Debra Carson and the Battered Woman Syndrome

Bobby Dean Hibbs, 47, had physically and emotionally abused his live-in girlfriend, Debra Carson, throughout their sixteen-month relationship, but when he called her a whore during an altercation near Allendale, Missouri, on Monday night, July 10, 1989, 28-year-old Debra had had enough. 

According to later testimony, Hibbs and Ms. Carson had been together most of the afternoon on the day of the shooting. Hibbs had been drinking and became intoxicated by nightfall. He and Debra had been hunting from a pickup truck, using a .22 rifle. Around 10:00 p.m. they got into an argument in front of the farmhouse they’d recently rented southeast of Allendale, and Hibbs accused Debra of being unfaithful. Hibbs starting choking and striking Debra, but she broke free, ran to the pickup, and retrieved the rifle. After threatening Hibbs with the gun, Debra and her eight-year-old daughter, who was with the couple when the fight broke out, started walking up the road away from him. When he came running after them, Debra told him to stop and fired a warning shot into the air, and Hibbs fell to his knees. “Don’t shoot me, please,” he allegedly said. “I love you, but you are a whore.”

“I won’t take that anymore,” Debra snapped as she opened fire with the semi-automatic rifle. One of the shots struck Hibbs in the chest, and he collapsed and rolled to the side of the road.

Debra and her daughter hopped in the pickup, and Debra drove to a neighbor’s house, from where authorities were summoned. Hibbs was lying dead at the side of the road when officers arrived. 

Debra Carson was arrested, charged with first-degree murder, but then released on $50,000 bond. While out on bail, she moved to Kansas City, where a newspaper reporter interviewed her in early August. She'd lived a hard life even before she met Hibbs, and she said her relationship with him was "punctuated by bizarre sexual and religious experiences" and that he often got drunk and beat her. She said she still loved him, though, and always would. She didn't think she should have been charged with anything other than self-defense. 

The Worth County sheriff admitted that abuse probably played a part in the shooting, because Debra had bruises around her neck and her face was swollen when she was arrested. She told the sheriff at the time that Hibbs had beaten her in a drunken rage. 

The charge against Debra was reduced to second-degree murder, and her trial began at Grant City in September 1990. The prosecutor called several witnesses, including Debra's daughter, and he got the girl to admit that she thought the keys to the pickup were in the ignition when her mother went for the rifle, presumably trying to plant the idea that Debra could have gotten the girl and fled in the vehicle instead of retrieving the weapon. On cross examination, however, the daughter corrected herself to say she didn’t think the keys were in the ignition.

When it came time for the defense to present its case, a whole parade of witnesses took the stand to testify to the abuse Debra had suffered at the hands of Bobby Hibbs. A Kansas City psychologist who conducted an in-depth evaluation of the defendant testified that Debra suffered from “battered woman syndrome” when she shot Hibbs. One of the behaviors typical of this syndrome is what the psychologist called “traumatic bonding,” in which a victim becomes thankful when the abusive person stops beating them rather than being mad at the person. Debra also testified in her own defense, repeating the story of abuse she'd told the newspaperman. 

The prosecution called two or three rebuttal witnesses to try to refute the defense’s portrayal of Hibbs as a violent man, but the jury found Debra not guilty by reason of self-defense. The case was something of a landmark decision, because it was one of the first times that the "battered woman syndrome" defense was successfully employed to get a defendant acquitted.  

The story above is condensed from a chapter in my book Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4pc3gbK.

The Story of Evelyn Shire

The prosecution and the defense largely agreed on the events surrounding the Evelyn Shire murder case. In the wee hours of Sunday morning, August 7, 1988, Evelyn, 45, entered the home south of Lebanon, Missouri, where she and her estranged husband, John, had alternately been staying in recent weeks. When she found John, 46, in bed with his girlfriend, Judith Perryman, she shot him in the head with a .20-gauge shotgun. The only real question at Evelyn’s trial sixteen months later was whether she was so emotionally distressed at the time as to constitute temporary insanity.

John Shire had filed for divorce from Evelyn in October 1987, and he started dating Judith Perryman shortly afterwards. The divorce decree was issued in July 1988, but Evelyn, upset that she was not awarded custody of her sixteen-year-old son or possession of the farmhouse where they had lived, appealed the divorce settlement. The divorce was, therefore, not finalized, and the couple was still legally married.

