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Oklahoma Murder Spree 1935 (part 2)
L. A. Simpson and Warren Simpson Farmer Says Comer Seen In Vicinity of Blanchard With Two Companions Pasture May Hide Fate Of Missing Pair Brother of Simpson Brings New Word to City
Belief that the bodies of L. A. Simpson, 40-year-old Piedmont farmer, and his 14-year-old son, Warren, have been dumped in a pasture east of Blanchard was strengthened Tuesday when possemen were informed that a man answering description of Chester Comer was seen in that vicinity Sunday with two other persons. R. T. Simpson brother of the missing man and leader of a searching party, told of being informed by a farmer who lives five miles east of Blanchard that Comer was seen on his place about 11 a. m. Sunday with two other persons.
Identifies Comer, Car “He told members of our searching party that he saw a car bearing a man who resembled Comer and two other men driving through a pasture,’ Simpson said. “He said the car tallied with the one in which Comer was shot.” “The farmer said he didn’t think much of the incident, and that he saw the same car and driver parked on a road near his house about 4 p. m., but that the man was alone. He said he was driving his wagon along the road and that the man apparently was asleep. As he passed, the driver rose up and stared until he got on by. That was the last he saw of the car or the driver.” Simpson said he did not learn the farmer’s name. Officers also had been told that a man resembling Comner had been seen Sunday night driving through Blanchard with two or three other men.
Missing Since Saturday L. A. Simpson, and his son disappeared Saturday afternoon shortly after they turned up a road along which a hitchhiker was walking near Simpson’s home, four miles north of Piedmont. The brother, R, T. Simpson, long without sleep and worn with worry, has directed a search for his brother and nephew since Sunday morning. Tuesday he said he was considering posting a reward for information leading to the whereabouts of his brother and nephew, hoping that it would inlure farmers in the Blanchard area to conduct an intensive search of their fields. In the posse making the hunt around Blanchard Tuesday were officers and men from Oklahoman Cit, Piedmont, El Reno and Blanchard, with John Harrison. Canadian county sheriff, Oscar Morgan, Blanchard marshal, who shot Comer Monday, and R. T. Simpson in charge.
Fields, Roads Searched The party, numbering more than 100 persons, searched dozens of square miles of wet fields and muddy roads south and east of Blanchard without finding a trace of the Simpsons. The hunt will be continued Wednesday, Simpson said. The wide-spread search in the vicinity of Ada for Ray Evans, missing Shawnee lawyer, was virtually abandoned Tuesday night when soaked and weary possemen and hundreds of volunteers returned without success. Clyde Kaiser, Pontooe county sheriff, said he was convinced that every foot of the area around Ada, Allen, Bing and other spots mentioned in Comer’s mumblings or upon which reports had been received had been thoroughly covered. The “tips” all of which were completely checked out, resulted Tuesday in the finding of a pair of buried shoes, the grave of a horse and a dead hog – nothing more.
Legion Aids In Hunt With the America Legion again participating, more that 125 persons in the Ada vicinity Tuesday expanded the hunt to include the area around Allen, 20 miles east of Ada, the Sun-Ray oil lease, which had not been previously searched, the area around Bing, six miles north of Ada, and another untouched area three miles north of Ada. Finding of blood and bits of hair earlier in the day was proved during the afternoon to have been where a group of hunters had killed a possum. Added to the distribution of pictures of Evans at every farmhouse in the Ada area. Tuesday was the issuance of broadcasts and appeals to hunters to investigate all evidence of fresh dirt and be constantly on the watch for some trace of the missing persons. The Oklahoman 11/27/1935
“COMER’S CLOTHES” Puzzle- Investigators Tuesday sought to determine why Chester Comer carried such an array of ammunition, tools and baby clothes. Found in the car in which Comer was shot Monday was a zipper bag owned by Ray Evans, missing Shawnee attorney. The bag contained a baby’s tam and two sweaters, an assortment of tools, a .32 caliber automatic, two holsters, dozens of cartridges, a rubber hose, a knife, a necktie, a shaving outfit, one bottle of gun oil, one steel measuring tape, a pair of tan trousers, a tan shirt to match and a woolen shirt. The Oklahoman 11/27/1935
COMER’S LIFE NOT KNOWN TO HIS FAMILIES Last Two Years Spent In Tangled Travels
None of the three families to whom Chester Comer has brought grief was able Tuesday to remember enough of his life during the last two years to aid in solving a mystery which apparently only his maddened brain knows. Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Comer, the 27-year-old oil field roustabout’s parents, said they had never tried to keep any track of him. The families of his first and second wives, both missing, tried but were unable to find out anything about his actions. Charles Stevens, rawboned Maysville farmer, who still hopes his daughter, second wife of Comer, may be found, knows most about his son-in-law’s tangled trail – but until last week he hadn’t seen him for 3 ½ months.
Letters Are Infrequent “Right after they were married in December, 1934, Lucille came to me and said Chester was in trouble – that he’d forged some checks,” Stevens said. “They lit out for the east, and afterward I went to Pauls Valley and Oklahoma City, but officers there told me they had nothing on Chester at all. They told me they couldn’t catch my girl and her husband unless he’d done something against the law.” Stevens said he learned from infrequent letters and from conversation later with his daughter that the pair spent two weeks in Tennessee at the home of Stevens’s father, two weeks at Little Rock, Ark., and then spent some time in Kentucky.
