Demon Rum and Murder: A Review by Robert A. Waters

Not long ago I purchased The Postcard Killer just before taking a trip with my wife. We arrived at the motel exhausted. Then I lay across the bed, opened the book, and my tiredness vanished. I couldn’t put it down and spent most of the night reading while my wife slept. The Postcard Killer did what every book should do—-it kept me interested page after page until the very end.


The Postcard Killer: The True Story of J. Frank Hickey by Vance McLaughlin, Ph.D. (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006)


There is nothing new under the sun. It’s my opinion that the first serial murderer was born shortly after Adam and Eve left the Garden. Or, if you prefer, after the first Caveman came out into the open.

Albert Fish. H. H. Holmes. Peter Kudzinowski. The Axe Man of New Orleans. These are but a few serial killers who plied their bloody trade in the decades between 1880 and 1920. Now add J. Frank Hickey to that list.

On October 11, 1911, seven-year-old Joey Joseph disappeared from the streets of Lackawanna, New York. After his father, an immigrant laborer, reported his son missing, police launched a full-scale search. But it seemed the boy had vanished into thin air.

Joey Joseph may have never been found if the killer had not begun sending letters and postcards to police and the parents. Some messages described the heinous crime while others expressed an obviously false remorse. The killer was enjoying his control of the situation. Finally, in one letter, the writer gave police directions to the body. The next day, authorities dug up the skeletal remains from the pit of a communal outhouse near Joey’s home.

As the case was sensationalized by the media, a young psychiatrist named Nelson “Kid” Wilson published a detailed description of what the killer might be like. His “profile” was so close to the truth that the prosecution team later hired him.

With no real leads, police decided to publish copies of the postcards in a local newspaper. Almost immediately, several people contacted authorities to say they recognized the handwriting as that of an eccentric drunkard and prolific correspondent named J. Frank Hickey.

After his arrest, Hickey confessed to three murders and numerous sexual assaults of children. Along with Joey Joseph, ten-year-old newsboy Michael Kruck and 34-year-old Edwin W. Morey were also victims of the killer. Hickey was suspected of at least twelve other murders. During the two decades he roamed New England, dozens of children went missing or were found murdered. (At least two other serial murderers, Albert Fish and Peter Kudzinowski, were also active in the general area at the same time.)

J. Frank Hickey was a hopeless alcoholic. He was something of a dandy while sober, but when drunk he confided to detectives that he harbored a secret sexual attraction for children. Most of his numerous assaults were spontaneous—-when he was tipping the demon rum, he claimed that he couldn’t control himself.

I emailed the author and asked how he came to write The Postcard Killer. Dr. McLaughlin wrote: “As usually happens, I [was] researching some other topic and [stumbled] on to something else. I was collecting a great deal of data on homicides in Buffalo. While looking through old newspapers, I kept stumbling into Hickey. So I decided to write a book.”

I’m glad he did. The Postcard Killer is well-written and brings to life a case that that I’d never heard about. It also presents a view of blue-collar New England that is usually ignored. For instance, among the working class in the Victorian era, children in the Northeast were required to work to help support the family. Many pre-teen boys sold newspapers for money to add to the family coffers. They were constantly harassed by “chicken hawks,” or child molesters, who attempted to entice the children into committing sex acts. These newsboys were Hickey’s favorite victims.

Somehow Hickey escaped the electric chair. He was instead convicted of second-degree murder and sent to Auburn prison. When jurors were interviewed as to their curious verdict, one said, “Would you shoot a dog because he acts this way?” The jury thought he was insane. But Hickey was too dangerous to be placed in a mental institution where he might escape or be released so the second-degree murder conviction effectively kept him locked up until he died.

Death Row Pedo by Robert A. Waters

It looks like Mark Dean Schwab may soon get a date with Old Sharpie. The Supreme Court cleared the way with the recent 7-2 decision that lethal injection is a constitutional form of punishment for certain crimes. In the next few weeks, the same court will rule on Schwab’s latest and last appeal. Florida Governor Charlie Crist has already signed Schwab’s death warrant. [Photo of victim Junny Rios-Martinez, Jr.]

NOTE: If you don’t wish to read the graphic details of the crime, skip the italicized text in the center of the story.

"Justice delayed is justice denied..." Florida Governor Charlie Crist said, referring to the court’s recent decision. "But in addition, the heinous nature of the crime itself is important to consider."

Here’s heinous.

Junny Rios-Martinez was 11-years-old when convicted child rapist Mark Schwab first spotted him. The handsome child’s picture had been displayed in a local Brevard County newspaper after he won a kite-flying contest. For Schwab, it was lust at first sight. He called the boy’s Cocoa, Florida home and told his parents he was a newspaper reporter and wanted to do a more in-depth article about Junny. After learning that the boy was an avid surfer, Schwab informed the family that he had recently accepted a new job as a writer for a surfing magazine. He produced fake credentials and memorabilia from the surfing magazine to convince them.

He continued to groom Junny and his family for several weeks. Then on April 18, 1991, he called Junny’s school and pretended to be the boy’s father. He asked officials to let Junny meet him on the baseball field after school. Gullible school personnel did so and Junny was never seen alive again.

