Ancestor Archives: David "Lee" Nutt (1876-1945)

 

by Rocky Macy

(Note:  I began this project last January with the intention of profiling one of my direct-line ancestors each week.   At one point I strayed from that standard and profiled a grand-uncle who was a noted educator in southwest Missouri and northeast Oklahoma at the start of the twentieth century - primarily because he was a very interesting member of my family, even if he was not one of my line of grandparents.  With today’s blog posting I am again going beyond direct-line ancestors and profiling a first cousin, three times removed, who was also a very interesting character - one who was infamous in the early twentieth century for committing two murders.   I also have a cousin of a more recent vintage who was a murderer as well, and at some point I will profile him in this space.

Last April I published a blog posting entitled “Getting Away with Murder:  The ‘Unwritten Law’ Defense."  It did not list the names of any of the parties involved, but rather just told the story of two murders, twenty years apart, and how they were dealt with in the context of the times.  Today’s profile of David “Lee” NUTT retells those same stories, but this time with genealogical content and the names of all parties involved.

Please enjoy your sniff around some of my family’s dirtier laundry!)

David “Lee” NUTT  was born November 2nd, 1876, to 16-year-old Celana Celasia NUTT, a single girl, and he began life in the home of Celana’s parents, Henry and Celana (RUTLEDGE) NUTT, of Neosho, Missouri.   Lee was married twice, first to Blanche Longacre in Neosho, on August 14th, 1898, and his second marriage was to Ollie Frances OWENS on November 2nd, 1909, also in Neosho.  David “Lee” NUTT passed away of natural causes at St. John’s Hospital in Joplin, Missouri, on May 5th, 1945.

David “Lee” NUTT was my first cousin, three times removed.  (Or, in simpler terms, he was a first cousin to my great-grandfather, Thomas Franklin NUTT.)  Coincidentally, Thomas Franklin NUTT was also a “fatherless” child born out-of-wedlock to Henry and Celana’s oldest daughter, Angeline NUTT.  Both boys were essentially raised in the home of their mutual grandparents, Henry and Celana (RUTLEDGE) NUTT, making them brothers of a sort, though Tom was just over six years older than Lee.

When Lee was five-years-old his mother married 18-year-old David McClellan SAYERS, and Mr. SAYERS became the new father figure in Lee’s life.   Celana, Lee’s mother, died  on April 21, 1887 when he was only ten-years-old.  According to information contained for David McClellan SAYERS, Lee’s stepfather, in the 1900 US Census, he had four children of his own in 1900, with the oldest two being born during the time of his marriage to Lee’s mother, Celena Celasia,  Those two half-siblings of Lee’s were May O. SAYERS (born ca. 1882) and Charles M. SAYERS (born ca. 1885).   

While Lee and his step-father, David SAYERS, became and remained close, Lee continued to use the surname of NUTT for the remainder of his life and spent most of his youth in the household of his grandparents, Henry and Celana NUTT.  When Lee applied for his social security card in June of 1937, he listed “Salina Ruthlidge” and Henry Nutt (his grandparents) as his parents.

Lee NUTT became a miner and worked in the lead and zinc mines of southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas during the early days of the twentieth century.  His grandfather, Henry NUTT, had been a local law enforcement officer serving as both deputy sheriff and jailer in Newton County, Missouri, as well as a brief stint as the city marshall of Neosho, so Lee also developed an early interest in law enforcement.  Lee NUTT served two terms as the city marshall of Granby, Missouri (1920-1924), and ran for a third term in 1926 in an election which he lost.  Lee’s interest in enforcing the law undoubtedly played a role in his unfortunate tendency to keep a loaded pistol nearby.

Both of Lee NUTT’s marriages ended in divorce.  His first marriage was to Blanche LONGACRE in 1898 and occurred when Lee was twenty-one and his bride was twenty-six.  They were divorced in 1909 after Lee shot and killed Blanche’s lover.   Lee’s second marriage occurred on his thirty-third birthday, November 2nd, 1909, when he became the husband of fifteen-year-old Ollie Frances OWENS.  They were divorced in 1929 after Lee shot and killed Ollie’s lover.