Returned To Maysville Then they returned to Oklahoma and the Stevens farm at Maysville. When Stevens asked him what they had used for money, Comer told him they hadn’t had any, but had “bummed” food and hitchhiked all the way, the father related. Early in August, Stevens continued, Comer’s brother Austin drove to the farm and took Chester and his wife away. “Chester said he had a job in Oklahoma City – that’s the last I saw of Lucille, and of Chester until he came to my farm alone last Friday,” the farmer said. Mr. and Mrs. James Childers, grandparents of Elizabeth Childers, Comer’s first wife, knew less about his activities. They had not seen or heard from their granddaughter since August of 1934.
First Married In 1934 “They were married Feb. 16, 1934, and after living here a month or more, moved to Shidler or Wild Horse, where Chester worked for about two months,” Mrs. Childers said. “Then they returned when Elizabeth’s father died, and left in August for Amarillo, where Chester said he had a job. Quite a bit later Chester came back, and when we asked him where Elizabeth was, said “We have a fine big girl now, and she didn’t feel like coming with me,” Mrs. Childers said. “We have never heard from her.” Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Comer, Chester’s parents, knew even less about him than the other two families.
Found Packing Grips “I never kept track of my son,” said the elder Comer. “All I asked him to do was act decent and be honest. He acted that way around me, because he knew he’d better.” Last Tuesday morning, as Comer returned from a night’s work as janitor for the I. T. I. O. Co., he found Chester in the house packing his grips, he related. “He told me he’d rather be dead than out of work and on the dole, and that he was going to Texas to look for work,” Comer continued. “I tried to argue him out of his blues by telling him he should go to farming, but he just frowned and left.”
Saw Lucille Only Once Comer said he was not acquainted with Lucille Stevens, his son’s second wife, and had only seen her once. He added that Chester and his first wife had stayed with them for a month after they were married. But he was unable to tell where his son had been during any of his long absences, or what he had been doing. None of the families could give state crime bureau operatives or local officers any aid in retracing Comer’s life. The Oklahoman 11/27/1935
Elizabeth Childers Comer WIFE MISSING
Where? – As officers floundered through a maze of incoherent evidence in the Chester Comer case, they also were confronted with the disappearance of Comer’s first wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Childers Comer, missing to her relatives since August, 1934. The Oklahoman 11/27/1935
COMER DIES WITH HIS STORY UNTOLD Farmers Bare Story of Life At Blanchard Jack Armstrong’ Name Used; Girl Courted
Chester Comer spent the two days following the disappearance of Ray Evans, Shawnee attorney, visiting the home of Otis Fain, farmer ten miles south of Blanchard, who knew Comer as Jack Armstrong, mild-mannered farmhand. Fain, for whom Comer worked a month more than a year ago and often had visited since, identified Comer several hours before his death Wednesday night. The farmer said the man left the Fain home at 9 p. m. last Thursday night after a furious display of temper in which he threatened the lives of four persons.
Other Supports Identification Fain was supported in his identification by Roy Bradford, who lives on a farm a quarter of a mile from the Fain home. Bradford saw Comer leave, he said. Fain’s story was obtained by Bill Kerr, constable, who asked his brother, George Kerr, and W. E. Agee, deputy sheriffs, to aid him. Comer, Fain said, drove up to his home about 8:30 a. m. Wednesday, November 20, in a tan Ford sedan, evidently the Evans car which Comer deserted six miles north of Maysville two days later. Fain said Comer told him and his mother, Mrs. Minnie Fain, that he had driven in from Oklahoma City, but neighbors reported they saw him approach from the south. Evans disappeared the day before while on a trip to Ada to interview a client.
Says Actions Normal All day Wednesday Comer sat about the house, Fain said, while the farmer and his mother went about the ordinary duties of their farm work. The Fains could see no difference in his appearance and actions from what they had observed when he worked for them or on his frequent visits afterward. Comer spent Wednesday night, Fain said, in the bed he had occupied while working for his board and room on the farm. Thursday he loitered about the house in the morning. At noon he carried Fain’s lunch to him in the field. About 2 p. m. Thursday, Fain said, Comer took the farmer’s sister, Opal Fain, 16 years old, and Odessa Childress, 14-year-old neighbor who lived only 200 yards away, to Lindsay in the Evans car. Fain said the ride ended about 5:30 p. m. when the three returned to the Fain home. Fain examined the car, he said, and noticed a zipper bag in it. He said he saw a length of rope in the bag.
Told Car Was Brought Here He asked Comer, he said, where he got the car. He said he had purchased it in Oklahoma City for $475. After dinner Comer said he wanted to take the family group on a car ride. Opal remained at home, but the others went. In the car were Comer at the wheel, Fain, Odessa Childress, Mrs. Fain and Garland Fain, 8-year-old brother of the farmer. After riding about an hour, Mrs. Fain and Garland were let out to visit at the home of a farmer 13 miles south of Blanchard on the Lindsay road. Four miles on, Fain said, Comer turned to him with a snarl and ordered him from the car. “We’re going on alone,” he quoted Comer as saying. “It was the first time in his life he ever had spoken harshly to me,” said Fain.
