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.