At odds over terms of the divorce, Evelyn and John often argued in the weeks leading up to the shooting. Evelyn said later that Shire mocked her, sometimes beat her, and tampered with her automobile and other personal belongings. All the while he was openly dating Judith Perryman and going out with mutual friends, which humiliated Evelyn and added to her mental anguish. 

One of the things the estranged couple particularly argued about was possession of the house, located ten miles south of Lebanon on Highway HH, and they more or less took turns living there. Evelyn claimed she had been staying at the Shire home in early August 1988, but when she drove there on the night of the 6th, she was surprised to find John there with Judith Perryman.

According to Judith's version of events, John had gone to bed early that night, and she'd joined him later. About 3:30 a.m. she was awakened by a light in the bedroom, and she saw Evelyn Shire standing near the bed. “Honey, Eve’s here,” Judith told John, but before he could awaken, Evelyn shot him just beneath the nose with a shotgun blast that killed him instantly. Evelyn left, and Ms. Perryman, who was uninjured, called authorities. Evelyn was arrested about an hour later at her daughter’s home in Lebanon.

Evelyn was charged with first-degree murder, and she pleaded not guilty at her preliminary hearing a month later. After a court-ordered examination to ascertain her mental fitness, her trial got underway in December 1989 in Lebanon. Judith Perryman repeated her story for the prosecution, and Evelyn took the stand in her own defense. She claimed to have blacked out and didn't really remember what happened after she saw her husband in bed nude with Perryman.

The jury deliberated for three hours before reaching a compromise verdict. They found Evelyn guilty of second-degree murder and recommended a sentence of life imprisonment but with the possibility of parole. Evelyn appealed the verdict, but the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld it, and she is still incarcerated 35 years later.

This post is a condensed version of a chapter in my book Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://www.amazon.com/Gangster-Bonnie-Parker-Murderous-Missouri/dp/1467170925/ref.

Forty Years in Prison for a Crime She Didn’t Commit?

On December 20, 2024, Missouri governor Mike Parson commuted the life sentence that Patricia “Patty” Prewitt, 75, had been serving for the alleged murder of her husband at their home near Holden, Missouri, on February 18, 1984. Patty walked out of the women’s correctional facility at Vandalia in time for Christmas, but for Patty and her loved ones it was surely a bittersweet homecoming, because she had served almost forty years behind bars for a crime she’d steadfastly maintained she didn’t commit.

Many people believed her claim, even from the very start, and in recent years a number of groups and individuals, convinced of her innocence, had actively campaigned for her release. The prosecutors back in 1984 and 1985, however, seemed equally convinced of her guilt. Who was right?

Early Saturday morning, February 18, 1984, Patty drove with four of her children from her home north of Holden, Missouri, to a neighbor’s house, where she called authorities and reported that her husband, 35-year-old William “Bill” Prewitt, had been shot about 3:30 that morning while he and Patty were asleep in bed. Patty said she was awakened by what sounded like a thunderclap to find an intruder standing over her. He grabbed her and pulled her out of bed onto the floor. She did not get a good look at the assailant because of the dark, but she felt a knife blade against her throat. Her attacker fled when she started crying. Only then did she discover that her husband was still lying in bed—dead.

An autopsy revealed that Prewitt had been shot in the head with a small caliber weapon, and .22 caliber rifle was the only thing missing from the home. A telephone wire had been cut, but there were no other signs of a break-in. Patty Prewitt had superficial knife wounds.

On February 21, investigators found the missing rifle in a small pond on the Prewitt property, and Patty was arrested as a suspect but released shortly afterward. She was re-arrested a few days later and charged with capital murder. She was then released again on bond.

The people around Holden were stunned by Patty's arrest, and most could not believe she was guilty of the horrendous crime. She and Bill ran a lumber business in Holden and were prominent citizens. They had seemed like a perfect couple, and even Bill's family did not believe she was guilty.

At Patty’s preliminary hearing in early April, the prosecution presented evidence that bullet fragments from the victim's body matched test firings from the rifle fished out of the pond. Also, boot prints along the shore of the pond and leading out into the pond matched a pair of women's boots found at the Prewitt home. The prosecutor said it was inconceivable that an intruder had killed Bill with the rifle, used Patty's boots to take the rifle to the pond, and then returned the boots to the house.

