I never turn back from anything I attempt.
—Minnie Wallace Walkup (1885)
Everything might have been up to date in Emporia City in August of 1885, but as far as the rest of the world was concerned, it was the Walkup case that put it on the map. From the very beginning, this case grabbed the nation’s imagination and would not let go. In the state of Kansas, it would remain the number one murder case in its annals until, possibly, the Clutter family massacre in Holcomb in 1959, the subject of Truman Capote’s seminal true crime work, In Cold Blood.
The appeal of the poisoning of a forty-nine-year-old mayor by his beautiful sixteen-year-old bride of one month was irresistible. Newspapers either sent representatives to cover the developments firsthand or hired reporters already on the scene. One man, who had never written a line before this, was sending stories to no fewer than twenty-one newspapers! J. R. Graham, the editor of the Emporia Daily Republican and a neighbor of the Walkups, was also being paid by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the bulletins he sent it.
The New Orleans Daily Picayune sent a young, enthusiastic Bill Greer, who bragged that he and the man from the Topeka Daily Capital were the only reporters on the ground who wrote exclusively for their own papers. All the other papers across the nation relied on temporary stringers.1
Greer spoke to everyone everywhere, from Minnie to the presiding judge to the neighbors to the sheriff, exhibiting a boundless energy at all times. Although he was on occasion susceptible to the era’s “purple prose” disease (“she who kissed the blanching and chilling lips of the strong man in agony ere they closed upon the last poisoned breath”), his reports are mostly clear and straightforward.2 In reading them, one has no doubt that Bill Greer was very excited to have received this assignment and eager to do a good job of it. And, because he was a stranger in a strange land, it is he who provides us with our most complete portrait of the spectators, the trappings, and the atmosphere of the trial.
In what was a sign of things to come, Minnie was placed under house arrest while her cousin Willie, who was somewhat unreasonably suspected of being her accomplice, was taken to jail, where he remained for ten days. Minnie was the one who brought the poisons into the house and even acknowledged doing so. Minnie was the one who had tended James Walkup constantly until approximately twenty-four hours before his death. Nothing implicated Willie except for his relationship to the prime suspect. Yet Minnie was allowed to stay in the home, while Willie was arrested. Evidence was completely against her, but nobody wanted to incarcerate a young and beautiful girl, so they settled on Willie (who was only seventeen himself). The crime cried out for an arrest.
From start to finish, there was one constant, and that was Minnie’s remarkable behavior. She acted as if she were completely unaffected by it all. She shed no tears for her husband, showed no fear for her future, and much of the time acted as if she were receiving guests in her home instead of being under suspicion of murder. In an example of her extreme aplomb (many called it cold-bloodedness), Minnie showed no reluctance in going into her husband’s room to change her clothes after the autopsy had been completed. There were organs and body fluids scattered all around, yet she closed the door and remained there for some time.3
And almost immediately, Minnie began damage control. She told a New Orleans Times-Democrat reporter that James Walkup had confessed on his deathbed to having a “colored mistress” in Topeka (a confession heard by no one else in the room). Minnie thought this woman had poisoned him out of jealousy for his having gotten married. Concurrent with this was her story that Walkup had become ill in Topeka and was still quite sick when he got home. She wrote to her sister, Dora, and told her she had purchased not strychnine but oxalic acid for stain removal, but then she told Sallie McKinney and Julia Sommers that she bought the strychnine to remove menstrual stains from underwear. She made no mention of a stain on a dress. She complained to neighbor Fannie Vickery that she couldn’t understand why she was suspected, as even a twelve-year-old child would know better than to buy poison in the town where she lived if she intended to use it on someone.4
Bill Greer of the Picayune lost no time in getting an interview with Minnie. Was she “an unscrupulous adventuress of the worst class” or “an innocent and much injured woman”? Opinion was about equally divided. After Greer saw with what perfect equanimity she was taking the death of her husband and her own legal predicament, he took her measure carefully and declared that, “innocent or guilty, she is a woman well calculated to win in any ordeal to which she may be subjected.”5
Things were going well for the interview until Greer happened to ask her if she knew J. D. Houston, the judge’s brother (the one involved in the Mascot shooting). Immediately, Minnie shut down and would answer no more questions. Neither did he have any luck down at the jail when he tried to question Willie Willis: Instead of giving information, Willis “answer[ed] all questions with a flood of profanity.”
