Comer 3

Oklahoma Murder Spree 1935

(the following came from the 1935 editions of the Oklahoman; transcribed as written)

Relatives of Hunted Oil Worker Quizzed In Evans Case Probe

Twin Brothers, Sister In Custody; Search For Attorney to Be Widened Today

Still questioning six city relatives in efforts to trace Chester Comer, 23-year-old oil field worker, peace officers early Sunday morning also mapped plans for widened search for Ray Evans, Shawnee attorney, missing since Tuesday.

A state-wide hunt was launched Saturday night for Comer, wanted for questioning in connection with Evan’s mysterious disappearance.

Two brothers, Larmar and Armor Comer, 19-year-old twins, and a sister, Edna Comer, 24 years old, were booked at the city jail for vagrancy and investigation when police termed their statements unsatisfactory. Three other relatives were quizzed early Sunday morning at the state crime bureau and the twin brothers were transferred to the capitol from the city jail. There was no evidence to connect any of the six with the disappearance of Evans.

Evan’s Clothing Found

The relatives who live near Southeast Forty-fourth street and High avenue, were questioned after the clothing said to have been worn by Evans when he disappeared was found in Evan’s car six miles north of Maysville late Friday.

Claude Seymour, Garvin county sheriff, said Elizabeth Stevens, 13-year-old sister-in-law of Comer, told him Comer had left the after it ran into a ditch. The sheriff said a sock in the car was blood stained.

Comer, Seymour said, obtained a ride with a farmer after he left the car and later boarded a bus at Lexington for Oklahoma City.

Not Seen, Relatives Say

John Watt, police chief, said Comer’s relatives here said they had not seen him since he left here a week ago on a hitch-hiking tour looking for work. Comer, they said, was married three or four months ago to a Maysville girl from whom he since had separated. The wife, it was said, lives in Oklahoma City.

The parents of Comer’s wife, police said, have not heard from her for several weeks. Her father said he spent three days in Oklahoma City looking for her.

Garvin county officers said Come had visited his wife’s relatives in Maysville Friday and told them he was going to Oklahoma City after his wife.

Tried to Leave Car

The young sister-in-law said he asked her to ride with him to a grocery store to purchase some oranges. After they started the drive, the officers quoted her, Comer told her he was going to take her to Oklahoma City.

The girl recounted that she tried to get out of the car, and did cause it to leave the road and go into a ditch in which it was found.

A dozen Seminole and Shawnee officers were here Saturday working with local deputy sheriffs and police on the case.

Meanwhile the mystery of the whereabouts of Evans was as deep as ever. Friends and acquaintances of the missing man, who disappeared when he started to Ada Tuesday to interview a client aided offices in a search for him.

Say Hunters Heard Shot

American Legion and bar association members from Oklahoma City, Shawnee, Capitol Hill and Pauls Valley Saturday vainly searched the probable route the car would have taken from Ada to the point at which it was found.

Walter Mosier, Pottawatomie county sheriff, issued a call Saturday night for 500 men to meet him at 7:30 a. m. at Shawnee Sunday to launch a new search for Evans.

Mosier said he would welcome hunting dogs to be used in the search, and that no limit would be placed on the size of the searching party. More than 1,000 persons, 300 from Shawnee, joined in the hunt Saturday.

Blanche Doyle, sheriff at Seminole, received a report that hunters had seen a car answering the description of the Evans car near Wolf late Tuesday. The hunters, the sheriff said, heard a shot and saw the car speed away.

Reported in Capitol Hill

Relatives of Comer’s wife said at Maysville, officers reported, that the oil field worker came there three or four months ago and after marrying returned to Oklahoma City.

A broadcast by station KGPH, the county-city police radio, said that Comer was believed to have gotten off the bus at Capitol Hill. The broadcast said the man they believed was Comer was carrying a brief case.

The broadcast described Comer as five feet six inches tall, weight 135 to 145 pounds; dark brown wavy hair; dark skin; brown eyes and a prominent nose.

The Oklahoman 11/24/1935

11/25/1935

TWO MORE MEN ARE MISSING

EVANS SEARCH IS FRUITLESS; CASES LINKED

Piedmont Farmer and Son Unseen Since Saturday Afternoon; Clue Meager

Mysterious disappearance of two Piedmont men was flung into the faces of Oklahoma peace officers Sunday as search for Ray Evans, missing Shawnee attorney, remained clueless.

L. A. Simpson, 40-year-old Piedmont farmer and his son, Warren, have been missing since Saturday noon, under circumstances that my link their fate with that of Evans.

And while the hunt for Evans, missing since last Tuesday, was pressed in south central Oklahoma and neighbors joined officers in search for the Simpsons, a description of Chester Comer, 27-year-old oil field worker was broadcast. Comer is sought for questioning in the Evans case and a possible connection with the Simpson case.

The farmer and is 14-year-old son have been missing since they started to drive to their home from the home of Simpson’s mother, who lives in the Piedmont neighborhood. Authorities expressed the belief that a hitch-hiker, who may have been Comer, and who was seen on the road about the time Simpson and his son started home, was picked up by the two.

Simpson and his son were riding in a 1935 dark-colored Chevrolet sports model sedan, license number 409-556.

Suspect Given Ride

A short time before the farmer and his son started to their home, Frank Lushen, a resident of the Piedmont neighborhood, said the hitch-hiker alighted from his car. No one saw Simpson pick up the hitch-hiker, but the general supposition was that he did. Lushen said the hitch-hiker told him he was en route to Enid.

