America’s first female sheriff Minnie Mae Talbott and the killer who changed history

By Diane Euston

For many years, her story was buried beneath the pages of records and newspapers. No one, it could be argued, felt the need to promote the legacy of a woman who broke down barriers when her own life was turned upside down.

Her name was Minnie Mae Talbott, and she was given a badge, a gun and control of the Lafayette County jail before she and millions of other women even had the right to vote.

The time has come for Minnie Mae Talbott’s story to be told, and on June 13 from 9am to 10pm, the City of Lexington will have a full day of celebration honoring the first woman who was elected sheriff in the United States.

Her story is deeply entwined in a heinous crime that gave her the chance to break barriers – when her husband, then-sheriff, was murdered along with two other deputies. The records surrounding this serious crime reveal a deep connection to some of Kansas City’s most notorious criminals.

Minnie’s Early Life and Marriage

Born January 29, 1883 in Marshall, Mo. to parents Daniel Webster Weedin (1842-1915) and Mary Kennedy Weedin (1846-1925), Minnie Mae Weedin was the last child of five.

After moving to Lexington in about 1885, her father went to work as a miner, and Minnie attended school until around 6^th grade.

Lexington became one of the leading coal producing towns in Missouri at the turn of the last century, and its growth directly impacted the town’s future. While many worked in agriculture, most of those attached to Minnie were involved in coal mining.

Minnie Mae Weedin met a tall, black-haired, brown-eyed coal miner named Joseph Caldwell Talbott. Born September 1, 1878 in Lexington to Union Civil War veteran Isaac Arnold Talbott (1838-1909) and his wife, Josephine Goodrich (1842-1915), Joseph grew up with his father and older brothers toiling away in the coal mines. To no surprise, Joseph Talbott followed in their footsteps.

On July 3, 1904, Minnie Mae Weedin and Joseph Caldwell Talbott married. The couple had five children: Thomas (b. 1906), Eugene (b. 1909), Dorothy May (b. 1911), Marie Louise (b. 1913) and Joseph Caldwell, Jr. (b. 1917).

In their early marriage, they lived with Joseph’s mother, and in 1909, the couple bought a cottage for their growing family at 163 Southwest Boulevard in Lexington.

Her husband had a solid career in the coal mines as a blacksmith, but he turned his interest toward elected office in April 1916. He wanted to run for sheriff of Lafayette County on the Republican ticket.

The Lexington Intelligencer reported, “Mr. Talbott is a rock-ribbed republican and an enthusiastic worker for candidates and principles of his party. That he is efficient and dependable is attested by his 20 years service with the Western Coal and Mining Co.”

With the deep Southern roots of many families in Lexington, the Republican party was not a popular selection for the location. Regardless, in the 1916 election, Joe Talbott was appointed sheriff after beating the competition by 495 votes.

As part of his job at the time, Sheriff Talbott moved his family to the upper floors of the county jail that sat just to the southeast of the historic courthouse.

In October 1918, three prisoners tried to break out of the jail, but their plans were thwarted by none other than the sheriff’s wife, Minnie. The newspaper reported, “Mrs. Talbott, wife of Sheriff Joseph Talbott, heard a noise in the cells that sounded suspicious and notified her husband, who prevented the outbreak. . . The bars to the cell doors had been loosened with a piece of iron, when the men were intercepted by the arrival of the sheriff.”

Raising five young children in the shadows of the county jail couldn’t have been easy, but Minnie adjusted and developed a solid reputation. She tended to the wounds of officers and prisoners while also feeding them.

But the life she had known and adjusted to was about to be turned on its head.

Missing Law Enforcement

Criminals had shifted their sights on automobile stealing versus horse stealing just when Sheriff Talbott took over. Cars were still quite rare in the early 1900s, and their value wasn’t missed by petty criminals.

In 1915, about 2.3% of the population – about 10% of the families in the United States- owned a vehicle. But, this number was a bit higher in rural communities who relied upon this new technology to transform their farms.

Stealing a car was also exceptionally easy as compared to modern vehicles. Most early automobiles lacked door locks, keys or any vehicle identification numbers. Early ignitions, according to the FBI, could be easily “hotwired” by turning a switch.

The ease of stealing a car, often filed under early records as larceny, spiked the reports filed to police stations, and this was also true in small cities like Lexington.