Pushed Out of Car Fain said he started to refuse, but Comer opened the car door, pushed him out and speeded on. Fain started down the road after the car, and within 20 minutes saw it returning. Comer stopped. Fain said Comer’s face was flushed angrily and the girl was obviously frightened. Fain said he exchanged no words with the girl until they reached the house at which his mother was visiting. “There,” the farmer said, “the girl ran into the house, grabbed mother and refused to turn her loose. She said Comer, whom she called Armstrong, had tried to tie her with a rope.” “The child told mother,” Fain said, “that Comer threatened to kill her unless she did what he wanted her to do. She said she talked him out of his mood. “We were all pretty nervous by then, because we could see that he had changed in some manner from the man we had known. The whole group piled into the car and started to my home. “Two miles down the road, Comer jammed on the brakes and stopped the car. “Unless you do what I want you to,” he said to Odessa, “I’m going to kill all of you. “He always had been friendly with me so I tried to talk to him. He told me to shut up or I’d go down, too.”
Suspect Was In Blanchard Area In Auto Fain said Comer did not draw a gun at that time. After a few minutes of argument he started the car and drove on. About a mile farther on, he stopped the car again. “This time,” Fain said, “he leaned over the back seat and opened the zipper bag (said by officers to have belonged to Evans) and pulled out a .25 caliber automatic pistol. He held open the bag so I could see a revolver in it. Then he said: “I’ve got a .45 too, if you’re thinking of getting funny.”
He Is Calmed Temporarily Fain said Comer then ordered the girl from the car. “She didn’t move. Continuing to cling to Mrs. Fain, she told him to drive to our house and she would go with him if he only wouldn’t kill us. That calmed him down a moment and he drove on,” Fain said. About a quarter of a mile from the Fain home, and in front of the Bradford home, Comer stopped again. “Get out all of you but her,” Fain quoted Comer as saying. Then noticing Bradford on his porch, Comer said, according to Fain: “If he comes out here and starts anything, you’re all going down.” Mrs. Fain began to beg Comer to drive them on home and be on his way. “If you’ll give me $3 I’ll take you home,” he said. Mrs. Fain gave him $3 and he started to drive away, the automatic still pointed at them. “Don’t you go into that house until I’m gone and don’t you go away from the house tonight,” Fain said he warned.
No Phones At Homes Fain said there were no telephones in either the Fain or the Childress homes, and he presumed Comer’s order was to prevent their notifying officer of his actions. Comer, Fain said, drove a quarter of a mile east and turned north about an eighth of a mile. There he stopped his car and the group could see him leave the car with a flashlight. After several minutes he re-entered the car and drove away. Bradford witnessed the same thing, he said. “After Comer left we all huddled into the house. Odessa said Comer told her when they were alone that he was mad at her and had come back for revenge,” Fain said. An hour later, Fain said a flashlight was directed into the house through a window. Later a flashlight appeared at a window in the Childress home.
Search Made for Bodies When the constable and deputies reported this information to Stanley Rogers, sheriff, a searching part was directed to the spot at which Comer stopped his car in the home that bodies might be found nearby. None was discovered. Bill Kerr returned to Blanchard to continue the search after he brought Fain and Bradford to Oklahoma City to identify Comer. Fain said his father, O. M. Fain, who lives away from the family now, met Comer, under the name “Armstrong” in Oklahoma City a year ago in August or early September. “Comer told father he was out of work and dad told him he could come to the farm and work for his board and room if he wanted to. Comer showed up a week later. He helped us through the watermelon season. He worked about seven or eight weeks at that time. “He was a good worker and was easy to manage. I didn’t ever see any signs of temper. He always was a little nervous and we remarked among ourselves that he was only half bright, but it didn’t occur to us that he was crazy.
Came Back in April “When he left he said he was going to work in the Oklahoma City oil field. A few days later we had a letter from him postmarked at Pauls Valley. Early in April he came back, walking, and said he had been married and had gotten into some trouble, but he didn’t say where. He stayed overnight that time. “A few days after June 1 he came back driving a Graham-Paige car which he told us he purchased in Oklahoma City for $75. That time he stayed three or four days and took all of us, including the Childress girl, riding. “When he left he said he was going to Oklahoma City.” In August and September both Fain and the Childress girl received several letters from Comer, postmarked from Kerrville, Texas, and dated on the letters themselves from LeFlore. The last was dated September 16, just two days after the postmark on a card from McLain, Texas, to the parent’s of Comer’s second wife, which was the last word they had received from her.
Turned Over Kerr The letters were turned over to Kerr and his associates and later were turned over to the department of justice here. The handwriting matched samples taken from Comer’s home here. Fain said the Childress girl never knew Comer had been married. “He told me he had been married twice, but asked me not to tell “because it might hurt him socially.” Fain said he never told. The farmer said Comer never revealed to him how he happened to separate from his wives or where they were. The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
Father of Second Wife Goes Home
Charles Stevens, father of Chester Comer’s second wife, who has been at the hospital since Monday hoping to gain some information concerning the fate of his daughter, returned to his home near Maysville late Wednesday. He was accompanied by a state bureau officer, who planned to bring back articles of clothing from the Stevens home, said to have belonged to Comer’s first wife. Officers said Comer gave the clothing to Steven’s daughter, saying they had belonged to his “dead sister.” The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
NOTE IS SEEN AS INDICATION OF COMPANION Expert Says Screed Shows Motor Car Motion
Possibility that someone else was driving the car in which Chester Comer wrote a swansong note just before he was wounded and captured near Blanchard Monday was injected into the case Monday by D. C. Patterson, city handwriting expert. “It looks very much as if the note was printed while the writer was in motion such as that given by a jiggling motor car,” said Patterson. “A distinct disturbance shows in the message to hint that.”