Lushen, who said he picked up the hitch-hiker near Piedmont, and let him out near the home of Simpson’s mother, furnished officers with a description of the man.

After viewing a picture of Comer Sunday night, Iris Baker, Piedmont filling station operator, declared it resembled the hitch-hiker whom he had seen Saturday. Baker said there was a marked resemblance.

Description Tallies

However, Lushen and others who had seen the hitch-hiker in the Piedmont neighborhood, said that the description of the man and that the picture was not a likeness.

The death at McAlester of a man, who, officers said, swallowed poison at a rooming house there, caused the investigation of Evan’s disappearance to be centered there for a time.

Officers later expressed belief the man had no connection with the case. They said he gave his name as Frank Parker and left a note addressed to a Tulsa resident. The name and address of a woman living at Tulsa also was found on his person.

Relatives of No Aid

Repeated questioning of six city relatives of Comer here Saturday night and Sunday failed to shed any light on either Comer’s whereabouts or Evans’s disappearance, offices said.

Comer’s twin brothers, Larmer and Armor, and another brother, William A., Comer, taken into custody early Sunday, were released Sunday night. A sister, Edna Comer, also held for a short time for questioning, was released earlier.

Officers said they found a suit case said to belong to Chester Comer at a residence here, but it revealed no clue of value. Members of the family still insist, officers said, that they have not seen Comer for more than a week.

Sheriff Gets Clue

Claude Seymour, Garvin county sheriff, said Elizabeth Stevens, 13-year-old sister-in-law of Comer, told him Comer had left Evans’s car after it had run into a ditch near Maysville. The sheriff said a sock in the car was blood-stained. According to Seymour, Comer obtained a ride with a farmer after he left Evan’s car and later boarded a bus at Lexington for Oklahoma City.

Officers, meanwhile, revealed they had been unable to find any trace of either Comer’s first wife, reported to be known as Elizabeth Childers, or his second wife, Lucile Stevens.

Officers said relatives had not heard from the first wife for two years, when she was reported to have been at Shidler. His second wife, who lived on a farm near Maysville near where Evans’s car was abandoned was last supposed to have been in Oklahoma City.

The searching parties in south central Oklahoma included passes from Shawnee, Ada, Sulphur and Pauls Valley. Cars loaded with men and dogs left Shawnee for the search during the entire day. Each group was assigned a designated spot to cover and are keeping in touch with other parties by radio.

Stanolind and Sinclair officials announced an area through which their pipe lines run from Shawnee south to Healdton also is being searched.

Investigators were dispatched to Byars Sunday afternoon when it was reported a Ford V-8 sedan had been pulled out of the mud by a farmer near there Tuesday night. It was reported the driver asked for a road that would miss Byars and appeared to be nervous.

Both Simpson and his son were wearing suede jackets and blue overalls when they were last seen Saturday. The elder Simpson, who weighs about 185 pounds, has brown hair and blue eyes.

The Oklahoman 11/25/1935

Wife Waits, Worries, Prays as Posses Search in Vain

Crowded into the small office of an elevator at Piedmont, more than a score of tired farmers and business men Sunday night talked in hushed tones of their futile daylong search for their neighbors, L. A. Simpson, 40-year-old farmer, and his 14-year-old son, Warren.

Three blocks away, at the home of her mother, Mrs. Mary Snyder, Simpson’s wife, wide-eyed and frightened was praying that her husband and son would return safely.

Forming a voluntary posse under direction of John Harrison, Canadian county sheriff, the men had searched miles and miles of muddy roads and wet fields for the missing man and boy.

Simpson and his son last were seen when they turned their car down a road toward their home along which a lone hitch-hiker was walking. They possemen were firm in their belief that Simpson, ever friendly, had given the hitch-hiker a ride, and that eh man had forced the farmer to drive north, possibly into Kansas.

Many hours without sleep and worn with worry, Mrs. Simpson, dark haired farm woman, was nearly prostrate with grief Sunday night.

“I know that something must be wrong,” she said in a strained whisper. “He always works over at his mother’s far, a mile south of us where he has a workshop, and he always came home for lunch about 12 o’clock.

“When he had not arrived at 1 o’clock, I called for him over there to find out what was delaying him. His mother said that he and Warren had been gone about an hour.”

Simpson, born in the Piedmont neighborhood, had lived there all his life and cared for the farm of his mother, Mrs. Boyd Simpson, as well as his own.

“I didn’t worry because I thought he probably had met someone along the way and had stopped to talk. He always was a great man to talk to most anyone. I also thought he might have gone to see some of the neighbors had had been wanting to see.

“I became a little bit alarmed when he didn’t come home during the afternoon and that night I called several places in town where I thought he might have been. But no one had seem him or Warren.

A Daughter, Geraldine Simpson, 10 years old, the only other child, played about the house of her grandmother, apparently unaware of the grave concern the long absence of her father and brother was causing. Mrs. Simpson had been lying on a divan trying to get some rest that would not come.

“I was terribly worried that night,” Mrs. Simpson said, “I sat up just about all night and waited and waited, but they did not come. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t call anyone else, hoping he would come before morning. I’m nearly worried to death now.”

“This morning I called the filling station in town to see if he had been in to get gasoline, but he had not. He had not been seen. So I called his brother. L. A. Simpson, who notified the sheriff at El Reno.

L. A. Simpson who operates the mill and elevator company at Piedmont also sounded the alarm among the farmers and business men in the Piedmont vicinity.