When police were notified, they immediately suspected Mark Dean Schwab. Only a month earlier, he’d been released from prison after serving just three years of an eight-year sentence for the sexual assault of a 13-year-old boy.

After learning that police were looking for him, Schwab fled to a relative’s home in Ohio but was captured five days later. After his return to Florida, he led police to a remote section of Brevard County where investigators found a footlocker tied shut with rope and covered with palm fronds. Inside the box, Junny was discovered lying in a fetal position. Wads of duct tape were inside the box. Schwab’s fingerprints were found on the tape.

The following is part of the trial transcript: “The state trial court judge, after hearing all of the evidence at a bench trial and sentence hearing...found that Schwab had acted alone. He found that Schwab had planned things so that the young victim left the baseball field thinking he was with a trusted friend. Once in the motel room, Schwab physically overpowered the slightly built child. He bound with duct tape the little boy's hands, his mouth, and part of his face. He took a knife and violently cut off the child's clothes, leaving him naked, crying, and terrified. He punched him twice in the stomach. He put a bed sheet or mattress cover over the head of the little boy who was so scared that he started to shake. Schwab anally raped him. The victim did not even have the solace of unconsciousness during the ordeal, which lasted a substantial amount of time. He continued to cry throughout, stopping only when Schwab finally strangled or smothered him to death.”

Schwab has been on death row since 1992. Since then, he has filed numerous appeals in both state and federal courts. All have upheld his conviction and death sentence. He also filed two appeals to the Supreme Court. He was denied on his first appeal and justices are expected to rule shortly on his latest appeal. If his appeal is rejected, he will most likely be put to death within a month.

Junny Rios-Martinez was an athletic, creative child. He had designed and built the kite that won the kite-flying contest that ultimately cost him his life. I recently watched a video of Junny on YouTube. It is clear that he was a natural at baseball. Junny was also a good student. He had a loving, hard-working family and would have most likely grown up to become a productive member of society.

Unfortunately, Junny Rios-Martinez never got a chance to realize that potential.

Review of The Empty Nursery by Jaclyn Weldon White

Over the years, I’ve read thousands of true crime books, but somehow this one slipped by me. Even though it was published seven years ago, I was so impressed that I had to give it a review. The book also lets me rant about some things I hate in true crime books and give some love to the author for doing some things right. [Thanks to Jaclyn Weldon White for the use of Haley Hardwick’s photograph.]


The Empty Nursery: The Disappearance of Haley Hardwick by Jaclyn Weldon White. (Mercer University Press, 2001)

The day before Independence Day, 1992, a 7-month-old child went missing. The case was suspicious from the start. Kenny Hardwick, the father of Haley, claimed that he stopped to help two men having car trouble on a bridge overlooking the Yellow River in Gwinnett County, Georgia. After he got their car started, he claimed he went back to his truck and found the baby missing. Hardwick assumed the men had taken Haley. He said he tried to pursue them but his old truck was too slow and they disappeared.

Instead of calling police, Hardwick called his wife Kathy who was manager of a local Pizza Hut. She rushed to the scene of the alleged abduction while a co-worker called 911. So began an investigation that lasted for nearly a year.

The Empty Nursery focuses on Kathy Hardwick’s gradual realization that her husband is lying and that he murdered their daughter. It also delves deeply into the investigation and follows cops through the eventual conclusion of the case. Unlike most books published by university presses, The Empty Nursery is an easy read.

There are lots of things to like about this book. It doesn’t let back-story intrude—-the book starts at the beginning and goes to the end. This is a simple but effective tool when writing a story or book. Unfortunately, some true crime writers try to complicate things by switching from scene to unrelated scene, then back and forth until the reader becomes confused. Of course, back-story is necessary, but it should be squeezed out in small segments. Ms. White does a fine job of keeping the flow of the story intact without unnecessary distractions.

Unlike some authors, Ms. White also respects her subject. While there are good guys and bad guys and in-betweeners, she tells the story as it is without editorializing. That brings me to a well-reviewed book that I hated. In fact, I closed The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer long before the final page and never re-opened it. The simple fact is that Mailer hated Mormons and kept intruding into the story with asides and obvious references to the supposed vagaries of their religion. Had I wanted to read an expose’ of the Mormons, I would have bought a book on the subject. In his desire to use an ax on the Mormon religion, he attempted to turn a psychopathic killer into an anti-hero. The best thing that ever happened to society was when four bullets plowed into Gary Gilmore’s chest. Ms. White could have slammed Southerners (always a good ploy for a great New York Times review) but she didn’t. She respected her audience enough to simply tell the story.

Ann Rule once stated that she only writes a book after the trial of the suspect has been held. That’s a wise choice, and one that Ms. White followed. We learn at the end of the book that Kenny Hardwick was sentenced to life in prison. So many modern true crime books, written to capitalize on a sensational murder or series of murders, leave out one important element of the case: the final denouement. It’s like reporting on a football game in the third quarter. My respect for an author goes into the toilet after learning that I read three hundred pages for nothing.

