The Marshall Junction Wildlife Area Murders

On the afternoon of September 9, 1986, a deputy sheriff found the bodies of three men at the Marshall Junction Wildlife Area Shooting Range near the intersection of Interstate 70 and Highway 65 in southern Saline County, Missouri. He called for backup, and the arriving reinforcements soon discovered a fourth body a short distance from the other three. 

All four men had been shot multiple times with a high-powered rifle. They were identified as Donald Vanderlinden, 64, John Burford, 57, James Watson 54, and Christopher Griffith, 38. Authorities theorized that the motive for the murders was robbery, since a fairly large sum of money the men were carrying was missing. Officers thought that Vanderlinden and Burford, who were brothers-in-law, had been target practicing when they were killed and that Watson, a Missouri conservation agent, and Griffith, who was accompanying Watson, interrupted the crime and were shot dead when Watson came to check on the wildlife area. Investigators believed that Griffith, whose body was the one found some distance from the others, had tried to flee after his companion was shot but was brought down by gunfire.

After a week-long investigation, Donald E. Reese, 43, a local truck driver, was arrested on suspicion, and he broke down and confessed to the heinous crime on September 17, a couple of days after his arrest. He was then charged with four counts of first-degree murder and multiple counts of robbery. 

Although Reese led police to the murder weapon and over $2,000 that he'd stashed several miles away from the crime scene, he refuted the theory that robbery was the actual motive. Instead, he claimed that he had talked to Vanderlinden and Burford when they first arrived at the firing range and that, after they moved away from him, his finger was resting on the trigger of his rifle and accidentally went off, striking one of the men. He then shot the second man, who was armed, because he was afraid that the other man was going to shoot him. Almost immediately after the first two shootings, Watson and Griffith arrived. Watson got out of his car and briefly engaged Reese in conversation. He then started edging back toward his car, causing Reese to suspect he'd seen the bodies of the two dead men. Reese then opened fire on him and shot Griffith as he tried to escape in order to leave no witnesses. 

Reese's friends could scarcely believe the charges against him. One friend, David Sitzes, said he knew Reese was having marital problems (his wife had recently left him) and that he was depressed and suicidal, but he said he could not believe that Reese, whom he described as a "kind-hearted" person who never said a bad word about anybody, could be guilty of the murders.

Reese was tried for the murders of Watson and Griffith in Jefferson County on a change of venue in March of 1988. The main piece of evidence against him was the confession he'd signed shortly after his arrest. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the conviction and the sentence in July of 1990, and Reese was finally executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center in August of 1997.

 

Tunas, Dallas County

Continuing the theme I've established the past couple of weeks of writing about small towns I passed through on my recent trip to Jefferson City, I thought I'd look at Tunas this time. It's a small community in Dallas County (MO) about 15 miles north of Buffalo on Highway 73. 

I've written about Tunas previously on this blog. Specifically, I wrote about the controversy that arose in 1972 when the Buffalo School District proposed, apparently without consulting the residents of Tunas or officials of the Tunas School District, to take in the much smaller Tunas district.  

However, I've never really written about the town and its origins. Perhaps one reason for that is that information about early Tunas is scarce. However, this time, I was able to come up with a few interesting tidbits.

Tunas came into existence about 1893 when James A. Taylor applied to the federal government for a post office to be located there. I've seen several sources that say the origin of the name Tunas is a mystery, but the post office application offers a hint, because in a couple of different places on the application the name of the proposed post office is spelled Tunis rather than Tunas. This suggests that perhaps Tunas was named after Tunis, the capital of Tunisia in North Africa. 

At any rate, the name Tunas soon became the accepted spelling, and by early 1894, Taylor's application had been approved, and he had established his post office, which served about 200 people in the surrounding vicinity. The town itself, however, amounted in May 1894 to not much more than Taylor's store and post office, one other store, and a residence or two. By the fall of that year, two more houses were being built.

