Fear the Reaper: America’s Rural Mysteries, Hauntings and Horrors

403 Pages·2014·5.47 MB·English

by  Troy Taylor

INTRODUCTION By Troy Taylor

Eighty years later, it was still the most famous murder and suicide in the
small town where I grew up. I lived on an Illinois farm during my adolescent and
teenage years, and the closest town to us was a place called Moweaqua (a Native
American word that was said to mean “muddy water.”) It was a rural
community, built up around farming and a coal mine that closed down after a
disaster in 1932 that killed fifty-four miners. But the Portwood Murder was still
whispered about after eight decades and was still distantly recalled as one of the
dark spots in the town’s history.
It happened on September 10, 1905. Henry Portwood was a wealthy retired
farmer who had owned a large farm about two miles east of town until 1903. He
was respected and generally well-liked in the community. He had served in the
Union Army during the Civil War, enlisting in 1862 at age seventeen, and was a
quiet and industrious man. After he retired from farming, he purchased a home
from H.C. O’Dell, which was located on the northeast edge of Moweaqua. On
Sunday morning, September 10, he cut the throat of his fourth wife—nearly
severing her head, the newspaper said – before slashing his own throat with a
straight razor. Mrs. Portwood died quickly but her husband lived for several
hours, first claiming that “God” had killed his wife and then confessing when he
was told that his son would be blamed for the crime. The boy, Everett, age nine,
had discovered his father and step-mother lying in pools of blood on their
bedroom floor and was the first to raise the alarm about the tragic event.
Ironically, it was Everett who was the source of the problems between the
husband and wife, which led to the murder-suicide.
The newspapers stated, “Moweaqua is greatly excited because of the awful
deed of the enraged husband.”
Portwood had been a widower three times over. All of his previous wives
had died, including Everett’s mother, who passed away in 1902. This never
generated much sympathy from his fourth wife, Mollie. Just twelve years
younger than her husband, Mary Helen Doyle, who went by the name of Mollie,
was born in Bunker Hill, Illinois, and had moved to Moweaqua with her family
when she was a child. As far as I can learn, she had never been married before
becoming engaged to Portwood, who began courting her the same year that his
third wife passed away. It was a troubled marriage, and Mollie never got along
with Everett. She constantly complained about the boy, perhaps because he
served as a reminder of Portwood’s previous marriage or because of the boy’s
behavior, since those who knew the family stated that she was often angry
because Portwood would never allow her to discipline the boy.
The constant disagreements about Everett led to the couple separating for a
brief time in July 1905. They stayed apart for about two weeks and then
reconciled. According to friends and witnesses, they seemed to be getting along
well, even as little as an hour before the murder took place. The Portwoods had
been visiting with neighbors that Sunday morning and they seemed in good
spirits, the neighbors later told police.
But around 10:30 a.m., something occurred in the Portwood home that
would never be revealed. Henry Portwood took the true reason for his wife’s
murder to the grave. A half-hour later, young Everett walked into his parent’s
bedroom and found them lying there, surrounded by blood. Screaming for help,
the horrified child ran out of the back door and gave the alarm to the closest
