Self Defense or Murder? The Story of Iva Holden

After twenty-three-year-old Iva Holden was charged with killing Max Lambert at her home near Bucyrus, Missouri, in August 1963, she had a pretty good case for self-defense. The forty-five-year-old Lambert had been judged insane in probate court, had been twice committed to mental institutions, and was known to have “bothered a lot of people” around Bucyrus, including the Holden family.

There were just a couple of annoying little details that belied Iva’s claim of self-defense. The pathologist who autopsied Lambert’s body said the man had been shot three times in the back, and the weapon Iva used was a single-shot, .22-caliber rifle, which meant she’d had to reload between each shot.

A World War II veteran, Lambert lived alone near Bucyrus, northwest of Houston, on Highway 17, and his walking route from home to the Bucyrus store took him past the Holden residence, where Iva lived with her mother, Bessie.

Lambert often stopped in at the Holden home, and he called there again about mid-afternoon on Tuesday, August 20, 1963. In the home at the time were Iva, her mother, and Iva’s two small children. According to the story Iva and her mother later told, Lambert started “bothering” Iva and calling her “vile names.” When he pushed her onto a couch, she got up and retrieved a loaded rifle that her boyfriend, Tommy Turner, had left in a closet at the Holden home. When Lambert started coming at her again, she shot him in the shoulder. She then shot him twice more after he turned and started for the door.

Iva was nevertheless arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The prosector claimed her story "just couldn't possibly happen," and, despite Bessie's testimony at a coroner's inquest that her daughter had acted in self-defense, Iva was held without bond in the Texas County Jail.

Iva's mother again testified at Iva’s preliminary hearing in mid-September before a packed courtroom, but the prosecutor and the sheriff both countered her argument of self-defense. Iva was held for trial on a charge of first-degree murder. A certain level of sentiment in Iva’s favor must have existed, though, because she was released on a bond of only $2,000, despite the serious charge against her.

At her trial in February 1964, Iva, now married to Tommy Turner, testified in her own defense. She said Lambert was coming toward her when she fired the first shot. Lambert then picked up a jug and raised his arm in a threatening manner. When Iva’s mother knocked the jug out his hand, he whirled and struck the older woman. That’s when Iva started firing again, but she didn’t remember how many times she fired after Lambert struck her mother. 

Bessie also testified once again on her daughter's behalf. She said that Lambert not only came into their house drunk and threatening Iva and her baby but that he also admitted having killed his own mother, who had died mysteriously in a fire several years earlier. 

Iva’s lawyer exhibited court records showing that Lambert had been adjudged insane in 1949 and had been sent to mental institutions two different times that year. He had never since been adjudged sane.

The prosecution’s two main witnesses were the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Lambert’s body and Texas County sheriff. The doctor repeated his opinion that Lambert had been shot three times in the back, and the sheriff said that Iva admitted killing Lambert when he first arrived on the scene of the crime.

After deliberating only thirty minutes, the jury came back with a finding of guilty on a reduced charge of manslaughter and a recommended punishment of five years in prison. The jury obviously did not completely believe Iva’s story of self-defense, or else they would have acquitted her. However, they must have had some sympathy for her, since she’d originally faced a first-degree murder charge.

Iva was transferred to the state prison soon after her conviction, and she was paroled in early April 1965 after serving only a little over a year of her five-year sentence.

The story above is condensed from a chapter in my recent book Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4enPVcO.

The Mysterious Death of Grover Myers

When fifty-four-year-old Grover Myers died at Gravelton, Missouri, on April 15, 1939, after a two-week illness, the cause of death was generally thought to be pneumonia, and the people of Gravelton mourned the passing of a well-known member of their community. Myers had lived in the vicinity all of his life, except for a few years in North Carolina, and he had several siblings livingin the area, including Dr. O. A. Myers, one of the physicians who’d treated Grover prior to his death. Like his brother, Grover Myers was considered a prominent citizen.

About a week after Myers’s death, a seventeen-year-old lad who had worked on the Myers farm whispered that he’d once seen Myers’s forty-four-year-old wife, Mary Louise, “in affectionate embrace” with Frank Stroup, a thirty-nine-year-old neighbor of the Myers family. This news set the neighbors’ tongues wagging, and speculation soon arose that maybe there was more to Grover Myers’s death than met the eye. If the neighbors had known more about Grover’s time in North Carolina, their tongues might have started wagging even sooner.

Sixteen years earlier, Grover and Louise, while married to previous spouses, had been convicted of “immoral conduct” in North Carolina on the grounds that they had deserted their respective families to live with each other. Grover Myers was sentenced to six months working on county roads, while Louise was sentenced to three months in the county home. Grover got his work sentence suspended upon payment of a $200 fine and a promise to return to his family.

He didn’t keep his promise very long, though, because shortly after Louise’s release, the two lovers got married at Winston-Salem, absconded to Missouri. After living in St. Louis about three years, the couple moved to Grover’s home territory of Wayne County, and they’d been there ever since. But now, Grover lay dead, and rumors were starting to circulate in the neighborhood that he might not have died of natural causes.