Patty’s attorney countered that investigators had locked on Patty as a suspect early on and had then looked for evidence to confirm their theory without considering alternatives. Just because her footprints were found along the shore of a pond on her property did not mean she had killed her husband.

After the hearing, Patty Prewitt was bound over for trial but remained free on bond. Her trial got underway in Pettis County in April 1985. Most of her friends and loved ones still stood by her, but others, including her former father-in-law, were beginning to have doubts.

The prosecution claimed Patty's motives for the crime were financial gain and "sexual lust." According to the state, Patty had had at least three affairs, and she had offered each of the men money or other financial inducements to kill her husband. When they refused, she finally did it herself.

Patty’s attorney admitted that his client and her husband had had marital problems in the past, but he said their marriage had been on the mend in recent years. Patty, testifying in her own defense, admitted she'd had four affairs while married to Bill but that none of the affairs had been recent. She claimed her former lovers were lying and that she'd never offered them money to kill Bill.

The jury returned a guilty verdict, and Patty was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for fifty years. Her lawyer appealed, claiming that certain evidence was disallowed that should have been admitted. The court of appeals upheld the conviction, and Patty was taken to a correctional center to serve her sentence. 

She quickly gained a reputation as a model prisoner. She earned several academic diplomas, worked as a computer programmer for the state, and performed thousands of hours of community service. More importantly, she served as a counselor, a mentor, and an inspiration to many of her fellow prisoners. Many justice system officials, religious leaders, and ordinary citizens began petitioning for clemency for Patty, and she was finally released in December 2024. Regardless of whether one believes Patty Prewitt killed her husband, if anyone accused of such a serious crime ever deserved clemency, it was Patty.

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/4oPR7sK.

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.

I Have Killed Him and I'm Glad I Did It: The Story of LaCulia Curry

On the night of Wednesday, July 15, 1931, Winston Edwards and his wife, Irene, came to the Deer Street Police Station in St. Louis about 11:30 p.m. to lodge a complaint that a young woman named LaCulia Curry had been harassing them all afternoon and evening in and around their apartment building on Adline Street.

Two beat officers were assigned to investigate Edwards’s complaint, and they rode on the passenger-side running board of his Ford coupe as he drove them back toward his home. As they approached the apartment building, Edwards spotted Miss Curry, pointed her out to the officers, and slowed to let them off. They started around the vehicle to question Miss Curry, but before they could reach her, she whipped out a .38 caliber revolver, jumped on the driver’s side running board, and fired two shots at Edwards. One struck him in the chest and one in the hip, and he sank down in the seat.

“You have shot him!” Irene cried out.

“Yes, I have killed him,” LaCulia retorted, “and I am glad I did.” She then turned the gun on herself and shot herself in the side, inflicting a serious wound.

Edwards died almost instantly, but Miss Curry was rushed to City Hospital No. 2, where she gave a statement before lapsing into unconsciousness. She said she had been associating with Edwards lately but that they’d recently gotten into a quarrel and he had beaten her up. She showed off some bruises on her face to back up her claim.

A coroner’s inquest determined that LaCulia had indeed been harassing the Edwards couple lately, and the jury ordered her held on a murder charge.

At LaCulia’s trial in January 1932, defense testimony confirmed that Edwards and Miss Curry had, in fact, been keeping company before the shooting and had gotten into a violent argument during which Edwards had shoved her out of his car and dragged her a considerable distance after her clothes caught on the car door. LaCulia also took the stand to claim that she only killed Edwards because she was afraid he was going to kill her.

Edwards's wife, Irene, who was the main prosecution witness, testified about the harassment that she and Winston had received from Miss Curry prior to the shooting.

Charged with first-degree murder, LaCulia was found guilty of second-degree murder with a sentence recommendation of ten years in the state penitentiary. After her conviction, she was interviewed by a St. Louis newspaper. She expressed remorse over what she'd done and sorrow for the pain her actions had caused her mother. She said she was ready to take her punishment and to try to better her life once she got out.

                                              Photo courtesy Missouri State Archives.

LaCulia was transported to Jefferson City to serve her sentence at the women’s prison farm. She earned merit time for good behavior and had her sentence commuted after serving only half of her ten years. LaCulia came back to St. Louis to live with her mother and aunt, and she seemingly continued her good behavior. She got married and became a devoted wife and remarried after her first husband's death. In 1967, Governor Warren Hearnes granted her a full pardon. LaCulia died in 1978 and is buried in Washington Park Cemetery in St. Louis.  

