Suicide or Murder?

Another chapter in my latest book, Murder and Mayhem in Southeast Kansas, is about a fascinating case that happened at Moran (located on Highway 54 between Iola and Fort Scott) in 1907. On a late September evening of that year, Mrs. Rebecca Sapp heard her grown daughter, Caroline May Sapp, scream shortly after she had stepped outside, and when Mrs. Sapp went to investigate, she found May lying dead in the yard with her throat slashed. Most people were convinced a heinous murder had taken place. No weapon was found on the premises in the immediate wake of May's death, but a subsequent search late that night turned up a razor. May's father and others who'd helped with the initial search swore the razor was not there at first. However, some people suspected almost from the beginning that Miss Sapp might have taken her own life.
Although no prime suspect in the apparent crime was identified at first, the incident recalled to some people's minds a scandal involving Miss Sapp from ten years earlier. When May was just 16 or 17, her schoolmaster, Samuel Whitlock, who was married and ten years older than her, was accused of having an affair with her. He staunchly denied the rumor, and the scandal was hushed up, but now May's death brought it back to the minds of those who remembered the decade-old rumor. And although no one openly accused Whitlock of killing the young woman, at least a few began to whisper that he might know something about her death.
Indeed, Whitlock, who had given up teaching and was now a businessman in Moran, came forward a few days after May died with a fantastic tale. He said he knew May had killed herself because he was present when she committed the act. He said that, in a panic, he picked up the razor after May slashed her own throat and took it with him but later brought it back. He said that ever since the Sapp family had moved into town from the surrounding countryside about two years earlier, May had been infatuated with him and had been almost constantly pursuing him. He admitted that he had met her secretly numerous times, but he said he was only trying to talk her out of her insane infatuation and that he never had an emotional or physical relationship with her.

Despite his denials, he was arrested on suspicion and tried for first degree murder. The prosecution's theory of the crime was that Whitlock was a brute who tried to seduce Miss Sapp and killed her when she resisted his advances. The defense, on the other hand, insisted that Whitlock was telling the truth and that, when he told May that he and his family were leaving Moran to get away from her, she had killed herself, as she had previously threatened to do, rather than live without him. If the prosecution had not been so intent on protecting Miss Sapp's honor, Whitlock might well have been convicted on a lesser count, because, although many people believed that May had been infatuated with the defendant, as he said, few believed that he had never returned her affection in any way. However, because the state insisted on a first-degree murder charge and didn't allow for the possibility that May was killed during a lover's quarrel, the defendant was acquitted.
This, of course, is just an abbreviated version of the story. As I say, it's an interesting case, and you can read the whole story in my new book.