After 20-year-old Ada Lee Biggs was convicted of second-degree murder in November of 1928 in Ste. Francois County (MO) for killing her stepfather, William Simpson, newspapers speculated that the jury must have doubted her word because of inconsistencies in her story. While it's true that the story Ada told when first arrested differed somewhat from what she told the jury, her claim of abuse at the hands of her stepfather was pretty consistent from the beginning.
The basic facts of the case were straightforward—on the evening of July 14, 1928, Ada poked a shotgun through a window of her home in Bismarck (MO) and blew the top of her stepfather’s head off. But even at that time, a St. Louis newspaper reported that "a sinister tale of a middle-aged man...who was attracted by the daughter of the widow he married..." lay in back of the crime.
Ada's father died when she was young, and her mother, Bertie, married William Simpson when Ada was about eleven years of age. Simpson's inappropriate behavior toward Ada began shortly after the marriage, and according to Ada, he made life hell for her from the time she was 12 years old. He would not let her have friends, and he became very jealous if a boy even looked at her.
As Ada grew older and more physically mature, Simpson’s advances became more insistent. He started groping her and trying to get her to have sex with him whenever her mother was away from home. Ada told her mother of Simpson’s conduct, but Mrs. Simpson didn’t believe her.
Finally, on December 15, 1926, when Ada was 18, Simpson, who was about 50, took Ada out in his car to a secluded spot, raped her, and threatened to kill "the whole damn family" if she told anybody.
Ada left home after that but soon came back when Simpson threatened to have her committed to a home for delinquent girls. Simpson's abuse resumed, as he raped Ada once or twice a month during the first half of 1927. Somewhere along the line, Bertie finally started believing her daughter, and in mid-1927, she invited her brother, Oscar Greenwalt, to come and live with the Simpson family to help protect her and Ada from her husband's rampages.
Simpson, who stayed drunk much of the time, suffered from ataxia and was given to spells. Most of his neighbors considered him about half insane. His spells worsened after Greenwalt arrived, and around the first of 1928, Bertie and her brother began plotting to get rid of Simpson. They tried to get Ada to kill him, saying they'd vouch for her, but she resisted the idea at first.
She finally agreed to the idea after Simpson went on a day-long spree on Saturday, July 14, 1928. About five o’clock in the afternoon, Bertie told her brother that they had to "do it today.” Greenwalt agreed, and they appointed Ada to carry out the murder.
Simpson took regular steam baths to try to combat the effects of his ataxia. So, the conspirators waited until later that evening when it was time for him to take his steam bath. Even at the last moment, Ada still balked at the assignment, but she finally agreed after her mother brought out a shotgun and her uncle cocked and handed it to her. While Simpson was taking a steam bath, Ada, nineteen at the time and a recent graduate of Bismarck High School, slipped up outside the window about ten o’clock and shot the man, almost blowing his head off.
When authorities arrived, Ada, Bertie, and Greenwalt denied involvement in the crime. Based on evidence found at the Simpson home, however, Greenwalt was taken in for questioning the next day, and he broke down and confessed to his involvement, implicating his sister and niece as well.
When Ada was arrested and questioned, she gave a statement taking full blame for the crime, trying to shield her mother and uncle. She said the reason she did it was because of the mean way her stepfather treated her and because he had threatened to kill her. To a newspaper reporter, Ada clarified that Simpson had "brutally assaulted" her.
Ada was charged with first-degree murder, and her mother and uncle, who knew all the details of the crime even before Ada confessed, were charged as accessories. The people of Bismarck exhibited “a strong sentiment in favor of Ada” in the aftermath of the shooting, while they were mostly indifferent toward Oscar Greenwalt and his sister.
Ada’s case was severed from the other two defendants, and when her trial came up at Farmington in November 1928, she told her whole story, pleading self-defense. She addressed the members of the jury in an even voice: "Gentlemen..., after my honor, my virtue, had been taken, I realized I could never marry. My social standing, my character, were ruined. That is what drove me to the insanity that I did."
Two or three defense witnesses testified to Ada’s good reputation prior to the crime, including Richard Dennis, a young man who had kept company with Ada before being driven off by Simpson. He called Ada “an honorable girl.”
Although Ada had been charged with first-degree murder, the jury came back with a verdict finding her guilty of second-degree murder. So, it's not clear, as the newspapers suggested, that the jury did not believe her story. It might well be that they did believe her story but still felt obligated by the law to find her guilty of the lesser offense.
Arguing for the idea that many people did believe Ada’s story is the fact that she was sentenced to only ten years in prison, while her mother and uncle, who both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder a couple of weeks after Ada's trial, received sentences of 15 years behind bars.
Ada was paroled in mid-1933, after serving less than five years. She got married the same year, and the couple later had two children. She died in 1979 and is buried at Cape Girardeau.
The story above is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/3QQYt2z.
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