In the resort town of Long Branch, New Jersey, Judge William T. Houston got a shock when he picked up the New York Herald that Sunday: James Walkup of Emporia, Kansas, was dead, and his wife, Minnie Wallace Walkup, was suspected of poisoning him. He immediately sent his godchild a telegram offering his assistance, and she replied, “Yes, please come.” (When Greer commented that Houston said he would be coming “as fast as steam could carry him,” the judge objected. Nonetheless, he headed out to Kansas right away.)6
During the next few days, there were neighbors, officials, and family members wandering all over the house and grounds, while the rest of the town milled around on the sidewalk. Through it all, Minnie “sat with folded arms and exhibited her charms, unmindful of the remarks made by strangers.”7
Sallie McKinney, looking for a writing desk for Libbie, happened to come across the empty Bates strychnine bottle in the latter’s room—so it had not been broken or left at Newman’s, after all.8 The bottle was obviously placed there to implicate Libbie (Minnie had earlier suggested that someone stole it from her handbag), but she couldn’t have used it: She didn’t get home from Colorado until Tuesday afternoon, and by then her father was suffering from symptoms of arsenic poisoning, not strychnine. And if she had used it on James Walkup, her best move would have been to dispose of the bottle, not leave it in her room.
Back in New Orleans, the Mascot gloated with a “we told you so” attitude: The Wallace family was bad news, and once again there was a death connected with it. And there was Judge Houston rushing to Minnie’s rescue. The Mascot revealed many of the skeletons in the Wallace family closet, and the source of these was Minnie’s father.9
James Wallace was not only upset about this turn of affairs, but bitterly resentful at his ex-wife’s part in it. She had cut him off from all contact with Minnie when he tried to remove her from the boardinghouse, which he saw as a bad influence, and expressed his desire to send her to New York State to live with his relatives and finish high school. Moreover, Elizabeth had not consulted him about Minnie’s marriage, and Wallace said he never would have given permission for it. He suggested that the marriage was not even a legitimate one, as he was unable to obtain a marriage certificate. (The Kentucky authorities produced one later.)
In his rant to the Mascot, James Wallace dropped another bomb: He wasn’t even sure that Minnie was his child. Elizabeth had told him she was not but instead was the offspring of a man named Reynolds, the surname supposedly used when Minnie attended the Ursuline Academy. Wallace later recanted, saying he had been very angry and upset, but no one seems to have checked to see if it were true.
As for Elizabeth Wallace (who would not know of the Mascot article until she got to Emporia), she was so shocked at Walkup’s death and the suspicions leveled at Minnie that she became hysterical and physically ill, unable to leave for Emporia until she had sufficiently recovered. Her reaction seems genuine, so if she conspired with her daughter at all, it was probably to milk Walkup for everything she could—not to murder him.
Elizabeth Wallace had another motive for championing Minnie’s marriage to James Walkup, one she would later wish she had not divulged (thereby making it more likely to be true), and that was to get her out of the clutches of the importunate Judge Houston.10 So it would seem that she would probably not have counseled her daughter to kill off Walkup as soon as she could, as this would have resulted in Minnie’s return to New Orleans and the further advances of Judge Houston—assuming Minnie didn’t end up on death row for murder.
Mrs. Wallace must have realized that the whole marriage setup looked bad for both herself and her daughter, that the logical interpretation was that they were gold diggers out for Walkup’s money, so she put her own spin on the facts. She told a New Orleans Times-Democrat reporter that she had known “General” Walkup (she was the only one who ever referred to him in this way, as it was a rank he had never achieved) for ten years and he first saw Minnie in Cincinnati in 1878, both statements complete fabrications.11 Once Elizabeth Wallace reached Emporia, she never again brought up this previous relationship with James Walkup.
James Walkup’s funeral was held on Monday, August 24. Before then, Minnie blithely worked on sewing a mourning dress (having probably decided it would have been imprudent to get one from Newman’s), even as she was being interviewed by reporters. The Walkup girls, however, said they did not want Minnie to attend the funeral, as they were convinced she had murdered their father.
