The charred body of Oscar Bushart, a 27-year-old real estate dealer, was found in the backseat of an automobile on Friday, July 13, 1934, in a lonely spot northeast of Thayer (MO), the apparent victim of a torch slaying.
The coroner examined the body and concluded that Bushart had likely been beaten before he was burned. The car in which the man was found belonged to his father-in-law, 37-year-old R. E. Edwards, also a real estate dealer. Bushart had not been seen since Thursday night and had apparently been dead several hours before he was found early Friday afternoon.
Edwards told reporters he had "no idea" what the motive for the killing might be. Edwards said neither he nor his stepson, who worked in Edwards's agency, had any enemies that he knew about in their real estate dealings. Edwards said that if Bushart had received any threats, he didn't know about them, and he suggested robbery as a possible motive.
Edwards, who'd been married to Bushart's mother since Bushart was a youngster, said he'd practically raised him and that he'd never had any trouble with him. He didn't know why anybody would be after Bushart.
Edwards talked a good game, but, come to find out, he himself was behind the murder.
Joe Luck Braden, a 35-year-old Thayer man, was suspected of being involved in the murder from the beginning because he was known to have argued with Bushart shortly before the latter's death. Three months later, authorities linked Braden and Edwards together in the crime after it was learned they'd been prison mates together in Arkansas.
Both Braden and Edwards were arrested on suspicion. Braden admitted the killing, and Edwards admitted paying him to do the dirty deed. Braden said he'd beaten Bushart to death and then poured gasoline over the body and burned it. He was promised $500 by Edwards but was paid only a small fraction of that amount. Edwards's motive was a $4,000 life insurance policy he had taken out on Bushart.
A day or two later, Edwards also implicated a third man, saying that Ike Dawson had helped Braden do the actual killing. In addition, Edwards's wife gave police information about two other murders that her husband had previously committed.
He was charged only for the Bushart murder, however, as were his two co-defendants. Dawson pleaded guilty in early April 1935 to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In June 1935, Braden also pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, and Edwards was found guilty of the same charge by a jury, which recommended a life sentence. The judge sentenced both to life in prison.
Edwards was paroled in 1957 after serving 22 years of his supposedly life sentence. No word on what happened to his two co-defendants after they went to prison.
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