This story is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://www.amazon.com/Gangster-Bonnie-Parker-Murderous-Missouri/dp/1467170925.

“I Have Killed Pete”: Maud Lewis Murders Her Lover

About 2:45 a.m. on Monday morning, May 13, 1895, two shots rang out in the vicinity of Elliott Avenue and Wash Street (now Cole Street) in St. Louis. Tracing the shots to a boarding house at 2719 Wash Street, officers found the dead body of State Senator Pete Morrissey lying in the bed of 28-year-old Maud Lewis, madam of the house. Blood was oozing out of a bullet hole in the victim's head.

Maud was in a state of hysteria, but two young women who boarded with her and their gentlemen callers (who were physician friends of Morrissey) gave testimony implicating Maud in the shooting. Albert Andrews, porter at the Lewis house, was highly excited and unable to give an intelligent account of what had happened.

The doctors said they'd been at Senator Morrissey's saloon about midnight when Maud Lewis, who was generally known as the senator's mistress, came in. Accompanied by one of the women who boarded with her, Maud tried to get Morrissey to go back to her place. Morrissey finally agreed, and he took his two friends along with him. The drunken entourage left for Maud's place and got there about 2:30 Monday morning.

Morrissey's doctor friends and their female companions were upstairs, while Maud was entertaining Morrissey in a downstairs room when shots rang out, only about fifteen minutes after the group arrived.

According to the doctors, when they raced downstairs to investigate, Maud came out of her room crying, "I have killed Pete." Andrews, the porter, said, however, that just moments before the shots rang out, he heard Maud say, "Don't Pete. Don't." He said he rushed into her room, saw Morrissey lying dead, and picked up a .38 caliber revolver that was on the bed beside the body.

At an inquest held over Morrissey’s body on Monday afternoon, the coroner’s jury reached a verdict that the senator had come to his death from gunshots fired by “one Maud Lewis.” Maud was arrested, and when a newspaperman visited her in her cell later that evening, she was "very nervous" and "had a wild look in her eyes." She said her real name was Fay O'Neil, not Maud Lewis, but she refused to go into further details about her background. The next day, however, she told a different newspaper that her maiden name was Laura Lucas.

Maud said Morrissey had treated her badly ever since she'd known him but that she still loved him. She admitted she must have killed him, but she didn't know how because she had no recollection of pulling the trigger. She said both she and Morrissey had been drinking heavily leading up to the incident.

At Maud's preliminary hearing, Albert Andrews, the man she supposedly employed as a porter, tried to shield her by claiming he'd seen a stranger running from the house immediately after the shooting. A newspaper investigation revealed, however, that Andrews was more than just Maud's porter. The two had actually been married at one time. So, Andrews's story was given little credence. Pleading self-defense, Maud testified that she and Morrissey had argued just before the shooting and that he had choked her. However, she was held on a second-degree murder charge at the end of the hearing.

While Maud was still awaiting trial, Albert Andrews signed a written confession that he, not Maud, had killed Morrissey, but his latest story was met with at least as much skepticism as his previous claim of having seen a stranger running from Maud's house.

At Maud’s trial in October 1895, the defendant was found guilty of second-degree murder, and she was assessed a punishment of fifteen years in prison. Despite the verdict against Maud, there was considerable sentiment in her favor. Senator Morrissey had been thrice indicted for fraud, had a reputation for debauchery, and was known to abuse Maud with regularity. So, there were many people who were “not prone to judge too harshly her who cut him short in his career.”

Denied a new trial by the trial judge and later by the Missouri Supreme Court, Maud was taken to the state penitentiary at Jefferson City in November 1896. Within just a few months, though, her friends and relatives began petitioning for clemency, citing, among other things, Andrews's reiteration that he was the real killer of Morrissey. The governor finally pardoned Maud in early January 1901 after she served about four and half years of her fifteen-year term. 

My latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4bVZq0d, contains a much more detailed account of Maud Lewis's story. 

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.

One Good Poke Deserves Another

The first chapter in my latest book, Gangster Queen Bonnie Parker and Other Murderous Women of Missouri https://amzn.to/4sc3ZtR, is about a Black woman named Mary Ball. Late on the night of December 11, 1867, a man giving his name as Charles Rannells and a companion called at a house of ill repute in downtown St. Louis where Mary was an inmate. 