The Empty Nursery deserves a place in all true crime libraries. Jaclyn Weldon White is currently working on another true crime book and I can’t wait to read it.

The Strange Case of Catherine Winters

The Lost Girl
by Robert A. Waters

Nine-year-old Catherine Winters was last seen around noon on March 20, 1913. A family friend named Dan Monroe spoke to her as she walked along the town square toward her Newcastle, Indiana home. On that day, the schools had closed due to an outbreak of measles and Catherine had spent the morning playing with her pal Helen Stretch. As she skipped toward home, she wore a “red sweater coat,” a white straw hat, and a black and white checked gingham dress. She had brown eyes and light brown hair.

When the child didn’t return home that afternoon, Catherine's mother, Byrd Winters, called her husband at his dental office. Dr. W. A. Winters rushed home and began searching for Catherine. He immediately concluded that “gypsies” had snatched his little girl. “That night was the first night of the great floods of 1913,” he later wrote. “Our machines [i.e., automobiles] went in headlong pursuit of that band of gypsy wagons. It was after daylight when we suddenly blundered onto their camp. I thought my quest was over but in all the camp never a sign of my little girl did we find.” Winters later learned that one wagon had already left the camp--this strengthened his belief that the band had stolen Catherine.

The Winters’ did not contact police until the following day.

The case was a media sensation from the start. Abductions just didn't occur in small-town America in 1913. Cars were just beginning to replace the horse and buggy. Electricity was a new phenomenon still scarce in rural areas. The invention of the radio had begun to bring music and news into the homes of those who lived in cities but newspapers were still the most popular way for people to get the news of the day. The Winters case was so strange it held readers captive day after day.

The Newcastle police seemed at a loss. As their efforts foundered, the Mayor and city council hired Robert H. Abel, a private detective who claimed to be a former New York City policeman. He made a splash when he arrived in town wearing a Sherlock Holmes cap and brandishing a spyglass. He also lugged a dictograph around with him, presumably to surreptitiously record conversations of suspects. The mayor told Abel that there was a $3,000 reward for him if he solved the case.

There were absolutely no clues. (In that day and age, it seemed that no one thought of the possibility that a sexual predator might have snatched the girl.) Dr. Winters’ obsession with gypsies grew as the police investigation lost momentum.

What he didn’t know was that police had begun to turn their focus on him and his wife. Sherlock Abel, upon  learning that Winters’ first wife had died and left $3,000 to Catherine and her brother Frank, decided that might be a motive for murder. Searching the Winters’ home, he found a red ribbon, a red sweater, and a partially-burned undergarment behind a block in the basement. This, he declared, was the smoking gun, particularly since the undergarments appeared to have “blood-colored” stains on them.

At Abel's urging, police arrested Winters and his wife, along with a former boarder in the home. They were, according to a newspaper account, “given a severe cross-examination.” Abel confided to investigators that one of the three would break down under intense questioning. That’s how it happened in New York, he claimed. Mrs. Winters, however, calmly explained that the sweater belonged to a nephew and had been thrown away by Dr. Winters’ former mother-in-law who had also resided in the house. The ribbon was part of the trimming on a hat which had been lost and the undergarment had “outlived its usefulness.”

The Winters’ immediately made bail. Dr. Winters then began a remarkable and ingenious campaign to get his daughter back. In fact, he was so far ahead of his time that some of these techniques are still used today by parents of missing children. First, he wrote letters to every newspaper in the country pleading with them to keep the story alive. Then he made appearances at movie houses all over the country where he and his wife would present a slide show of his daughter between movies. Dr. Winters even wrote President Woodrow Wilson and asked him to intervene in the case. Finally, he sent personal letters to all Knights of Pythias lodges requesting that they help a fellow Knight to find his daughter.

A popular song entitled “What Happened to Catherine Winters?” described the case in music.

A few months after his arrest, charges against Winters, his wife, and his boarder were dropped for lack of evidence. PI Abel, seeing his fee evaporating, fled to Chicago when Dr. Winters threatened to sue him for defamation and false arrest.

The case gradually faded from the headlines. Over the years, dozens of women stepped forward and claimed to be Catherine. In one case, ten years after the disappearance, Mrs. Clyde Taylor of Middleport, Ohio, visited local newspapers and purported to be the long-lost child. She’d visited a fortune-teller, she said, who told her that she had “gone by many names.” This simple statement released a torrent of memories which caused the housewife to think she may have been Catherine. Dr. Winters quickly disabused her of that notion when he saw her photograph.

Dr. Winters continued searching throughout the years. He did, in fact, locate a kidnapped girl, but she wasn’t Catherine. A young girl had been abducted in Louisiana and taken to Ohio by an ex-convict. She was reunited with her parents and the ex-con arrested.

What happened to Catherine Winters? Did her parents murder her, hide her body, and try to throw off investigators by their claims that they thought gypsies had taken her? That was PI Abel’s unlikely theory.

Did wandering gypsies take her? (Gypsies were always suspected in missing persons cases although there are only a handful of documented cases where they actually abducted someone in America.)

Did Catherine wander out of town and die accidentally? If so, why wasn’t she found?