Handwriting is Similar “He had his mind on other things – as is demonstrated by the fact that part of the note was printed and part of it in his natural handwriting,” Patterson said. Patterson also pointed out striking similarities in script characters contained in both the note and a postcard written by Comer to his sister Edna. “There is sufficient similarity in the general characteristics of the two specimens to warrant further investigation,” said Patterson, who has in the past been employed by the federal department of justice and the state crime bureau. The note read: “If I am not killed in this car it will be a surprise to me I have nothing to regret I had rather be dead than to be a bulic slave.”
Letters Are Retraced Indications that the note was written while the writer was driving a car also were found in the writer’s retracing of several letters after false starts, Patterson said “These tend to show that the writer frequently made a false start, looked to see where the car was going, and then retraced the letter he had begun,” said the expert. He deduced from the angle of slant in scrip letters contained in both missives, and from other characters in other letters, that there was a marked similarity in the notes.
Points Are Compared Downstrokes of the letters T, H, and I in the note found in the car near Blanchard matched perfectly with those of the letters T, D, H, L, and F in the postcard. The writer also had a characteristic habit, noticeable in both messages, of dotting his I’s farther to the right than is normal, Patterson pointed out. “Whoever he was, the writer of the first note shows plainly he was a hunted man – that he had his mind on other things. This is evidenced by the lack of a regular left margin and by different size of the characters and running of words together,” he said. The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
WOMAN SAYS COMER GIVEN RIDE IN CAR
Mrs. McCume, a Salvation Army field worker, identified Comer at the Oklahoma City General hospital Wednesday afternoon as the hitchhiker she took to Guthrie from a point a half mile south of Kingfisher Saturday morning. Her identification of the man who died Wednesday night gave officers another possible clue as to Comer’s whereabouts on the day he is supposed to have abducted L. A. Simpson, 40-year-old farmer, and the latter’s 14-year-old son, Warren, near Piedmont. Officers expressed belief Comer went from Guthrie to Piedmont in about an hour after he had been left at Guthrie by Mrs. McCune. The Salvation Army worker, who was enroute from Oklahoma City to Guthrie on business, said she missed her road and found herself on the Kingfisher-El Reno highway. That was about 10 a. m. Saturday. “When I stopped to turn around, a man jumped into may car,” Mrs. McCune said. “I never pick up hitch-hikers, but he begged me to let him ride. I remember he asked me at first if I was going to the city. He said he was from Iowa and would take a bus fro Guthrie. I let him out near the bus station at Guthrie. That was about an hour later.” En route to Guthrie, Mrs. McCune said, the man she identified as Comer fell asleep and had a nightmare. “He shouted, ‘Oh, don’t don’t’”, Mrs. McCune said, “and when I aroused him, he said, ‘Oh, I was just asleep.’” Mrs. McCune said Comer made no attempt to molest her. She said she was wearing her Salvation Army uniform, and that she had a tambourine containing almost $11 in the car. “He moved the tambourine when he got into the car so he would have a place for his feet.” she said. Near Guthrie, Mrs. McCune told officers, she noticed that her car swerved slightly from one side of the road to another. She said she asked Comer if he thought something was wrong with the car, and he told her that one of her tires was low. Officers believe that was one reason Comer made no attempt to take the car. Mrs. McCune said that when she returned to Oklahoma City Saturday night she reported the incident to a police officer she saw on the street. As far as is known the policeman made no report. “That’s him,” Mrs. McCune told officers when she saw Comer in his oxygen tent at the hospital. Later she went to the state bureau offices with an officer and identified a hat and a shirt as the ones Comer was wearing when she picked him up. She was less positive in her identification of his overcoat and suit. R. T. Simpson, Piedmont grain dealer Wednesday night offered a reward of $250 for recovery of his brother and nephew. The American Legion post at Piedmont was soliciting funds to post a like amount. Governor Marland has indicated he would off a reward of $250 each for the missing men if search continued unsuccessful. The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
WOUND FATAL; HUNT FOR FIVE LEFT TO FATE Many Questions Still Without Answers
Death Wednesday night threw into the hands of fate the hope of finding five missing persons whose disappearances were connected with Chester Comer. Shot through the head Monday in a pistol battle with Oscar Morgan, Blanchard marshal, 27-year-old Comer died at 11:05 p. m. Wednesday at Oklahoma City General hospital. Officers, who had hung on his mumblings since he was brought here from south of Blanchar Monday, were at his bedside when nurses removed the oxygen tent that had helped him draw painful breaths since 3 p. m. Wednesday after he developed pneumonia.
Questions Are Unanswered Hundreds of searchers in more than a week have failed to uncover the secrets that officers insist Comer carries to his grave. While they know more of Comer’s movements than they did Monday when the veteran Blanchard marshal ended a state-wide search for the former Seminole and Oklahoma City oil field worker, they do not have the answers to the important questions. Where is Ray Evans, Shawnee attorney, who disappeared November 19, and whose car was abandoned by Comer six miles northwest of Maysville? Where is L. A. Simpson, Piedmont farmer, who with his son, Warren, 14 years old, disappeared Saturday after giving Comer, a hitch-hiker, a ride near their home? Where is Comer’s first wife, Elizabeth Childers Comer, missing since August, 1934, and whose clothing Comer gave to his second wife? Where is the second Mrs. Comer, missing since last September to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Stevens, Maysville?
