BODIES DUG UP IN POISON QUIZ: EVENING STAR, MARCH 13, 1956

A state highway patrolman stood guard while they opened the graves. On March 12, 1956, investigators in Alabama dug up the body of George Garrett, who had died in 1939, and the body of his daughter Ellyn, who had died in 1943 at eleven, and the next day the Evening Star in Washington printed the Associated Press report from Montgomery on an inside page. Both were family of Rhonda Bell Martin, a 49-year-old waitress arrested at Mobile the Friday before and charged with murdering her fourth husband, Claude Martin, whose exhumed body, the assistant state attorney general, MacDonald Gallion, said, showed traces of arsenic.

Gallion had more graves on his list. Besides Garrett, he said, the bodies of five children and of Mrs. Martin's own mother would be examined, and all seven had died with "acute diarrhea and vomiting characteristic of arsenic poisoning." The children had names the paper does not give. Emogene Garrett was three when she died in 1937, Ann Carolyn was six in 1940, and Ellyn followed in 1943. Her mother, Mary Frances Gibbon, followed in 1944, and Claude Martin, at fifty-one, in 1951. Each death had been put down to illness.

The report saves its strangest fact for the end. Martin had been married five times, Gallion said, and her present husband, Ronald Martin, was the son of the dead Claude; he had married his former stepmother eight months after his father's death. What the item does not say is that it was Ronald's illness in Mobile, which left him a paraplegic, that had led investigators back through the deaths around her. She confessed to six poisonings and was charged with all six, but she was tried only for Claude Martin's murder, convicted and sentenced to death. She died in the electric chair at Kilby Prison on October 11, 1957.

This is a short wire story built almost entirely on what one official, MacDonald Gallion, told reporters in the first days of the inquiry; it is not a court record, and nothing in it had been proved when it ran. The paper prints her middle name as Bell, while other records give Belle. Its seven deaths under investigation are not the count of her crimes: she later admitted poisoning six people, denied killing two other children who had died young and was never charged with them, and was convicted of a single murder, the first-degree murder of Claude Martin.

The issue dates from 1956, inside the last ninety-five years, so the Library of Congress gives its fuller statement: it believes the paper is in the public domain but cautions that newspapers this recent may contain some copyrighted third-party material. The story itself is Associated Press copy, credited "(AP)" in the dateline, and the same page carries other syndicated matter, a Walt Disney "True Life Adventures" feature; no copyright notice is printed on this article. The scan is the Library's copy in Chronicling America, with its citation and rights statement underneath.

The column is printed cleanly and is transcribed in full, with no word marked illegible. The paper's slip "higway" for highway is left as it stands, along with the wire's own forms: "Mar. 13," "kinspeople," "State" with a capital, and the semicolon in the list of the dead. The page is numbered 36 in the scanned issue but printed as B-7, and the story ends in this column.

Scan of a single narrow column from page B-7 of the Washington Evening Star, March 13, 1956: a bold two-line headline, "Bodies Dug Up In Poison Quiz," over six short paragraphs datelined Montgomery, Alabama, with slivers of neighboring items at the edges. No photograph. — Evening Star (Washington, District of Columbia), March 13, 1956, page 36, column 3: "Bodies Dug Up In Poison Quiz." Library of Congress, Chronicling America (LCCN sn83045462).Select the scan to open it at full size. The full newspaper page: JPG or PDF.Rights: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety." This issue was published in 1956. Because it is less than 95 years old, the Library of Congress notes that issues like it may contain some copyrighted third-party material.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

Bodies Dug Up In Poison Quiz

MONTGOMERY, Ala., Mar. 13 (AP).—Investigators yesterday dug up the bodies of another former husband and a daughter of a waitress who has already been charged with poisoning one former husband.

Mrs. Rhonda Bell Martin, 49, was arrested at Mobile Friday on a charge of murdering her fourth husband, Claude Martin, who died in Montgomery five years ago. Mr. Martin's body, exhumed last week, showed traces of arsenic, assistant State attorney general MacDonald Gallion said.

At the time of Mrs. Martin's arrest, Mr. Gallion also said authorities were investigating the deaths of seven other kinspeople of the dark-haired 170-pound waitress.

He said the bodies of another former husband, George Garrett; five children and Mrs. Martin's mother also would be examined for evidence of arsenic poisoning. All seven suffered from acute diarrhea and vomiting characteristic of arsenic poisoning.

With a State higway patrolman on guard, the bodies of Mr. Garrett and his 11-year-old daughter, Ellyn, were taken from their graves yesterday. The father died in 1939; the girl in 1943.

Mrs. Martin has been married five times, Mr. Gallion said. Her present husband, Ronald Martin, is the son of the dead Claude Martin. Ronald and his former stepmother were married eight months after his father's death.