Or was she taken by a sexual deviant? This seems to have never been explored.

Dr. Winters died in 1940, having spent all of his money searching for his daughter. Byrd Winters died in 1953. According to a local newspaper, she had often complained about her husband “touring the vaudeville circuits with enlarged pictures of the girl” while neglecting his business.

On that cold day in 1940, as Dr. Winters gasped out his final breaths, he turned to his wife and said, “Now I’ll find out what happened to Catherine.”

Still More Murder Ballads by Robert A. Waters

This will end my current posts about murder ballads and true crime songs. I may tackle the subject again later if I come up with additional information. [To the right is a photograph of B. F. Shelton, a little-known banjoist who in 1927 performed an outstanding version of the old folk song, "Pretty Polly." Photo is published via the courtesy of Dan Kelly at mrdankelly.com.]

In my old songbook, I found a song I’d almost forgotten. It’s entitled “The Wall.” I couldn’t remember who sang it so I googled it and found that both George Hamilton IV and Johnny Cash recorded versions of the song. A fellow-inmate tells the story of a man who was obsessed with breaking out of prison after his fiancé wrote him with the news that she was marrying someone else. Here’s the final verse: “There’s never been a man ever shook this can/But I know a man who tried./The newspapers called it a jailbreak plan/But I know it was suicide, I know it was suicide.”

Speaking of Johnny Cash, he sang dozens of songs about crime. In fact, Cash had an album called “Murder Songs.” One of my favorite murder ballads is “Delia’s Gone.” It has that irreverent Prohibition-era feel about it. “I went up to Memphis and I met Delia there./Found her in her parlor and I tied her to her chair./Delia’s gone, one more round, Delia’s gone.” (The singer doesn’t really give a reason for killing the unfortunate Delia, but it may have been due to infidelity.) Later in the song he describes how he murdered her. “First time I shot her, I shot her in the side./Hard to watch her suffer but with the second shot she died.” After the murderer is caught, he’s haunted by the "patter" of Delia’s feet in his cell.

In the recent movie, “Walk the Line,” Joaquin Phoenix portrays Johnny Cash singing “Cocaine Blues” at Folsom Prison. This song was originally called “Little Sadie” and was about a prostitute who was murdered by an enamored john. It was probably written in the early 1900s. Country singers later changed it to its current version. “Early one morning while making the rounds,/I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down.” The murderer flees to Mexico but is caught and returned to Jericho Hill, South Carolina where he’s tried and convicted. Sentenced to 99 years in prison, he concludes: “Come all you rounders, listen unto me,/lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.”

An under-rated country singer in the 1960s and 1970s was Georgia’s Stonewall Jackson. Two of his murder ballads, “Leona” and “Life to Go,” are among my favorites. In “Leona,” the singer implores his cheating wife to return to him and their child. She laughs and goes to the local bar to meet her new lover. The husband follows her and when he arrives he finds this scene: “The sidewalk was crowded in front of the bar./I heard the siren, the black police car./Two bodies lay crumpled, a woman, a man,/His wife stood there by you, a gun in her hand.”

The following is an old folk song, almost certainly based on a true story. Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, who did a version of this song, has the following to say about it on his website: “This is a good example of a song used for spreading the news of the day, way before radio, television, or the Internet. The content of the news is however strikingly similar.”

Pretty Polly (Old folk song)

“O, Polly, pretty Polly, come go along with me.

O, Polly, pretty Polly,come go along with me.

Before we get married a strange country to see.”

He led her over hills and valleys so deep,

He led her over hills and valleys so deep,

Until this fair damsel began for to weep.

“O, Willie, sweet Willie, I fear from your ways.

O, Willie, sweet Willie, I fear from your ways.

I fear that you’re leading my body astray.”

“O, Polly, pretty Polly, you’re guessing just right.

O, Polly, pretty Polly, you’re guessing just right.

I dug on your grave the best part of last night.”

"Go on a little farther, see what you can spy.

Go on a little farther, see what you can spy.”

She spied her grave dug and the spade a-lying by.

She threw her arms around him not suffering no fear.

She threw her arms around him not suffering no fear.

“How can you kill a poor girl that loves you so dear?”

“O, Polly, pretty Polly, there's no time to stand.

O, Polly, pretty Polly, there's no time to stand.”

He drew his sharp knife all in his right hand.

He pierced it through her heart and the blood it did flow.

He pierced it through her heart and the blood it did flow

And into the tomb her poor body did go.

He threw a little dirt over and turned to go home.

He threw a little dirt over and turned to go home

With nothing behind him but the birds for to mourn.

Come gentlemen and ladies I'll bid you adieu.

Come gentlemen and ladies I'll bid you adieu.

My song has now ended although it is true.

The best version of "Pretty Polly" I've heard is the rendition B. F. Shelton did in 1927. Shelton was a banjo player who traveled from Kentucky to Bristol, Tennessee to record for Ralph Peer. According to extant records, he recorded ten songs, but only four were saved. After making the recordings, Shelton went back to Kentucky and worked the rest of his life as a coal miner. Ralph Peer was the man who discovered Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family and is credited with collecting hundreds of Appalachian folk songs.