Lee and Blanche (LONGACRE) NUTT had three children:  Roy (1899-1934), Gladys Mae (1900-1920), and Glenn Raymond (1903-1999).  Lee and Ollie Frances (OWENS) NUTT had eight children, although there is reportedly DNA evidence which proves that at least the youngest child, Margaret Louise, was actually the biological offspring of Ollie’s lover, John Noah COLE, the second man that Lee shot.  The children of Lee and Ollie were:  David Wilmore (1910-1980), Carl Eugene (1912-2001), Mildred “Nadine” (1915-1975), Grace Lorene (1916-2006), Fern Aline (1919-?), Dorothy Lee (1921-2005), Norman Sile (1923-2014), and Margaret Louise (1925-2015).  Ollie obtained custody of the younger children after the divorce, and at least the youngest three began using the surname “OWENS.”

While Lee NUTT’s progeny are numerous and have spread far and wide, it is the two killings that he committed for which he is best remembered.  The following accounts of the killings of Jacob NICELY and John Noah COLE were taken from stories in the press, primarily local news sources, which are still widely available over the internet.  Within twenty-four hours of the shooting articles appeared in newspapers across the state of Missouri, and within days news outlets in other states were running the stories as well.

  
A major debt of gratitude is also owed by this family researcher and all of the others who follow for the work of Elizabeth Danielson of Arizona State University whose scholarly research on these killings did much to clarify the complicated family saga.  Danielson’s historical article, “The Unwritten Law of the Eternal Triangle,”  was featured in 2019 in the journal “The Confluence” which is published by the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs.   Her article is available on-line.  Ms. Danielson was the daughter of Margaret Louise, Lee and Margaret’s youngest child, and the child who was discovered nearly a century later through Ms. Danielson’s own DNA testing to have been the biological daughter of John COLE, Ollie’s lover whom Lee NUTT shot and killed.

The Killing of Jacob “Jake” NICELY:

Lee Nutt was thirty-one-years-old in the spring of 1908 when he invited his 21-year-old cousin, Jacob “Jake” NICELY, to move into the farm home near Neosho that Lee shared with his wife, Blanche, and their three children.  Jake accepted the invitation and became a paying “boarder” in his cousin’s home.   Blanche was thirty-five when Jake moved in.  Jake NICELY, who was described by one local newspaper as having a “prepossessing appearance,” quickly formed a relationship with Blanche, and a few months later, in July of 1908, the pair ran off together leaving Lee alone to manage the farm and household - and take care of three young children.  According to news reports that were published after the murder, Jake and Blanche initially went to Kansas City but subsequently came back to southwest Missouri and settled in Joplin.

When the elopement was discovered, Lee was angry and threatened vengeance on the couple, but he soon forgave his wife and begged her to return.  Relatives also interceded on Lee’s behalf, but it was all to no avail.  At one point Lee located the couple and pleaded with Blanche to return to him and the children.  She apparently agreed to come home, but then had a change of heart and did not return.  

Lee NUTT went to Joplin on business Monday, October 26th, 1908, and managed to see his wife.  They were observed by a witness, a police judge, that evening in front of the Tarketon Hotel having an “earnest conversation” in which Lee was doing most of the talking.   (The judge, who apparently did not know Lee personally, recognized him because of his artificial right arm (below the elbow) and hook-for-a-hand that he had due to a dynamite explosion at the mine where he worked five years earlier.)  Again Lee begged Blanche to return home, but she declined.  

Lee spent the night in his Joplin hotel room suffering from what he termed “unrest” while “fighting the problem.”

The following day. Tuesday, October 27th, 1908, Lee spotted Blanche and NICELY walking into Church’s Shoe Store on Main Street in Joplin.  Blanche had recently purchased a new pair of shoes and discovered that one was too tight.   She had sat down in the store and removed the ill-fitting shoe and given it to a clerk, the owner’s son, who had taken the shoe to his work bench so that he could stretch it.

Lee NUTT already had his 38-caliber revolver drawn as he entered the shoe store unobserved by his wife and cousin.  He began firing at Jake without warning.  The first shot hit NICELY in the neck which sent him to the floor, another struck his arm, and a third missed entirely.  Lee then stepped up to his victim, held the pistol directly above his head, and fired the final shot straight down into the man’s temple.  That last slug was dug from the floor and preserved as evidence for the prosecution.

People who were inside of the shoe store fled in terror, and a crowd from outside of the store quickly pushed in to view the blood and carnage.  Blanche, who was undoubtedly in shock, reportedly looked up at her husband and said, “You should not have done that.”

Lee stepped though the gathering crowd and went outside to await the police who began arriving within minutes. As he was exiting the building, the store’s owner John J. CHURCH asked Lee why he had shot the young man, Lee pointed at Blanche and said “That’s my wife.”   Lee NUTT was arrested and taken to jail.  One of the items that the police found in Lee’s pockets after his arrest was a copy of his and Blanche’s wedding certificate which he seemed to have been carrying in order to prove that she belonged to him.

