Murder-Suicide or Double Murder? (The Sensational Story of Lillie Colcord)

About 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, August 17, 1878, a woman's scream issued from Room 4 at the Girard House in downtown St. Louis, and then four shots rang out. The hotel clerk, occupants of the place, and officers who were nearby on the street rushed to Room 4 and found the door locked. Breaking it down, they entered and found a young woman, initially identified as Lillie Smith, lying dead on the floor and Josiah Colcord, a 34-year-old St. Louis lawyer, lying mortally wounded beside her. By the time a doctor arrived, Colcord was also dead.

Colcord had his jacket off and his vest unbuttoned but was otherwise fully clothed, while the young woman was clad only in a chemise and a short, loose-fitting gown, with "no stockings, even, covering her feet." 

Investigators quickly concluded that Colcord had shot the woman three times and then turned the weapon, a .38 caliber revolver, on himself, and that's how St. Louis newspapers would report the incident later that day and the next morning. From the very beginning, however, there were those who questioned the official version of events, suggesting instead that the couple had been the victims of a double homicide.   

Josiah Colcord at one time had been an up-and-coming attorney with a bright future. He had even served a term in the Missouri legislature. He had married "an estimable young lady" from Greenville, Illinois, and had three children, but according to the St. Louis papers, he had fallen prey to the demon alcohol and had lost his way. The couple had separated about 1875, and Colcord had taken up with Lillie. In recent months, he had reportedly tried to straighten out his life but had relapsed in recent days. 

Reporters who hurried to the scene of the double fatality remarked that, despite the bloody circumstances now attending Lillie's death, she was a woman of uncommon beauty. She had a face that could only be described as "of exceeding attractiveness." She had "large brown, dreamy eyes, an oval face, nose slightly retroussé but delicately chiseled, large mouth, fine teeth and a figure voluptuous in the extreme."  

Little was known in St. Louis about Lillie, except that she had a reputation as a "woman of the town" who often drank to excess. She had claimed to be married to Colcord, and the couple had registered at the hotel as man and wife. In addition, love notes that the couple had written to each other in which they addressed each other as husband and wife were found in the hotel room. At an inquest held later the same day of the deaths, contradictory testimony was given as to whether the couple was actually married and as to whether they had argued in recent days. The St. Louis newspapers sided with those who believed Lillie to be Colcord's mistress, as they could find no record of the supposed marriage. They seemed to blame the whole unfortunate affair on the "seductive wiles" of the "cyprian" who had led Colcord astray. 

It was left to the Bloomington Pantagraph of McLean County, Illinois, where the 24-year-old Lillie was originally from, "to cast light upon her history," as the Pantagraph itself phrased it. Lilah "Lillie" Gibbons was the daughter of a well-known citizen of Heyworth, McLean County. When she was "a growing girl," she attracted "universal attention" with her "rare, rich beauty and grace." When she was only about 16 years old, Lillie, who was said to have a passionate nature, ran away with a young man from Heyworth named John Harrold and lived in New Orleans with Harrold for a year or more as his mistress. 

After her time in New Orleans, Lillie returned home and stayed with her parents for a while. Then, in 1872, she met and married a man named Davis from Bunker Hill, Illinois, but they divorced after just a short period. In fact, she and Colcord first met when he represented her in the divorce proceeding, and they became infatuated with each other at that time, while he was still married to his first wife. After her divorce from Davis was final, Lillie once again returned home for a while before moving to St. Louis. When she next returned to Heyworth about 1876, she brought Colcord with her and introduced him as her husband. In fact, she and Colcord, who was now divorced from his first wife, were living together without the benefit of matrimony at this time. However, they did wed in the spring of 1877, with a St. Louis justice performing the ceremony, and the couple had a child together.

Around the first of July 1878, just weeks prior to her death, Lillie came back to Heyworth and stayed there throughout July and into August, but she also spent time in Bloomington. Colcord occasionally visited her, coming and going as his business dictated. 

Just a couple of weeks before the tragedy in St. Louis, Colcord went to Bloomington while Lillie was not there to investigate rumors he had heard of her unfaithfulness. He confronted several men "whose names had been connected dishonorably with the name of his wife," but he supposedly became convinced of his wife's honesty and fidelity and vowed to a friend that he was going to make the rumormongers face Lillie and the men who had been dishonorably connected to her. Yet, it was apparent to the people Colcord talked to in Bloomington that he was not only angry but also consumed with jealousy. The Pantagraph allowed that it was not uncharitable to the dead to say that there were some grounds for Colcord's jealousy.

