fatal stabbing, but the officer arrested both of them as suspects. At a coroner’s inquest held over Peters’s body, a young Black woman named Alice Marr testified that she witnessed the assault. She said Paul Enders, Bony George, and Blanche Conners (alias Matt or Mattie Mason) had the victim down in the yard in front of Aunt Jane’s house, and she heard Blanche say, “Kill the son of a bitch.” Alice said she saw Enders the next morning, and he admitted they had attacked and killed Peters for his money.

The coroner's jury ruled that Peters had died from wounds inflicted with a knife wielded by either Paul Enders, Bony George Thomas, or Blanche Connors and that, regardless of which one had inflicted the fatal wound, the other two were active accomplices. Enders and Blanche were charged with murder, but Thomas could not be located.

Enders’s case was severed from Blanche’s, and he was tried first. The jury failed to agree, largely because Alice Marr, the state’s star witness, had disappeared, and the judge declared a mistrial.

When Blanche’s trial began in mid-April 1888, she sat in the courtroom “gorgeously arrayed,” according to the Kansas City Star. A rival newspaper described her as “a good-looking octoroon, about 25 years of age.” Although Alice Marr was again missing, the state made a stronger circumstantial case against Blanche than it had against Enders, and the jury returned a verdict of first-degree murder. Blanche Connors became the first woman in Jackson County ever convicted of first-degree murder. 

Interviewed shortly after her conviction, Blanche was described as "a handsome quadroon” with “great brown eyes.” The “quadroon” appellation was accurate, even though the term would be considered politically incorrect today, because Blanche was, in fact, one-fourth Black, not one-eighth as “octaroon,” the term by which she’d been described in previous reports, denotes. 

Blanche’s maiden name was Martha “Mattie” Mason, and she had been born in the Indian Nation, the daughter of a full-blooded Cherokee mother and a half-Black, half-Cherokee father. Her mother died when she was only eight days old, and she was raised at first by her father's family but mostly by a German woman in Franklin County, Missouri. She was still a mere girl when she struck out on her own and moved to St. Louis, where she married a Black man named Connor. However, they stayed together only about a year. She got the nickname Blanche because of her light complexion.  

At Paul Enders’s second trial in late January 1889, the defendant was found not guilty. A month later, Blanche was granted a second trial because the judge said the same evidence had been used to convict her that had been presented at Enders's trial and yet she'd been found guilty while he was found not guilty. 

At her second trial in April 1889, Blanche was found not guilty. Appearing dazed, she left the courthouse in the company of a Black woman who reportedly kept a bawdy house on Broadway in Kansas City.

A year or so later, Blanche was convicted of feloniously assaulting another woman, and she spent about a year and a half in the Missouri State Prison. What happened to Blanche after that has not been traced.

The story above is a condensed version of a chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/47KQOZ1.

Alice Dyke: Cold-Blooded Murderess or Self-Defender?

Who are you going to believe? Inhabitants of “a resort for the lowest kind of harlots” or the companions of a young real estate agent from a “highly respected” family who was killed at the ill-famed resort? That was the question facing residents of Kansas City when they awoke on July 31, 1887, and picked up the Sunday morning newspaper. 

Earlier that morning, shortly after 12:00 a.m., 27-year-old Alice Dyke shot and killed a young man named John Hamilton in the doorway of her brothel or “saloon” at 449 West Fifth Street. His two companions claimed that they and Hamilton had merely been passing along the street when they saw a woman, later identified as Alice, standing in the front doorway of the house. 

When Hamilton said "good evening" to her, so their story went, Alice immediately started cussing Hamilton, rushed up to him, and shot him with a .32 caliber pistol. They said they didn’t know the woman and that the shooting was entirely unprovoked. 

Alice Dyke was arrested and interrogated at the police station. She refused to talk at first, but when she finally did tell her story, it was entirely different from that of Hamilton's companions. She said the three men had been to her place two or three different times prior to the shooting. On the last visit, they got into a dispute with Alice over the price of a bottle of soda, and Hamilton went away cursing and threatening her. She said that when they came back around midnight, she refused to admit them because she feared they were trying to steal the $450 she had on the premises. Feeling threatened, she shot Hamilton in what she thought was self-defense when he began kicking at her door and trying to break it down.  