As Simpson and his son left Mrs. Simpson’s farmhouse about noon Saturday, he was passed by Boyd Simpson, another brother, who was coming from town. Boyd and Mrs. C. R Watson, who lives on the highway where the side road turns into Mrs. Simpson’s farm, later said they saw the hitch-hiker walking along the highway.

The Oklahoman 11/25/1935

HITCH-HIKER IS CLUE IN CASE

Neighbors of Missing Pair Tell of Stranger

Belief that the description of Chester Comer, sought in the case of Ray Evans, missing Shawnee attorney, tallies with that of a hitch-hiker possibly involved in the disappearance of a Piedmont farmer and his son, was expressed Sunday night by Piedmont residents who saw the hitch-hiker Saturday.

L. A. Simpson, 40-year-old farmer who lives four miles north of Piedmont, and his 14-year-old son, Warren, were last seen Saturday when they drove down a road along which the hitch-hiker was walking.

Frank Lushen of Piedmont, said he picked up the hitch-hiker and drove him about two miles north of town. From there the man continued walking north. Lushen and others believe Simpson picked up the hitch-hiker.

After reviewing a picture of Comer, Iris Baker, Piedmont filling station operator, declared it resembled the hitch-hiker.

“The fellow passed my station Saturday before Simpson and his boy disappeared,” said Baker, “He resembled this picture of Comer.”

“He looked pretty well kept,” said Luschen. “He said he was from the city, and that he was going to Enid.”

The Oklahoman 11/25/1935

EVANS SLAYER IS NEAR DEATH

WOUNDED MAN FAILS TO GIVE OFFICERS CLUE

Comer Mumbles Of Bodies; Search On

Chester Comer

Desperately hunting a clue to the whereabouts of five missing persons, state officers early Tuesday struck a blank wall as Chester Comer, who admitted he hilled Ray Evans, Shawnee attorney, failed to rally in Oklahoma City General hospital from a brain wound.

Posses which quit for the night after vainly following piecemeal information furnished by the incoherent 27-year-old oil field worker, shot in a pistol duel by Oscar Morgan, Blanchard constable, were ready to resume their searches for Evans and four other missing persons Tuesday morning.

Governor Marland announced he would call out national guardsmen Tuesday if the search continued without result.

Identified By Fingerprints

Comer was tracked down 3 ½ miles of Blanchard Monday noon and shot in the car of L. A. Simpson, Piedmont farmer, who with his 14-year-old son, Warren, has been missing since Saturday.

In the hospital here Comer mumbled that he had “buried Evans.” He was not questioned extensively about the Simpsons and made no reply to queries about two former wives, also missing.

Physicians said early Tuesday that Comer had only a slight chance to live. Shackles which had been placed on him were removed.

Federal operatives Monday night began an investigation seeking to link Comer with the disappearance last August of two couples of East St. Louis, Ill., tourists near Albuquerque, N. M.

“I have heard nothing officially of it,” said Dwight Brantley, head of the department of justice here.

Texas Probe Started

In Dallas the government officials said there was a possibility that Comer is the man they have sought for questioning for months following the disappearance of George M. Larius, Albert A. Heberer, and their wives. The tourists were last seen at Albuquerque, and a short time later their automobile was found in Dallas.

Alva Shelton and Charles Page, state crime bureau fingerprint experts, said prints taken from Comer and the car in which he was captured corresponded with those of a man sentenced March 12, 1931, to Huntsville prison in Texas as George Jones. He was sentenced to three years from Harris county, Texas, for attempted robbery and assault.

Anxiously officers listened to every word Comer mumbled, hoping that some light would be thrown on the whereabouts of the five missing persons. Evans, missing since last Tuesday; Mrs. Elizabeth Childers Comer, first wife of the wounded man, missing since August, 1934, and Mrs. Lucille Stevens Comer, second wife, missing since September 14, this year.

WOUNDED MAN FAILS TO GIVE OFFICERS CLUE

Mumbles Incoherent

“A pile of bodies – east of Fittstown.” “Simpson? Simpson was just a dirty---” “The bodies are all together,” “A pile of bodies in a creek.” “He’s down here someplace.”

From such incoherent outbursts the officers sought the truth. Claud Sturdevant, Pontotoc county under-sheriff, sent deputies to Fittstown, south of Ada, to organize a search in that vicinity. Oil companies assigned their employes to aid in the search. Boggy creek in particular was being searched by 200 men.

The search for Evans’s body was given momentum Monday night when a truck driver named Patterson reported he saw Comer on the Magnolia lease near Fittstown between 1 and 2 p. m. last Tuesday. Otto Strickland, Fittstown druggist, and former member of the legislature, said Evans was in his store Tuesday and asked the way to Magnolia lease.

The truck driver was quoted as saying that Comer asked him the way to the “river.”

Birds Mill creek and Sheep creek, two tributaries of Boggy creek, were searched unsuccessfully. High water has made the search difficult.

State operatives searched a pasture 1 ½ miles south of Blanchard following a mumbled statement by Comer, according to Col. Charles Daley, head of the state bureau of investigation.

Muddy Roads Halt Search

Muddy roads made search in the Blanchard community difficult Monday night and officers decided to make the chief hunt beginning at 8:30 a. m. Tuesday, at which time volunteer possemen and officers will gather at Blanchard.

Positive identification of the blood stained Comer was made at the hospital here by Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Comer, his parents, who visited him.

“Yes, it’s my boy,” the mother said.

Mrs. Comer revealed that Chester was the second son in the family to ‘go bad’. A brother, Arnold, 18 years old, is in a state hospital for insane in Arkansas, after killing four men.