Minnie seemed more concerned about Willie Willis’s comfort in the Emporia jail than about plans for the funeral, and sent Willie some money to buy tobacco and anything else he needed. When Mattie and Libbie withdrew their objections to Minnie’s presence at the funeral, she declined to attend, saying she did not want to become a spectacle.12
Walkup’s funeral was the largest ever seen in Emporia, with 3,000 people attempting to squeeze themselves into the Methodist Episcopal Church (three-fourths of them were turned away) and a hundred horse-drawn vehicles to accompany the casket to the cemetery. Before the service, the casket was placed for viewing in the vestibule.13
The funeral began with the 90th Psalm, then continued with the choir’s rendition of “A Few More Years Shall Roll.” Reverend Snodgrass gave a eulogy, there was a second hymn, and then it seemed as if the entire city of Emporia proceeded to the cemetery.
As the funeral procession passed by the Walkup residence, a large crowd stopped to see if they could see Minnie. Sheriff Jefferson Wilhite, in charge of guarding the fair prisoner, thought that the only way to disperse the hundreds of people outside the home would be to give them what they wanted: a glimpse of Minnie. He brought her out to the balcony and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mrs. Walkup.” Sure enough, the crowd moved on.14
However, it seemed to most people in that crowd that Minnie herself had done the introducing and they felt it was an unseemly attempt at getting attention. Sheriff Wilhite said later that he had laryngitis and his voice was higher than usual, possibly sounding like a woman’s. And Minnie did have a husky voice, so perhaps this was legitimate, not an attempt to spin the incident in her favor. (Why would a law enforcement officer want to present a prisoner in a favorable light? Because he was, as one reporter put it, “mashed on the girl from New Orleans.”)
Neighbor William Born came forward with a strange—and pointless—story.15 As he was never asked to testify about it, the tale was obviously not considered probative. On the night of the reception for the new bride and groom back in July, Born showed up late and then drank a few glasses of beer. Something of a connoisseur, he declared the beer inferior to what he had in his house. “Prove it!” the partygoers said.
So Born sent for some bottles of the beer he kept on hand, and this was, indeed, declared superior. He drank one of the bottles, then headed for home. Soon he was crippled with nausea and stomach pains. When Dr. Jacobs was called in the next day, he diagnosed Born with poisoning. Born said that shortly after his attack, Minnie went down to have her white powder analyzed, implying, of course, that she had used it in beer possibly meant for Walkup but accidentally given to him instead.
However, Minnie’s trip to town was actually at least two weeks after Born’s poisoning, and the white powder she had at that time was not poison. Also, it’s highly doubtful that as early as July 27, the night of the party, having been married for all of five days, she would have decided to get rid of her husband—or would have done it in such a randomly careless way. As no one else at the party became ill, and lots had drunk much more of the beer than Born, the real answer to his poisoning probably lies in his own product.
What this anecdote does illustrate, however, is how much people wanted to be a part of this incredible story.
The coroner’s jury, made up of six citizens, the coroner, and the county attorney, began its inquiries right in the Walkup home at 3:00 P.M. on the day the victim died: August 22, 1885.16 Minnie, just three years younger than Libbie, told her that going through the inquest would be much easier for Libbie, as she herself was “just a young girl.” But, as it turned out, Minnie’s lawyer refused to let her testify at all.
On the first day of the inquest, the witnesses consisted of Libbie Walkup, who testified about her father’s health since she returned from Colorado and to the fact that there were no poisons in the house; the druggists Minnie had visited to obtain, or attempt to obtain, the various poisons; Luther Severy, who told of the spilling of the arsenic box; and Sallie McKinney, who had found the empty strychnine bottle. Then they adjourned until after the funeral on Monday.
Day two of the inquest was entirely devoted to Dr. Jacobs, who had attended James Walkup that last week of his life and had also been a witness to the arsenic spilling incident. He told the jury what Minnie had said about why she purchased all this poison.
As it progressed, the inquest was frequently reshaped to fit new discoveries. In New Orleans, a reporter found some chemists who claimed that inferior grades of bismuth contained arsenic, which prompted a stout defense of the bismuth by Emporia doctors. While it was possible that some arsenic could remain in bismuth if it were not processed correctly, the product put out by Dr. Squibb of Brooklyn was the purest and contained no poison whatsoever.17 No doctor had ever had a patient complain about it.
Dr. Jacobs and John Feighan, the county attorney, undertook an experiment. They had druggist Charles Ryder, who had sold the Squibb bismuth to Dr. Jacobs, dissolve a large spoonful from that very same package in a glass of water. Both men drank the mixture, suffered no ill effects, and experienced none of the grittiness Walkup had complained of. They went back to the inquest proceedings and testified as to the results of their experiment.