Two girls who boarded with Alice said they had not actually witnessed the shooting but that they did hear a big commotion at the door, such as Allice described, before they heard shots fired. They also confirmed that Hamilton or someone who looked exactly like him had visited the house and raised a ruckus prior to the fatal visit. 

Alice Dyke, who went by various aliases from time to time, had lived in Kansas City much of her life and had a reputation as someone with "a long acquaintanceship with vice.” 

At a coroner's inquest held over Hamilton’s body, one of his companions admitted that the three young men had visited a saloon in the vicinity of Alice Dyke’s place early Saturday night, where they had purchased and drunk some soda pop, but he suggested that it was not the same house where the shooting took place. The coroner's jury returned a verdict charging Alice Dyke with felonious assault resulting in death, but a grand jury later indicted her for murder in the first degree,

At her trial in October of 1887, much of the prosecution testimony focused on Alice's reputation for immorality, but even a policeman who served as one of the prosecution witnesses admitted that, despite her bad reputation, he thought she was very honest. In addition, defense testimony tended to confirm Alice's story that the three men had been kicking at her door when she fired the fatal shots. She was found guilty of murder in the second degree and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. 

Alice was transported to the penitentiary in Jefferson City, but the Missouri Supreme Court reversed her guilty verdict in November 1888. Her second trial in April 1889 ended in a hung jury, and she was released on bond. At her third trial in September 1889, the state’s case was “very weak,” owing to the absence of at least two critical witnesses, and the jury found Alice not guilty after 3 or 4 hours of deliberation. 

The story above is a greatly condensed version of a chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/3NnJyLN.

Unlawfully Intimate

    On Sunday morning, July 22, 1876, a man standing on the north bank of the Missouri River in southern Warren County, Missouri, discovered a body floating downstream. The body was pulled to shore and identified as that of Samuel Taylor, a thirty-eight-year-old man who lived nearby with his twenty-eight-year-old wife, Martha, and one child. 

   Taylor was described as a man of “rather loose habits and of very weak mind.” Although he was white, he was known to associate mainly with his Black neighbors. Examination of Taylor's body revealed several wounds that appeared to have been made by a large pocketknife or similar object, and authorities concluded that he'd been killed by some unknown party.

   Suspicion soon settled on Dan Price, a thirty-three-old Black man who was a close associate of Taylor. He and Price often fished and hunted together. Price, a widower, frequently visited the Taylor home, and rumors had been circulating in the neighborhood that Price had been “unlawfully intimate” with Taylor’s wife. 

  Price and his paramour were both arrested on August 4 and taken before a justice for examination. Testimony at the hearing centered around the alleged romance between Price and Mrs. Taylor and the fact that Price and the victim had been seen together shortly before Taylor disappeared. At the end of the hearing, the case against the woman was dismissed, but Price was held for murder. 

    Martha Taylor left the area after her discharge, but additional evidence against her soon came to light. She was brought back to Warrenton, charged as a conspirator in her husband's murder, and given a new preliminary hearing. The primary witness against her was Maggie Price, Dan Price's 16-year-old daughter, who said she'd overheard Martha and her father talking about "putting Taylor out of the way." Some of the other testimony against Mrs. Taylor was too salacious "to give publicity to," according to the local newspaper.

  Although the outcome of Martha’s preliminary hearing is unclear from newspapers, she apparently was charged as an accessory to murder and let out on bond. Shortly after the hearing, Dan Price escaped from the Warren County Jail, and Martha temporarily harbored him before he fled the territory.

   Price was arrested in Illinois in late October and brought back to Warren County, where a joint indictment was found against him and Martha Taylor. As principal in the crime, Price was charged with first-degree murder, and Martha, as an accessory before the fact, was charged with second-degree murder.

   In late November, Price was found guilty and sentenced to hang. Martha Taylor’s trial began almost immediately after Price’s ended. She was found guilty of murder in the second degree and sentenced to twenty-five years in the state penitentiary.

   Dan Price was executed on January 18, 1877. After serving less than five and half years in prison, Martha Taylor received a full pardon and was released in April 1882.

   The brief account above is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4le5mWs.