neighbors. Several men ran into the Portwood house and discovered the awful
scene.
The newspapers stated, “The room looked like a slaughterhouse.” Mollie
was lying on the floor near the window. Her head had nearly been severed from
her body by the brutal force of the cut. Blood was still flowing from the gaping
wound and she twitched and gurgled, still showing signs of life. The damage that
had been done to her throat prevented her from her speaking. With a wound to
his neck almost as deep as his wife’s, Portwood was lying a short distance away,
almost in the doorway to the parlor. He was still alive, his feet kicking and his
legs twisting as he thrashed about in his own blood. He was obviously in terrible
condition, but he was in better shape than his wife.
Looking about, the men could see that a struggle had taken place in the
room. Furniture was knocked over and the bed covers were twisted onto the
floor. Everything in the room, from the bed to the walls, with spattered with
blood. It was, the newspaper said, “a scene more terrible than can be described.”
Mollie had evidently been sitting at the north window of the bedroom,
dressing her hair, when she was attacked by her husband. Bloodstains showed
that she rose from her chair after she was cut. After his wife had been dealt with,
Portwood had then turned the razor on himself, cutting fast and deep across his
own throat.
Seeing that Portwood was still alive, one of the man pressed a cloth to his
throat to try and stop the bleeding. The straight razor was on the floor, just
inches from Portwood’s hand. It was obvious to everyone what had happened.
Cyrus Mitchell, one of the first to arrive on the scene, asked him why he had
killed Mollie. But Portwood’s replies were nonsensical, claiming that he had not
killed his wife and that he had not been hurt. Mitchell told him that his throat
had been cut, as had his wife’s, and that he must have done it. He replied,
“Nobody cut my throat, did they? I did not do anything to my wife or myself.”
Pressed to explain, Portwood insisted, “I did not do it, God must have done
it.”
But Mitchell didn’t let up. He insisted that Portwood confess to what he had
done, even stating that the police might believe that it was Everett who
committed the murders if Portwood died before admitting to what had happened.
Apparently, this worked because the dying man made one more statement: “Yes,
I did it. But it don’t make any difference why. It is all right.”
And those were the last words that Portwood would speak about the murder.
Dr. Pratt was summoned to try and save the man’s life. He sewed up the wound
in his neck, but his jugular had been severed and there was little he could do for
him. Henry Portwood died later that afternoon – a killer and a suicide. He never
explained what had caused him to snap and murder Mollie. To this day, the
motivations for the crime remain a mystery.
The bodies of the Portwoods were later examined by the Shelby County
coroner and then an inquest was held on Monday. The verdict was as expected:
murder and suicide. Henry was buried in Hayes Cemetery, outside of
Moweaqua, and Mollie was buried separately in West Cemetery. They were
divided, even in death.
As for Everett, he was taken in by his sister, Mrs. Frank Clark, Portwood’s
daughter with his second wife, Almira, who had died in 1883. She promised to
take care of him, assuring the newspapers that he would be “well raised.” From
there, Everett seems to vanish from history. I could find no trace of what became
of the boy whose life was shattered by a single bloody event.