Searching for a motive officers came to the conclusion that Comer was a bad man. They said they believed no other theory would explain his movements in the last week.

Officers had abandoned all of for Evans and the Simpsons. The car in which Comer was discovered was the one he had taken from Simpson, who allegedly picked Comer up Saturday as a hitchhiker.

Identifies Him In Hospital

G. G. Palmer, Piedmont, appeared at the hospital and identified Comer as a man he saw half a mile from the spot Simpson was believed to have picked up a hitchhiker. Frank Lushen, Piedmont, also identified Comer as a man he had hauled more than two miles in a truck Saturday. Lushen let Comer out half a mile from the place Simpson is believed to have picked him up.

Officers said a brief case which belonged to Evans was found in the Simpson car after the shooting.

With the bullet, which entered his head just over the right eye broken in five pieces in his head, Comer was given slight chance to live by physicians.

At 5:15 p. m. at the suggestion of officers, Comer was given a “truth serum”. He failed t respond to it, and physicians suggested that he be permitted to sleep two or three hours before undergoing additional questioning.

Doesn’t Speak Again

Comer didn’t speak a word after he was permitted to sleep following the truth serum test. Occasionally he would open his eyes, and sometimes would stick out his tongue when asked to, but he either wasn’t able or refused to talk.

Charles Stevens, Maysville, father of Comer’s second wife, questioned him in an effort to learn the whereabouts of his daughter, who disappeared after writing a postcard to her parents from a Texas town, September 14.

“Where is Lucille?” the father asked.

Comer appeared to struggle to remember. He half raised himself on an elbow, looked Stevens squarely in the eye a moment, then sank back.

Stevens said that when Comer married his daughter he brought with him a quanitity of women’s clothing. He explained that the clothing belonged to his dead sister. Members of the family said Comer did not have a dead sister.

Fear that a third person might have become involved in the kidnapping of the Simpsons was expressed by officers after a report was received that three men were seen in the rear seat of the car Comer was driving Sunday night in Blanchard.

Saw Others In Car

Jim Whalen and Roy Poole, Canadian county deputy sheriffs, were told by W. R. Stine, filling station attendant, that he saw Comer driving a car in Blanchard about 9 p. m. Sunday. The attendant said there were three men in the back seat.

Whalen said another Blanchard resident also saw the car and reported only two men.

There were crackers, cheese, cans of beans, canned meats, and other articles in the car that indicated Comer had been living in the auto.

Oscar Morgan, the officer who fought the pistol duel with Comer, left the Polyclinic hospital shortly after a bullet wound in his shoulder was treated.

Asks To See Comer

He went directly to the Oklahoma City general hospital and asked to see Comer.

“I’m kinda curious about how he’s getting along,” Morgan said.

J. E. Stanley, oil operator in the Blanchard area, received credit for the tip that led to the capture of Comer, object of one of the biggest manhunts in the state’s history.

Stanley said he first saw Comer Sunday approximately five miles south of Blanchard.

“When I passed him,” Stanley said, “he sort of ducked his head and crouched down. This case flashed through my mind.”

Monday morning Stanley drove into the country. He saw Comer two or three miles south of Blanchard and he checked the license number on the car with the number printed in newspapers of Simpson’s license.

Start To Hunt Him

Stanley picked up J. L. Saunders, a relative of Evan, and the two went to Morgan’s home.

In Morgan’s car the three started to hunt Comer. They found the car and chased it about two miles. Finally Comer stopped on the side of the road.

Morgan approached the car and just as he started to open the door, Comer fired.

“Oscar frowned and stepped back,” Stanley said. “Then he took two steps toward the car, pulled his gun and started firing.”

Morgan shot Comer with his fourth shot and the fugitive slumped. It was necessary to break the car door to get him out. He had locked himself in the car.

Stanley drove the wounded men back to town. Comer had emptied a nine-shot automatic. There was a .32 caliber gun fully loaded in one of his pockets and another revolver in Evan’s brief case.

Fail To Get Clues

Officers immediately rushed to Blanchard, attempted to talk to Comer and failing to get definite information about the missing persons, rushed him here in an effort to keep him alive long enough to talk.

Stanley Rogers, Oklahoma county sheriff, and Clint Miers, state bureau operative, tried to question Comer on the way to Oklahoma City.

They got mumbled answers to questions and little more.

Roy L. Wellman, Pottawatomie county undersheriff, begged Comer to talk while he still was in Blanchard. Finally the wounded man muttered: “Fittstown”

“In a house?” he was asked.

There was no reply.

“In a creek?”

The semi-conscious man answered “Yes.”

Officers were inclined to believe that the graves of the Simpsons and Evans, if they had been killed, would be found at different points, although earlier they felt Comer might have taken all the bodies to the same place.

The belief was expressed that Evans would be found near Fittstown and that the Simpsons would be found in the vicinity of Blanchard.

Bloody Hat Is Found

Meanwhile police detectives saw the possibility of a new clue in the finding of a bloody hat on Lincoln boulevard south of the state historical building.

The felt hat, size 7 1/3, was found late Sunday afternoon by George Holloway, 617 North Central avenue, who turned it over to Newt Burns, detective, Monday after reading about the multiple disappearances.

Charles F. Barrett, adjutant general of the national guard, Monday delayed appeal to governor Marland for troops to aid in the search for the missing in the belief that Comer might talk and make a mass search unnecessary.

The governor, however, said he was going to call out the guard on his own responsibility Tuesday unless the bodies were found meanwhile.