More Murder Ballads and Songs about True Crimes by Robert A. Waters

In the early 1970s, I attended a symposium at Auburn University. One of the courses I took came with an Auburn ring-bound notebook. When I returned home, I took the coursework out and used it for a songbook. Over the years, I typed up the lyrics to songs I liked and kept them stored there. I recently found the songbook and decided to afflict my small audience with information about more murder ballads. [Photo of Doc Watson.]


“Everglades.” Written by Harlan Howard and vocalized by The Kingston Trio, this song tells the story of a man who killed another man in a fight, then fled to the Everglades. He was never captured, but in the end, “His running and hiding didn’t make much sense/Cause the jury had ruled that it was self-defense.”

“Folsom Prison Blues.” I would rate this Johnny Cash classic among the top ten country songs ever written. It tells the story of a prisoner who longs for freedom every time a train passes by. “I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free/But those people keep a-moving and that’s what tortures me.”

There are two songs about Old West outlaws: “John Wesley Hardin” by Bob Dylan and “Jesse James,” a song my grandfather taught me. Of course, both songs present the gunmen in a heroic light, but they’re fun to play and sing.

“Long Black Veil.” I have a CD of the original version by Lefty Frizzell, although the Johnny Cash rendition is more well-known. Gillian Welch also does an outstanding version. This song will creep you out: it describes the after-death thoughts of a man who was falsely accused of murder. Being a chivalrous sort, however, he was unable to mount a defense because “I was in the arms of my best friend’s wife.” The last verse goes like this here (okay, I know the grammar ain't right, but David Allan Coe fans will understand): “The scaffold swung high with eternity near/She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear,/But sometimes at night when the cold wind moans/In a long black veil, she cries o’er my bones.”

Merle Haggard spent years in California’s prisons before being pardoned by then-Governor Ronald Reagan. Many of his songs are about crime and lost souls. “Mama Tried” is another of my top ten all-time country songs. “I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole/No one could steer me right, but Mama tried./Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleadings I denied,/That leaves only me to blame cause Mama tried.”

Townes Van Zandt wrote some outstanding songs, but his greatest was “Pancho and Lefty.” I like his own version much better than the Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard rendition that has become a country classic. “Pancho, he was a bandit, boys, his horse was fast as polished steel./He wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to feel./Pancho met his match, you know, on a desert down in Mexico./Nobody heard his dying words, but that’s the way it goes...”

I’m only half-way though my songbook, so I’ll end this blog with the story of “Omie Wise.” In real-life, Naomi Wise was an orphan adopted by a kindly farmer in North Carolina. By 1808, she was a pretty teenager and a wealthy planter’s son named Jonathan Lewis began courting her. Soon she became pregnant. Unfortunately for Naomi, he had a “proper” fiancé and his parents dissuaded him from marrying Naomi. So he did the only thing he could think of: he murdered her. This song was composed like a broadside by some unknown local chronicler.

Omie Wise (As sung by Doc Watson)

Come listen to my story, I’ll tell you no lies
How John Lewis did murder poor little Omie Wise.

He told her to meet him at Adams’s Springs,
He promised her money and other fine things.

So fool-like she met him at Adams’s Springs,
No money he brought her or other fine things.

“Go with me, Little Omie, away we will go
We’ll go and get married and no one will know.”

She climbed up behind him and away they did go
But off to the river where deep waters flow.

“John Lewis, John Lewis, will you tell me your mind?
Do you intend to marry me or leave me behind?”

“Little Omie, Little Omie, I’ll tell you my mind.
My mind is to drown you and leave you behind.”

“Have mercy on my baby and spare me my life.
I’ll go home a beggar and never be your wife.”

He kissed her and hugged her and turned her around
And pushed her in deep waters where he knew she would drown.

He got on his pony and away he did ride
As the screams of little Omie went down by his side.

Twas on a Thursday morning, the rain was pouring down,
When the people searched for Omie, but she could not be found.

Two boys went a-fishing one fine summer day
And saw little Omie’s body go floating away.

They threw their net around her and drew her to the bank,
Her clothes all wet and muddy, they laid her on a plank.

They sent to John Lewis to come to that place
And brought her out before him so he could see her face.

He made no confession but they carried him to jail.
No friends or relations would go on his bail.


The song ends in mid-stream for a reason. Jonathan Lewis went to trial and, probably due to his father’s influence, was acquitted. He married and moved to Kentucky. A few years later, he became sick and died. It is said that on his death-bed, he confessed to murdering the unfortunate Naomi Wise.

The Only Woman on Florida's Death Row Gets a Break

This is an unusual case because the murders took place in Georgia but the trials were in Florida courts. The reason given is that Florida tried the cases because the robbery and kidnapping of Carol and Reggie Sumner took place in that state. [Picture of Tiffany Ann Cole giving testimony.]


Women have to work particularly hard to make the cut. No, it’s not sports or the glass ceiling. It’s Florida’s execution chamber. Only two women have been put to death in Florida since 1924. Both, Judy Buenoano and Aileen Wuornos, were despicable serial killers.