The idea for this book came to René and me while we were driving from her
home in southwest Pennsylvania to Gettysburg one spring during one of our
annual outings. When we travel anywhere together, it always turns into a “multi-
hour gabfest,” as René calls it. She told me about the White Rocks Murder,
which is included in this book. I told her that she needed to write that story up
for inclusion in some future book, but I had no idea what book it would be. At
that time, we had recently written our first book on American disasters and
hauntings (And Hell Followed With it) and were in the midst of planning the
sequel. The idea for Fear the Reaper was still coming, and when I put it
together, I asked René to not only contribute the story of the White Rocks
Murder, but to co-author the book with me.
It was an easy fit. We have been friends for going on two decades now and
had written two other books together, but that wasn’t all there was to it. Both of
us had grown up on farms (although, as I often say, MANY years apart) in
Illinois for myself and Kansas for René. We were both very familiar with the
loneliness and the isolation of rural life and we are both well aware of the dark
things that can happen in what seems like an idyllic setting. We had both grown
up hearing many blood-curdling stories of murder and depravity that people
mistakenly believe only happen in the “big city.”
Trust me when I assure you that the farms, fields and woods of America’s
rural countryside have been drenched with blood.
But it wasn’t just isolation that led to murder. Many of the tragedies that
occurred on farms in years past were carried out at the hands of the hired help.
Farmhands were among the scariest-looking folks around in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries – and the most dangerous. Many of them developed
sinister reputations in local communities and on neighboring farms; usually with
good reason. Farmhands were essentially field laborers, uneducated and scarred
by rough outdoor conditions. They often slept in barns, outhouses or packed into
a farmhouse’s cramped spare bedroom. They drank heavily and had little in the
way of worldly possessions. They would do just about anything for money,
ranging from back-breaking labor to murder.
One had only to glance at nineteenth-century execution records to realize
the danger inherent in transient workers. The death penalty was in heavy use
during those years. Men went to the gallows on a weekly basis. Farmhands were
frequently hanged for murder in all parts of the country.
In 1874, a farmworker named Marshall Martin, who worked in Martinez,
California, in the San Francisco Bay area, murdered his work supervisor with an
axe. He had been put up to it by the supervisor’s wife. Martin was convicted and
sentenced to death, while his boss’ wife went to an insane asylum. His hanging,
the last in Martinez, was particularly gruesome, during a time when such things
were public spectacles. The noose was so tight that it popped his head off his
neck like a grape being plucked from a vine. A newspaper article stated,
“Although there was a drop of only six feet, the body dropped headless to the
ground. His head rebounded a distance of six feet.”
Another farmhand who was hanged was Joseph Waltz. He was a troubled
young man who worked as a grounds-keeper for his parents near Catskill, New
York. He was frequently in trouble for robbing school houses and setting fires. A
local newspaper reported that he had built a stone tower on his parents’ property,
from which he intended to make speeches to gatherings of interested onlookers.
One night, a travelling scissor-grinder was given lodging at the Waltz house.
Joseph Waltz entered the man’s bedroom, smashed his head several times with a
hatchet, cleaned up the crime scene and buried the body on the farm. Waltz later
confessed to the murder by saying, “an evil spirit came over me.” He led the
police to where the body was buried and was later hanged. Before his sentence
could be carried out, though, Waltz killed again. Confined to a jail cell, he
managed to pull an eighteen-inch iron bar from the flooring and used it to beat
one of his guards to death. “Joe won’t hurt me,” the guard had confidently (and
erroneously) said when asked why he allowed the prisoner to be loose in his cell
without leg irons.
He should have known better. Across the country, bitter and angry
farmhands were committing murder for seemingly pointless reasons. Some of
them killed because they had been fired or because they were hired by someone
else and had a grudge against their previous employer. Some killed out of greed
or imagined slights. Some killed over jealousy and others because someone
looked at them funny.
But despite their misdeeds, farmworkers were essential in rural life. Unless
a farmer had a large brood of children, he needed help to plant seeds, harvest the
crops or tend the farm animals. Farmhands were physically strong. They were
necessary and they knew the land because it was the nature of their work. In
most farm communities, they were a common thread. They knew almost
everyone because they worked for almost everyone, but when they disappeared,
they left no trace behind.
But not all of those who committed murders in the countryside were
strangers and drifting farmhands – far from it. Many of the killers were members
of the victim’s family and the most common weapon seemed to be an axe. It was
a tool that was indispensable for rural life. It was used to clear the land, cut down
trees and chop the wood that provided heat and warmth for homes. It was also
handy for lopping the heads off chickens and other domestic fowl. In the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the vast majority of rural murders were
committed with an axe.
On November 20, 1894, a brutal mass murder occurred outside the small
village of Wellsville, Missouri. It was carried out by Thomas Portercheck, who
allegedly went insane and slaughtered his mother, two sisters and a brother
