Myrtle Bennett’s murder trial, in the
court of Judge Ralph S. Latshaw, began on February 23, 1931 and
lasted eleven days. She was defended by attorney James A. Reed,
former three-term U.S. Senator and onetime Democratic
presidential candidate. Raised by Boss Tom Pendergast’s
political machine in Kansas City (same as the judge and
prosecutor in the Bennett trial), Reed was a riveting public
speaker and trial attorney who put on a dramatic courtroom
performance for the widow Bennett. Among other things, Reed
showed jurors that John Bennett had struck his wife before.
High society women in Kansas City, many of
them bridge players, turned out in their furs and boas to hear
Myrtle Bennett’s story and to watch what was believed to be
Reed’s final criminal trial. Throughout the trial, Johnson
County prosecutor James A. Page objected to Reed’s tactics, once
during the defense lawyer’s tearful opening statement. Seeing
Reed and Myrtle Bennett weep, Page cynically asked Latshaw to
pause the trial long enough to give “counsel for the defense and
his client a chance to finish their cry.” Reed lashed back, “I
wish I could be as cold-blooded about it as some in this
courtroom.”
Reed constructed an elaborate defense. He
set up separate defenses for Myrtle Bennett: accidental,
emotional insanity, self-defense and also qualified self defense
which meant too much force was used by the defendant to repel an
assault. Reed told jurors that John Bennett sought to take the
gun from his wife and they scuffled for possession of it, and
that he was shot twice – once in the back, and once beneath his
left armpit – during the scuffle. Reed and his fellow defense
attorney, J. Francis O'Sullivan, even pantomimed the shooting
three times before the jury box, with Reed portraying Myrtle and
O’Sullivan playing John.
During the trial, the prosecutor, James R.
Page, had sharp exchanges with the judge, Ralph S. Latshaw;
became angry at Charles Hofman when his testimony differed from
that given to police the night of the killing and two weeks
later in a preliminary hearing; and was also angry at Mayme
Hofman for her memory lapses. Defense attorney Reed broke into
tears at one point. The judge ruled against the introduction of
the prosecution's star witness, one of John Bennett's relatives,
because the prosecution had called him as a rebuttal witness,
instead of a witness offering direct testimony. The jury's
verdict was that Myrtle Bennett was not guilty of murder.
Page and Reed sparred often, prompting the
judge to send the jury from the courtroom over and over. When
Page later tried to surprise Reed by introducing a star witness
– Byrd Rice, John’s nephew – during rebuttal, Judge Latshaw
excoriated the prosecutor for failing to endorse Rice on his
original list of witnesses, and thereby failing to allow the
defense its right to hear Rice’s story before the trial. Latshaw
would not allow Rice to testify. Later, Rice told reporters what
he had intended to testify, that his aunt Myrtle Bennett had
walked him through her apartment six weeks after the killing and
narrated how she had chased John through the rooms of the
apartment with a pistol in her hand. She told Rice that she had
fired at him twice from the den and twice more in the living
room, the last bullet striking him in the back as he reached for
the front door. But the jury never heard this story.
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The
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On March 6, after eight hours of
deliberations, the jury delivered a Not Guilty verdict. Reed
only wondered why jurors took so long. Page’s assistant, John
Hill, said, “It looks like an open season on husbands.”
Ely Culbertson, the Barnum of the bridge
movement, watched the trial closely from New York. Culbertson
used the Bennett tragedy to his advantage. He sold bridge and
himself, telling housewives that the game was a great way to
defuse the marital tensions pent-up in daily life. He told
housewives that, at the bridge table, they could be their
husbands’ equal, and more.
Culbertson wrote about the killing and
trial in his new magazine, The Bridge World.
In packed halls on the lecture
circuit, he analyzed the so-called “Fatal Hand” – even as he
knew it was totally fabricated. (None of the players remembered
the distribution of cards.) In lectures, Culbertson suggested
that if only the Bennetts had been playing the Culbertson System
of bidding, then 36-year-old John Bennett might still be alive.
Only 35 years old at the time of her
acquittal, Myrtle Bennett lived for another 61 years, dying at
the age of 96 in Miami, Fla. in January 1992. She had moved into
obscurity soon after the trial, her name fading from headlines.
She never remarried, nor did she have children. According to The
Devil’s Tickets, after World War 2 and throughout the 1950s,
Myrtle Bennett worked as executive head of housekeeping at the
elegant Hotel Carlyle in New York City, living alone there in an
apartment. At the Carlyle, she developed friendships with the
rich and famous, including actors Mary Pickford and her husband
Buddy Rogers, and also Henry Ford II.
The widow Bennett later traveled the
world, working for a hotel chain, and played bridge until nearly
the end of her life. In an interview with author Pomerantz,
Myrtle Bennett’s cousin, Carolyn Scruggs of Arkansas, said Mrs.
Bennett never spoke with her about the shooting. Once, though,
Ms. Scruggs told Mrs. Bennett, “I sometimes think of your life
–“ But Myrtle Bennett interrupted, and said,, “Well, my dear, it
was a great tragedy and a great mistake.” Scruggs stammered to
say, “I guess I want you to know that I understand it.” But
Myrtle Bennett said, “No, my dear, you don’t understand it.”
At the time of her 1992 death, Myrtle
Bennett’s estate was valued at more than $1 million. With no
direct descendants, she left the lion’s share of her money to
family members of John Bennett, the husband she had killed more
than six decades before.