While another woman of the night entertained Rannells's companion, Rannells wandered into an adjoining room occupied by Mary. After a while, Rannells told Mary to knock on the door to see whether his companion was finished with his "business" and was ready to leave. When Mary refused, saying she didn't make it a habit of knocking on other people's doors, Rannells grew angry and started hitting and choking her.

About that time, Rannell's companion opened the door separating the two rooms, and Rannells started to leave. As he was walking away, Mary picked up a poker and hurled it at him with such force that the pointed end stuck in his head. 

Rannells removed the poker himself and then sought medical aid at a nearby pharmacy. He told what had happened, but he refused to identify exactly where it had happened or to give the name of the woman who had struck him. No doubt he didn't want it known that he had patronized a house of ill repute, particularly one occupied by Black women. 

When he left the pharmacy, Rannells seemed not to be gravely injured, and he and his companion returned to the sporting house they had recently left. The madam allowed them to spend the night, since they'd been locked out of the boardinghouse where they'd been staying. However, Rannells and Mary did not see each other on this return visit.

The next morning, Rannells woke up feeling bad, and he was taken to the City Hospital, where he lingered a few days before dying from his head wound. The investigation into his assault was hampered by the fact that, in a strange coincidence, two men in St. Louis had been hit in the head with pokers by women on the very same night and also by the fact that Charles Rannells was an alias. The victim's real name was Charles Ross, and Mary Ball was finally arrested and charged with first-degree manslaughter.

She was convicted in the fall of 1868 of fourth-degree manslaughter and sentenced to two years in the state prison. After serving three-fourths of her term, she was released and given a full pardon, based at least partly on her good behavior while incarcerated.

This is a condensed version of Mary's story. For a fuller account, please check out my new book. 

 

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.

 

Jealousy and a Quarrel

About the first of June, 1938, thirty-year-old Chester Jackson of Joplin got into a quarrel with his paramour, Theola Isaac, and she ended up receiving a five-month suspended sentence for wounding him during the ensuing fight.
   It didn’t take Jackson long to find himself another woman, as he was soon living with Daisy Esmond, but it didn’t take him long either to have a falling out with Daisy. Two years divorced and the mother of two kids, Daisy left Jackson around the end of July and went to stay with her brother-in-law and her sister, Mamie. On the evening of August 2, Jackson called at Mamie’s house on West Tenth and asked Daisy to come back, but she refused.
   About 11:30 the next night, Jackson returned packing a pistol and called Daisy outside. Speaking to her in front of Mamie’s home, he again implored Daisy to come back to him, but she still refused. They quarreled, and when she turned to go inside, he pulled out his pistol and shot her in the back. An ambulance was summoned, but Daisy died on the way to the hospital.
   Meanwhile, Jackson turned himself in at the police station shortly after the shooting and was held on suspicion of murder. After questioning the suspect, a Joplin detective said that the shooting apparently resulted from “jealousy and a quarrel.” When Jackson was arraigned on August 5, he admitted the shooting but claimed he didn’t intend to kill Daisy and was only trying to scare her. Dismissing the suspect’s dubious claim, the justice ordered him held without bond for first-degree murder. The Joplin Globe’s first mention of Daisy’s murder came the next day when the paper reported only that Jackson, a black man, had been arraigned for killing “a Negress.”
   Appearing for trial in Jasper County Circuit Court in late September, Jackson first planned to plead guilty but changed his mind when he learned the prosecution meant to seek the death penalty. Daisy’s sister, Mamie Ransom, was the main witness for the prosecution, testifying that Jackson had previously threatened Daisy and that he shot her as she was retreating toward the house. Jackson took the stand in his own defense, admitting he was angry and jealous when he went to see Daisy on the fateful night but claiming he had no memory of shooting her. The last thing he recalled, he said, was Daisy threatening to kill him.
   The jury found Jackson guilty on September 27 and sentenced him to death. He displayed no emotion when the verdict was read but later remarked that it was a “gross miscarriage of justice.” Sentence was officially pronounced about a week later, and his execution set for November 28 in the gas chamber at Jefferson City. An appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court automatically stayed the execution. In the meantime, Jackson was transported to Jefferson City to await the high court’s decision. In early July 1939, the supreme court reversed the verdict of the lower court on the grounds that the trial judge should have granted the defense’s request for a continuance and should have included in his instructions to the jury an option of second-degree murder. The case was remanded to Jasper County for a new trial, and Jackson was brought back to Carthage.
   In September, he was again convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die. The case was again appealed, but in July 1940 the high court upheld the verdict. The execution was reset for September 20, 1940. Jackson didn’t say a word as he was led into the gas chamber at Jeff City and strapped into the death chair at shortly after midnight on that date. The gas was released at 12:24 a.m., and Jackson died at 12:28.
   This blog entry is a condensed version of a chapter in my most recent book, Midnight Assassinations and Other Evildoings: A Criminal History of Jasper County, Mo.

