Eula Gipson Slain at a Joplin Nightclub

    On February 21, 1940, Joplin truck driver Harold Saunders had a date with Dorothy Hill. They met at Draeger’s Beauty Shop, where Eula Gipson, a “comely” twenty-six-year-old divorcee, had just finished giving Dorothy a perm. Eula knew both Dorothy and her date, and they invited her to come along. The threesome went bar-hopping, first to Wimpy’s tavern in East Joplin and then to Metzger’s bar on South Main Street. There they ran onto Delmar Petty, who was truck driver like Saunders. A thirty-two-year-old married man and the father of three children, Petty was also acquainted with Saunders’s female companions, and he joined the three in a booth. Petty appeared to already be drunk.
    About 10:30, the four took a taxi to the Rodenia Night Club on West Seventh, which had a reputation as a “disorderly place.” After the four resumed drinking, Petty and Ms. Gipson got up and started dancing. When they didn’t return, Saunders and Miss Hill went looking for them outside and finally saw Petty staggering back toward the club by himself about one o’clock in the morning. When they asked where Eula was, Petty said she was inside dancing.
    The three went back into the Rodenia, but Eula was nowhere to be seen. They went back outside and looked for her some more but still couldn’t find her. Saunders and Miss Hill finally decided Eula might have caught a ride back into town with somebody else; so, they picked up her coat and purse to take to her and started for home.
    As the couple left, they told the nightclub owner, “Kate” Melton, that Eula was missing, and Melton immediately undertook a search of his own. He, too, had no luck finding the missing woman. Meanwhile, Petty fell into a stupor in a booth. Melton finally aroused him at 5:00 a.m., and Petty went home. 

    When Eula didn’t come home or show up on Thursday morning at the beauty shop, her parents became concerned. After talking to Saunders and Miss Hill, they contacted the police.
    Two detectives went to Petty’s home to interrogate him. They found Petty still wearing the trousers he’d worn the night before, and they noticed blood on them. Petty admitted the shirt he’d worn the previous night also had blood on it, but he’d asked his wife to wash it.
    Petty was arrested and brought to the Joplin Police station for further questioning. He was then taken to the nightclub to help look for the missing woman.
    Meanwhile, Melton had already resumed looking for Eula, and about 2:30 p.m. he found her crumpled, nude body in some tall grass about 150 yards north of the nightclub. The grass had been beaten down all around the body, suggesting a struggle. “There was blood everywhere,” said the Joplin Globe in describing the woman’s beaten, mutilated body. It was “one of the most gruesome murders in Joplin police history.”
    The detectives arrived with Petty shortly after the grisly discovery, and the suspect covered his eyes in horror when he was shown the victim’s body. Melton told the officers he’d seen Petty arguing with Miss Gipson about midnight the previous evening and that he saw Petty “pull her outside.” Although investigators found only a single small knife on Petty when they searched him, Saunders said he knew the suspect had also been carrying a larger knife the night before, because he’d seen Petty take both knives out.
    Petty admitted he’d had a second knife but he didn’t know what happened to it. He said he’d been so drunk that he could remember hardly anything after he left Metzger’s bar. Asked how he got blood on his clothes and scratches on his hands, he said he figured he must have gotten into a barroom brawl, as he’d done a time or two before.
    Faced with the evidence against him, Petty finally broke down and admitted he must have killed Miss Gipson but that he couldn’t remember it. He was arraigned for first-degree murder and committed to the Jasper County Jail at Carthage.
    An inquest into Eula Gipson’s death took place on February 26, and despite both Saunders and Melton testifying against Petty, the jury returned a verdict that Eula came to her death by the hands of an unknown party. Testimony at Petty’s preliminary examination on February 28 was similar to that at the inquest, and Petty was held for trial without bond.
    Shortly after Eula Gipson’s murder, tests showed that her blood and the blood found on Petty’s clothes matched in type. At his trial in May, the prosecution, seeking the death penalty, paraded a whole passel of witnesses to the stand to testify against Petty, whereas the defense’s case rested mainly on one witness, a waitress at the Rodenia who claimed she’d seen some “rough-looking” men at the nightclub while Petty and his companions were there and that one of them appeared to have blood on his hand. She and a couple of other witnesses also said they didn’t see any blood on Petty after Eula disappeared. The defense introduced witnesses who testified to Petty’s good reputation in the community, but the prosecution refuted this by pointing out that Petty had been connected by rumor to the molestation or assault of two or three other young women. Near the trial’s end, Petty himself took the stand to repeat that he had no memory of exactly what had happened on the night in question but that he “wouldn’t do such a thing” as to murder Eula Gipson.
    In his instructions to the jury, the judge reduced the charge against Petty to second-degree murder. Despite this fact and the considerable evidence against Petty, the jury came back deadlocked. The split was rumored to be eight to four in favor of conviction. The judge declared a mistrial, and when Petty’s new trial finally came up in September 1941, the jury acquitted him after just twenty-five minutes of deliberation.