When Grover’s sister Ala Whitener got wind of the rumors, she began an investigation on her own. Already suspicious of the circumstances of her brother’s death because he had appeared on the road to recovery the last time she’d visited him, she soon arrived at the conclusion that foul play was involved. Law officers followed up on her lead and soon reached the same conclusion. Grover's body was exhumed, and the lab report confirmed that he had died of arsenic poisoning, not natural causes.

Louise Myers adamantly denied any involvement in her husband’s death until after the lab tests came back. Confronted with the lab report, she readily admitted poisoning her husband by putting arsenic in his tomato wine, and she cited Grover's cruelty toward her as the reason. She admitted being intimate with Stroup, and she implicated him and a neighbor woman named Nita Cook in the crime, 

After Louise’s confession, she, Stroup, Ms. Cook, and Arley Kemp, another neighbor with whom Louise was rumored to have been a “close friend,” were officially arrested and charged with first-degree murder. 

Mrs. Myers and Frank Stroup were separately arraigned on first-degree murder charges, but the murder charges again Arley Kemp and Nita Cook were dropped for lack of evidence. At her trial in mid-August 1939, Louise repudiated her previous confessions, but when the judge allowed them into evidence anyway, she changed her plea from not guilty to guilty. She was then sentenced to life in the state penitentiary and transported to Jefferson City. 

Brought back to Greenville to testify at Stroup's trial in September 1940, she repeated her claim that Stroup had urged her to poison her husband so that she and Stroup could get married. Stroup admitted an affair with the woman and even to being present when the idea of poisoning Myers arose, but he denied encouraging Louise to commit the crime. In early October, the jury acquitted him, and Louise Myers was returned to the state prison. Citing her poor health, the Board of Probation and Parole paroled her in March of 1952.

This story is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4v41viY.

A Triangular Love Tangle: The Story of Ima Gaskin

After twenty-nine-year-old Ima Gaskin shot and killed Charles Spencer in her home at Hayti, Missouri, late Friday afternoon, June 15, 1934, she told the local constable who showed up that she'd accidentally shot the man.

At a coroner’s inquest held in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Ima elaborated on her version of what happened. She said the 50-year-old Spencer was a close friend of her and her husband and often visited in their home. When he came to their house on Friday, she was sick in bed, and he sat in a chair at her bedside. They started kidding around, saying they should both be run out of town, and then started joking about shooting each other

Spencer pulled out his revolver, removed a handful of cartridges, and handed the weapon to Ima. Thinking it was empty, she pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. But instead of snapping on an empty cylinder, the gun went off, striking Spencer in the head. Ima said Spencer spoke several words to her, saying he didn't blame her, before slumping down in his chair and dying.

After examining the body, however, the coroner said the path of the bullet would have caused instantaneous death and that the victim could not have spoken after the bullet ripped through his brain. Also, the constable said he didn't think the revolver that Ima had turned over to him as the supposed murder weapon had been fired in several days. He didn't believe Spencer had been killed with his own gun, as she maintained.

Derondia Dunning, an attractive twenty-three-year-old woman who was separated from her husband, was a surprise witness at the hearing. She admitted she had been having an affair with the much-older Spencer, and she told of a letter he had received the previous day while she was at his house. The letter was from Ima Gaskin demanding that he choose between her and Ms. Dunning, beseeching him to come to her house the next day, and saying he was a coward if he didn't. Ms. Dunning said Spencer was very upset by the missive.

On Friday evening, the coroner’s jury returned an open verdict, leaving the pursuit of charges in the case up to the prosecuting attorney and the victim’s family. Constable Wyrick continued his investigation into the case that same evening and found two letters from Ima Gaskin to Spencer. The first was the one Ms. Dunning had mentioned. Despite its threatening tone, it was signed "Love," as was the second one.

Ima's husband, Moreau Gaskin, vigorously denied that his wife had been involved in any sort of scandalous relationship, maintaining that he, his wife, and Spencer were just good friends.

Late Friday night, Wyrick arrested Mrs. Gaskin on a warrant charging her with murder, and she was taken to the Pemiscot County Jail. She was brought back to Hayti on June 20 for a preliminary hearing, and the judge ordered her held for trial on a first-degree-murder charge.

Ima’s trial was held at Caruthersville in early August 1934. Prosecutor Robert Hawkins sought to prove that the killing was a premediated murder resulting from “a triangular love tangle.” The constable, the coroner, and Ms. Dunning were again the main three state witnesses.

Moreau Gaskin took the stand in his wife’s defense, and Ima also testified in her own defense. She repeated her story of an accidental shooting and dismissed the two letters as "just foolishness."

However, the jurors were not convinced. They returned a verdict of second-degree murder and recommended punishment of 20 years in prison. Ima was transported to Jefferson City in early October. She was discharged under parole in January 1941 after serving a little over six years.

This story is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Bandit Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4uTqMw6.