The Murder of Crawford Hibbard

I've titled this blog entry "The Murder of Crawford Hibbard," because at the time of the 25-year-old Hibbard's death in 1906 in Howell County, Missouri, most observers were convinced it was a murder. However, there is some doubt about that, because the case was never solved.
On the afternoon of August 16, 1906, Hibbard and his wife, 23-year-old Anna, were home alone at their house on Wolf Creek near Mountain View, because their little daughter was visiting her grandfather, John Vaughn (Anna's father) at his nearby home. Hibbard, who had recently joined his wife in the teaching profession, lay down in the floor with a grammar book to bone up for the coming school year. According to her later testimony, Anna left the house to pick some fruit, and she had just been in the orchard a few minutes when she heard what sounded like a gunshot coming from the direction of the house. Hurrying back to investigate, she found her husband lying on the floor with the top of his head nearly blown off. Brains oozed out, and the floor and walls were splattered with blood and hair. Beside him lay the grammar book he'd been studying, and also just a few feet away lay his shotgun, which he normally kept in an adjoining room. 

Horrified, Anna ran to a neighbor's house to give an alarm, and investigators soon arrived on the scene. The coroner ruled that the death could not have been a suicide because the location of the wound and the length of the gun barrel made it virtually impossible for Hibbard to have shot himself in that location. The investigators, therefore, tentatively concluded that an unknown assassin had slipped into the house and killed Hibbard with his own gun.
However, the mysterious death fueled much speculation, and suspicion gradually began to settle on Anna Hibbard. Some people openly gossiped that the woman had killed her own husband. Anna countered by suing at least two of the gossipers for defamation of character, including a school director where she had previously taught, who had openly accused her of murder and gotten her dismissed. She won her suit against the school director, but the speculation about her didn't stop.
In April of 1907, a grand jury finally charged Mrs. Hibbard with murder. Despite the serious charge, she was released on $5000 bond, and when the case was called in June, the prosecutor dismissed it, giving no explanation at the time.
In August, however, after a new law bearing on the case went into effect, the prosecution revived the charge against Anna, and she was re-arrested. Her father, John Vaughn, was also arrested at this time as an alleged accomplice in the murder. Both defendants were released on $1000 bond each.
Anna's trial took place at West Plains in December 1907. After less than two days of testimony, both sides rested their cases, and the jury found Mrs. Hibbard not guilty after only 18 minutes of deliberation. The charges against her father were subsequently dropped. 
Photo of Crawford and Anna Hibbard from the Howell County Gazette.