After Ernest Reid and his wife, Amanda Gertrude “Gertie” Reid, came to Carthage in 1899, they seemingly got along okay at first. But during the early spring of 1900, they had a serious dispute. Gertie left her husband and started working in Carthage as a live-in housekeeper. Distressed by the breakup, Reid tried to commit suicide by eating rat poison, but the police found him in time for doctors to save his life.
Ernest started coming around to where Gertie was staying to bum money from her, and she helped him out at first but soon saw that he was just gambling the money away. She cut him off, and he started making threats against her life if she didn’t give him more money.
On June 17, 1900, Ernest called at the Frank Wyatt residence, where Gertie was living and working, and got into an argument with his estranged wife that escalated to the point that he renewed his threat to kill her. Two days later he rented a pistol from a pawn shop in Carthage and contrived to have Gertie meet him in north Carthage near the train depot by sending his brother Ben to the Wyatt home to tell her that relatives were in town and wanted to see her. She and Ben met Ernest about 8:45 that night, and the couple got into another argument when Gertie realized Ernest had tricked her to get her out of the house. Ernest had a photo of Gertie that she asked him to return to her, and he demanded to know why she wanted it back. He accused of her of “being too thick” with a man named Sims, who was also boarding with the Wyatt family, and Ernest thought she wanted to give the photo to Sims.
Reid took hold of his wife’s arm and wouldn’t let go. She started sobbing, but he just tightened his grip while reaching for the revolver that he’d brought along. Flourishing the weapon, he shot Gertie in the leg, and she fell to her knees. When he released his grip, she sprang up and started running, and he fired three more shots as she retreated. The first shot missed, but the next two struck Gertie in the back.
Ernest fled the scene, heading to downtown Carthage, where he stated to more than one group of people that he’d just shot someone. He was taken into police custody later that night, and Gertie died slightly more than 24 hours later, but not before signing a written statement swearing that Ernest had shot her and describing the events surrounding the shooting.
Ernest Reid went on trial at Carthage for first-degree murder in November 1900. Reid’s only defense was that he had shot his wife in a fit of jealous rage. In mid-November the jury returned a verdict finding him guilty. A defense motion for a new trial was denied in early December 1900, and Reid was sentenced to hang the following January. His attorneys appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, primarily on the grounds that the jury should have been given the option of finding Reid guilty of second-degree murder. The execution was automatically postponed pending the high court’s decision.
In early May 1901, the supreme court affirmed the lower court’s decision, and, after a temporary stay ordered by the governor, the execution was rescheduled for July 5. Reid showed extraordinary fortitude in the face of his looming execution, and his demeanor won the admiration of many of the officers who dealt with him.
On the morning of the 5th, Reid’s hands were tied in front of him and his arms strapped to his body at the elbows. Marched to the scaffold shortly after ten o’clock, he was allowed to make a statement to the small crowd gathered inside the stockade surrounding the platform. “I came out here this morning to die like a man,” he announced in a low but firm voice. “Why do I say I came out here to die like a man? Because God stands with me here on this scaffold.” Reid went on to thank his friends, his spiritual advisors, and others who’d treated him well since his incarceration.
Reid had already positioned himself on the trap door as soon as he stepped onto the scaffold, and after he finished his speech, his legs were bound, a black cap placed over his head, and the noose adjusted around his neck. The trap was sprung at 10:19 a.m., and Reid dropped into eternity, which, in this case, was a distance of seven feet. He was pronounced dead seven minutes later. The body was buried later that evening in Park Cemetery.
Throughout his incarceration, Reid remained devoted to the wife he’d killed, and, in a bit of tragic irony, he requested that the only picture he had of her, the same photo that instigated the fight resulting in her death, be buried with him.
This blog entry is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Midnight Assassinations, about the criminal history of Jasper County.
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