When Sheriff Talbott got a report of a stolen Ford from Dr. J.D. Cope on Franklin Street, he called around to surrounding towns to be on the lookout for the vehicle. He heard back from city marshal C.E. Maddox of Marshall, Mo. 40 miles to the east of Lexington.

Maddox had found three men, two of them wearing soldier’s uniforms, driving into Marshall to get gas. Maddox stopped the men and arrested them.

Both Talbott and Maddox were unaware of what these alleged thieves had been up to prior to the car stealing in Lexington, but later reports would show that these three men had allegedly stolen a Hudson roadster in Kansas City belonging to Dr. Owen W. Butler at 3700 Benton Blvd.

They took the stolen Hudson to Lexington where they ran out of gas late in the evening. That’s when they walked a block north to steal Cope’s Ford.

Sheriff Joseph Talbott considered the lead out of Marshall, Mo. to be a promising one. Around noon on Sunday, May 4, he jumped into his Ford police car with 52-year-old Deputy Constable James Stapleton riding in the passenger seat and 31-year-old Deputy Sheriff John McDonald in the back seat.

Sheriff Talbott took the three suspected car thieves from Marshall and loaded them, apparently without handcuffs, in the back seat of his Ford. Talbott loaded back into the driver’s side of the vehicle, and Stapleton sat in the passenger’s seat. Deputy Sheriff McDonald “[was] sitting on the lap of one of the prisoners” when they waved goodbye to Marshall’s city marshal, C.E. Maddox.

About 8pm, the car passed the Confederate home near Higginsville. That was the last time the men were seen alive.

No alarm was sounded immediately when the men didn’t return Sunday evening.

But by Monday, May 5, there was genuine concern over the well-being of the law enforcement officers.

Manhunt for the Murderers of Three

Hundreds began combing areas on horseback, in cars and on foot in a desperate attempt to find the three missing men alive.

The first clue found was Sheriff Joseph Talbott’s Ford patrol car. Located on the Blue Springs Road just southeast of Independence, the car was haphazardly hidden on the side of the road.

The officers weren’t there, but the front and back seats were smeared with blood.

Reports from other law enforcement agencies led to the belief that the criminals abandoned the sheriff’s car when they ran out of gas and stole a small Dodge truck owned by Floyd Latimer nearby.

In a country church near Blue Springs inside a shed, suitcases were found with bloody clothing inside. A report from Kansas City police indicated that the stolen Dodge truck was located at 15^th and Walnut, leading officers to believe the men traveled to Kansas City and disappeared.

A report from a farm hand working near the Higginsville Road suggested that the men may have met their demise somewhere near there; he heard a series of five shots at dusk on Sunday, May 4.

Two days later on Tuesday morning, May 6, in the woods near Prairie Church (about seven miles south of Lexington), searchers came across in a wheat field the dead bodies of 40-year-old Sheriff Joseph Talbott and 31-year-old Deputy Sheriff John McDonald. Talbott had shots in his back and one in his head while McDonald had a shot through the head. Both men were “beaten viciously, evidently with the butt end of a revolver” and items stolen from them.

About 10 feet away in a plum thicket, Deputy James Stapleton, 52, was found clinging to life. He had “two bullet holes in his head, and one through the shoulder.” He also was badly beaten and his left side paralyzed.

Despite attempts to speak to the lone survivor, he was unable to communicate. He died two days later on May 9.

Evidence indicated that the two younger suspects were Caucasian, about 5’6” tall and between 20 and 25 years old. The leader of this gang was listed at being about 35 years old, about 5’10” tall, 160 pounds and he revealed he had been working at one time in Osawatomie, Kan.

Law enforcement from all over the area came to help, and it was surmised that the suspects were able to overpower Deputy McDonald in the back seat and use his gun to shoot Sheriff Talbott and Deputy Stapleton. Once the car stopped, the suspects drug the men from the car, beat them and left them for dead.

All evidence pointed to the fact that the men changed clothes, stole a car from a nearby farm and landed in Kansas City where the size of the city aided in their cover.

A slew of people were picked up in Kansas City and the vicinity. Suspects as far as Falls City and Omaha, Neb. were pulled to interrogate. The only person able to identify the suspects was Marshall’s city marshal, C.E. Maddox.

Despite efforts, the trail ran cold and no one early-on was identified.

“Is Kansas City the sanctuary for thieves, crooks, bandits and murderers?” The Kansas City Star lamented. The murder of Talbott and McDonald “[are] only one of the links in a long chain of crimes to call attention to the distinction Kansas City is gaining as a city of refuge for criminals of every degree.”