Another refocus occurred when Minnie claimed that James Walkup was already sick when he got home from Topeka. Witnesses were brought forward to confirm or deny that: Some said he was, some said he wasn’t. His partner Dwight Bill said Walkup was downtown at the office early on Saturday morning after having gotten into Emporia at 4:00 A.M., acting hale and hearty and saying nothing about having been ill. But Dr. Jacobs admitted that Walkup had told him of feeling sick in Topeka. These two were highly reliable witnesses, so it is possible that both statements were true, that Walkup had been feeling poorly in Topeka but then had recovered. Perhaps it was another bout of kidney stones or whatever had ailed him on the trip to New Orleans. Whatever the case, it is clear that any illness in Topeka was unrelated to what killed him, but Minnie’s defense attorneys would use this in an attempt to cloud the issue and create reasonable doubt.
Editorials in Emporia and New Orleans at this time counseled caution: Let’s not jump to conclusions here; let’s wait until the evidence is in before passing judgment on Minnie. Everyone seemed to want to find something that would exonerate this young girl. And her lawyer thought maybe he had done just that.
Forty-four-year-old defense attorney William W. Scott was a rising star in Kansas politics.18 A Columbia Law School graduate, he had at one time been a Minnesota county attorney and a Republican delegate to the National Convention. Scott moved to Emporia in 1874, where he had a thriving practice and three years before the Walkup case had been elected to the Kansas State legislature. He was a gifted orator in an era that prized such talent, and he agreed to take on Minnie’s defense.19
Either Scott himself or a detective hired by him uncovered a physician in Kansas City who had a sensational story to tell. An astute reporter for the Kansas City Journal saw Scott go into the office of Dr. Charles W. Scott (no relation to the defense attorney), waited until the lawyer came out, then went in and got a tremendous scoop: James Walkup was an arsenic eater. Attorney-client privilege be damned, the doctor felt it was his duty to make this known.
Here was the story told by Dr. Scott: In late November or early December of 1884 (which would be just before Walkup left for New Orleans), two drunk men came to his office late one afternoon. One man remained in a corner, silent, while the other came forward and complained of cramps and pains in his stomach and groin area. This man gave his name as James Walkup, and it was such an unusual one that Dr. Scott assumed it was a fake. “Oh, call yourself Jones. You might just as well,” he reportedly told the patient. At that, the man became indignant, insisted it was his real name, and said he was an alderman in Emporia.
Dr. Scott asked Walkup if his pains were from drinking, because he was so clearly under the influence. Walkup said he didn’t know, but he had had the pains before. Dr. Scott didn’t want to advise him while he was drunk, so he told him to come back when he was sober. At this point, Walkup volunteered that he was taking arsenic in pill form and also in a solution. He produced a vial that he said contained arsenic. The pills, for which he had a prescription, were a combination of arsenious acid and opium.
Walkup told Dr. Scott he was taking the arsenic for two reasons: first, because he had a chronic disease (for which he was also taking mercury) and second, because he thought it worked as a male enhancement drug. How did Walkup know this about arsenic? He had read an article, a report from the Edinburgh Surgical Commission, contained in Head’s textbook on toxicology.
So Dr. Scott had advised Walkup to stop taking arsenic, as it could be causing those stomach pains. Walkup said he had no intention of doing so, as it made him sexually strong. He never went back to see Dr. Scott. (At this point in the interview, Dr. Scott went into great technical detail for the reporter, explaining how autopsy tests were conducted for the presence of arsenic, all completely over the head of the beleaguered writer. “Thank you. That is very plain,” the reporter said sarcastically when the doctor finally finished. “Don’t mention it,” Dr. Scott replied.)
Dr. Scott had no idea how the defense attorney had found out about him, as he had not come forward himself, hoping something else would surface to prove Minnie’s innocence. On the day the lawyer visited, he brought a set of fifteen photographs, from which the doctor had no trouble picking out James Walkup.
When Attorney Scott got back to Emporia after this interview, he immediately began trying to influence future jurors.20 First, he called Minnie “an open, guileless girl” who “bears the stamp of innocence on her countenance” (and, he added, she was “decidedly interesting,” probably one of the case’s great understatements). Next, he excoriated Emporia druggists, calling them “pusillanimous” for not coming forward and admitting that James Walkup had bought arsenic from them—conveniently ignoring the fact that the poison registers were public records. If he didn’t search them himself, he did his client a big disservice, but he was much too good an attorney to have overlooked that. It can be assumed that he did look at the poison registers, failed to find James Walkup’s name, and declined to mention that fact.