Despite the fact authorities were able to establish jealousy as a strong motive for Colcord's alleged crime, there were still those who doubted that he had killed his wife and himself. Foremost among these were members of Colcord's family. 

Then, in 1887, a man named Henry Morrison walked into a St. Louis police station and asked to be locked up for murdering the Colcords nine years earlier. He said he'd killed them because he was in love with Lillie and that he fled the hotel before anybody saw him. All the evidence, though, still pointed to a murder-suicide, and Morrison's claim was dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. Thus, he was sent on his way. 

A few days later, however, authorities in St. Louis received a letter from Colcord's sister in Illinois saying that Morrison should have been held because the Colcord family had found letters among Josiah's personal things that seemed to point toward Morrison as a bitter enemy of Josiah and a rival for the affections of his wife.
According to the sister and her father, Morrison was one of the men whose name had been "disagreeably connected" to Lillie in the weeks leading up to her death. 

St. Louis authorities, however, placed little stock in either the opinion of the Colcord family or the confession of Henry Morrison, and the case was not re-opened.

Elkland, Missouri

According to at least one source I have seen on the internet, Elkland, located on Highway 38 about thirteen miles northwest of Marshfield, is supposedly the oldest community in Webster County, having been established in 1832. I have found absolutely no evidence that this is true and quite a bit of evidence that it is not true. At least I'm pretty sure there was not an actual village or hamlet named Elkland in the early 1830s, although there were certainly settlers who lived in the vicinity by that time. 

There was a church, Pleasant View Church, near present-day Elkland at least as early as 1860, and I have even seen a claim that the church dates from a much earlier time (as early as 1803 or 1804). This latter claim seems pretty far-fetched, since very few European Americans even lived in Missouri Territory at this early date, at least not in the western part of the territory, and those who did were very thinly scattered.   

As far as I've been able to determine, construction on the first Pleasant View Church began in the fall of 1860 and was discontinued in the spring of 1861 when the Civil War broke out. Work on the church was resumed late in the war and was nearly complete by the time the war ended. An argument over whether the M. E. Church South or the M. E. Church North had a right to possess this church building, which was located about a mile (as the crow flies) southwest of present-day Elkland, resulted in the murder of the Rev. Samuel S. Headlee in the summer of 1866.

In 1870, Joshua L. Lee applied to the federal government for a post office to be established at Elkland, and the application was granted. However, even at this date, five years after the Civil War ended, no town of Elkland existed other than perhaps a general store in which the post office was to be housed. Lee estimated the population within a two-mile radius of his proposed post office at about 100 residents, but there was no actual village of Elkland. 

In the mid-1880s, J. H. Davidson was a prominent merchant at Elkland, but his was virtually the only business in town. So, it was a few years later before Elkland began to take on the semblance of a town. By the mid-1890s, the community boasted a school with about 70 students. This was likely a school only for students in grades 1-8, but Elkland did have a high school in the early to mid 1900s, and it was a thriving little hamlet during those years. 

In fact, I remember when Elkland lost its high school in the late 1950s, because some of its high school students came to Fair Grove, where I was a grade-school student at the time. (Others went to Marshfield, while still others went to Buffalo.) Elkland Elementary was consolidated into the Marshfield School District at this time or a little later, and it functioned as a satellite school of the Marshfield District until 1977, when Elkland's elementary school also closed and students were bused to Marshfield. As is often the case when a small community loses its school, Elkland began a period of decline after closure of its school, and nowadays it is once again not much more than a wide place in the road, although it does have a store, a church, and maybe one or two other businesses. 

The Pleasant View Church, by the way, moved a mile or so southeast of its original location in about 1900. This "new" church building still stands on Highway 38 a couple of miles south of Elkland, but I think it has been pretty much abandoned for many years. 

The Marshall Junction Wildlife Area Murders

On the afternoon of September 9, 1986, a deputy sheriff found the bodies of three men at the Marshall Junction Wildlife Area Shooting Range near the intersection of Interstate 70 and Highway 65 in southern Saline County, Missouri. He called for backup, and the arriving reinforcements soon discovered a fourth body a short distance from the other three. 

All four men had been shot multiple times with a high-powered rifle. They were identified as Donald Vanderlinden, 64, John Burford, 57, James Watson 54, and Christopher Griffith, 38. Authorities theorized that the motive for the murders was robbery, since a fairly large sum of money the men were carrying was missing. Officers thought that Vanderlinden and Burford, who were brothers-in-law, had been target practicing when they were killed and that Watson, a Missouri conservation agent, and Griffith, who was accompanying Watson, interrupted the crime and were shot dead when Watson came to check on the wildlife area. Investigators believed that Griffith, whose body was the one found some distance from the others, had tried to flee after his companion was shot but was brought down by gunfire.