Tiffany Ann Cole is the only female who currently has a date with Old Sharpie. Given the vagaries of the death penalty, whether she keeps that date is open to question. But whether she deserves it is not.

In 2005, Carol and James “Reggie” Sumner, both 61, moved from South Carolina to Florida for their health. They’d both worked hard all their lives before retiring. As a young man, James served in the Navy, then took a job with CSX Railroad. “He was just a very gentle, kind, and giving spirit,” said his step-daughter Rhonda Alford.

Carol had been shot by an abusive husband before she married Reggie. Former high school sweethearts, they were very much in love. She was employed for 25 years at The Citadel and Charleston Air Force Base before retiring.

By the time they reached their 60s, Reggie was a brittle diabetic and Carol was battling liver cancer. According to friends and family, she’d lost so much weight she’d become skeletal.

Tiffany Cole’s father was a long-time neighbor and friend of Reggie. Before Reggie and Carol moved to Florida, they sold their Chevrolet Lumina to Tiffany, allowing her to make payments directly to them. She would sometimes drive to Florida to visit the couple, bringing along her friends.

Tiffany, 25 at the time of the murders, had a 24-year-old boyfriend named Michael James Jackson. Upon learning that Carol had sold a condominium for $90,000, Jackson and Cole began plotting to rob the couple. Drug addicts Bruce Nixon and Alan Lyndell Wade, both 19, were brought into the scheme. They were all losers of the worst kind.

On Independence Day, 2005, the quartet drove to southern Georgia, looking for a burial ground. Finding a remote site, Tiffany held a flashlight while the men dug a six-foot-deep trench.

On the evening of July 8, Nixon and Wade knocked on the door of the couple while Cole and Jackson waited outside in a rented Mazda RX-8. Nixon and Wade told Carol they needed to use her telephone and she invited them in. Immediately, they attacked her. They used a fake gun to subdue Carol and Reggie, then tied the couple with duct tape. After blindfolding them, they forced their terrified victims outside and stuffed them inside the trunk of their own Lincoln Town car.

Jackson and Cole followed the Town Car as they drove north toward the designated grave. Their job was to act as a decoy in case the police got suspicious of Nixon and Wade. (They were to speed away in the sporty Mazda so the police would pursue them.)

After arriving at the grave, Jackson and Wade dragged the Carol and Reggie out of the trunk. They walked the disabled couple a hundred feet to the pit and shoved them in. While Carol and Reggie were still alive, Jackson and Wade covered them with dirt. According to the autopsy, they died of “asphyxiation.” Dirt had been sucked into their lungs.

Many cops who investigated the case said the murders were the cruelest they'd ever seen.

Using credit cards stolen from the couple, Jackson began to withdraw cash from their accounts. Jackson, Cole, and Wade stayed at hotels and partied, while Nixon went on a drug binge with the $250 he got for helping with the murders.

After Rhonda Alford contacted Jacksonville police about her missing mother, it didn’t take investigators long to identify the suspects. Thinking they could trick investigators, Cole called detectives and pretended to be Carol Sumner. She stated they were in Delaware. Jackson then called, impersonating Reggie. He attempted to persuade officers that their credit cards weren’t working properly.

At trial, Tiffany Cole’s attorneys alleged that she was under Jackson’s control and therefore was not responsible for the murders. The jury didn’t buy it. They convicted Cole of two counts of first degree murder and kidnapping along with lesser charges. They voted 9-3 to sentence her to death.

In sentencing her, Circuit Judge Michael Weatherby rejected the defense theory. He listed his reasons for believing that Cole was a willing participant: Cole introduced the three to the Sumners; she held a flashlight while the three men dug the grave in advance; she was present when the couple were abducted, bound and gagged, and driven to the pre-dug grave; she rented a car and used it to act as a “decoy” during the drive to Georgia; she bought the duct tape and gloves; and she pawned jewelry stolen from the couple. “She was thoroughly involved,” Weatherby stated.

Tiffany Ann Cole received two death sentences. Michael Jackson also received death sentences, as did Alan Lyndell Wade. Bruce Nixon was given 55 years with the possibility of parole after 25 years because of his cooperation and testimony against the other defendants.

In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a jury must vote unanimously for a  sentence of death to be valid. Since Cole's jury voted 9-3, her sentence was overturned and she was re-sentenced to life in prison instead of the death penalty.

Tiffany Cole no longer faces death for her brutal crimes.

Murder Ballads and Songs About True Crimes by Robert A. Waters

Back in the day, my wife and I used to take my old Gibson acoustic and meet with friends to pick and sing. The songs we played were a mix of old-time country, classic rock, bluegrass, folk songs, and anything else that struck us.

Among the staples of those jam sessions were murder ballads and songs about true crimes. “Tom Dooley” was easy to play, easy to sing, and always popular. Made into a mega-hit by The Kingston Trio, it’s actually an old folk song about a Confederate veteran who got caught in a love triangle and murdered one of his two girlfriends. In the song, as in real-life, he was hanged for his crime. “Knoxville Girl” was another one of our favorites. It derives from an English folk song and is about a suitor who murders his presumably pregnant girlfriend. “Banks of the Ohio” tells the story of a man who asks his lover to marry him—when she refuses, he murders her. Joan Baez did an outstanding version in the 1960s.