Tips, Rumors Help From bits of information from tips from chance rumors, officers have been trying unsuccessfully to answer those questions. While Comer lived there was always the chance the he would come out of the valley of death and tell. Now he is dead. The misery stricken families of those who disappeared after contact with him are not comforted. The law is not satisfied but from now on the hunt will be a desperate, routine thing. Comer, in the week before he was shot, covered hundreds of square miles of territory. Manhunters now must go over every inch of the ground, and even then the cunning of the young former convict may have been sufficient to protect his secret. The body was taken to the Watt and McAtee funeral home to await burial arrangements. The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
Comer’s Type Of Insanity Is Dangerous
Chester Comer had an adolescent form of insanity which makes of its victims one of the most dangerous types of criminals known. Such was the belief expressed Wednesday by Dr. D. W. Griffin, superintendent of the Central Oklahoma State hospital, Norman. “From what I have read of this case,” Doctor Griffin said, “There is little doubt that he was a paranoid-praccox. Such victims are always harassed by delusions of their own importance. In this case it is apparent that he was harassed by the delusion he was being persecuted. “It is a dangerous type, the type that kills presidents, they type that kills just because he can not stand to have others around. The victim is like an animal grazing in a green pasture,” the doctor said. Asked to explain Comer’s association with girls in their teens, Doctor Griffin said: “That is not unusual, their contacts often are with adolescents regardless of their age, but I venture if you check the record you will find he not associate with anyone for very long. “That type does not have much to do with women, for the simple reason he cannot be around anyone for a very long time.” Reports of officers seem to sustain this contention. Although young, Comer apparently lived with each of his wives only a short time. The trail shows he was belligerent with the 13-year-old Maysville girl, Elizabeth Stevens, last Friday after, having a scene with Odessa Childress, 14 years old, at Blanchard on the previous day. Doctor Griffin’s analysis also may explain evidence that Comer has on different occasions given his age as 19 years old. He is 27 years old. “Such a type as this is spasmodic, acting on impulses. He is cunning, cunning enough that he knows he is committing a crime and should be treated as a criminal that knows he is a criminal. “Further indication of the mental disease is in the fact that here is no indication of killing for money, position or for any other reason except that the person was not wanted around.” The persecution idea was believed substantiated further in a card found on Comer after he had been shot near Blanchard and which said in part, “I had rather be dead than be a public slave.” The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
SEARCH TO BE PUSHED TODAY Farmer’s Report Comer Seen Checked by Probers
Ada, Nov. 27 – Sixteen square miles of northern Pontotoc and southern Seminole counties had been covered by nightfall Wednesday by 250 national guardsman, Civilian Conservation corps workers and Boy Scouts in their search for the bodies of Ray Evans and other supposed victims of Chester Comer. Sheriff Mosier of Pottawatomie county, in general charge of the search, said that the hunt would begin again Thursday at daybreak and continue over the area west of the Sunset filling station where Evans was last seen, toward the Bebee oil fields. Late Wednesday, members of the searching party were checking information that a man answering Comer’s description and driving a car tallying with that of Evans was seen near Bebee, Tuesday, November 19, by a farmer driving down a blind end road and later back down the same lane near dark. With maps spread before them, those in charge of the search are assigning definite areas to each of the parties in the field with instructions to “go over every foot of the ground.” Troops engaged in the search will be quartered in Ada and Konawa for the night and will be called out at daybreak Thursday. The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
AIR SCOUTING TRIP IN AREA COMER COVERED REVEALS NUMEROUS HIDING PLACES DEEP RAVINES ACCESSIBLE TO NEARBY ROADS Fliers Count 78 Lone Men Hunting for Bodies By Bennie Turner
Finding the proverbial needle in a haystack would be easy compared with the hunt for victims in the Chester Comer case. In some of the territory Comer covered, it would be difficult even to find the haystack. Viewed from the air, the territory between Piedmont and Blanchard and the area surrounding the two offers thousand of hiding places, most of them within easy access of an automobile. There are hundreds of miles of roads leading in and out of wooded draws, acres and acres of deep ravines that for some reason have trails beaten to them, and a multitude of small lakes and isolated ponds. With Bill Bleakley at the controls of Major Herbert Peck’s pusher plane, a newsman flew low over all the area Wednesday. The small open plane was chosen because with a 42-mile-an-hour wind at 500 feet it would travel more slowly than even a model-T.
County’s Plane in Air The pusher was the second to take the air during the day in the vain search, Stanley Rogers, sheriff, and Clint T. Johnson, pilot of the county crime plane, having also checked the area from the air. But difficult as the search is, it does not lack searchers. From the plane, flying barely above the trees, 78 lone men were spotted searching through farmlands. Some were on horseback, but the majority seemed to be walking along creeks, up ravines, their overalls flashing blue above mud-caked boots. The airplane had one particular advantage over ground searchers. In some of the area east and north of Piedmont there are grass patches where a man could walk within inches of an object without seeing it. Following the rain, however, this late in autumn, the ground is clearly visible from above. At one spot of this nature, a mile north and two miles east of Piedmont, it seemed the hunt was at an end. But the body proved to be that of a dog.