One Good Poke Deserves Another

The first chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4sc3ZtR, is about a Black woman named Mary Ball. Late on the night of December 11, 1867, a man giving his name as Charles Rannells and a companion called at a house of ill repute in downtown St. Louis where Mary was an inmate. 

While another woman of the night entertained Rannells's companion, Rannells wandered into an adjoining room occupied by Mary. After a while, Rannells told Mary to knock on the door to see whether his companion was finished with his "business" and was ready to leave. When Mary refused, saying she didn't make it a habit of knocking on other people's doors, Rannells grew angry and started hitting and choking her.

About that time, Rannell's companion opened the door separating the two rooms, and Rannells started to leave. As he was walking away, Mary picked up a poker and hurled it at him with such force that the pointed end stuck in his head. 

Rannells removed the poker himself and then sought medical aid at a nearby pharmacy. He told what had happened, but he refused to identify exactly where it had happened or to give the name of the woman who had struck him. No doubt he didn't want it known that he had patronized a house of ill repute, particularly one occupied by Black women. 

When he left the pharmacy, Rannells seemed not to be gravely injured, and he and his companion returned to the sporting house they had recently left. The madam allowed them to spend the night, since they'd been locked out of the boardinghouse where they'd been staying. However, Rannells and Mary did not see each other on this return visit.

The next morning, Rannells woke up feeling bad, and he was taken to the City Hospital, where he lingered a few days before dying from his head wound. The investigation into his assault was hampered by the fact that, in a strange coincidence, two men in St. Louis had been hit in the head with pokers by women on the very same night and also by the fact that Charles Rannells was an alias. The victim's real name was Charles Ross, and Mary Ball was finally arrested and charged with first-degree manslaughter.

She was convicted in the fall of 1868 of fourth-degree manslaughter and sentenced to two years in the state prison. After serving three-fourths of her term, she was released and given a full pardon, based at least partly on her good behavior while incarcerated.

This is a condensed version of Mary's story. For a fuller account, please check out my new book. 

 

Cole Camp, Missouri

The Cole Camp area was settled in the early to mid-1830s, and the community took its name from Cole Camp Creek, which in turn was probably named after Captain Stephen Cole, a famous Indian fighter who had camped in the area in the early 1800s and who later served in the Missouri Legislature. A general store opened on Cole Camp Creek sometime before or during the year 1839, when a post office was established at the store under the name Cole Camp. Later, the post office was moved a short distance away to the current location of Cole Camp when a new store opened at that location, with the post office retaining the Cole Camp name. 

The town of Cole Camp was laid out in 1857, and it became a flag stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, or the Butterfield Stage route as it was informally called, when that mail service began in 1858. The Butterfield Stage operated until 1861, when it was discontinued because of the Civil War and because of advancements in transportation and telecommunication. 

Many of the early settlers in and around Cole Camp were of German ancestry.

On June 19, 1861, near the outset of the Civil War, a skirmish, sometimes dubiously called a battle, took place at Cole Camp, when Southern-allied Missouri State Guard forces, on their way to southwest Missouri after their defeat at Boonville, routed a Union Home Guard force northeast of Cole Camp. The local Home Guard, composed mostly of German soldiers, suffered considerable losses while the number killed, wounded, or missing Southerners was relatively small. 

By 1874, Cole Camp had grown to a village with five stores, one hotel, one flour mill, one sawmill, and one church. By 1900, the town had a population of about 650, and in 1910, it boasted a population of over 900 residents.

When a reporter for the Springfield Missouri Republican visited Cole Camp in the fall of 1911, he considered the town "the heftiest municipality in Benton County." He went one step farther and called it "the best town between Springfield and Sedalia" on the route that would become US Highway 65. He said the only thing about Cole Camp he could find to criticize was its name, because a lot of people, when they heard the name, thought it was "Coal Camp" and assumed that the area was rich in coal. 

Among the going concerns in Cole Camp in 1911 were a water works, an electric power plant for lighting, a telephone company, a newspaper, two banks, several general stores, a lumber store, a restaurant, at least two hardware stores, two saloons, a jeweler, a couple of real estate agents, a bakery and confectionery, a theater, a grist mill, a couple of drugstores, three doctors, at least one attorney, a public school, several fraternal organizations, and four churches (one Congregational, one Catholic, and two Lutheran).  

