A Beautiful Widow Shoots a Suitor

On Monday, July 20,  1914, 29-year-old James Miller, accompanied by another young man, called on  "a very attractive young widow" named Alice McMasters in Dadeville, Missouri. Miller was supposedly just an acquaintance of Mrs. McMasters, but he was determined to "force himself into her good graces." The 27-year-old Alice admitted Miller, but she soon decided she "would have nothing to do with him and ordered him from her home" at the point of a revolver. As he retreated from the house, he became enraged at the rebuff, picked up a stool on the veranda, and slung it at her. She, in turn, fired a single shot that struck him near the heart, and he died about 40 minutes later.
At least that was Alice's version of what happened. She immediately turned herself into the city marshal and displayed "little feeling as she told of the affair." She did say, however, that she did not intent to kill Miller but, instead, shot almost reflexively when he hurled the stool at her. Late that afternoon, Alice was taken to Greenfield and lodged in the Dade County Jail.
"Much excitement has been aroused in Dadeville by the shooting," said an initial report of the incident." Both of the parties were very well known, though Miller, who was the son of former county sheriff Morris Miller, had been "considered rather wild for the past year."
Charged with first-degree murder, Alice had her preliminary hearing before Justice of the Peace Montgomery of Seybert (an extinct town near Dadeville) on July 28. The only witness was the young man who had accompanied Miller to the McMasters home, Shirley Kirby. He had stayed outside and did not know what transpired inside the house except that he heard angry voices emanating from within. Soon Miller retreated from the house, backing away, and stumbled over a chair. As he reached for the chair to steady himself, Mrs. McMasters shot him. After hearing this testimony, Montgomery bound the young woman over to the circuit court for a November trial. 
Charges against Alice must have been dropped shortly thereafter or some sort of plea bargain reached, however, since I can find no further newspaper coverage of the incident.