As suggested by my mention of the school consolidation dispute, Tunas became a somewhat thriving little town in the early 1900s, but by the middle part of the twentieth century, it was already struggling to maintain viability. After the town lost its high school in 1972 (by consolidating with Skyline, not Buffalo), it continued its decline, and today it is little more than a wide place in the road.

Brazito, Missouri

Another little town that I passed through on my way to Jefferson City the week before last was Brazito. It's a wide place in the road in Cole County about twelve miles southwest of Jefferson City along Highway 54. Like Branch that I wrote about last week, it is another place that I've sometimes wondered about, as far as its origins and history.

There's not a lot of information about Brazito readily available, but here's what little I've been able to learn. Brazito was founded in 1850 and named after the Battle of Brazito by soldiers returning from the Mexican War. Brazito was settled mainly by German-Americans, and it got a post office in 1856. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, it was apparently a going little place, even though there seemingly was never much more there than the post office, a store or two, and a school. In 1873, the Jefferson City State Times reported that Brazito was one of two villages in Clark Township where public meetings and neighborhood gatherings were held. Brazito was also "a favorite stopping place for refreshments with travelers." The store of Christopher Arnhold, who doubled as the postmaster, supplied "the wants of his neighbors," and his inn was a place where travelers could get "bounteous refreshment and rest."  In 1892, Brazito was a significant-enough place that a rivalry developed between it and Jefferson City over where the teachers' institute (a county-wide teachers' meeting) would be held the following year. I'm not sure which town prevailed, but the fact that Brazito was even considered suggests that it was probably more than just a wide place in the road at the time. 

Brazito lost its post office in 1930, and it has apparently declined since then, at least as a center for commerce and community events, although there are still quite a few residences in the vicinity.  

Branch, Missouri

A few months ago, I wrote on this blog about Pumpkin Center, a crossroads community at the intersection of Highway 73 and 64 in northern Dallas County, Missouri. The reason I wrote about it, as I mentioned at the time, was that I used to occasionally drive Highway 73 on my way to Jefferson City or Columbia, and driving through the place always sparked my curiosity about how its origins and how it got its name. Well, just a couple of days ago, I took another trip to Jeff City (to talk about my Spook Light book https://amzn.to/47ufXHX at the State Archives), and on the way up, I drove Highway 73 again. Another small village along that stretch of road that has pricked my curiosity is Branch. It's located a few miles north of Pumpkin Center just across the county line in Camden County.  

From the number of houses that are still clustered at or near Branch, one would tend to think that the place was, at one time, a fairly sizeable and booming little community, but that is apparently not the case. From what I've been able to discern, Branch was never much more than a wide place in the road.

Exactly when Branch came into existence is not altogether clear, but apparently there was not a place named Branch until Joel Stoner made application in March 1898 to establish a post office at the location or shortly before this time. In fact, it appears from post office records that Stoner at first entertained the idea of calling the place Stoner after himself, because the word "Stoner" is crossed out and the name "Branch" written in its place on the application.

At the time of the application, Branch or the place that would become Branch had a population of twenty residents, but the proposed post office would serve a total of 300 people living in Branch and the surrounding area. The application was approved, and a post office was established at Branch the following year, 1899.

Like a lot of small, rural post offices, the Branch Post Office was located inside a general store, which was about the only business in the village of Branch. There was also a separate place near Branch called Long Branch, and it had a school, which also served as a church from time to time. I've seen a couple of references to Branch School, but I'm not sure whether Branch had its own separate school, or Long Branch School was simply shortened to Branch School sometimes. Today, the Long Branch Assembly of God Church is less than a mile north of Branch, but apparently the old Long Branch School was slightly west of Branch.     

In 1926, the Branch Post Office was relocated because of a new road being built through the area, and the post office was moved about 300 yards east to the new road. At this time, Branch had a population of 18, very similar to its head count 28 years earlier. 

Branch lost its post office in 1968, but, judging from the number of houses that are still at or in the immediate vicinity of the village, the population of the place remains, even today, about as big as it ever was.