A Murder Mystery Solved: The Slaying of R. T. Thompson

On Wednesday evening, October 23, 1929, Joplin watchmaker Robert T. Thompson was out riding around with Miss Mary Quinn, a nurse at St. John’s Hospital. The two had known each other for years, but they’d gotten better acquainted during Thompson’s recent stay at the hospital for treatment of an eye illness. Divorced and the father of a young child, Thompson had continued to see the twenty-three-year-old Miss Quinn after his discharge, and the two had “been out driving on several occasions.

On this night, Thompson picked Mary up and drove east of town to Duquesne Road. He wanted to get away from Joplin, because the bright lights bothered his eye, which still required treatment. Turning north, the couple drove to Newman Road and turned east. A half mile down the road, Thompson slowed, preparing to stop, so Mary could put some medicine in his eye. Just as she turned on the dome light so she could see to administer the medicine, a car with several people in it pulled up alongside the Thompson car, and one of the passengers ordered Thompson to stop. Instead of complying, he started to pull away, and someone from the other car fired a shot that struck him in the left temple. Thompson slumped over the steering wheel, apparently lifeless, as the assassin car sped away. Mary frantically drove her friend to the hospital, but it was too late.

A large reward was offered for the apprehension of the gang responsible for killing Thompson, but their identity remained a mystery.

For two years.

In early October 1931, police got an anonymous tip that Leslie Edgington of Joplin was somehow involved in Thompson’s murder, and he was arrested Edgington for questioning. The tip also implicated four other people, and police began rounding them up, too. Earl Osborn of Central City was lodged in jail at Joplin alongside Edgington, while George Herrelson and his wife, Bertha, who was Osborn’s sister, were arrested in Kansas and taken to the Cherokee County Jail at Columbus. The fifth suspect, Floyd Blinzler, fled and was not immediately apprehended.

On Monday, October 12, Edgington confessed to his part in the crime and confirmed the identity of the other four participants. He said Osborn and Herrelson had been operating as road bandits for some time prior to the killing of Thompson. On the night of the murder, Osborn and the Herrelson couple picked up him and Blinzler and convinced them to take part in a robbery. The two young men rode in the back seat of Herrelson’s Chrysler. Osborn, who was riding shotgun in front, had two pistols, and he handed one to Edgington.

When the gang spotted the Thompson car coming to a halt with its dome light on, Herrelson pulled up beside it. Osborn and Edgington hopped out with their revolvers in hand. When Thompson refused the order to stop and began to drive away, Osborn opened fire.

Confronted with Edgington’s confession, Osborn gave a statement of his own on October 13. He admitted being the gunman who’d shot Thompson, but he refused to implicate his sister or her husband. Osborn and Edgington were arraigned on a first-degree murder charge and committed to the Jasper County Jail at Carthage.

Blinzler was captured at Crocker, Missouri, on October 15 and brought back to Carthage, where he gave a statement confirming that Osborn was the slayer of Thompson, but he said Herrelson directed the operations of the gang. Blinzler also admitted that he and Edgington had accompanied Herrelson and Osborn on several robberies prior to the Thompson murder. Blinzler was charged with murder and joined Edgington and Osborn at the county jail.

On October 17, George and Bertha Herrelson were extradited from Kansas, charged with murder, and transported to Carthage to join the others.     

At their preliminary hearings on November 4, Blinzler and the Herrelsons were bound over for trial in circuit court. Edgington and Osborn waived preliminary hearings and were also held for trial. Osborn decided to plead guilty to first-degree murder, though, rather than face a jury. The prosecution offered to reduce the charges against Edgington and Blinzler to second-degree murder in exchange for their testimony against the Herrelsons, and they took the deal.

Each in turn took the stand to testify against the Herrelsons when their joint trial got underway at Carthage on November 30. The testimony of the youthful accomplices was similar to what they’d said when arrested, but it had some holes. And  the defense attorney argued that his clients were not even at the murder scene on the night in question.

The case was given to the jury on December 1, 1931, and they came back that evening with a verdict convicting both Herrelson and his wife of first-degree murder. A few days later, the sentences for Edgington and Blinzler were set at fifteen years apiece in the state prison.

Edgington and Blinzler were paroled or had their sentences commuted before 1940. Meanwhile, Osborn and the Herrelsons were still making their home at the big house in Jefferson City.

This blog entry is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Midnight Assassinations and Other Evildoings: A Criminal History of Jasper County, Mo.