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.
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