    This is a condensed version of a chapter in my most recent book, Midnight Assassinations and Other Evildoings: A Criminal History of Jasper County, Mo.

Jealousy and a Quarrel

About the first of June, 1938, thirty-year-old Chester Jackson of Joplin got into a quarrel with his paramour, Theola Isaac, and she ended up receiving a five-month suspended sentence for wounding him during the ensuing fight.
   It didn’t take Jackson long to find himself another woman, as he was soon living with Daisy Esmond, but it didn’t take him long either to have a falling out with Daisy. Two years divorced and the mother of two kids, Daisy left Jackson around the end of July and went to stay with her brother-in-law and her sister, Mamie. On the evening of August 2, Jackson called at Mamie’s house on West Tenth and asked Daisy to come back, but she refused.
   About 11:30 the next night, Jackson returned packing a pistol and called Daisy outside. Speaking to her in front of Mamie’s home, he again implored Daisy to come back to him, but she still refused. They quarreled, and when she turned to go inside, he pulled out his pistol and shot her in the back. An ambulance was summoned, but Daisy died on the way to the hospital.
   Meanwhile, Jackson turned himself in at the police station shortly after the shooting and was held on suspicion of murder. After questioning the suspect, a Joplin detective said that the shooting apparently resulted from “jealousy and a quarrel.” When Jackson was arraigned on August 5, he admitted the shooting but claimed he didn’t intend to kill Daisy and was only trying to scare her. Dismissing the suspect’s dubious claim, the justice ordered him held without bond for first-degree murder. The Joplin Globe’s first mention of Daisy’s murder came the next day when the paper reported only that Jackson, a black man, had been arraigned for killing “a Negress.”
   Appearing for trial in Jasper County Circuit Court in late September, Jackson first planned to plead guilty but changed his mind when he learned the prosecution meant to seek the death penalty. Daisy’s sister, Mamie Ransom, was the main witness for the prosecution, testifying that Jackson had previously threatened Daisy and that he shot her as she was retreating toward the house. Jackson took the stand in his own defense, admitting he was angry and jealous when he went to see Daisy on the fateful night but claiming he had no memory of shooting her. The last thing he recalled, he said, was Daisy threatening to kill him.
   The jury found Jackson guilty on September 27 and sentenced him to death. He displayed no emotion when the verdict was read but later remarked that it was a “gross miscarriage of justice.” Sentence was officially pronounced about a week later, and his execution set for November 28 in the gas chamber at Jefferson City. An appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court automatically stayed the execution. In the meantime, Jackson was transported to Jefferson City to await the high court’s decision. In early July 1939, the supreme court reversed the verdict of the lower court on the grounds that the trial judge should have granted the defense’s request for a continuance and should have included in his instructions to the jury an option of second-degree murder. The case was remanded to Jasper County for a new trial, and Jackson was brought back to Carthage.
   In September, he was again convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die. The case was again appealed, but in July 1940 the high court upheld the verdict. The execution was reset for September 20, 1940. Jackson didn’t say a word as he was led into the gas chamber at Jeff City and strapped into the death chair at shortly after midnight on that date. The gas was released at 12:24 a.m., and Jackson died at 12:28.
   This blog entry is a condensed version of a chapter in my most recent book, Midnight Assassinations and Other Evildoings: A Criminal History of Jasper County, Mo.

