Deacon Who Killed Two Wives

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

Deacon Who Killed Two Wives

IN the Kttle Mississippi town of Taylor, Deacon Jesse Tatum was a model of respectability and pious uprightness—he took the plate round in church every Sunday, had been town marshal. He and hie wife Vivian were regarded as being comfortable off on their email farm Two sons had been born to them in their twenty years of married life. Bv ail outward appearances they were a typical, middle-cleee American couple. But appearances lied. As Jesse drove his wife back alter a visit to her old people one autumn even inn- no one in the town dreamed <>f the aching bitterness in the wife's heart—or the l.faek intention of murder net-thing in her husband's brain. Between the Tatume there had been trouble. . Pious Deacon Tatum had brought into the home "Cutie," a blonde ho had met on a visit to St. Louie. His wife had surprised them in compromising circumstances—and "Cutie"—her real name was Aileen Ayer—left.

By--George Ramage

She left under Mrs. Tatum's threat of diTorce proceedings, which terrified the deacon, who rallied hie position in the town above all else. He had to submit, or be ruined. But the deeire for "Cutie" was etill burning like a furnace within him. From that frustrated desire grew his fiendish and cunning plan of murder. ..-. Mre Vivian Tatum got down from the car a* it etopped and fumbled in her bag for her key ae sbe etood in the porch. This was just what the deacon had planned for—waited for. As he limped down from the driving sent, moving heavily on the false leg ho had worn since an accident years beforehand, he whipped up a sporting rifle out of the back eeat, levelled the weapon. Vivian fell dead in the doorway. And then Deacon Jesse Tatum rushed from the epot straight across to the house of his neighbour, Norwood Jones. He was yelling that his wife had been shot by accident; a» he went he fell across one of the Jones children, who ran after him. Watching them both from the dWknees of the drive path was Lizzie Joiner, the coloured help, who lived in a shack on Tatum's ground. Lizzie was terrified— with all the inborn terror of the American negro for the white man's wrath. At the inquest, later, ehe dared say nothing of what she had seen. The seeming grief-stricken husband explained that his false leg had caused him to slip ae he got out of the car holding the gun —how the gun-trigger had caught against the nearby gatepost. When the inquest and the funeral were over he cashed the thousand-dollar life insurance there had been on his wife's life. There was no suspicion—the whole town sympathised with him as a man stricken with sorrow. s I

But Deacon Tatum m — inwardly. It had all been too ea«y. lie could ha*-d]y understand why Ju had worried so much in his plannin* Now he could go to "Cutic." ™ They arranged to nioet in Memphk but to give himself a ret-puctable "corn* Jesse took his friend Irby with him. This was his first bad ■H^ After a riotous evening Irby, who ha( the bedroom next to the couple, erer> heard their conversation throught tin wall. The deecon was begging "CatW" to marry him. But she laughed and Fnid that w<u impossible since *ho was still married U :i man living in South America, "But I killed my wife I*o that I eonU marry you," almost houtod Deaeoo Tatum. That finished it for "Cutie* Aileen Ayer. She screamed that tht would be party to no murder, and l»ft the hotel there and then. Afterwards Tatum explained to M» friend that he was tired of the womtt and told her that story to erare her off. Irby believed it. Hi> enuld not credit that the deacon, who certainly fell grace occasionally, could have done any. thing so terrible as that, hut he didn't forget it. But from then on Jeeee Tβturn , * xni seemed to become that of an inhumai fiend. H« burned his own house and collected a heavy sum from th« interv a nee, Then he met Mrs. Alice JarL of It, Louis, a well-off widow, married her, persuaded her I<< take out an insurant* policy for 10.000 dollars in his favour. Within a few months t,he was dead, This time it was owing to a car "teadent." But he was disbelieved and arrested. Vet the case against him collapsed for lack of actual evidence —and the mat who had slain two wives in a lingk year went free, with the ineurann money. Two years later he married agaia. During those two years, though, thing! had been happening. Ralph Norwood Jones, the child bt had run into on the night of the ftrrt murder, had told his father of seeing Tatum shoot his wife. For lack of evidence to back np tht youngster's word the father had kept quiet. But hie cold attitude to Deacon Tatum made that worthy fearful—thea •suspicious. And one night the Norwood Jouei home was burnt to the ground. Police found traces that it had been fired. A' negro confessed that Deacoa Tatum had hired him to do the job. Tatum was arrested immediately. And directly he was safely in gaol L\uvt Joiner felt safe to tell her story. And Jack Irby told his, too. Deacon Jeeee Tatum was sentenced for life. But in gaol a strange fate overtook him. One morning, a few month* after he was sentenced, he was found with his throat slashed; it looked like suicide. But within the prison walls a whisper ran that it wa* —murder. The deacon had made himself detested by the other convicts for "squealing" on them for small misdemeanours. The truth will never be known.