Twenty-year-old Lulu Walker came to Springfield, Missouri, from the Dunnegan area of neighboring Polk County sometime around the late spring or early summer of 1898. She was "rather good looking," according to one Springfield newspaper reporter, but she had "the appearance of having seen better days." According to Lulu herself, her parents were well-to-do farmers in Polk County, and letters later found in her possession seemed to add credence to the idea that she came from a good family. However, Lulu was no longer welcome at home, although the exact reason for her estrangement from her parents is not known.
Shortly after arriving in Springfield, Lulu was hired by Charles Afflack, manager of the Waddle Hotel on Campbell Street, to work at the hotel (probably as a maid). Afflack later said that Lulu appeared to be a good girl and was well liked by his family. Lulu stayed there only about four weeks, however, and then began "frequenting questionable houses."
On Saturday, August 27, at the Gulf depot in Springfield, Lulu ran onto a woman whose acquaintance she had previously made in Ash Grove, and the woman introduced Lulu to her niece, 18-year-old Lucy Richardson. Lucy's life, like Lulu's, had recently taken an unfortunate turn. She'd gotten married about a year earlier but had ended up leaving her husband after only a few months because he refused to support her, and she had gone back to her stepfather's surname, Richardson. Perhaps partly because of their shared hardships, the two young women struck up an immediate friendship.
The three women spent Saturday night at the home of a woman named Mrs. Dell, who lived on Dale Street. The next day, Sunday the 28th, the aunt left to go back to Ash Grove, and Lulu and Lucy were left to fend for themselves in the city of Springfield. They roamed about town until nightfall approached and then went to the north side and stopped at the Plain View Hotel, which, at the time, was probably the most notorious house of ill repute in Springfield. Late the same night, the two young women were arrested as they loitered about the Frisco Depot. They were placed in the calaboose on the North side and stayed there until the next morning, when they were taken to police court and fined one dollar apiece, plus costs. Unable to pay the fine, they were lodged in a larger jail on the South side, commonly called the city hold-over, where they were supposed to serve out the sentence.
According to Lucy's later story, on Thursday evening, September 1, two men slipped some whiskey into the jail for them, and the two young women got intoxicated. They were housed on the second floor of the two-story building, and the roof was rotten and leaky with gaping holes. Lulu started talking about breaking out of jail through the roof, and she soon had Lucy talked into going along with the scheme. The young women made it through the ceiling and onto the roof okay, but as they were preparing to scale down a pipe that ran the height of the building, they fell. Lucy said she blacked out, but somehow she made it to Nichols Junction, where she met her brothers, who took her to her stepfather's nearby home. Meanwhile, Lulu's lifeless body was found sprawled out on the ground at the base of the jail building on Friday morning.
Officers went to Nichols Junction to bring Lucy back to Springfield for a coroner's jury on Friday night. Lawmen thought at first that Lulu's name was Richardson and that she and Lucy were sisters. Tracing the girls' movements, the officers learned that Lulu had gone by the name Bertha Johnson during the brief time she'd stopped at the Plain View, and further investigation revealed that her real name was Lulu Walker. Lucy confirmed Lulu's real identity, although officers were skeptical at first of Lucy's story. For one thing, they didn't believe that whiskey had been slipped into the hold-over and that the girls had gotten drunk. According to the Springfield Republican, though, Lucy told a very convincing story, and many people were inclined to believe it. Lucy said one of the main reasons she and Lulu had decided to escape was because of the terrible food served at the hold-over. All they had the whole time they were there, she said, was bread and warm water, and the Republican railed against the poor food and other terrible conditions at the hold-over.
Lucy said she didn't realize Lulu was dead until the officers brought her back to Springfield from Nichols Junction. She said she remembered falling but didn't remember anything after that until seeing her brothers at Nichols. Investigators theorized that Lucy had fallen partly on top of Lulu rather than hitting the bare ground, which is why the fall left her only stunned and bruised while Lulu died from the fall. Lucy seemed sincerely broken up when she learned that her friend was dead, and she vowed that the tragedy would serve as a lesson for her and that she would "try to lead a better life."
Authorities sent letters to Lulu's family in Dunnegan informing them what had happened, but they got no response. So, Lulu was buried in a potter's field on September 4 at county expense.
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