The Oklahoman 11/26/1935

Clue to Mystery Sought In Mumblings of Dying Man

Officers Work Frantically To Get A Lead

From the hysterical and incoherent mumblings of a semi-conscious man Monday a dozen officers frantically tried to sift some tangible clue which would lead to a solution of the mysterious disappearance last week of two men and a boy, and the equally baffling enigma of the whereabouts of two women.

Lying on a cot at Oklahoma City General hospital, a bullet broken into five pieces in his brain, Chester Comer lingered near death as questioners cajoled, whispered and shouted.

“Where is Evan?” a physician asked, inquiring about Ray Evans, missing Shawnee lawyer.

“I buried him,” mumbled Comer.

Clint Kiers, state operative, asked Comer if he knew Ray Evans.

“Yes,” Miers said Comer answered.

“Did you kill Ray Evans?” Miers asked.

“Yes.”

While lying in the garage at Blanchard awaiting an ambulance, Comer tossed restlessly and talked about “a pile of bodies. Trees, trees.”

“Three bodies . . . oh. Piles of bodies.” the suspect said when Smith Hester, McLain county attorney, asked him. “Where are Evans and the Simpsons?”

“North of Ada,” he said later and then after something that could not be understood – “east of Fittstown.” (Fittstown is south of Ada)

Still later he mentioned the names of towns that sounded like El Reno and Allen.

“Where is Ray Evans?” J. L. Stanley, a relative of Evans asked him as he was lifted from the stolen car,

“Fittstown – east of Fittstown – (muffled mutterins) – in a creek – pipeline – ditch.”

On the way to Oklahoma City, Stanley Rogers, Oklahoma county sheriff asked Comer where Evans was.

“I buried him.”

“How about Simpson?” inquiring about L. A. Simpson, farmer, missing with his son, Warren. It was the Simpson car in which Comer was shot.

“Simpson – that guys just a dirty ----.”

Comer’s mother, Mrs. J. W. Comer, Southeast Forty-ninth street and High avenue, was brought into the room.

“Talk to me son,” she said. “Tell me what happened. Tell me all about it. I’m your mother, do talk.”

Comer rolled his head and stared. He recognized her but did not talk. Mrs. Comer declared after coming out of the room. “Oh, I know he will die,” she said, “There’s nothing can save him. I don’t know why he did it.”

Charles Stevens, father of Comer’s second wife, who has not been seen for three months following their marriage of four months ago, was permitted to see Comer late Monday.

“Where is Lucille?” Stevens asked.

Comer tried to raise himself, looked at Stevens and compressed his lips. The doctors halted the questioning.

SUMMARY

Chester Comer sought in connection with the disappearance of five persons confessed at Oklahoma City General hospital that he “buried Ray Evans,” Shawnee lawyer, missing since Tuesday.

Critically wounded. Comer talked incoherently and failed to respond to a truth serum test at 5:15 p. m.

Federal officials investigated his possible connection with disappearance of four tourists in New Mexico last August.

Possemen were searching creeks near Fittstown, south of Ada, for the body of Evans after witnesses said Comer and Evans had been seen in Fittstown last Tuesday.

Governor Marland said he would call out national guardsmen Tuesday unless the missing were found.

Search for the bodies of A. L. Simpson, Piedmont farmer, and his son, Warren, 14 years old, will be resumed near Blanchard Tuesday.

Comber was identified by fingerprint as a former Texas convict under the alias George Jones.

The Oklahoman 11/26/1935

Cool Officer Shoots After Suspect Fires

By Eugene Dodson

If you’d ask Oscar Morgan about it, he’d just smile a little and tell you it just comes in the day’s work and is nothing at all to make much ado about.

But to the scores of officers who have been searching night and day throughout the state for Chester Comer, 27-year-old oil field worker, wanted for the disappearance of at least three persons, Morgan’s feat was both courageous and thrilling.

It was shortly before noon Monday that Morgan, with two other men, trailed Comer to a point 3 ½ miles south of Blanchard. It was there that Morgan coolly walked up to the suspect’s car, was shot in the shoulder, and in return shot Comer in the forehead.

Lying on an operating table in a room at Polyclinic hospital, Morgan grinned sheepishly, half embarrassed, and told of the shooting while the physician dug the bullet from the fresh wound.

“I had a sore foot and was staying at home this morning,” said Morgan. “J. L. Saunders, a relative of Ray Evans, the Shawnee attorney, came in and we talked about Evans’s disappearance.

“Oscar,” he said, “You have had lots of experience with criminals and have done a lot of work around here. I want you to get that fellow who kidnapped Ray. You’ve got to do something.”

“I guess I kinda laughed and told him I would do all I could, although I didn’t know just what help I would be. I’d been staying around home because my folks were in bad health.

“About 11 o’clock or thereabouts, Jack Stanley, a good friend of mine, came in all excited and told us about seeing a car down on the highway that was just like the one taken from those Piedmont people. Saunders and I had been talking about the Piedmont case being just like Ray’s disappearance.”

“Stanley said he was coming into town when he passed the car on the road and that the driver slumped down in the seat when he passed. He thought it might be the same car that belonged to L. A. Simpson and his son from Piedmont, and wanted us to come and see about it.”

Morgan said he put on his clothes, got his gun and got in a car with Stanley and Saunders. Stanley was driving.

“About two and a half miles down the road, we sighted the suspect’s car, through the rain. He kept right on going and we followed. Finally he must have noticed we were gaining, so he pulled up to the side of the road near a little ravine and stopped. Stanley wanted to drive up beside the car, but I told him to stop. We stopped about ten feet from the other automobile.

