A Dead Man Turns Up Alive

On August 31, 1891, two masked men held up the American Bank of Corder in Lafayette County, Missouri, carrying away about $600. The men retreated through a rear door, mounted their horses, and started north. 

An alarm was given quickly, and a posse started in close pursuit of the bandits. One of the robbers' horses tired, and its rider dismounted and darted into the shelter of a cornfield but not before he was spotted by one of the posse members. The man was soon found inside the cornfield, captured, and brought back to Corder. The captive, who gave his name as Andrew Murrell, had about half of the stolen loot on his person. 

Two law officers were getting ready to take the robber to the county seat at Lexington when a mob formed, overpowered them, and took the prisoner away. He was strung up to a nearby thorn tree and, according to at least one report, his body was riddled with bullets. The body was left hanging until the next morning, when the county coroner arrived to cut it down. 

Although the man who was lynched had given his name as Andrew Murrell, circumstantial evidence suggested that he might really be Jesse Messer, who had disappeared from neighboring Pettis County a few days earlier. Relatives of Messer traveled to Lafayette County and identified some of the personal effects of the dead man as having belonged to Messer. The body was then dug up and the identity of the man confirmed as Jesse Messer. 

Everyone thought that was the end of the story, but it took a strange twist when Messer showed up at his home near Houstonia (Pettis County) in June of 1892, ten months after he had disappeared. He said he'd gone to Saline County when he left home and had been working there ever since. He had heard about his supposed lynching, had got a good laugh out of it, and, thinking it was an insignificant matter, had neglected to inform his family that he was not dead. He asked their forgiveness for not telling them. 

The question that now arose, as one newspaper asked, was, "Who was the man lynched?" It was suggested that perhaps the dead man's name was indeed Andrew Murrell, just as he had told officers, but, as far as I've been able to learn, the mystery was never solved with certainty. 

 

Fooling with the Wrong Daughter

On May 6,1896, Sealous Grugin, a farmer living near Atlanta in Macon County (MO), took a double-barreled shotgun and went to the neighboring farm of his son-in-law, Walter Jefferson Hadley, where he found Hadley and his wife (Grugin's daughter) working in the field. Only a few words were spoken (and what those words were was later a matter of disagreement) before Grugin raised the gun and shot his unarmed son-in-law. Hadley fell at first fire, and his wife, Luella, cried out, "Oh, Pa, why have you killed Jeff?"

But Grugin wasn't finished. He took a step or two closer to Hadley and shot him again while he was down. Hadley died almost instantly. Grugin promptly headed toward town to turn himself in to authorities. On the way, he told a person he met that Hadley had raped one of his daughters but that he would never rape another one. 

Grugin's trial on a first-degree murder charge was held in Macon County Circuit Court in the spring of 1897. Grugin freely admitted killing Hadley, but he felt he was justified in doing so because Hadley had allegedly raped Luella's sixteen-year-old sister, Alma, a few weeks before the murder while she was staying overnight with the Hadleys. Grugin had only learned of the assault on the day of the murder. Grugin took the stand in his own defense, and Alma testified that Hadley had indeed raped her. Luella, on the other hand, testified for the prosecution that the murder was a cold-blooded execution.

It had been revealed in the aftermath of the shooting that bad blood existed between Grugin and Hadley long before the killing. Grugin didn't like Hadley even before he married Luella, and he had strongly opposed the marriage. Many people thought Grugin had acted impulsively and that Hadley was not guilty of raping Alma. Some thought instead that her fiance had criminally assaulted her and that she had tried to shift the blame to Hadley. Alma insisted this was not the case and that she had told the truth. 

The trial ended in a hung jury, with eleven reportedly for acquittal and only one for conviction. At his second trial in December of 1897, though, Grugin was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary. He was released on bond pending the outcome of an appeal, and the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the conviction in late 1898 and remanded the case to Macon County for a new trial. The third trial was held in October of 1899, and the jury acquitted Grugin after a brief deliberation on the grounds of the "unwritten law" that a man had the right to defend the sanctity of his home and family. 