After a week-long investigation, Donald E. Reese, 43, a local truck driver, was arrested on suspicion, and he broke down and confessed to the heinous crime on September 17, a couple of days after his arrest. He was then charged with four counts of first-degree murder and multiple counts of robbery. 

Although Reese led police to the murder weapon and over $2,000 that he'd stashed several miles away from the crime scene, he refuted the theory that robbery was the actual motive. Instead, he claimed that he had talked to Vanderlinden and Burford when they first arrived at the firing range and that, after they moved away from him, his finger was resting on the trigger of his rifle and accidentally went off, striking one of the men. He then shot the second man, who was armed, because he was afraid that the other man was going to shoot him. Almost immediately after the first two shootings, Watson and Griffith arrived. Watson got out of his car and briefly engaged Reese in conversation. He then started edging back toward his car, causing Reese to suspect he'd seen the bodies of the two dead men. Reese then opened fire on him and shot Griffith as he tried to escape in order to leave no witnesses. 

Reese's friends could scarcely believe the charges against him. One friend, David Sitzes, said he knew Reese was having marital problems (his wife had recently left him) and that he was depressed and suicidal, but he said he could not believe that Reese, whom he described as a "kind-hearted" person who never said a bad word about anybody, could be guilty of the murders.

Reese was tried for the murders of Watson and Griffith in Jefferson County on a change of venue in March of 1988. The main piece of evidence against him was the confession he'd signed shortly after his arrest. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the conviction and the sentence in July of 1990, and Reese was finally executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center in August of 1997.

 

Tunas, Dallas County

Continuing the theme I've established the past couple of weeks of writing about small towns I passed through on my recent trip to Jefferson City, I thought I'd look at Tunas this time. It's a small community in Dallas County (MO) about 15 miles north of Buffalo on Highway 73. 

I've written about Tunas previously on this blog. Specifically, I wrote about the controversy that arose in 1972 when the Buffalo School District proposed, apparently without consulting the residents of Tunas or officials of the Tunas School District, to take in the much smaller Tunas district.  

However, I've never really written about the town and its origins. Perhaps one reason for that is that information about early Tunas is scarce. However, this time, I was able to come up with a few interesting tidbits.

Tunas came into existence about 1893 when James A. Taylor applied to the federal government for a post office to be located there. I've seen several sources that say the origin of the name Tunas is a mystery, but the post office application offers a hint, because in a couple of different places on the application the name of the proposed post office is spelled Tunis rather than Tunas. This suggests that perhaps Tunas was named after Tunis, the capital of Tunisia in North Africa. 

At any rate, the name Tunas soon became the accepted spelling, and by early 1894, Taylor's application had been approved, and he had established his post office, which served about 200 people in the surrounding vicinity. The town itself, however, amounted in May 1894 to not much more than Taylor's store and post office, one other store, and a residence or two. By the fall of that year, two more houses were being built.

As suggested by my mention of the school consolidation dispute, Tunas became a somewhat thriving little town in the early 1900s, but by the middle part of the twentieth century, it was already struggling to maintain viability. After the town lost its high school in 1972 (by consolidating with Skyline, not Buffalo), it continued its decline, and today it is little more than a wide place in the road.

Brazito, Missouri

Another little town that I passed through on my way to Jefferson City the week before last was Brazito. It's a wide place in the road in Cole County about twelve miles southwest of Jefferson City along Highway 54. Like Branch that I wrote about last week, it is another place that I've sometimes wondered about, as far as its origins and history.

There's not a lot of information about Brazito readily available, but here's what little I've been able to learn. Brazito was founded in 1850 and named after the Battle of Brazito by soldiers returning from the Mexican War. Brazito was settled mainly by German-Americans, and it got a post office in 1856. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, it was apparently a going little place, even though there seemingly was never much more there than the post office, a store or two, and a school. In 1873, the Jefferson City State Times reported that Brazito was one of two villages in Clark Township where public meetings and neighborhood gatherings were held. Brazito was also "a favorite stopping place for refreshments with travelers." The store of Christopher Arnhold, who doubled as the postmaster, supplied "the wants of his neighbors," and his inn was a place where travelers could get "bounteous refreshment and rest."  In 1892, Brazito was a significant-enough place that a rivalry developed between it and Jefferson City over where the teachers' institute (a county-wide teachers' meeting) would be held the following year. I'm not sure which town prevailed, but the fact that Brazito was even considered suggests that it was probably more than just a wide place in the road at the time. 

Brazito lost its post office in 1930, and it has apparently declined since then, at least as a center for commerce and community events, although there are still quite a few residences in the vicinity.  