The Lloyd Price rendition of “Stagger Lee” was another favorite. It’s still played on classic rock stations. “Stagger Lee went home and got his .44,/said I’m going to that barroom to pay that debt I owe.” Great song! I still love this line: “Stagger Lee shot Billy, he shot that poor boy so bad/that the bullet went through Billy and broke the bar-tender’s glass.”

Hillbilly music in the 1950s and 1960s was gritty and hard and decidedly politically incorrect (unlike today's sanitized pseudo-country crap). Tanya Tucker’s classic, “That Georgia Sun Was Blood Red and Going Down,” describes the thoughts of a small child as she watches her father kill her cheating mother and boyfriend. It could apply to hundreds of cases of murder each year. Bill Anderson's "Miller's Cave" tells the story of a man who murders his cheating wife and boyfriend, then hides their bodies in Miller’s Cave. Porter Wagoner's song, "The Cold Hard Facts of Life," tells still another tale of a cheating wife and boyfriend getting their just rewards. In fact, it’s been called the ultimate cheating song. Here’s the last verse: “Man, you should have seen their frantic faces/She screamed and cried, ‘Please put away that knife.’/I guess I’ll go to hell or rot here in this cell/but who taught who the cold hard facts of life?”

One of my all-time favorite true crime songs is called “White House Blues.” It tells the story of the assassination of President William McKinley in a raucous, irreverent manner. The song was first recorded by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers. Like many country artists, Poole lived fast and died young. But he left behind a legacy of old folk songs that are still played.


White House Blues

Say, Mr. McKinley, why didn’t you run?
You saw that man a-coming with an Iver Johnson gun
From Buffalo down to Washington.

Doctor comes a-running, takes off his specs,
Says, “Mr. McKinley, you done cashed in your checks,
You’re bound to die, you’re bound to die.”

McKinley he hollered, McKinley he squalled
The doctor said "McKinley, I can't find that ball,
You’re bound to die, you’re bound to die.”

Roosevelt’s in the White House, he's doin' his best,
McKinley’s in the graveyard, he's takin' his rest,
He's gone a long long time.

Mrs. McKinley's in Brooklyn dressed all in red,
Weeping and a-mourning cause her husband was dead.
He’s gone a long long time.

Hush up little children, now don't you fret,
You'll draw a pension at your papa's death
From Buffalo to Washington.

Jailer said to Czolgosz, “Whatcha doing here?”
“Done took and shot McKinley, gonna take the electric chair.”
From Buffalo to Washington.

Czolgosz told the jailer, “Treat me like a man,
You know that when I die I’m gonna go to Dixieland.”
From Buffalo to Washington.

Life and Death at Mr. Money USA by Robert A. Waters

The U. S. Supreme Court recently heard a case involving the Second Amendment. In a few months, the justices will decide whether the “right to bear arms” is an individual right. The following story illustrates one reason the framers of the Constitution included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. [Prison photo of Thomas Porter Wiley.]

On August 10, 2004, at 11:00 a.m., Mr. Money USA in Haines City, Florida was open for business. Judy Foster, co-owner with her husband, stood behind the counter of the check-cashing store. She was alone.

The front door opened and two men rushed in. They wore sweat-pants, hoodies, and had purple latex gloves on their hands. Both men brandished handguns.

“You’re gonna give it up!” Thomas Porter Wiley shouted as he ran toward the counter. A long-time thug, he’d never worked a day in his life--he robbed people for a living. When he ran short of cash and drugs, he sponged off his long-suffering girl-friend. His street name was “Booger-man” and he’d just been released after serving four years in prison.

Taurean Brown was his partner. Another career criminal, the two had stolen a white 1989 Chevrolet Caprice the night before to use as a getaway car. They hired another ex-con, Zachery Bernard Geddis, as their driver.

Judy Foster kept a loaded .38-caliber revolver beneath the counter. As the robbers raced toward her, she reached down and grabbed the gun. She later said, “When I saw the guns drawn and the two men coming at me, I defended my life. When they are rushing at you, I felt I had no other choice. If I [had] made another decision, I might not be here talking about it.”

Foster leveled her gun at the robbers and fired. Caught by surprise, Wiley and Brown stopped dead in their tracks. It looked to Foster like they’d run into an invisible wall. As she continued to fire, Wiley slumped to the floor. Brown turned and sprinted for the door.

Through the smoke, Foster watched Wiley get up and stumble away. She continued to fire, emptying the gun. Wiley made it to the door, and Foster last saw him lumbering toward a waiting car. Then she called 911.

It was over so quickly that the robbers never had a chance to fire a shot.

As Haines City police and Polk County deputies converged on the scene, a call came in to the dispatcher. The getaway car had been located and there was a body inside.

Officers responded to the Redwood Apartments in Lake Alfred. The apartment manager told investigators that two tenants had come to her and reported “a person they thought was dead [was] inside a car” outside. After a quick check of the Caprice, she called police.