Man Kills His Wife on Their Honeymoon

    Nineteen-year-old Charles Garner married 17-year-old Virginia "Jean" Collingham on June 12, 1939, at York, Nebraska. Shortly afterward, the young couple came to Missouri to spend part of their honeymoon with Garner's grandmother, who lived west of Liberal in Barton County, where Charles had been reared. On July 2, he and Jean went to a water-filled strip mine near the Kansas state line, where the young woman waded into the water. According to her husband's story at the time, she slipped on a rock when she reached deep water and fell in over her head. Neither Jean nor Charles were able to swim, and all the young man could do was watch futilely and scream for help. 
    When help finally arrived, Jean had already drowned, and her body was retrieved from the water-filled pit. Authorities believed the young man's story, and Jean's death was ruled accidental. The body was shipped back to York for burial. Jean's death was the second tragedy to befall the Collingham family within a month. In early June, Jean's brother, Alvin, had shot and killed himself because he was reportedly despondent over poor health.  
    Garner also returned to Nebraska, and on September 17, he walked into a jail in Gering on the pretext of wanting to sleep in the jail. As he made the request, he handed the night marshal a note confessing to killing his wife two and half months earlier. In the note, Garner related that he and Jean had gone to the mining pit to wade in the water. After walking out onto a ledge near the deep water, Jean mentioned another young man whom she had dated before she and Garner got married. Garner told her not to mention the other suitor's name again because he despised him, but Jean kept right on talking about Garner's romantic rival. Growing irate, Garner pushed his new wife into the water and held her head under. She tried to fight her way to the surface, but Garner kept pushing her under until she went down a final time. Then he went to the top of a nearby hill, yelled for help, and told his phony story of an accidental drowning.
    Garner was lodged in jail and, later in September, brought back to Missouri to stand trial for murder. He confessed again after he reached the Barton County Jail at Lamar, but at his arraignment on October 16, he pleaded not guilty. Repudiating his previous confessions, he said he'd only confessed "on a bet" because he was out of work and hungry and that he'd repeated the confession in Missouri because he liked the publicity. 
    At his trial in mid-November, Garner reverted to his original defense that his wife had drowned accidentally and he'd been unable to rescue her because he couldn't swim. However, one of the prosecution witnesses testified that he knew the defendant to be a good swimmer. One of the first people to answer Garner's calls for help testified that he shouted "It's no use, she's gone!" as rescuers started into the pit. Other witnesses said Garner kneeled down after his wife's body was brought out of the water, and, showing no emotion, turned a ring on her finger. Two or three defense witnesses testified that Garner showed great affection for his wife, and the defendant took the stand himself to repudiate his confession and repeat the story of an accidental drowning. Late in the afternoon of November 21, the jury came back after two or three hours of deliberation with a verdict convicting Garner of first degree murder. A defense motion for a new trial was denied, and Garner was transferred to the state prison at Jefferson City the next day.
    On or about December 20, Garner gave a written statement to the prison warden confessing to three other murders. He said he'd killed Alvin Collingham during an argument over Collingham's objections to Jean's relationship with Garner. A few days later, he killed another young man who said there was something fishy about Alvin's supposed suicide and suggested that Garner might know something about it. Two years earlier, Garner said he'd also shoved a boy from a freight train near Kansas City and that the lad had fallen under the wheels of the train and been crushed to death. Garner now claimed he'd killed his wife because she was the only person who knew about the three previous murders. 
    Authorities, however, were skeptical of Garner's latest confession, and subsequent investigation did little to change their mind. In January 1940, Garner repudiated his latest confession, saying he'd only admitted the three prior killings in hopes of getting the death penalty. He said he'd rather die than spend the rest of his life in prison. Authorities considered the case officially closed. 

