A Fatal Affray at a Religious Service

On the evening Saturday, July 2, 1932, twenty-two-year-old Emmett Culver and a friend were sitting on the front steps of the National Schoolhouse southeast of Marshfield (MO) waiting for time to go into the revival meeting that was about to begin, when Culver's father-in-law, sixty-year-old Ike Carpenter, and other members of the Carpenter family showed up. Culver and his friend got to their feet, and a confrontation between Culver and the Carpenters, who had been on the outs for some time, ensued. Carpenter fired several shots at Culver and his friend as they fled around the corner of the school, with two shots striking Culver. Carpenter later claimed that Culver made a motion as though going for a gun or knife, but Culver, who was unarmed, said Carpenter just started shooting. 

Culver, who had married Carpenter's seventeen-year-old daughter, Edna, two years earlier, was hospitalized in Springfield with grave wounds. He told a newspaper reporter the next day, "My father-in-law has hated me since I started sparking his daughter." Culver's young wife was at the hospital with him and was said to be taking her husband's side in the dispute. According to one report, the young couple had recently been estranged but had reunited shortly before the shooting affray.

The elder Carpenter was charged with felonious assault the day after the shooting, and his son, John, and another young man who was with the two Carpenters were later charged as well. Although it was thought at first that only Ike Carpenter had fired shots, an investigation revealed that all three men had fired at least one shot.

Culver died on July 6, and the charges against Ike and John Carpenter were upgraded to murder. The charges against the young man who was with them remained at felonious assault, and a second Carpenter son, Albert, was also charged with felonious assault.

Ike Carpenter was found guilty of second-degree murder at trial in September 1932 and given a two-year prison sentence. His son John was fined $200 for being an accessory. I assume charges against the other son and the Carpenters' friend must have been dropped or else they were let off very easily, since I have not found any further mention of their cases.