Branch, Missouri

A few months ago, I wrote on this blog about Pumpkin Center, a crossroads community at the intersection of Highway 73 and 64 in northern Dallas County, Missouri. The reason I wrote about it, as I mentioned at the time, was that I used to occasionally drive Highway 73 on my way to Jefferson City or Columbia, and driving through the place always sparked my curiosity about how its origins and how it got its name. Well, just a couple of days ago, I took another trip to Jeff City (to talk about my Spook Light book https://amzn.to/47ufXHX at the State Archives), and on the way up, I drove Highway 73 again. Another small village along that stretch of road that has pricked my curiosity is Branch. It's located a few miles north of Pumpkin Center just across the county line in Camden County.  

From the number of houses that are still clustered at or near Branch, one would tend to think that the place was, at one time, a fairly sizeable and booming little community, but that is apparently not the case. From what I've been able to discern, Branch was never much more than a wide place in the road.

Exactly when Branch came into existence is not altogether clear, but apparently there was not a place named Branch until Joel Stoner made application in March 1898 to establish a post office at the location or shortly before this time. In fact, it appears from post office records that Stoner at first entertained the idea of calling the place Stoner after himself, because the word "Stoner" is crossed out and the name "Branch" written in its place on the application.

At the time of the application, Branch or the place that would become Branch had a population of twenty residents, but the proposed post office would serve a total of 300 people living in Branch and the surrounding area. The application was approved, and a post office was established at Branch the following year, 1899.

Like a lot of small, rural post offices, the Branch Post Office was located inside a general store, which was about the only business in the village of Branch. There was also a separate place near Branch called Long Branch, and it had a school, which also served as a church from time to time. I've seen a couple of references to Branch School, but I'm not sure whether Branch had its own separate school, or Long Branch School was simply shortened to Branch School sometimes. Today, the Long Branch Assembly of God Church is less than a mile north of Branch, but apparently the old Long Branch School was slightly west of Branch.     

In 1926, the Branch Post Office was relocated because of a new road being built through the area, and the post office was moved about 300 yards east to the new road. At this time, Branch had a population of 18, very similar to its head count 28 years earlier. 

Branch lost its post office in 1968, but, judging from the number of houses that are still at or in the immediate vicinity of the village, the population of the place remains, even today, about as big as it ever was. 

Germantown, Missouri

Germantown is a small community in Deepwater Township in southwest Henry County, Missouri. Today, about all that remains of the place are a church, a couple of businesses, and a few residences, but at one time, it was a thriving little village.

Founded in 1857, Germantown was named for its high concentration of residents who were German immigrants or of German descent. The current church at Germantown is the St. Ludger Catholic Church, which was established by German Catholics in the town's early days. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

One of the more interesting episodes of the Civil War in Henry County occurred in March of 1864 in the Germantown neighborhood. On the evening of the 26th, a party of guerrillas came into Deepwater Township and started “menacing the citizens and committing the most outrageous acts of plunder.” A citizen named Short hurried to the Federal camp at Germantown, to report the situation, and a Union detachment under Sergeant John W. Barkley was dispatched to the vicinity of the trouble.

When he arrived on the scene around midnight, Barkley learned that, after Short’s departure, another citizen of the neighborhood had shot and severely wounded one of the bushwhackers and that they had fled the area, taking the injured man with them. The Federals pursued and soon caught up with three of the Rebels at the house of man named Dunn. After an all-night stand-off, the three guerrillas, including the wounded man, surrendered and were taken back to the Federal camp at Germantown.

The two uninjured Rebels were given a drumhead court martial. Civilians testifying before the tribunal identified the two men as part of a band that had committed all sorts of depredations in their neighborhood the previous winter, and the two guerillas were convicted and sentenced to die by firing squad. The condemned men knelt down beside the grave that had been prepared for them and "met death with a dauntlessness worthy of a better cause."

The wounded Rebel was spared because of his serious condition, but the Union commander at Germantown vowed to execute him if he recovered. For a more detailed account of this episode, check out by book The Civil War on the Lower Kansas-Missouri Border https://amzn.to/3L13BOF.

After the Civil War, Germantown prospered for a few years and seemed to be on the road to becoming a fairly substantial town. However, when a railroad was constructed through the area in the early 1870s, it bypassed Germantown. The town of Montrose grew up along the railroad about four miles southeast of Germantown, and several businesses and quite a few residents of Germantown packed up and moved to the new town. Germantown began a rather precipitous decline, and by the mid-1870s, it had already lost its post office. By the late 1880s, it wasn't much bigger than it is today, not much more than a wide place in the road.