Prison City Murders – Epidemic of Murder – Case 29 (Part 1 of 2)

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5:30 pm, Friday, October 1st, 1909.Swope Mansion, 406 South Pleasant Street, Independence, Missouri

James Moss Hunton dines alone in the huge dining room of the cavernous Swope mansion. Although Cousin Moss — as he is known to the family — has felt unwell for several days, he is not one to let an upset stomach overcome his natural friendliness and good manners. So, when Pearl Kellar, a private nurse to his cousin, multimillionaire developer, Thomas Hunton Swope, passes by the dining room, he politely asks her to join him. Shortly after, the lady of the house, Mrs. Margaret Swope (widowed sister-in-law of Thomas) returns home from an afternoon of ‘calling on friends,’ with her daughter, Mrs. Frances Hyde. Suddenly Cousin Moss announces “I feel so peculiar. Everything is so dizzy before me.”

Nurse Kellar attends to him in the library, while Mrs. Swope calls the family doctor and Frances’s husband, Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde.

Cousin Moss’s condition rapidly deteriorates. Both doctors agree that he is suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. The accepted treatment at the time is to ‘bleed off’ the patient to lessen the pressure on the brain. An incision is made in the patient’s arm and allowed to bleed for a time. This has no helpful effect, and Cousin Moss is dead by 8:30 pm.

According to Nurse Kellar, 20 minutes later, as she is preparing the body for the undertaker, Dr. Hyde pulls her aside and says, “As soon as you have some leisure, I want to have a private talk with you.”