 

 

The Murder of Frank Wade

On Tuesday, July 28, 1897, the neighborhood between Relfe and Spring Creek in southwest Phelps County (MO) was thrown into excitement when the nude body of 11-year-old Frank Wade was found in a pond on the Hamilton Lawson property, his throat having been slashed. Hamilton Lawson's wife and at least one of their sons were suspected of the murder, a mob formed, and the only thing that prevented a lynching was the lack of "a hot-headed leader."

Frank and his 14-year-old brother, Millard, had gone over to the Lawson place on Sunday the 26th to play with Hamilton's 15-year-old son Johnny and his 11-year-old grandson, Rack. The four boys spent the morning playing together before Frank and Rack separated from the other two shortly before noon and went into a pasture. 

When the boys were called to dinner (i.e. lunch), all of them showed up except Frank. When questioned, Rack said that Frank had "gone up the ravine singing and laughing." 

Later in the day, Millard went home, thinking he'd find his younger brother there, but he wasn't there. Frank's parents became greatly worried and gave an alarm. Search parties failed to turn up any sign of the missing boy until his body was found two days later.

Based on the testimony of witness Martin Harris, Mrs. Lawson and two of her sons, 30-year-old Jake and Rack's father, Andy, were arrested on suspicion of murder. 

Andy's trial was held first, in March of 1897. Although the case against Lawson was largely circumstantial, it was considered a strong case for the prosecution. Among the evidence presented was the fact that the defendant had gone to his mother and father's house and secured a razor on the fateful day, supposedly to shave with, but he still had a full beard several days later. To the chagrin of many observers, however, Lawson's trial ended in a hung jury.

His mother was then tried in the summer of 1897 and found not guilty. Again, many observers thought she was guilty, but many also conceded that the state had not presented a strong case against her. 

Jake was tried and Andy was re-tried at the same time, in December of 1897, and they, too, were acquitted. Many people in the Phelps County area remained convinced, however, that they were guilty.

One possible motive for the crime that was put forward was the fact that William Wade, Frank's father, had shot and killed a brother of Jake and Andy several years earlier after the brother was arrested on a robbery charge and tried to escape while Wade, who had been deputized to guard him, was on duty. Some folks, on the other hand, conjectured that the boys had gotten into a fight, that one or both of the Lawson boys had killed the Wade boy, and that the Lawson adults tried to shield their kids. 

Jess Hall: An Old Offender

On the night of August 1, 1907, 19-year-old Jess Hall assaulted Springfield (MO) police officer J. M. Noe at the Green Light Saloon after Noe went there to investigate a report that Hall was causing a disturbance. Halll was alleged to have struck Noe with a "pair of knucks." A Springfield newspaper said at the time that Hall had been arrested a number of times previously. What the paper didn't know was that Hall was just getting started on his life of crime.

Hall was arrested a few nights after the Green Light incident and held for trial on an assault charge. When he went on trial in November of 1907, Noe was the principal witness against Hall, while the young man's former wife was the main defense witness. She had ben present at the time of the incident, but she had divorced him while he was in jail. Nevertheless, she cried and took on when Hall was convicted and sentenced to three years in the state prison. The Springfield Leader again observed that Hall was  an "old offender" who had been convicted seven times in local court on various charges ranging from petit larceny to disturbing the peace.

Hall was admitted to the penitentiary in Jeff City in late December 1907 and released in February 1910 on the 3/4 rule. Returning home to Springfield, he must have stayed relatively clean for a few months, but in late 1911 he was arrested for stealing chickens and charged with grand larceny. 

Again, he was convicted and sent up the river, and he again served 3/4ths of his time. Sentenced to four years, he was released in late December 1914. This time, it took him only until September 1915 to get into trouble again. He was arrested on robbery charge after holding up a Kansas City salesman near Maple Park Cemetery at the south end of South Street. 

He was convicted once again and this time was sentenced to approximately ten years in the penitentiary. He got out after only a little over a year on a commutation from the governor. Apparently old Jess went relatively straight after that. At least I didn't notice his name in the papers in the late 1910s.