Roads Lead to Ravines On two occasions dead cows in creek bottoms caused Bleakley to circle, but with the leaves gone from the trees it was an easy matter quickly to identify them as cows. For several miles east of Piedmont and northwest of Yukon there are a number of places that have roads running in and out of ravines from cracks that would enable a man to drive the length of the area without being clearly seen going or in forcing backtracking, as they continue on to main roads. The area northwest of the city reservoir, its bare trees heavy with mistletoe, which can be reached from Piedmont by “back” roads, is a perfect network of patches of water, small streams, swampy grass. And here again for an unexplained reason are tracks running in every direction, to indicate the passage of both automobiles and wagons.
Strawstacks Suspected Dropping farther south, as Comer must have done to reach Blanchard and dispose of the victims in 2 ½ hours, the several available roads lead to numerous accesses to both the North and South Canadian rivers. Even the area north of Blanchard, considered on topography maps as fairly open, contains a multitude of tiny creeks, dry in normal weather, on which a victim might be marched, shot and left without much chance of the crime being discovered other than by accident. Strawstacks themselves offer a searching problem, it is evident. Most of them have roads of some sort leading to hem and a grave could be opened and closed in one without great difficulty. Because of the number of the routes Comer may have traveled, farmers have been asked to inspect their stacks for possible evidence. The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
Blanchard Girl, 14, Finds Her ‘First Beau’ Madman Odessa Childress Didn’t Want Any Fellows – Except Jack Says Girl Duped by Chester Comer By Virginia Nelson
He was her first beau, a nice young man who sent her little presents done up in heart-shaped packages and come to see her whenever he could get away from his job in the city. And Wednesday afternoon she looked at him, lying bullet-torn inside an oxygen tent, surrounded by officers of the law. This Chester Comer, whose activities during the last few years must have kept him busier jumping from one role to another than Doctor Jekyll, produced another scene in the strange drama being enacted in his Oklahoma General hospital room. This time it was as “Jack Armstrong”, clean-cut, hardworking young man, that the silent figure inside the grisly structure of the oxygen tent, was cast. The girl was Odessa Childress, who will be 14 years old Friday – and who thought he was “the nicest boy I ever knew.” The girl lives with her family near M. B. Fain’s farm near Blanchard, where Comer, as Jack Armstrong, worked several months last winter. Up until last Thursday night, when “Armstrong” appeared on one of his visits, took her for a ride and threatened her, he had always treated her with the utmost consideration. “I liked him because everybody thought he was such a good, kind boy,” said the girl. She is just a kid, little and childish in appearance, with a ‘child’s face: short, babyish upper lip, curly brown hair, no makeup’. “I thought he was only 19 – that’s what he told me. When he came up to Oklahoma City he said he was working in the oil fields, making 85 cents an hour, and when he would come to see me he always seemed to have plenty of money to spend. We would go to picture shows in Lindsay, and he was always buying me little things. “He told me he didn’t have any other girls, and that he always come to see me just as often as he could get off from the oil fields. I didn’t have any other fellows. I didn’t want to have any except Jack.” This was the 25-year-old man who was married once before, and who may have been carrying on affairs with other half-grown girls at the time. Last Thursday, though, whatever it was that had held Comer’s fantastic multiple-lives together gave way, and he turned up on the Fain place as the madman which he apparently had become. He went and got Odessa, came back to the farm and got Otis Fain, and Mrs. Fain, and started out in the car. He said they were all going to the movies, then demanded $3 from Mrs. Fain, and started abusing her. She got him quieted down, she said, and “loaned” him the $3. That was the last time she saw him till Wednesday, when officers let the girl, half paralyzed with fright, into the awesome atmosphere of the hospital room. “Is this Jack Armstrong?” said an officer, leading her to peer through the rising-glass window of the weird looking tent. “Yes – that’s him, that him!” the girl said. She started sobbing, but she did not turn away. Officers thought she would shrink from the sight, but she stayed there a long time, peering in through the glass. It was Chester Comer, lying there, center of one of the state’s most gruesome mysteries. But Odessa was looking at Jack Armstrong, who once sent her a pink ribbon for her hair. The Oklahoman 11/28/1935
COMER’S WIFE MAY REST IN KANSAS GRAVE Police Sure First Mate Has Been Found But Doubt Is Cast Photo Is Identified By Girl’s Kin Here
A potter’s field grave in a Kansas City, Kan., cemetery holds the body of Elizabeth Childers Comer, first wife of Chester Comer, dead suspect in five disappearances it was declared Thursday by John Watt, Oklahoma City police chief. In a telegram to Kansas City officers, Watt positively identified the body of an 18-year-old expectant mother found murdered on a lonely highway in Wyandotte county, Kan., Oct. 6, 1934, as that of the missing girl. The identification followed “almost positive” identification of the body as that of the mad hitch-hiker’s girl bride by four members of her family.
Kansas Police Skeptical Kansas City police remained skeptical, according to The Associated Press, recalling 18 “positive” identifications previously found erroneous while the body lay in a Kansas City morgue from the time it was found until May of this year. But Watt and Newt Burns, police homicide detective, were adamant. Meanwhile, posses spent a drear and fruitless Thanksgiving searching for bodies in the wild countryside between Maysville, Blanchard, and Ada, established as the scen of Comer’s mad operations for nearly a week before he was shot down Monday near Blanchard by Oscar Morgan, constable. “Yes, that girl up there must be our baby,” said James Childers, 1319 Northwest Park place, grandfather of Comer’s first wife, last seen here in August, 1934.