When Highway 65 was built, it passed through Cole Camp, following the old Butterfield Stage route through the county, but the highway was later moved west, bypassing Cole Camp. It's been that way as long as I can remember, because I have traveled Highway 65 between Springfield and Sedalia numerous times, but I've never been to Cole Camp.

After the Springfield reporter's visit to Cole Camp in 1911, the population of Cole Camp fluctuated slightly over the next 60 years until it passed 1,000 inhabitants in 1970. The population has since remained fairly steady, as the number of residents according to the 2020 census was slightly over 1,100.

 

A Fatal Affray at a Religious Service

On the evening Saturday, July 2, 1932, twenty-two-year-old Emmett Culver and a friend were sitting on the front steps of the National Schoolhouse southeast of Marshfield (MO) waiting for time to go into the revival meeting that was about to begin, when Culver's father-in-law, sixty-year-old Ike Carpenter, and other members of the Carpenter family showed up. Culver and his friend got to their feet, and a confrontation between Culver and the Carpenters, who had been on the outs for some time, ensued. Carpenter fired several shots at Culver and his friend as they fled around the corner of the school, with two shots striking Culver. Carpenter later claimed that Culver made a motion as though going for a gun or knife, but Culver, who was unarmed, said Carpenter just started shooting. 

Culver, who had married Carpenter's seventeen-year-old daughter, Edna, two years earlier, was hospitalized in Springfield with grave wounds. He told a newspaper reporter the next day, "My father-in-law has hated me since I started sparking his daughter." Culver's young wife was at the hospital with him and was said to be taking her husband's side in the dispute. According to one report, the young couple had recently been estranged but had reunited shortly before the shooting affray.

The elder Carpenter was charged with felonious assault the day after the shooting, and his son, John, and another young man who was with the two Carpenters were later charged as well. Although it was thought at first that only Ike Carpenter had fired shots, an investigation revealed that all three men had fired at least one shot.

Culver died on July 6, and the charges against Ike and John Carpenter were upgraded to murder. The charges against the young man who was with them remained at felonious assault, and a second Carpenter son, Albert, was also charged with felonious assault.

Ike Carpenter was found guilty of second-degree murder at trial in September 1932 and given a two-year prison sentence. His son John was fined $200 for being an accessory. I assume charges against the other son and the Carpenters' friend must have been dropped or else they were let off very easily, since I have not found any further mention of their cases.

A Fatal Affray Near Brighton

The February 13, 1879, edition of the Springfield Leader reported that a young man named H. L. Maylock had been shot and killed by another young man named Bud Low at a party at a residence near Brighton (MO) the night before. Low was arrested, said the Leader, and brought before a justice of the peace, to whom he admitted the deed, before making his escape. A special dispatch from Springfield to the St. Louis Globe Democrat described the incident in similar terms, claiming that Maylock struck Low in the face and that Low immediately drew his revolver and shot Maylock dead. 

Another report the next day said that Low's body had been found dead in the woods between Brighton and Springfield. A brother of Maylock and another man had supposedly gone in search of Low after his escape and had returned, saying they could not find him, but it was presumed that they did find Low and had "inflicted this summary vengeance." 

The only problem with these initial reports was that they turned out to be entirely erroneous. It was left to the Springfield Weekly Patriot to straighten out the story in its February 20 edition. It was, in fact, Maylock who had killed Low after Low got drunk and boisterous and started threatening people at the party. Low was being escorted from the room by his brother when he, in some way, bumped against Maylock. Maylock made some remark in return, and Low struck him a blow above the eye. However, Maylock, who was described as a normally peaceful young man, abided even this insult and did not fight back. 

Later in the evening, though, Low became boisterous again, and someone at the party said to him, "Low, you've blacked one eye, and you had better be quiet." Maylock, who was standing nearby, added, "You must not black mine again." In response to this remark, Low "rolled up his sleeves" and made a lunge toward Maylock. According to some witnesses, Low had a knife in his hand at the time. Matlock stepped back until his retreat was blocked by a bed, at which point he drew his revolver and shot Low, killing him almost instantly.

Maylock was arrested and brought before two justices of the peace a week later for a preliminary examination. After a two-and-a-half day hearing, he was dismissed without charges, as nearly all the testimony showed that he had acted in self-defense.