What about the arsenic story? Could it be true? Could James Walkup have purchased arsenic in other cities? It certainly did present the defense with the element of reasonable doubt it was looking for. And it was not outside the bounds of reason that Walkup, an aging ladies’ man, would seek out something to help him in the “vigorous” department. But how likely is it that this untutored businessman would be reading something called Head’s Toxicology?
Another factor to consider is the “testimony” of James Walkup himself. Look how interested he was in getting better. Look how concerned he was that his wife be proven innocent (it was his suggestion, after all, that the Wheldon arsenic be weighed). If he knew he was the author of his own demise by taking too much arsenic, wouldn’t he have said so? An antidote that could have been given early on probably would have saved him. And he knew that if he died, his wife would be arrested. He said himself that he was surprised she would try to kill him because he thought they were getting along fine (and further said so in his letter to Minnie’s mother), so he wasn’t holding any grudges against her for which he would seek post-humous revenge by overdosing himself and letting her be hanged for it.
Who was this doctor, then, who had given the defense so much ammunition? Charles Scott had “graduated” in 1870 from something called the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania, a fraudulent diploma mill run by a “Dr.” Buchanan.21 Buchanan was indicted for his fake diplomas, and Scott said he himself had to go before a board and pass further examinations because his degree meant nothing. Supposedly, he passed with flying colors. However, he later taught anatomy at another substandard school—the Kansas City Hospital Medical College, founded in 1882. And, while he later testified that he specialized in “diseases of the mind and the nervous system,” his card said nothing of the sort. Instead, it seems that Dr. Scott was a urologist.
Why would a man suffering stomach and groin pains, looking for a doctor in a strange city, enter the office of a urinary specialist unless he knew his specific problem? Thus, if James Walkup really did consult Dr. Scott for anything, it would have been for those kidney stones, which would explain how the doctor could pick him out of the photo lineup—assuming he didn’t have any “help” with the identification from Attorney Scott. As for the arsenic story, that could have been a collaboration between the two Scotts or the result of the doctor’s desire to make himself a player in this most famous case. Bill Greer noticed that many doctors, both local and from out of the area, tried to cash in on the Walkup sensation. He blamed the other reporters for encouraging them by giving them so much ink, but, of course, Dr. Scott’s testimony—whether true or not—would be a linchpin for the defense. Scott would not be the last surprise witness unearthed by Minnie’s team.22
The autopsy results, as expected, showed the cause of death to be a lethal dose of arsenic.23 Once the Dr. Scott interview came out, the examining physicians looked for signs of chronic arsenic usage, but found none. There are clear indications that point to an arsenic eater, and not one of those could be detected in the victim’s organs. All the signs were of recent ingestion. For example, the fatty condition of the liver, most likely caused by the arsenic, could only have been effected by recent dosages. Long-term usage would have made the liver hard, not fatty.
And, because of the rumors, the doctors looked for indications that he had syphilis, as well, and found no signs of any stage of that disease. Dr. Scott had said that Walkup told him he was taking mercury, presumably for syphilis, but no traces of that were found, either. It was never stated, however, whether there were any traces of gonorrhea, which Walkup was said to have had as recently as May 1885.
A surprise find, probably unnoticed by Walkup, was that one lung showed an incipient state of tuberculosis. It would have been many years down the road, however, before that would have amounted to anything.
Judge William T. Houston arrived on August 27 and immediately wanted to take over the case for his godchild.24 Minnie’s brother-in-law, Edward Findlay, had arrived a couple of days before that, and Houston enlisted him in the hunt for evidence. The two would travel to Topeka, Lawrence, Kansas City, and other of James Walkup’s haunts to see what they could dig up.