  

The Terrible McWaters

    Prior to 1860, William McWaters moved with his parents from St. Charles County to Cedar County, Missouri, where he and his brothers took up bushwhacking early in the Civil War. In April 1862, William was arrested for stealing and “jayhawking” in neighboring Vernon County and placed in the guardhouse at Butler. One witness testified he’d heard McWaters brag about killing a “damned abolitionist,” but the accused somehow managed to get free, because later that year he joined the regular Confederate Army. 

    After two and a half months, McWaters deserted and returned to his home territory. He resumed bushwhacking and started courting Jennie Mayfield of Vernon County, one of the Mayfield sisters of “bushwhacker belle” fame. Legend holds that McWaters accompanied William Quantrill during his infamous 1863 sacking of Lawrence, Kansas, and that he later rode with Bloody Bill Anderson, but these claims cannot be verified.
    After the war, McWaters continued his outlawry. He was implicated in the March 1867 murder of Vernon County sheriff Joseph Bailey, and later that year, he got into a wild gunfight with a posse that was trying to arrest him at Humansville. Described at the time as “a daring desperado” and “an expert with his revolvers,” McWaters escaped unscathed.
    McWaters fled to Nebraska, where he married Susie Davis at Otoe in December 1868. McWaters was still living at Otoe in mid-January 1873 when he and two other men assaulted Assistant Postmaster Wolf in the neighboring village of Wyoming. When an officer tried to arrest McWaters a few days later, gunplay erupted. McWaters wounded the officer and killed Wolf, who was assisting in the arrest. A report of the incident said McWaters had been a terror in Otoe County since he'd lived there.
   McWaters escaped but was arrested in Kansas City in early May and taken back to Nebraska. At his September murder trial, he was found not guilty, because it was shown that Wolf shot and slightly wounded McWaters before McWaters killed Wolf.
    McWaters went back home to his wife, but he soon got in trouble again. In February 1874, he and John Crook went into a saloon in Nebraska City, the Otoe County seat, in a drunken state and started raising hell. McWaters pulled out his revolver and opened fire, mortally wounding the bartender, Rudolph Wirth. Described as “a noted character and dangerous man,” McWaters and his sidekick were tracked to Iowa and brought back to Nebraska City, where they barely escaped lynching at the hands of a mob.
    On April 10, 1874, the desperate pair escaped the Nebraska City jail and fled south. In Kansas, the two split up. McWaters was recognized at Hays City and placed in the local jail, but he quickly escaped from that place, too. He then ranged back into southern Nebraska, barely avoiding recapture before heading west.
    About October 1, McWaters killed George Weed "without...provocation” in Sparta, Oregon. He hightailed it to California, where he was arrested in late October for the Weed murder. Before he could be returned to Oregon, the Otoe County sheriff arrived with requisition papers, and McWaters was escorted back to Nebraska City to stand trial for killing Wirth.
    He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to twenty-one years in the state penitentiary. At the time of his conviction, a Nebraska City correspondent wrote a story detailing the many exploits of the “terrible McWaters,” which subsequently appeared in newspapers across the country. Although much of the report was accurate, it also contained a number of fabrications and half-truths that became part of the McWaters legend.
    What the writer didn’t know was that McWaters’s exploits were hardly over. On January 11, 1875, just three weeks after arriving at the state prison in Lincoln, McWaters led a mutiny that nearly resulted in a large-scale prison break. After an all-night standoff, he and the other prisoners finally agreed to surrender.
    Four and a half months later, in late May 1875, McWaters was killed by a guard when he attempted to instigate another prison revolt. Thus ended the infamous career of the terrible McWaters, “noted murderer, desperado and horse thief,” as a Lincoln newspaper called him at the time of his death.
    This is a condensed and revised version of an article I wrote for the October 2020 issue of Wild West Magazine.