March 2004                                                   The Megaphone                                                    Page 5

Elwood's Gun Girl

  Part Three

Submitted by Nancy Sumner EHS/FHS

March 26, 1940

Self Defense is Isabelle’s Claim

by Tony Slaughter

Odessa , Texas , March 26.  The state last night rested its case against Isabelle Messmer, Elwood’s famed “gun girl” charged with the murder of a semi-professional baseball player. Examination of defense witnesses was expected to be made today as swift Texas justice tries the former Elwood girl in a case that may not require more that three days at the most.

Today, Miss Messmer told me in an exclusive interview that “if the try to take me back to New Jersey , I’ll kill myself in the cell here.” It supported her statement at St. Louis that she would rather die in the electric chair in Texas than return to New Jersey .

The “gun girl’s” trial of escapades and desperation, extending from New Jersey where she was charged with having assaulted a policeman, to Odessa , where she was picked up on a charge of having murdered Buford Armstrong, a former House of David baseball pitcher, culminated in the trial for her life here. Despite her wish to “die in Texas ”, Miss Messmer entered a plea of not guilty to the murder charge.

Seven state witnesses took the stand in a crowded court room after most of Monday was devoted to selecting a jury. J. B. Crowley, a peace justice, identified Miss Messmer as the woman that came to his house shortly after a shooting scrape at a nearby tourist cabin on March 31, 1939 . He said she used his telephone to call a taxi cab.

Jack Reasonover, a cab driver, said on the stand that she was the woman he picked up near the cabin and that she asked him to drive her past the cabin before taking her to the east city limits.

Miss Messmer, in interviews granted prior to her trial, told newspapermen that she shot Armstrong in self defense when the baseball player attempted to attack her in a tourist cabin.

Miss Messmer’s lurid trail began on January 20, 1939 when she escaped from the New Jersey state reformatory at Clinton where she was serving an indeterminate term on a charge of having assaulted a policeman. The policeman had attempted to halt her during an 80-mile-an-hour automobile chase. She had been sentenced in January of 1938 by Essex County Judge Richard Hartshorne who told her that she had “relied too long on a pretty face.”

A short time after her escape, the “gun girl” was picked up by St. Louis , Mo. , authorities on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon. She first told police she was Ruby Carlos of Neuvo Laredo, Mexico. Ordered to appear for police show-up, she refused to go, stripped herself and in the nude finally managed to elude police matrons and lead head first to the concrete floor in her cell at the St. Louis central district police station.

She refused to waive extradition to New Jersey , and later admitted complicity in the shooting in Odessa .

Extradited to Texas , she told officers she had obtained the gun used in the slaying from two Mexicans who had murdered two California women. This led Texas authorities to believe the woman might have been connected with the baffling Frome case in which a California woman and her daughter were murdered on the desert near Van horn, Texas in April, 1938.

Miss Messmer’s trial was originally set for Dec. 12, 1939 , but was continued to the March term of court by District Judge Cecil Collings when defense attorney, Jesse Orth, said a reported eye-witness to the slaying was missing.

Whether this witness will testify today in Mess Messner’s behalf has not been indicated.

Isabelle has often told police that she left her home town of Elwood because “life was too tame.”  Her trial of defiance of the law has led to all  sections of the country.

March 27, 1940

Gun Girl Convicted of Murder -- Given Three Year Prison Sentence

by Tony Slaughter

Odessa , Texas , March 27 – Isabelle Messmer, 24 of Elwood, fugitive from a New Jersey woman’s reformatory, was found guilty here last night of the murder of Buford Armstrong, semi-professional baseball player and given a three year sentence in the Texas state penitentiary.

Apparently surprised and angered by the court’s findings, Miss Messmer, famed as ‘the gun girl” whose escapes and defiance of the law have carried  her across the nation, leaped like a tiger woman at Mrs. Zwearl Franklin, her custodian, at hearing the verdict. She shouted to the court room, “You won’t take me back, you won’t take me back! I won’t go back to the penitentiary!” Later subdued by officers, she was removed to her cell.

Thus a temporary end was marked to Miss Messmer’s mad flight which started when she escaped from the New jersey reformatory where she had been incarcerated for assaulting an officer. She was turned over to Texax authorities on a charge of murder after she had been picked up in St. Louis , Mo. , on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon.

The “gun girl” had repeatedly told authorities at Odessa that she preferred to die in the electric chair in Texas than return to New Jersey . Apparently her attitude changed in recent days for, upon hearing that she was to serve only three years for murder, she became crazed and almost impossible to handle.

Texas justice, swift but oft-times liberal, decrees that she was the woman who shot Armstrong, a former member of the House of David baseball team, in a tourist cabin near Odessa a year ago. Miss Messer steadfastly maintained that she had been picked up by Armstrong and that she shot him in defense of her honor after he had made advances towards her.

Several witnesses collaborated the state’s story that Miss Messmer had been seen near the cabin the hour of the shooting. However, the state did not produce the “eye-witness” to the shooting which it had promised when the trial, originally set last November, was deferred until the March term of court.  This was largely the reason for the light sentence.

Her sudden change in attitude as regarded a Texas prison sentence, which she said she preferred to being returned to New Jersey , was unexplained and newspapermen who talked to her toady found a silent, sullen “gun girl” – quite unlike the prisoner they had interviewed prior to the trial.  It was known that she feared being returned to New Jersey , and that efforts had been extended to obtain some type of pardon for her act from then Governor Harry Moore.

No effort was made by Miss Messmer’s attorneys to appeal the case. She will probably be removed to the Texas penitentiary some time next week.

April 8, 1940

‘Gun Girl’ Escapes from Ector Co., Texas Jail

‘Walks Out’ of Jail Following Appeal Denial Isabelle’s On The Loose Again After ‘Refusal’ To Serve 3 Yr. Murder Sentence

by Tony Slaughter

Odessa, Texas, April 8 – Isabelle Messmer, 24, Elwood, Indiana’s “gun girl” sentenced to Texas state penitentiary for a term of three years for the murder of an ex-baseball player, escaped from Ector County jail here this morning – carrying out her threat that she would “never go to prison.”

Thus, the girl who thought small time life was to slow for her, added another chapter to her frenzied flight across the country after having been mixed up with New Jersey state officials and perfected an escape from a New Jersey reform farm.

Miss Messmer’s escape was noted this morning when jail officials brought the “gun girl’s” breakfast. A search through Texas was immediately instituted for her but, up until early this afternoon, not the slightest trace had been reported to sheriff’s officials here.

She escaped from the jail when an officer failed to lock the cell lever box. Miss Messmer apparently reached through the bars, lifted the lever on the cell door and then climbed down a concrete lattice work three floors to freedom.

The girl’s hopes for a new trial were crushed Saturday afternoon when District Judge Cecil Collings denied an appeal filed by her attorney Jesse Orth.

The Saga Continues!

Submitted by . . .

Nancy Sumner, EHS/FHS '66