John Nelson's Murder of John Stull

By all accounts, John Stull was a compassionate person who was always willing to help out his neighbors. Little did he know that his kindness would end up getting him and his mother killed.
During the late 1880s and early 1890s, Stull lived with his elderly mother and his two young children in a crude house at Salt River Switch in Ralls County, Missouri. Stull’s wife had been dead several years, his mother was feeble, and his children were too young to work. Stull was the family’s sole support, and he was considered a hard-working man.
In the spring of 1893, John Nelson and his wife, Lavinia, moved to the Salt River Switch area and pitched their tent about three hundred and fifty feet south of the Stull home. A short time later, Nelson’s mother and stepfather, Samuel Minor, showed up in a covered wagon and parked it near Nelson’s tent. Minor and his wife lived in the wagon but cooked their meals on Nelson’s stove and ate from his table.
After a while, though, Nelson and his wife had a falling-out with the Minors and wouldn’t let them cook on their stove or eat at their table. Neglected by her son, Mrs. Minor fell ill, but rather than help her out, Nelson and his wife pulled the wagon, with the mother in it, away from their tent and left it in a swampy area nearby.
Neighbors, came to Mrs. Minor’s aid, and Stull agreed to shelter her at his house. He gave Mrs. Minor his best bed, and his mother, Mary Hughes, tended to the needs of their houseguest. Although Mrs. Minor was sick enough for a local doctor to pay a house call, Nelson and his wife never visited at all nor expressed any concerns about her welfare.
On Wednesday, August 2, 1893, Stull’s seven-year-old son, Willie, and Willie’s cousin wandered over to the Nelson tent, where Nelson enticed them into fighting each other. Stull’s daughter, fourteen-year-old Mary, went over to the Nelson place to bring the children home. When the girl arrived to summon her brother and cousin home, Nelson abused her, calling her vile names.
Informed of what had happened, Stull confronted Nelson on Thursday. Stull demanded to know why Nelson had mistreated the little boys and verbally abused his daughter. Nelson cursed Stull, and Stull told Nelson and his wife he didn’t want anything more to do with them and for them never to come to his place.
Although Nelson and Lavinia had shown no inclination to visit Stull’s home, Stull’s decree banning them from his place made them determined to go there in defiance. On Friday, the day after the argument, Nelson told one of his neighbors that Stull had prohibited him from coming into his yard but that he “was going in if he had to bore his way in.”
True to his word, Nelson showed up at the Stull house on Saturday morning, August 5, carrying a revolver, with Lavinia by his side. They walked into the house uninvited but stayed less than five minutes when they realized Stull was not home, scarcely staying long enough to check on Nelson’s sick mother.
Shortly before 6 p.m. the Nelsons went back to Stull’s place with Nelson still carrying the revolver. Lavinia picked up a piece of iron as she and her husband approached the Stull home. Stull, who’d just gotten home, was sitting on the doorstep and saw the couple walking toward his yard. He told them to stay out, but they stepped through an opening in the fence and kept coming.
Hearing the commotion, Stull’s mother stepped outside, and about that moment Lavinia Nelson struck Stull with the piece of iron she was holding. In return, Stull slapped her with his hand. Nelson then fired a shot at Stull, but it missed and struck Mary Hughes instead. She fell to the ground and died very shortly.
After the first shot, Nelson fired again, this time striking Stull in the abdomen. Nelson and his wife then turned and left, with Stull staggering after them. At the top of a nearby railroad grade, Stull fell on the track, and Nelson hallooed that he’d shot him. Two men who’d heard the shots hurried to the scene and arrested Nelson.
Stull died the next day, and Nelson was lodged in the Ralls County Jail at New London. When he was arrested, Nelson bragged to the sheriff that, if he had it all to do over, he’d shoot Stull again.
Nelson and his wife were jointly indicted for double murder with Nelson as the principal and Lavinia as an accessory. Lavinia later applied for and obtained a severance of her case from her husband’s.
Nelson’s case was continued until July of 1894, when he obtained a change of venue to neighboring Marion County. His trial at Palmyra in October 1894 for the first degree murder of John Stull ended in a hung jury after his attorneys claimed self-defense. A new trial took place in April 1895, and Nelson was convicted and sentenced to hang. The execution was stayed by an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Lavinia Nelson was acquitted at her trial in Ralls County, also during April of 1895. After her acquittal, Lavinia utterly deserted her husband, taking no interest in his case and refusing even to answer his letters.
In January 1896, the supreme court affirmed the lower court’s ruling in John Nelson’s case, and the execution was reset for February 28 at Palmyra. The condemned man was led to the gallows abut 11:00 a.m. late that morning and dropped through the trap in front of about fifty spectators who’d been invited inside the stockade surrounding the platform.
This story is condensed from a chapter in my most recent book, Show-Me Atrocities: Infamous Incidents in Missouri History.