A Greene County Bigamist

Sometime around January or early February 1951, a woman filed a complaint with the Greene County (MO) prosecutor claiming that her sister's husband, Jack Wilson, was also married to another woman under the name Coy Burney. Apparently, Wilson and his wife, Eula Mae, had recently traveled from Springfield to Nichols Junction to visit another sister, and a friend of the other sister recognized Jack Wilson as Coy Burney. The woman said Burney lived at Bois D'Arc and that he had a wife named Alma. The sister did not believe her friend until the two women started comparing pictures and realized that Jack Wilson and Coy Burney were one and the same.

Shortly afterwards, the first sister filed her complaint with the prosecutor, who undertook an investigation. It revealed that the man's real name was Coy Burney and that he had married Alma Leigh at Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1944, shortly after getting divorced from his first wife. He had a child by his first wife and had been arrested about the same time as his marriage to Alma for nonsupport of the child. But that didn't keep him from having two more children with Alma.  

In January of 1950, Burney, under the alias Jack Wilson, married Eula Mae Rowden at Berryville, Arkansas, while still married to Alma. Jack and Eula Mae took up residence on North National in Springfield, while Coy continued to live off-and-on with Alma at Bois D'Arc, only about ten miles away. Wilson was a truck driver, and he managed to pull off the balancing act by telling each woman that he was away on an over-the-road trip when he was really with the other wife. 

The 25-year-old Burney was arrested on February 21, 1951. He denied his double life at first, but, when he was brought into the prosecutor's office as Eula Mae was leaving, he admitted that she was "one of my wives." He said, "I was in love with Eula Mae and did not want to hurt Alma at the same time." He was charged with bigamy and jailed in lieu of $2,500 bond. 

In June of 1951, Burney pleaded guilty to bigamy and was released on $2,500 bond to await sentencing. I have not found the final disposition of the bigamy case, except I know that Alma was granted a divorce from Burney in October 1951 and given custody of their two children. 

Note: photo of Burney, alias Wilson, above is from the Springfield Leader and Press, as is most of the info for this post.