Blanche was also requested to go with the police, but she insisted on collecting her shoe and getting it back on before she left the shoe store.  The store’s owner personally put the shoe back on Blanche’s foot. 

After Lee was placed in what the newspapers referred as “the boy’s cell” at the police station, his stepfather, David SAYERS showed up and spent ten minutes alone in the cell with his stepson.  He was reported as being teary-eyed as he left.  SAYERS was described in the local press as a “widely known mine operator-promoter.”  Another news article referenced Lee’s grandfather, Henry NUTT, as a “former Deputy Sheriff of Newton County,” and added that the family “is well connected” - and “the man in trouble has always borne an excellent reputation.”  The stage was being set for a “respectability” defense.

Lee NUTT was tried in circuit court in Joplin the following March (1909) for the murder of his cousin.  During the trial Lee and his attorney had all three of Lee’s children, ages five, eight, and nine, sitting at the defense table.  Blanche sat silently and observed from the public seating.

Lee NUTT was acquitted of the murder of his cousin, Jacob NICELY, largely because the jury considered the killing to have been justified.   Lee had been responding to the “unwritten law” of protecting what was his - Blanche.  Years later, Ms. Danielson, in her journal article, described the “unwritten law” this way: 

 

“Evidently, at the time it was unwritten, but accepted, that a man had the right to take action against, and even kill, another man if he had ‘interfered’ with his wife.”

(In 1909 women did not even have the right to vote, so the jury was undoubtedly all male.)

Lee had been living at a boarding house in Neosho at the time of his arrest.   While he was awaiting trial his landlady from the boarding house, Margaret (BARD) OWENS, assisted in caring for Lee’s children.  When he was acquitted, the following ran on page one of the Webb City (Missouri) Register under the heading “Takes Children Home”:

“Lee Nutt, Acquitted On Murder Charge, To Make Home With His Children In Neosho”

“Lee Nutt, who was acquitted in division No. 2 of the circuit court Wednesday afternoon of murdering his cousin, Jacob Nicely, left last evening for his home in Neosho with his three children.

“‘It is surely a relief to get a trial like this off one’s mind,’ Nutt said to the friends who surrounded hima after he was freed.  ‘I will go to work in earnest now.  I have a position as fireman at one of the mines near Neosho.  I have not been working steadily for a year past, what with my domestic troubles and getting ready for this trial.  But I can go ahead with no interruption now.

“‘My children are to be supported.  I have been having them cared for with a family where I board, a good family and a good home for the children.  I was born and reared in Neosho and was married there ten years ago, and I intend to stay there.’”

Blanche and Lee divorced after the conclusion of the trial, and less than eight months later he married his landlady’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Ollie Frances OWENS, who took over the responsibility of raising Lee’s children from her mother.

The Killing of John Noah COLE:

(Some background:  John COLE, who was thirty-seven at the time of his death at the hands of Lee NUTT, had himself killed two men in Granby, Missouri, in 1917 for showing attention to his wife and her sister.   COLE had been expecting to be found innocent due to the “unwritten law,” and apparently was stunned at his conviction.  He was sentenced to ten years in the state penitentiary for those murders, and he had served approximately one year of the sentence  when it was overturned by the state supreme court while on appeal.  The case was then re-tried in circuit court and COLE was acquitted.)

John COLE was a native of Granby, Missouri, having been born in that town on March 5th, 1891.  He and Lee NUTT had met and become friends while working in the lead and zinc mines around Granby.  COLE returned to Granby after being released from prison and he and Lee resumed their friendship.   John COLE’s younger brother, Garland, married Ollie NUTT’s younger sister, Ressie, so the two men were almost in-laws.  At some point in the 1920’s John COLE needed a place to live, and Lee invited him to move into his and Ollie’s home in Granby as a paying boarder.  When Lee and his family moved to Neosho in 1927, John COLE came along with them and both men took jobs at the new Pet Milk condensing and canning facility.  

It was probably while they were in Neosho that Lee NUTT began to be aware that John COLE was paying a lot of attention to Ollie.  At some point he told COLE that he would have to make different living arrangements.  Soon after that they all moved to Baxter Springs, Kansas, where the men could resume work in the mines.  There John COLE moved in with his younger brother, Garland, and his family.