In an interview with the Winfield Courier, Judge Houston admitted to being completely puzzled by the case. He had talked to Minnie, and she had told him she was innocent. He was inclined to believe this, knowing her as he did since she was a child, but he also said that strong evidence could sway him the other way. If she had done this, he told the reporter, she would lie to him about it. Maybe they could somehow show that Walkup took the poison accidentally or got it from someone else.25
A telling point here is that Judge Houston was being interviewed on September 2 and Dr. Scott’s “arsenic eating” claim wasn’t published until September 5. Although after the fifth, Minnie would say that her husband had told her to get some arsenic for her complexion and even gave her money for it, she did not before this say anything about that to Judge Houston, although it would definitely have helped establish her innocence. In fact, after the Dr. Scott interview, Minnie told a reporter that she had once discovered a vial of brown liquid in her husband’s desk and he told her to leave it alone.26 This tidbit had never been raised before this and was never raised again.
Minnie’s mother didn’t arrive in Emporia until August 29, two days after Judge Houston. She was delayed by her own illness and by Dora’s advanced state of pregnancy. Mrs. Wallace must have been dismayed to arrive and find Judge Houston on the scene and very much in charge, just the same as he had been in New Orleans. It probably seemed as if they could never get away from this man and his influence.
Elizabeth thought that Minnie would be best served by the appointment of a local guardian to look after her legal affairs (and help her reputation with the people of Emporia), since Minnie was still a minor. Judge Houston was adamant in his objection to this: Minnie did not need any guardian, as her marriage made her an emancipated minor; he was perfectly capable of looking after her.
This, of course, was exactly what Elizabeth Wallace did not want. She refused to give in, and Judge Houston, thoroughly miffed, left town. The Wallace family had hoped to be able to count on Houston’s money for Minnie’s defense, but he refused to put forth a single penny unless he could do things his way. He suggested that Elizabeth sell her belongings to get defense funds. The parting between Judge Houston and the Wallaces was an acrimonious one, with much resentment on the family’s part and wounded vanity on his.
Hence, a legal guardian was appointed by the court for Minnie, and with it the entry into the case of one of its most colorful individuals: William Jay.
Second only in importance to Major Calvin Hood in the city of Emporia, sixty-five-year-old William Jay was the most ardent and protective of all Minnie Walkup’s loyal janissaries. He had served two terms as mayor and had made his fortune in many enterprises, primarily lumber. Jay was tall and thin and craggy. Bill Greer thought he looked like William Tecumseh Sherman.27
Jay was energetic and irascible, never hesitating to speak his mind. His fierce protection and defense of Minnie, and his utter refusal to see any of her behavior—past or present—in any but the most favorable light, made him the butt of many jokes in those days. (For example, when a bothersome tooth necessitated Minnie’s visit to the dentist to have it pulled, Jay reportedly held her hand as she sat in the chair, weeping in empathy for the pain she felt.)28
William Jay cared for none of this. He did not alter his behavior one whit after reading the many jibes printed about him or his characterization as “the fanatical friend.”29 He was smitten with this girl, and his wife (who, tellingly, never accompanied him to any of the legal functions) must have wondered if he had lost his mind. He even had his picture taken to present to his lovely ward.
In a lengthy letter to the editor of the Emporia Daily News, Jay criticized the “sneak-thieving” that was being done by stealing Minnie’s reputation with nudges, winks, and innuendoes—she who was “friendless, houseless, and homeless . . . with the hangman’s rope constantly before her eyes.”30 Those “gassy” gossipers should hold their tongues.
Jay provided the deep pockets Houston had taken away with him, and agreed to front the money for the defense. The story was that Minnie was to reimburse him from her widow’s share, but as it was likely that she would be convicted of murdering her husband, that share would probably not be forthcoming, so he could not realistically have expected repayment. Jay immediately hired another successful defense attorney, fifty-year-old Thomas P. Fenlon of Leavenworth, Kansas, to join William Scott.
Minnie had been kept under house arrest, loosely watched by either Sheriff Wilhite or his deputy Waldo Wooster.31 But when Major Hood was appointed executor of James Walkup’s estate, he wanted her out, so Minnie had to go to jail . . . sort of. Although the sheriff fixed up a special cell for her and allowed her to bring her wardrobe, at first Minnie spent very little time there. Instead, she lived with the Wilhites, taking meals with them and sharing the bedroom of one of the daughters. However, when one of the children came down with typhoid fever, it was thought best that Minnie not stay there, so to her cell she went.