“I told Stanley and Saunders to sit still and I would go see who the driver was. I got out and went up to the side of the car, but couldn’t see the driver. I thought he had slipped out of the car and into the ravine.

“So I walked up and started to open the door. He rose up with his gun in his hand and started shooting. The first bullet struck me and I reached for my gun. I fired two or three shots from the hip but the didn’t seem to be doing any good.

“I just sort of stepped in front of the car and fired two more shots at him. The first shot struck him right in the forehead. I had fired five shots. He fired nine from the .32 caliber automatic.”

The three men had to break the glass in the Comer car, then they pulled Comer out, placed him back in the car and Stanley drove him to Blanchard. Saunders drove Morgan back in.

In Blanchard, Morgan thought about getting his arm tended to, but people kept calling me to ask about the shooting and officers were hurrying around so that I never did get time.”

Two hours later, Morgan was bundled into a car and brought to the hospital here, where the bullet was taken out of his arm.

Later, Morgan appeared at Oklahoma City General hospital to see how Comer was getting along. He amazed officers, nurses and patients at the hospital by walking around shaking hands with friends, using the arm that was wounded.

“Just a little wound,” Morgan dismissed the matter. He later returned to Blanchard.

It was in 1924 that Morgan and James Williams, night watchman at Blanchard, engaged in a running gun fight with two bandits who had robbed the Washington bank. Just as Claude Lee, one of the bandits, attempted to shoot Williams, Morgan fired the shot killing Lee. Morgan was wounded in the leg. Guy Wilkerson, a partner of the slain bandit, was arrested.

For 25 years Morgan has been either deputy sheriff or town marshall at Blanchard, where friends know him as “Blood Hound Morgan”. Morgan doesn’t talk much about what he has done, and only replys under rapid questioning, which gets him flustered.

He figured prominently in the arrest and conviction of Arthur Henderson, who was convicted for the murder of W. H. Prewett, Oklahoma City traveling salesman, early in 1923 near Blanchard. He also has aided other man hunts and gun battles.

Morgan aided in the arrest of A. G. Cross, a former employer, accused of grand larceny, capturing him in Colorado. He chased Cross 12 months, finally landing him in the penitentiary. Cross was pardoned and later accused of criminal assault, escaped and Morgan caught him. Cross jumped bond and Morgan caught him after six months of the banks of a Florida lake.

The Oklahoman 11/26/1935

MYSTERY CASE CAR IS TRACED ON RURAL ROAD

Marshal “Shot it Out” With Suspect Calmly

By Bennie Turner

Because an observant young oil man was suspicious – knew what to do with his suspicions – and did it – the hunt for Chester Comer in one of the state’s most involved disappearance cases is at an end.

The pipe-smoking young man who is not particularly interested in detective stories, yet proved Comer’s undoing, is J. E. Stanley, oil operator who recently moved to the Blanchard area from Chickasha.

He is the same young man who drove Comer back to town, alone with the suspect in the back seat, to discover later that Comer had another gun, a fully loaded .32 automatic in his hip pocket. And the same young man who, throughout all this, did not have a gun himself.

Says Marshal Was Calm

But he thinks all the credit should go to Oscar Morgan, the Blanchard marshal who “sure came through for me and stood there as calm as an old woman at a wedding and shot it out with Cooter.”

The “us” was Stanley and J. L. Saunders, 19-year-old son of J. R. Saunders, Blanchard station-agent and relative of Ray Evans, missing Shawnee lawyer. They were the three who captured Comer.

Finding Stanley and Saunders after the shooting, however, was as hard as it had been to find Comer, for while Blanchard residents, farmers, tourists and badge wearers crowded the sidewalks, packed the garage, these two went about their business.

Seated in a little café, with Saunders nearby to “check me up if I make a mistake” Stanley drew a map of the locality because I want to be sure about all of this, and told his story, between puffs on his pipe.

Stanley first saw the suspect Sunday afternoon, approximately five miles southwest of Blanchard.

Says He Ducked Head

“When I passed him in his car he sort of ducked his head and crouched down, but of course I did not know it was Comer, although the case flashed through my mind.

“Then, Monday morning I went out on business and saw the same man about two or three miles south of Blanchard. I recognized the car right away as the one I had seen Sunday. And this time I got a look at the license number, which I had seen in the newspaper and knew it was the car missing from Piedmont.

“He was headed south when I passed him, so I came on north into Blanchard. There was no question of what to do. I saw J. L. Saunders and we went to Oscar Morgan’s house.

“We got in his car. I was driving, and went out there. About one-half mile north of where I had seen him we found tracks where a car had turned around. That’s just a dirt road, you know, and it had been raining. While we were kicking around we heard a car over the hill.

Chased for Two Miles

“We gave chase and ran him nearly two miles before he seemed to know he was outclassed. Suddenly he whipped over to the side of the road and stopped.

“Oscar stepped out the right side , Saunders was in the back seat, as I stopped about six feet behind the car and in the middle of the road. Oscar stepped up to the driver’s side of the car, and took hold of the door handle. Just then I saw this guy move, saw a gun and he fired once. Morgan was hit in the shoulder by the first shot.

“Oscar frowned and staggered back. Then he took two steps toward the car, pulled his gun and started firing.

“Oh, it was just a blaze of fire. I seem to remember four shots very clearly, but I am not sure how many shots were fired.

“What were we doing? Mister, we just sat there tied in the boat.

“All at once the shooting stopped and I saw that fellow slump in the front seat. Morgan was standing there ready and just as calm as an old lady in church.