Other witnesses at the apartment identified Geddis as the driver of the car. They said he drove up, parked the car, and sprinted away. He was arrested and quickly gave up his cohorts. He stated that Wiley had asked him the night before if he wanted to “make a quick $ 500.” Geddis agreed and the following morning the three drove around Mr. Money USA several times to make sure no police cars were in the area.

According to his statement, Geddis drove into the parking lot and waited while his cohorts ran inside the store. Almost immediately, he heard gunshots and saw Brown run back to the car. Wiley followed shortly, screaming that he’d been shot. He piled into the empty front passenger seat.

Geddis drove to Kentucky Street where Brown ordered him to stop the car. He jumped out and got into a waiting Buick. Geddis then drove to the Redwood Apartments in Lake Alfred, parked the car, and fled.

An autopsy report revealed that Wiley had bullet wounds to “the lower right side of his abdomen” and “two [flesh] wounds on the decedent’s left shoulder.” The wound to the abdomen was fatal--it perforated the liver, the duodenum, the aorta, and the kidney.

Geddis was later tried for second-degree murder (under Florida law, all perpetrators can be held responsible for murder if someone dies during the commission of a crime). He was acquitted of that charge but convicted of attempted robbery. Geddis is currently serving a five-year sentence for the crime.

Taurean Brown eluded officers for several months but was eventually arrested and accepted a plea for attempted robbery. In addition, he was convicted of multiple drug offenses and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

When the men entered the store, Foster later recalled, “All I could see were eyes and guns. I have a gun at knee level [underneath the counter] and I just reached under, brought it out and started shooting.” At first she thought she’d missed, then she saw Wiley go down.

Investigators quickly ruled that the shooting was justified. No charges were filed against Foster.

Getting Away with Murder by Robert A. Waters

I’ve recently described several cold cases, including those of Connie Smith, Jennifer Kesse, Dorothy Ann Distelhurst, and Dorothy Scofield. According to 2006 FBI statistics, there were 17,034 reported murders in America. Only sixty percent were solved. Rolling back through the years and decades of unsolved murders leaves hundreds of thousands of killers walking among us. Here is another unsolved case that cries for justice.

On the afternoon of February 19, 1993, 12-year-old Jennifer Renee Odom stepped off her school bus and headed down the dirt road to her home two hundred yards away. Students on the bus later said they saw an old-style blue pickup truck following her.

Jennifer lived with her parents and younger sister in St. Joseph, a rural orange-growing section of Pasco County, Florida. As she got off the bus that afternoon, she wore white jeans, black boots, and a red sweater. It was cold and she had on an aqua-colored Hooters jacket. She also carried a book bag and a clarinet in a case.

After the bus pulled away, Jennifer disappeared.

More than a week later, her nude body was found in an orange grove in neighboring Hernando County. Unfortunately, heavy rains had washed away any clues that may have existed. Two years later, Jennifer’s book and clarinet case were found, again in a rural area of Hernando County. The items were sent to the FBI lab where several fingerprints were found. All were matched to known persons except one—-is it the print of a killer?

Jennifer was pretty, athletic, and highly intelligent. She planned to become a lawyer. She came from a loving family, a family that still grieves for her.

Fifteen years after her disappearance, the case remains unsolved, but not for a lack of effort on the part of law enforcement. So far, police have checked out more than 3,000 leads. They arranged for both “Unsolved Mysteries” and “America’s Most Wanted” to bring the case to a national audience. Billboards were erected in the area to publicize the case and possibly prick someone’s conscience. At a news conference police even displayed a mannequin wearing clothes similar to what Jennifer wore when she was abducted in the hopes that someone would recognize her clothing. Recently, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement included her case on inmate playing cards. (In the last year, two Florida murders were solved by inmates who saw the photo of a victim on the cards and told cops the name of the killer.)

Four years after Jennifer’s murder, 9-year-old Sharra Ferger was abducted from her home in nearby Blanton. She was found raped and murdered. Police initially thought the case might be related to Jennifer’s kidnapping and murder but they later arrested two men who had nothing to do with Jennifer’s killing.

In 2002, a serial killer was briefly considered a suspect. Richard Evonitz abducted and murdered three teenage girls in Virginia. After a girl he abducted in South Carolina escaped, Evonitz fled to Florida. As cops closed in, the murderer shot and killed himself. Because he had family in Sarasota, Evonitz was investigated for Jennifer’s homicide, but was quickly ruled out.

The abduction of Jennifer is reminiscent of the Ben Ownby case. Both were just a few hundred feet from home after being let off by a school bus. Both were followed by a predator in a truck. And both vanished. The difference is that a sharp-eyed teenager named Mitch Hults was able to identify the type of truck that snatched Ben. Because of this, cops were able to arrest Michael Devlin for both Ben’s abduction and Shawn Hornsby’s kidnapping. While the modus operandi seems similar, it's obvious that Jennifer met with a different killer.

Was the kidnapper of Jennifer Odom a close neighbor? Or was he, like in the Ownby case, a predator trolling the streets looking for a victim? Maybe someday that lone fingerprint will identify him.

Unless he’s in prison or dead, a predator walks among us, like the Biblical wolf in sheep’s clothing.