Man Kills His Wife on Their Honeymoon

    Nineteen-year-old Charles Garner married 17-year-old Virginia "Jean" Collingham on June 12, 1939, at York, Nebraska. Shortly afterward, the young couple came to Missouri to spend part of their honeymoon with Garner's grandmother, who lived west of Liberal in Barton County, where Charles had been reared. On July 2, he and Jean went to a water-filled strip mine near the Kansas state line, where the young woman waded into the water. According to her husband's story at the time, she slipped on a rock when she reached deep water and fell in over her head. Neither Jean nor Charles were able to swim, and all the young man could do was watch futilely and scream for help. 
    When help finally arrived, Jean had already drowned, and her body was retrieved from the water-filled pit. Authorities believed the young man's story, and Jean's death was ruled accidental. The body was shipped back to York for burial. Jean's death was the second tragedy to befall the Collingham family within a month. In early June, Jean's brother, Alvin, had shot and killed himself because he was reportedly despondent over poor health.  
    Garner also returned to Nebraska, and on September 17, he walked into a jail in Gering on the pretext of wanting to sleep in the jail. As he made the request, he handed the night marshal a note confessing to killing his wife two and half months earlier. In the note, Garner related that he and Jean had gone to the mining pit to wade in the water. After walking out onto a ledge near the deep water, Jean mentioned another young man whom she had dated before she and Garner got married. Garner told her not to mention the other suitor's name again because he despised him, but Jean kept right on talking about Garner's romantic rival. Growing irate, Garner pushed his new wife into the water and held her head under. She tried to fight her way to the surface, but Garner kept pushing her under until she went down a final time. Then he went to the top of a nearby hill, yelled for help, and told his phony story of an accidental drowning.
    Garner was lodged in jail and, later in September, brought back to Missouri to stand trial for murder. He confessed again after he reached the Barton County Jail at Lamar, but at his arraignment on October 16, he pleaded not guilty. Repudiating his previous confessions, he said he'd only confessed "on a bet" because he was out of work and hungry and that he'd repeated the confession in Missouri because he liked the publicity. 
    At his trial in mid-November, Garner reverted to his original defense that his wife had drowned accidentally and he'd been unable to rescue her because he couldn't swim. However, one of the prosecution witnesses testified that he knew the defendant to be a good swimmer. One of the first people to answer Garner's calls for help testified that he shouted "It's no use, she's gone!" as rescuers started into the pit. Other witnesses said Garner kneeled down after his wife's body was brought out of the water, and, showing no emotion, turned a ring on her finger. Two or three defense witnesses testified that Garner showed great affection for his wife, and the defendant took the stand himself to repudiate his confession and repeat the story of an accidental drowning. Late in the afternoon of November 21, the jury came back after two or three hours of deliberation with a verdict convicting Garner of first degree murder. A defense motion for a new trial was denied, and Garner was transferred to the state prison at Jefferson City the next day.
    On or about December 20, Garner gave a written statement to the prison warden confessing to three other murders. He said he'd killed Alvin Collingham during an argument over Collingham's objections to Jean's relationship with Garner. A few days later, he killed another young man who said there was something fishy about Alvin's supposed suicide and suggested that Garner might know something about it. Two years earlier, Garner said he'd also shoved a boy from a freight train near Kansas City and that the lad had fallen under the wheels of the train and been crushed to death. Garner now claimed he'd killed his wife because she was the only person who knew about the three previous murders. 
    Authorities, however, were skeptical of Garner's latest confession, and subsequent investigation did little to change their mind. In January 1940, Garner repudiated his latest confession, saying he'd only admitted the three prior killings in hopes of getting the death penalty. He said he'd rather die than spend the rest of his life in prison. Authorities considered the case officially closed.