before killing himself. The family, who lived in humble circumstances, occupied
a small house about a half-mile east of downtown Wellsville. On the afternoon
of November 19, Portercheck began acting strangely and gave, the newspaper
stated, “indications that his mind was deranged.” He labored under the idea that
his neck was broken and insisted that someone call a doctor. His family tried to
convince him that he was mistaken and to persuade him to go to bed. But he
refused to lie down, insisting on sitting up all night. Late that Sunday night, the
family finally went to bed, exhausted, leaving Portercheck sitting in a chair,
slowly rocking back and forth, staring at the wall.
At around 3:00 a.m., one of the sisters, Mary, was awakened by an
agonizing scream from her mother. When she emerged from her bedroom, she
found her mother lying on the floor and Portercheck standing over her with an
axe in his hands. The floor was covered with blood. In an adjoining room, she
could hear her other brother moaning in what turned out to be his death throes.
Mary ran through the house in a panic. After finding all of the doors locked,
opened a window and jumped to the ground. Her murderous brother never
noticed that she left. Through the glass, she watched in horror as he seized a can
of coal oil, poured it all over the floor and then set it on fire. From the kitchen,
he took a butcher knife and, standing in the midst of the flames, cut his own
throat. He collapsed to the floor next to the body of his mother. The fire spread
so quickly that in less than ten minutes, the entire house was engulfed in
flames.
Mary’s screams awakened the neighbors and they rushed to the scene, but
the fire had already finished the work that the maniac had started. When the
remains of the house were cool enough for the ruins to be searched, four bodies
were found, blackened and charred among the timbers. They were those of Mrs.
Portercheck, her youngest daughter, son James and the killer, Thomas.
The investigation showed that the mother, daughter and son had been
horribly mutilated by an axe and it was surmised that it had probably been
Thomas’ intention to kill Mary too, but her life was saved by the screams of her
mother.
“No theory is advanced for the sudden fit of insanity which overcame the
young man,” the newspaper said. It was simply another gruesome tragedy in
rural America.
In other cases, those who lived in the isolated conditions of the heartland
fell prey to passing strangers, who chose their victims because the families lived
far away from help from neighbors or the law. In far too many cases, such
crimes went unsolved. Murderous strangers passed through, never seen by the
distant neighbors, and vanished without a trace. But when they were caught, the
vengeance extracted could be brutal.
In 1870, one of the most horrific murders in Missouri’s history occurred on
a farm near the small town of Potosi. On November 21, David and Louisa
Lapine, along with their two children and Mrs. Lapine’s sister, Mary
Christopher, and her child, were found shot and hacked to death with an axe.
The family had been murdered by two brothers, Leon and Charles Jolly, and a
third man, John Armstrong. The drunken trio had called at the Lapine cabin and
at some point, a disagreement erupted between Armstrong, Charles Jolly and
Mrs. Christopher. David Lapine got between them, attempting to stop the
argument, and Jolly pulled out a revolver and shot him four times. He then
struck Louisa, knocking her to the floor. Armstrong, in the meantime, had
snatched up an axe, killed Mary with it, and then attacked the children. The
heads were severed from all of their bodies. After the murders, the men set fire
to the cabin to try and hide the evidence, but the bodies were found in the ruins
the following morning and clear evidence pointed an accusatory finger at the
Jollys and John Armstrong.
The men were quickly arrested and jailed. Leon Jolly, who did not
participate in the murders, agreed to testify against his brother and Armstrong in
the upcoming trial. But some of the local residents didn’t want to wait for the
legal system to act. Five days after the murders, a mob gathered outside the jail
and demanded that the pair be given over to them to be hanged. When the sheriff
refused, the angry townspeople attacked the building. When it was over, six
residents had been wounded and one killed by the sheriff and his deputies as
they defended the jail and their prisoners.
The case went to trial and made headlines in the state and beyond, with
reporters gleefully referring to the case as “The Missouri Horror.” On December
21, 1870, Charles Jolly and John Armstrong were found guilty and sentenced to
death by hanging. The punishment was carried out on January 21, 1871.
Surrounding newspapers proclaimed the event the “Day of the Double
Hanging,” and families came from all over the region to see justice carried out.
The men were led to the gallows and nooses were placed around their necks. The
trapdoor was sprung and the two plunged to their deaths. Jolly died instantly as
his head was nearly ripped completely from his body. Armstrong was not so
lucky. The heavy man dangled with his toes scraping the ground. His neck had
not broken and because the rope was stretched from his weight, he slowly
strangled to death.
The deaths of the Lapine family had finally been avenged.

You’ll find many such stories – and many much worse – in the pages ahead.
For those who believe that the most horrendous crimes in American history were
confined to major cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, you’ll be
both frightened and shocked by events that occurred in the bucolic countryside,
along peaceful back roads, in the dark woods and in the small farming
communities of America.
But you will not be surprised by the number of ghosts that are lingering
behind.

Keep the lights on while you’re reading this one!
I can promise that René and I did while we were writing it!

Troy Taylor
Spring 2014