Photograph Shown Family Burns showed them a profile photograph taken of the body after it was found in Kansas more than a year ago, and read them a thorough description of the girl. “They both had the same kind of scar just above the right ankle,” Childers said. The detective added that three other members of the Childers family confirmed the grandfather’s belief. They are Mrs. James Childers; Jack Childers, highschool student and brother of Elizabeth, and W. S. Childers, an uncle. The picture and description were taken from the National Police Officer magazine, and Burns said identification was “almost positive.”
Officer Wants Proof “They’ll have to identify more than just a picture before I’ll believe it,” The Associated Press quoted Eli Vahlin, Kansas City police captain, as saying. The captain said that the department was inclined to be skeptical because of the many “positive” identifications that had proved false. He added that the girl’s clothing was still held in Kansas City. A check of the five bullets found in the girl’s head, fired from a .38 caliber revolver, led nowhere, as state crime bureau officers said no .38 caliber gun had been found among Comer’s effects. Kansas officers had no clues as to identity of the murderer beyond testimony of several witnesses that the car seen near the spot where the body was found bore an Oklahoma license tag.
Evidence Points Away Other evidence uncovered Thursday by city detectives let them to believe Comer was not connected with the disappearance of four Illinois tourists last May 22 in New Mexico. All available specimens of Comer’s handwriting will be sent to the federal bureau of investigation in Washington Friday for comparison with forged signatures on several travelers checks, which are virtually the only clues the government has in the disappearance of the tourists. Services for Comer, who died Wednesday night, will be conducted at 1 p. m. Friday from the Watts and McAtee funeral home. Burial arrangements are incomplete.
NEW CASE CHECKED IN COMER PROBE Ada, Nov. 28 – The possibility that another missing man may be added to the list of disappearances attributed to Chester Comer, slain fugitive, was expressed here Thursday by Clyde Kaiser, sheriff, after he received a report of the unexplained absence of Quinn R. Beavers, 55 years old, Pontotoc county farmer. Beavers, whose home is near Galey, in northwestern Pontotoc county, was last seen on Thursday, November 21. when he left his home for Maysville and Verden with a trailer load of pears behind a maroon colored car. It was in the Maysville vicinity that the car of Ray Evans, missing Shawnee attorney, was driven into a ditch by Comer last week. Beavers was seen in Maysville last Friday, the day before the Evans car was abandoned near there by Comer. The Oklahoman 11/29/1935
SMALL CROWD ATTENDS RITES FOR SLAIN MAN Pastor Points to Sympathy Of Family for Others By Virginia Nelson Dry-eyed, with the curiously impassive watchfulness that characterizes crowds which go to funerals of the notorious dead, a small group was on had at Watts and McAtee funeral home Friday afternoon for Chester Comer’s last rites. It was not much of a crowd considering the publicity Comer has received since he was shot down Monday in one of the state’s most spectacular manhunts.
Most Are Women There were perhaps 100 people there, mostly women. Women with imitation fur collars on their coats, leading small children down the aisle. One little boy kept chattering to his mother. “I want a drink, mama, I want a drink!” rose shrilly over the somber tones of the organ. His mother rose and bore him out past a row of laps. Three girls of junior highschool age came in and sat on chairs along the back row, pushing back long bobs with fingers on which bright polish was slightly cracked. There were no flowers for Chester Comer, except on pathetically-meager spray with the card, “From the family.” The funeral home had provided two bouquets of chrysanthemums, and that was all. In the private alcove sate his parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Comer of Northeast Forty-fourth street and High avenue, his brothers, Larmer, Armor, and William, and his sister.
He Offers No Criticism Rev. T. G. Netherton, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist church, spoke for 5 minutes. He said: “If you have come here today thinking to hear me deliver a tirade against one who was unfortunate in both life and death, you are going to be disappointed. I am here to attempt to comfort those hearts which are breaking because of his death. “This man’s lips are sealed for one. He could not rise and defend himself against me if I should choose to criticize him. And if I should, I might be mistaken. I have no right to draw conclusions from circumstances which may be wrong. “We can be of no further service to Chester comer, who is gone. But we can try to help those he left here today, stricken because of circumstances over which they had no control.”