All of Car Doors Locked

“We got out. I took the police gun and broke the back door window. Every door on the car was locked, tight as a drum. Comer’s brains were oozing out and he was unconscious. I took that automatic out of his right hand.

“The motor was running and the radio was going full blast. Oh, it was gruesome, blood every place and that radio blaring out “Sweet Adeline” all the time.

“We took him out and put him in the back seat. Saunders drove Morgan and I drove the stolen car. We searched him first in a quick way,” Stanley explained.

Suspect Sat Up

“After we started back,” continued Stanley, “I kept watching that guy in the mirror. I had him mirrored when he sat up suddenly with a desperate look. I did not know until we got back that he had another gun.

“He mumbled something, I never could understand it, but he sure seemed to “come to” in a hurry, but we got back into town without any trouble and that’s all there was to it. Give Oscar Morgan all the credit, he is the one that deserves it,” Stanley concluded.

The Oklahoman 11/26/1935

Mother Says Comer’s Brother Placed In Arkansas Asylum After Killing Four

No Sign of Derangement Is Shown, Kin Says

By Virginia Nelson

As he lay dying Monday night, the people whose lives were tied up with his surrounded Chester comer at Oklahoma City General hospital, like the eddies in a pool where a rock has struck.

There was Mrs. J. W. Comer, mother of the 27-year-old man, desperately wounded Monday morning as a suspect in the disappearance of three persons.

Her face as gray as the sad November day outside, Mrs. Comer sat on a divan in the lobby and said the immortal thing that mothers like this always say:

“He was a good boy. I don’t see how he could have done it.”

Chester had never been in any trouble that she knew of. He lived at home when he was working, never caused her any worry.

If young Comer did turn madman and murderer, however, it will not be a new experience for his mother. She has another son, Arnold, 18 years old, confined to the state insane asylum in Arkansas after murdering four people.

Newspaper files showed Arnold Comer killed a cellmate at the asylum Jan. 14, 1933. He was committed to the asylum Oct. 19, 1927, at the age of 14, after the slaying of a man, woman and a baby.

At that time Arnold blamed the “Mistreatment of my brothers Austin and Chester” for leaving his home at Buffalo community, Marion county, Ark.

“I don’t know of any insanity back in our family. I don’t know what happened to my two boys,” she said. “If Chester did this, I believe it was because he went out of his mind worrying over work. He hadn’t had a steady job for nearly a year, and he had his wife to think about, and he got awfully blue.”

Chester’s sister, Edna, 24 years old, sat beside her mother and frantically turned a brown leather bag around and around in her hands as she tried to maintain a semi calm poise. Neatly dressed in a wool sport suit she said she was attending business college, pleaded that the papers didn’t say things that “make me look awful.”

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We thought Chester was getting along all right. He never drank, and always gave us money home when he had an odd job. It was terrible about Arnold, but I still don’t think this could have happened to us, too.”

There was Charles Stevens, father of Lucille Stevens, Comer’s second wife, one of the three missing persons. Stevens agreed with Comer’s mother and sister that the young man had shown no signs of mental disorder.

“I liked the boy,” said Stevens, a farmer living near Maysville “It was through me I reckon you’d say, that him and the girl got married. Me and Chester was working together on a pipeline near Pauls Valley, and I invited him to come out and board at our house and go back and forth with me – thought he could save money that way.

“Him and Lucy struck it right off. She was just 12, but he seemed like a steady, hard-working boy and he wasn’t crazy and worked, and I figured he was about as good as she could do. He’d been living at the house about four weeks when he came around and asked me about him and Lucy.

“I says, Chet, it’s all right with me, but you got to promise to be good to her.”

There were wider-circling eddies. Among them was Mrs. Grace Childers, a sister-in-law of the Elizabeth Childers, Comer’s first wife, whose whereabouts are also unknown. Mrs. Childers went over to Mrs. Comer, introduced herself. The two women talked in low voices about the condition of the wounded man.

But Chester Comer knew nothing of these things as the rock which started the ripples sank toward the depths.

The Oklahoman 11/26/1935

Clothing Comer Gave Second Wife Identified As Other Mate’s; Guard Joins Search Today

Soldiers Are Ordered Out for Renewal Of Extensive Hunt For Five Missing

Clothing which Chester Comer gave his second wife at time of his marriage with the statement it had belonged to “a dead sister” was identified Tuesday as belonging to his first wife.

That development followed announcement by Charles F. Barrett, adjutant general, that national guard units from Wewoka, Konawa, Ada, Chickasha and Norman had been ordered out at 9 a. m. Wednesday to begin an exhaustive search for five persons believed to have been disposed of by Comer.

Barrett’s announcement came as volunteer searchers were abandoning the search to return to their home in some instances after almost a week of work, following disappearance last Tuesday of Ray Evans, Shawnee attorney.

Guardsmen Are Assigned

Guardsmen from Wewoka, Konowa and Ada will report at Ada to the sheriff of Pottawatomie. Those from Chickasha and Norman will report at Blanchard to Eddie Moore, operative of the state bureau of criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, Comer, who was shot through the brain in a gun fight with Constable Oscar Morgan near Blanchard Monday, continued to show signs of improvement Tuesday night at Oklahoma City General hospital. He was given a blood transfusion, but paralysis prevented the unsealing of his lips behind which is believed to lie the solution to the mystery of five missing persons.

W. E. Agee and George Kerr, deputy sheriffs, Tuesday sought John Jones, Oklahoma City car salesman, to see if he could identify Comer. A business cared bearing Jones’s name was used by Comer to write a note which was found in Simpson’s car after the gun fight near Blanchard. Relatives of Jones said he was in Texas on business.