 

The Appointment of the First Woman Sheriff in America

Placed next to the long article on the front page of the Lexington Intelligencer about the triple murder was a call for a special election to appoint a new sheriff for Lafayette County.

  In midst of this tragedy and manhunt to find the murderers, Mrs. Minnie Mae Talbott was approached and asked if she would run to take her late husband’s position. The Union Miners, a powerful organization deeply connected to the family, supported her run.

The press wasn’t on her side, saying it was “a travesty to even consider a widow and mother for such a dangerous job.”

Her opponent, Robert E. Ashurst, a Democrat, had recently returned from serving in the Canadian Army in France.

On May 29, 1919, the special election resulted in a clear winner. Minnie Mae Talbott held 2201 votes while Ashurst had 1774 votes.

The Lexington News blamed a “lack of interest” for her win, noting her association with the Union Miners proved vital. “This paper still feels that the election of a woman to the sheriff’s office at this time was a mistake,” they wrote.

Described as a “deeply caring yet a stoic person,” Sheriff Minnie Mae Talbott was sworn into office on June 8, 1919 – over one year before women were even given the right to vote!

Her win meant that she could stay put in the rooms above the county jail with her family, and after some changes in personnel, James Forsha of Odessa served as her deputy sheriff and moved into the rooms above the jail with his wife. As she served as sheriff, her five children ranged from 12 years old to two years old. She earned $80 per month.

The way in which society viewed her time as sheriff can be seen in the records which do exist. The newspaper in Lexington rarely mentioned her, focusing rather on Deputy Forsha. In the official Missouri State Political and Military Records at the time, she’s listed as “Mrs. Joseph C. Talbott” in lieu of her own name.

Minnie opted not to run for a second term, and the deputy she appointed won the seat in 1921. She quietly moved back to her home on Southwest Boulevard when Forsha took office January 1.

At virtually the same time, one lifelong criminal became a chief suspect, and his story is deeply connected to a notorious man whose name is synonymous with Kansas City.

A Man of Many Names and Crimes

There was ongoing interest in finding the suspects and convicting them, as there was a $5,000 reward.

In August 1919, a swarthy dark-haired serial criminal was arrested in Parsons, Kan. with “a liberal supply of liquor and two guns.” The weapons were wrapped in overalls that had automobile tools tucked in the pockets.

While being held, this 33-year-old man allegedly confessed that he was one of the people who killed the officers in Lexington, Mo. That led to his arrest in October.

Fearing he would be lynched if brought to Lexington, this man who identified himself as James Bradley and later as Tom Clark was held in Kansas City, Mo.

Sheriff Minnie Mae Talbott went to talk to the man “but could get no confession from him.”

But the one eyewitness who saw the three men who drove away with Sheriff Talbott and his deputies positively identified James Bradley. That was enough to get a trial for murder underway.

In June 1920, the trial began in Warrensburg, Mo. The eyewitness, chief of police in Marshall, C.E. Maddox said on the stand, “I arrested Clark – the man I see now in the courtroom- and two companions, holding them because I believed they had stolen a motor car. . . When I learned the car had been stolen that day in Lexington, I telephoned Sheriff Talbott and he drove to Marshall in his car, accompanied by two deputies, intending to try the prisoners in Lexington. . . Clark positively is one of the men I saw ride away with those sheriffs that Sunday afternoon.”

The man sitting on the defense side accused of the crimes was a bit of a mystery. Standing at about 5’10” tall with large ears, a rosy skin tone and dark eyes and hair, he gave his name as Tom Clark. But he’d been arrested under one of his many aliases, James Bradley. And it certainly wasn’t his first time in jail; he’d served time in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Other names he utilized in his numerous crimes included Roy Clark, Bailey Stone, Thomas Alexander and Bert Walker. Surprisingly, the state was indifferent to the name he gave at trial; they just wanted a conviction.

On July 7, 1921, Tom Clark, alias James Bradley, was convicted of the murder of Sheriff Joseph Talbott and was sentenced to life in prison. He was received at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City on September 27.

But his imprisonment was short-lived. A new trial was granted because the stenographer on the trial died before all his notes were transcribed. A second trial in September 1922 found him not guilty.

That wasn’t the last Missouri would see of James Bradley or his aliases.