Points to Sympathy “They have nothing but sympathy for the families of those who have disappeared. They know where their own son’s body is to be, but they realize that these others do not even have this consolation.” It was over, and the crowd began a slow parade around the room. A kindly-looking woman asked one of the ushers, “Is there anyone in there with the family? I don’t know them, but I’d like to go in – maybe I can be of help.” She went in to where the little group sat, put her arms around the shoulders of Mrs. Comer, and murmured something to the sobbing woman. Presently they left for Rose Hill cemetery, where Comer was buried, and the sorry business he had made of his 27 years was done. The Oklahoman 11/30/1935
STATE OFFERS SEARCH CASH $125 Reward for Each Of Bodies Is Posted
Rewards for recovery of the bodies of four persons believed to be victims of Chester Comer were offered Friday by Governor Marland as posses spent another day in fruitless search of Ada-Maysville-Blanchard areas. The governor offered $125 rewards to finders of the bodies of Ray Evans, Shawnee attorney; Lester Simpson, Piedmont farmer and his 14-year-old son, Warrant and Lucille Stevens Comer, second wife of the dead suspect. The offer, $125 on each body, is in effect 15 days, the governor said. Information that Elizabeth Childers, first wife of Comer, had two less upper teeth than normal was sent by police detectives to Kansas City to find out if the body of an expectant mother found near there in October, 1934, had the same peculiarity. Kansas City police countered with a request that someone who knew the missing woman cone there to settle the investigation. “We’re sure that is the body of Elizabeth Childers, but it will be positive proof if Kansas City affirms this latest clue,” said Joe Jerkins, detective lieutenant. State crime bureau operatives will continue to search the Maysville-Blanchard region, dragging the Washita river this week-end and next week. The Oklahoman 11/30/1935
PUBLIC ASKED TO AID SEARCH Volunteers to Meet Sunday Morning at Purcell
The public Saturday was asked to take part Sunday in a foot-by-foot search of the rough, sparsely settled region west of Purcell for the bodies of three persons missing in the Chester Comer case. Meanwhile, the first definite evidence of Comer’s possible connection with the mysterious disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. George Lorius and Mr. and Mrs. Albert Heberer, East St, Louis, Ill., near Albuquerque, N. M., last May turned up at El Paso, Texas. Mr. and Mrs. D. E. Williamson, who operate a hotel in El Paso, said pictures of Comer, fatally shot Monday, resembled a man who stopped at their hotel last May 23, driving a car of same description as Lorius;s car, and cashed a traveler’s check, one of those taken from Lorius. The call for people and dogs to assist in the mass search was issued by a committee of the Bernard Gill post of the American Legion at Shawnee, where Ray Evans, one of the missing persons, was a lawyer. The others for whose bodies the search will be conducted are L. A. Simpson, a farmer near Piedmont, and his son, Warren, 14 years old. An all-day search Saturday was fruitless. Volunteers will meet at the courthouse in Purcell at 8 a. m. Sunday. The Oklahoman 12/01/1935
SEARCH AGAIN FAILS TO REVEAL MISSING Systematic Hunt Is Made in Criner Community
The search of the thinly settled Criner community in McClain county for three persons missing in the Chester Comer case, proved fruitless again Sunday. The hunt in which sheriff’s officers from several counties and other volunteers participated was the most systematic yet made. It was based on information that Comer was seen in the area with Ray Evans, missing Shawnee attorney, a short time before Comer appeared in the same community by himself. Officers believe Comer also took L. A. Simpson, Piedmont farmer, and is 14-year-old son, Warren Simpson to the same area. Discouraged by failure of the long search, the officers were undecided on future activities. The Oklahoman 12/02/1935
COMER’S FIRST WIFE MAY BE BROUGHT HERE New Burial Plans Made As Body Is Identified
The body of on one of Chester Comer’s victims probably will be brought home for burial, following final identification in Kansas City Monday. Meantime, families of the other four persons, believed to have died at the hands of the mad hitch-hiker, continued the ordeal of waiting for clues. Relatives of Mrs. Elizabeth Childers Comer, first wife of the crazed slayer, said that no plans had been made yet but that they hoped the body of the young woman could be brought here. A sister, Mrs. Odessa Jones, 1908 Southwest Twenty-third street, went to Kansas City late Sunday with officers to make positive identification of the body, which had been in a morgue there for several months before going to a pauper’s grave in May.
Mrs. Simpson Waits In Vain
Mrs. L. A. Simpson and her daughter Geraldine In Piedmont, Mrs. L. A. Simpson, whose husband and 14-year-old son have been missing since Comer’s death ride last week, paced the floor on her mother’s home and waited for reports from searchers. Work on the farm where the little family lived near Piedmont is being carried on by the brothers of the apparent victim, R. T. and Boyd H. Simpson. Mrs. Willard Ebery and Mrs. Clarence Snyder, sisters of the wife, and the other women in the family, spend as much time with her as possible. “We think she’s being mighty fine about it,” said Mrs. R. T. Simpson. “Of course, she’s going through a terrible thing but she’s never broken down, and she’s never given up hope that they’ll find the two of them together somewhere.” Another family rallied around the wife of Ray Evans, Shawnee attorney, whose bodyis also the object of hour-by-hour search.
Mrs. Evans Shows Strain Mrs. Evans is still making an intense effort to hold up but is commencing to break under the long, grueling strain, according to Mrs. Homer Prail, 622 Northeast Ninth street, a sister of Evans. “She is still able to be up and she tries to keep things as normal as possible, but we’re getting worried about her,” said Mrs. Prail. “She seemed terribly wrought up yesterday.” Claude Evans, brother of Ray, who rushed here from California last week, continues to go out each morning with the searching party. His wife was to arrive late Monday night to join the family. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Stephens, parents of Comer’s second wife, keep another vigil just as anxious on their farm near Maysville. Each development in the weird Comer story increases their certainty that their daughter, Lucille, is another victim. They heard from her last in September. After identification of Comer’s first wife had been completed in Kansas City, Merla Gill, Kansas police ballistics expert, declared that bullets taken from the young woman’s body were fired from a gun taken from Comer when he was shot near Blanchard, The Associated Press Reported. The Oklahoman 12/03/1935
Continued in Part 3 Click here:
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Trails
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Her Salvation Army uniform and the fact that one of the tires on her automobile
was almost flat may have saved Mrs. Eva McCune, Oklahoma City, from being a victim of Chester Comer.