Kin Identifies Clothing

The identification of the clothing was made by Mrs. James Childers, 1319 Northwest Park Place, grandmother of Elizabeth Childers, who married Comer Feb. 16, 1934, and who has been missing since August of that year.

Her face swollen after two days of sobbing, Mrs. Childer’s sad description of dresses and other apparel given her by Charles Stevens. Maysville farmer, father of Comer’s second wife, who is also missing, and by Claud Seymour, Garvin county sheriff, tallied with Elizabeth’s wardrobe.

The items mentioned by Stevens and Seymour, included two yellow hip-length wool jackets, a black and white purse, two pairs of gloves, one black and one white, and several dresses.

Says Bag Was Her’s

“The small, black zipper bag they took out of Comer’s car was Elizabeth’s, too.” She cried. “They showed it to me last night. She bought it when she was working here in town before she got married.”

Stevens said that Comer brought the clothes to his farm near Maysville in December, 1934, when he married Steven’s daughter Lucille.

“He told us they had belonged to his dead sister,” Stevens said.

Shortly after their marriage, Comer and his second wife left the Stevens home, but did not take the jackets, and only one purse and pair of gloves. They also left several of the dresses behind.

Stevens who plans to return to his farm Wednesday after a fruitless search for his daughter, said he would mail the garments to the state crime bureau.

New Identification Fails

Temporary excitement was caused Tuesday night when Vernon Moore and Joe White, salesmen for the Simpson Auto Co., identified Comer as a man who attempted to purchase a car from them at 9:30 p. m. November 19, a few hours after Evans disappeared.

The man, they said, offered them the money in $100 bills and tried to trade in an old car. Suspicious of the deal, they turned it down. The man told them to telephone 2-1393 the next morning and ask for “C. M.”

Agee, deputy sheriff, checked the identification. He learned that Commodore M. Kinton who, until a week ago lived at 3607 South Lee avenue, attempted the purchase and later the same night did purchase a car from Fred Jones, Ford dealer. Kinton was in Fort Smith, Ark., Tuesday night, but Luther Martin, 3005 South Sante Fe avenue, a friend, said he was present at the deal.

May Not Talk Soon

Discouraged officers who had watched above Comer’s bed at the hospital since a state-wide hunt for him ended in a pistol duel with Oscar Morgan, Blanchard marshall, near Blanchard Monday. Tuesday night abandoned hope of hearing his story from his lips any time soon.

They agreed that the bullet which pierced Comer’s brain had paralyzed his organs of speech. They arrived at this conclusion after Comer rallied strongly from a blood transfusion at 4 p. m. Obviously conscious, Comer underwent painful ministrations by his nurses without outcry.

Guard to Open Wide Hunt For Those Missing

At the mention of his brother, Comer made no motion that he understood. But when he was asked if he would like to see his sister, Edna, he tugged strongly at the speaker’s arm.

As searching parties returned empty handed at Ada, Fittstown and Allen, belief that the bodies of L. A. Simpson, Piedmont farmer, and his son Warren, had been dumped in a pasture near Blanchard was strengthened when a farmer said he saw a car with three men in it in the vicinity Sunday.

Saw Car Sunday

The farmer, who told his story to R. T. Simpson, brother of the man who disappeared Saturday after picking up a hitch hiker near his home, said he first saw the car about 1 a. m. Sunday.

About 4 p. m. he saw the same car again, he said, but only one man was in it and he appeared to be asleep. The farmer told his story when a searching party happened to meet him. He said he saw the car about five miles south of Blanchard, not far from the point at which Comer was shot Monday.

The theory that trousers and shirt found in the car in which Comer was shot were those of Warren Simpson, the missing Piedmont farm boy, was blasted Tuesday when relatives of the boy said he was wearing clothing of another description.

Wore Different Clothing

However, Mrs. Mary Snyder, the boy’s grandmother, said Warren was wearing a pair of blue and gray striped overalls, a brown leather jacket, black shoes, a black baseball cap and a gray shirt. The boy has brown hair, brown eyes, and is about 5 feet 10 inches tall.

Four more persons were added to the list of the missing, the solutions of whose fate may lie in the hysterical brain of Comer, when the federal bureau of investigation announced Tuesday that he is considered a likely suspect in another disappearance case.

Called “Likely Suspect”

These four persons were Mr. and Mrs. George M. Lorius and Mr. and Mrs. Albert A. Heberer of East St. Louis, Ill., last seen at a hotel in Albuquerque, N. M., last May 22.

“While there is no definite evidence as yet to link Comer with the Lorius-Herberer case,” Dwight Brantley, agent in charge of the bureau of investigation here, said Tuesday, “We feel at present that he is a likely suspect.”

Comer will be questioned by federal agents as to his whereabouts at the time the Lorius and Heberer couples disappeared, if he regains consciousness, Brantley said.

Handwriting Is Compared

Comparison of handwriting also will be used in probing Comer’s connection with the case, it was understood.

A number of traveler’s checks believed to have been stolen from Lorius and Heberer were cashed last summer at various points in Texas. The indorsement of each check was forged by the person who cashed it.

These checks are in the possession of the department of justice in Washington and furnish a sample of the handwriting of the suspected robber and murderer in the case.

The crudely printed card found in Comer’s pocket may be compared with these checks and a postcard in Comer’s handwriting found here Tuesday.

The Oklahoman 11/27/1935

Continued in Part 2

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