In June 1923, a Kansas City jury sentenced him under the name Thomas Alexander to a 30-year sentence for the robbery of two banks in Buckner, Mo where they got away with just under $50,000 in cash and bonds. An accomplice named John Dean was also given 30 years. He’d been positively identified, and after a shootout with detectives at 34^th and Tracy, he was arrested.

While in prison, he made quick friends with other inmates. One of them would drastically alter Bradley’s – and Kansas City’s – history.

Running from the Law

Two years after James Bradley entered the penitentiary, a 21-year-old criminal from Oklahoma charged with payroll robbery in St. Louis entered into the cell block for a five-year sentence.

His name was Charles Arthur Floyd, alias Frank Mitchell and known in Kansas City as “Pretty Boy” Smith. Today, he’s infamously known as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd.

When Floyd was let out early in March 1929, he stuck around the Kansas City area.

“Good behavior” allowed James Bradley to work at the prison farm at Algoa, Mo. with far less security, and with the aid of his new friend, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, he escaped from prison on October 2, 1929.

That same Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd would be involved in the Union Station Massacre less than three years later.

The pair fled to Ohio, and on February 5, 1930, they joined up with one other criminal friend Bob Amos and robbed the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Sylvania.

Akron police were preparing to storm an after-hours club on March 8 at about 1:15 am when two men with two women exited the bar; they ended up crashing their car in an intersection nearby. The two men were none other than James Bradley and Bob Amos, both men Floyd met in the Missouri pen.

Officer Harland Manes, 31, was shoved by Bradley who then drew a .38 and shot the officer in the stomach. James Bradley was wounded in the shoulders by gunfire but escaped.

The next day, Bradley was found in a cottage occupied by a man then identified as Frankie Mitchell (“Pretty Boy” Floyd). They found several guns and ammunition as well as a machine gun loaded with 150 rounds.

Bradley identified himself as Bert Walker, and he was taken to the hospital where Officer Manes positively identified him before the officer died from his injuries.

It took some time, but the pieces between the various jurisdictions with the help of the newspapers started to piece together Bert Walker – alias James Bradley’s past. He’d killed a police officer in Ohio, and he had evaded paying the price for the three deaths of law enforcement officers in Lexington, Mo.

James Bradley – under the name Bert Walker – was sentenced to death by electrocution for the murder of Officer Harland Manes on November 10, 1930. He was 43 years old.

He seemed unphased of the blood on his hands; when he sat down in the electric chair, Bradley said with a grim smile, “A rather shocking evening, eh?”

 

Honoring the Past

Frank Mitchell, also known as “Pretty Boy” Floyd, was found guilty of the Sylvania robbery and sentenced to 12-15 years. But exactly one month after his friend was put to death, Floyd made his escape from a train and was on the run.

He went on to murder multiple people, including killing a federal prohibition agent in Kansas City in 1931. And, he was notoriously connected by the FBI to the Kansas City Massacre at Union Station June 17, 1933. He lost his life running from federal agents in 1934.

Herbert Hoover, head of the FBI, said in a radio address in 1936, “[Floyd] was a skulking, disheveled, dirty, ill-clothed hobo and, as such, he was hunted down to his end, as a hoodlum, an ego-inflated rat!”

Minnie Mae Talbott certainly was aware of the lack of justice for her husband’s murder, but like so many women of the era, she picked up the pieces and built the best life for her children that she could.

After leaving her post as the first female sheriff in the United States, she sold her home and moved to Pueblo, Colo. where her sister had settled.  After a failed marriage, Minnie Mae married fellow divorcee John A. Felix, a foreman in the steel industry, in October 1922. They had one son together.

She passed away in 1962 and is buried in Pueblo, Colo.

According to the Pueblo Chieftain, her descendants balked when Johnny Carson had on his show in the late 1970s Kathy Crumbly, sheriff in Belmont County, Ohio who hailed herself the first female sheriff in America.

A visit to Lexington in the early 1990s resulted in little interest by officials in honoring Minnie Mae Talbott’s important role in history.

But the tides have turned, and this year will mark the first official “Minnie Mae Day” in Lexington, Mo. This all-day celebration on June 13 will include live music, family-friendly activities and various vendors. For a full schedule and additional information, visit the “Experience Lexington MO” on Facebook or go to visitlexingtonmo.org.

Piecing together stories can prove to be difficult, especially when looking into the lives of women who are often hidden in the shadows of their husbands. But Minnie Mae Talbott made history right here in Missouri, choosing to serve the community and breaking down barriers before women had the right to vote.