Lee NUTT was probably unaware that his wife, Ollie, and John COLE had been having a long-term romantic affair, but things likely started coming into focus for him in 1928 when Ollie took the kids and left to live with relatives in Oklahoma.  Lee went after her and brought the family back, but it was beginning to be obvious that the marriage was in trouble.  Two weeks after their return, the shooting occurred.  Ollie testified later at the murder trial that she and John COLE had been involved in an affair for “ten or twelve years.”  She also testified that she had left Lee one other time when COLE  had promised her a “life of ease,” but that she had later returned to Lee.  

On Tuesday, December 11th, 1928, Lee NUTT and his 19-year-old son, David Wilmore NUTT, came home unexpectedly around 10:30 in the morning and discovered Ollie alone in a bedroom with John COLE.  A scuffle involving all three men ensued as COLE tried to make his way out of the house.  The  fight continued across their yard and into a neighbor’s yard with possibly as many as twenty people gathering to watch the angry altercation.   During the fight Lee’s hook-for-a-hand grabbed COLE’s ear and tore it.

Ollie joined in the fray and somehow managed to relieve Lee of his hook.   As she fled back into the house with the deadly hook, an angry Lee followed, leaving young David (referred to in all press accounts as “D.W.”) to fight with COLE alone.    Lee soon re-emerged from the house, still without his hook-for-a-hand, but this time carrying a .41-caliber pistol.  His son, who was restraining COLE from behind yelled to his father, “He’s got a gun!”   Lee, who later claimed to be trying to save his son’s life, advanced on COLE, who was still fighting to free himself from the son, and began firing.  NUTT got off three shots, one which missed entirely, one that hit COLE in the shoulder, and one that entered his head.

John COLE was dead at the scene, and when Lee was arrested, he said simply, “I killed him.”

Lee NUTT got out of jail on a $5,000 bond while awaiting his trial.  His son, D.W., who was also arrested for murder, was unable to make his $5,000 bond and remained in his cell until his father went to trial in January.  Lee claimed self-defense and the “unwritten law” of protecting his family from the advances of others, and he was acquitted of the crime of murder.  Charges were dismissed against D.W. after his father’s acquittal.

On January 19, 1929, David “Lee” NUTT walked out of the Circuit Court in Columbus, Kansas, a free man following his second acquittal for the crime of murder.  He settled in Oregon for a while where he lived and worked with the sons from his first marriage, and Ollie joined him there with the younger children.   However, she soon left Lee again, this time with only little Margaret, and returned to live in Missouri.  She and Lee divorced.

When David “Lee” NUTT passed away in 1945 he was a single man living with his daughter, Mildred “Nadine” (NUTT) FREEMAN, and her family in Joplin, Missouri.  The following unattributed obituary was taken from Ancestry.com, and it likely ran in one of the Joplin newspapers:

“David L. Nutt Dies;  Rites to be Monday.

“David Lee Nutt, 68 years old, a lifelong resident of Joplin and Neosho, died at 1:50 o’clock yesterday afternoon in St. John’s Hospital.  Mr. Nutt had been ill for the last six months.

“Born November 2, 1876, at Neosho, he lived there 33 years ago.  Surviving are five daughters, Mrs John D. Freeman, 2302 Schifferdecker Avenue, with whom he made his home, Mrs. R.L. Mathes, Mrs. K.C. Carlin, Mrs. L.H. Swope, and Mrs. Margaret Owens, all of Los Angeles, and four sons, Private Carl Nutt of the Schick General Hospital at Clinton, Ia, Private First Class Norman Nutt of Baker, Ore., and Glen Nutt of Portland, Ore.

“Funeral services will be conducted at 2 o’clock Monday afternoon at the First Baptist Church by the Rev. B.A. Pugh.  Pallbearers will be E.A. Barnes, Carl Fain, Elmer Deewitt, Zeke Parsons, Lewis Green, and S.L. Marley.  Burial will be in Ozark Memorial Park Cemetery under direction of the Parker-Hunsaker mortuary.  David Lee Nutt had two wives, Blanche Longacre and Ollie Frances Owens.”

(Note:  The obituary referred to Margaret as "Mrs." when she was most likely "Miss," and it stated there were four sons surviving but only listed three.  David Wilmore NUTT was also surviving, but omitted.)

The obituary did not mention the two killings that David Lee NUTT committed, but those stories had been well covered in the news during his lifetime.   And while Lee was most notably remembered for a pair of murders, he undoubtedly thought of himself as a family man - a man who did what he had to do to protect and avenge his family.  The first line on his tombstone gives his name:  “D.L. Nutt” - and the line below that personalizes it as:  “Daddy Lee.”   Lee NUTT would have undoubtedly liked that very much.