Willie Willis was released from jail on September 1, loudly profane and mightily aggrieved. He swore that someone would answer for this miscarriage of justice. If he had been as cantankerous during his ten days’ stay as he was at the beginning and the end of it, his jailers were no doubt glad to be rid of him. He eventually went back to New Orleans with Mrs. Wallace, both returning for the trial in late October.32
Minnie’s cell was ten by twenty feet, with a high ceiling, barred window, bare floor, bed, stove, and table. Still, it wasn’t exactly like being in jail. She wasn’t locked in, instead merely requested not to leave. From morning to night throughout the entire sixty-five days she was in custody, Minnie entertained visitors, both friends and strangers. People came from hundreds of miles away just to stand and gaze at her. (“Where’s them dresses?” one elderly woman asked brusquely. She had heard of Minnie’s spectacular wardrobe and wanted to see it.) They brought gifts of food, flowers, and fripperies and wrote her letters by the score. Minnie went buggy riding with the Wilhite children, and Mrs. Wilhite cooked her meals.
And Minnie devoured every word of print about herself. She had stacks of newspapers from all over the country and vowed to read every single one if it took the rest of her life.33
Soon something else would occupy her mind: the birth of her niece back in New Orleans. The black-haired, blue-eyed little girl was originally named in honor of her aunt—Minnie Wallace Findlay—but by trial’s end her name had been modified to reflect the generosity and loyalty of Minnie’s staunchest supporter: Minnie Jay Findlay.34
It was around this time that Minnie began throwing out subtle (and not so subtle) hints that she herself was pregnant (“enceinte,” as it was euphemistically expressed). She coyly avoided an out-and-out statement one way or the other, possibly seeking to garner some sympathy, possibly hoping to chill the hearts of the Walkup children who were looking to deprive her of her share of the estate—for, even if she were to lose her own share, her child would not. And, although Minnie would keep this up for the next four months, disingenuously insisting she didn’t know for sure (and how could she not know by four months?), she never bore children—and was probably never “enceinte”—in her entire life.35
Back in New Orleans, Elizabeth Wallace spun wild stories for a reporter, some of her own making and some undoubtedly from Minnie. She said Minnie had not been forced out of the Walkup home by Major Hood but that the move was necessitated by the sheriff’s sick child. The sheriff went back to his home and a deputy would have had to take over Minnie’s custody. (It was not explained why that would have been a problem, and, in fact, a deputy had sometimes been placed in charge.) Elizabeth thought it was best for Minnie to move to the jail (although in reality, Minnie had wept bitterly at the move and Elizabeth had complained loudly about it). The jail cell was quite nice, she said, and even had a carpeted floor (it did not).36
Walkup, claimed Mrs. Wallace, had been taking arsenic for eight or ten years and “probably told Minnie to buy some for him.” “Probably” told her? Wouldn’t Minnie have said something to her mother if he had? And Libbie Walkup supposedly spread a rumor that Elizabeth Wallace wrote a letter to Minnie directing her to kill James Walkup by October (there was no such rumor). When Elizabeth was leaving Emporia, she told the reporter, the authorities were just getting ready to arrest Mary Moss for James Walkup’s murder. (Mary Moss was never a serious suspect. Only in the minds of the defense was she one at all.)
According to Minnie, she was constantly getting bouquets of flowers, including a huge basket of them from some Emporia women. The card read, “From the ladies of Emporia, who recognize your noble qualities and firmly believe in your innocence.” Now, while it is possible that this event really happened in some form, it is equally likely that Minnie was embellishing.37
Both Minnie and her mother seemed unaware of the fact that newspaper articles written in New Orleans could also be read in Kansas. Minnie told Bill Greer that Walkup’s twenty-seven-year-old son, William, not only was on her side but even brought his children to visit her in jail. The son called her “mother,” and the children called her “grandmother.” Given the circumstances and given William’s duty of loyalty to his family—whatever his personal feelings about Minnie—this encounter must have taken place only in Minnie’s mind. Such a meeting would certainly have been written up in all the Emporia newspapers (William Jay would have seen to that), but this little flight of Minnie’s imagination appeared only in the New Orleans Daily Picayune.38
Ultimately, of course, Minnie was found guilty by the coroner’s jury and entered a “not guilty” plea at her arraignment. According to her, the majority of the jurors changed their minds after their verdict and decided she was innocent, after all. Not only that, but the entire city of Emporia now believed in her.39 Nonetheless, she still sat in jail.
The stage was set for the trial in the biggest murder case in Emporia’s history: The State of Kansas v. Minnie Wallace Walkup.