Unlawfully Intimate

    On Sunday morning, July 22, 1876, a man standing on the north bank of the Missouri River in southern Warren County, Missouri, discovered a body floating downstream. The body was pulled to shore and identified as that of Samuel Taylor, a thirty-eight-year-old man who lived nearby with his twenty-eight-year-old wife, Martha, and one child. 

   Taylor was described as a man of “rather loose habits and of very weak mind.” Although he was white, he was known to associate mainly with his Black neighbors. Examination of Taylor's body revealed several wounds that appeared to have been made by a large pocketknife or similar object, and authorities concluded that he'd been killed by some unknown party.

   Suspicion soon settled on Dan Price, a thirty-three-old Black man who was a close associate of Taylor. He and Price often fished and hunted together. Price, a widower, frequently visited the Taylor home, and rumors had been circulating in the neighborhood that Price had been “unlawfully intimate” with Taylor’s wife. 

  Price and his paramour were both arrested on August 4 and taken before a justice for examination. Testimony at the hearing centered around the alleged romance between Price and Mrs. Taylor and the fact that Price and the victim had been seen together shortly before Taylor disappeared. At the end of the hearing, the case against the woman was dismissed, but Price was held for murder. 

    Martha Taylor left the area after her discharge, but additional evidence against her soon came to light. She was brought back to Warrenton, charged as a conspirator in her husband's murder, and given a new preliminary hearing. The primary witness against her was Maggie Price, Dan Price's 16-year-old daughter, who said she'd overheard Martha and her father talking about "putting Taylor out of the way." Some of the other testimony against Mrs. Taylor was too salacious "to give publicity to," according to the local newspaper.

  Although the outcome of Martha’s preliminary hearing is unclear from newspapers, she apparently was charged as an accessory to murder and let out on bond. Shortly after the hearing, Dan Price escaped from the Warren County Jail, and Martha temporarily harbored him before he fled the territory.

   Price was arrested in Illinois in late October and brought back to Warren County, where a joint indictment was found against him and Martha Taylor. As principal in the crime, Price was charged with first-degree murder, and Martha, as an accessory before the fact, was charged with second-degree murder.

   In late November, Price was found guilty and sentenced to hang. Martha Taylor’s trial began almost immediately after Price’s ended. She was found guilty of murder in the second degree and sentenced to twenty-five years in the state penitentiary.

   Dan Price was executed on January 18, 1877. After serving less than five and half years in prison, Martha Taylor received a full pardon and was released in April 1882.

   The brief account above is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4le5mWs.