Holden black widow escapes Angola electric chair

Margaret Jean Davis admitted to shooting her common-law husband on August 9, 1961, inside their home one mile south of Holden. Robert Ellis Harrison’s homicide marked the third time Margaret Jean became widowed after a suspicious and violent death.

Following an autopsy, Coroner Edwin Walker said that Harrison’s “death by gunshot wound” resulted from the entry of one bullet from a .32-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver into the right side of his chest.

The 21^st Judicial District Court indicted Margaret Jean on Wednesday, September 20, 1961, officially charging her with the murder. They arraigned her on Wednesday, October 4, 1961, incarcerating her in Livingston. Margaret Jean’s murder trial began on April Fool’s Day in 1962.

Chief Deputy Odom Graves and Sergeant Clyde Bridges of State Police Troop A both testified the defendant told them she accidentally shot her significant other as the two struggled over the gun.

At trial, Defense Counselor Ossie Brown, part of a three-person defense team along with Jerry Bunch and Erlo Durbin, lodged a general objection to any testimony from the deputies about statements made by the defendant. Brown said Assistant District Attorney W. M. Dawkins had laid no foundation for such admissions during the State’s opening arguments.

Judge Warren Comish overruled the objection and allowed the witnesses to testify before the jury.

The victim’s sister, Dolly Marie Carlton, and her husband, Elliot, testified that Harrison and his wife argued all afternoon on the day Harrison died. The Loranger family spent the day at the couple’s home, arriving about nine that morning to help build a chicken coop.

Later, Robert Harrison rode with Elliot Carlton to have his car repaired. On the way, Harrison told Elliot he and his wife had not been getting along for a few weeks.

Dolly Marie testified that Margaret Jean had threatened to kill her brother on the day of the shooting, and Elliot testified that she threatened to kill Robert Harrison on multiple occasions. However, during cross-examination, both testified that they did not think enough of the threats to warn the victim.

The Carltons left the residence south of Holden about 4:45 that evening.

After they left, according to what Margaret jean told the police officers, Harrison went to the bathroom and began shaving.

As he did, she approached him to talk about finances. The Louisiana Highway Department won a lawsuit against the couple one month earlier, forcing them to pay 207 dollars and sixty-one cents. Harrison told Margaret Jean not to worry. He was headed to Hammond to get some money.

When Margaret Jean told him the banks were not open, he said, “Closed or not; I know how to get the money. Hand me that gun.”

Harrison stepped to a closet to get a shirt, and his wife pulled a .32 Smith and Wesson from a dresser drawer. Harrison reached for the gun, Margaret Jean later told police, and a brawl started. During the struggle, the gun fired, and Harrison fell to the floor, moaning.

Margaret Jean, who had no telephone, drove to Holden to call an ambulance. At the Holden post office, she said, she saw Sergeant Bridges’ vehicle. She told him what happened, and he followed her back to the house, where they found Harrison dead.

Bridges radioed the sheriff’s office, and the radio operator notified the district attorney and coroner.

In addition to Graves and Bridges, state witnesses included Livingston Parish Sheriff Taft Faust, Deputy James Lott, Livingston Marshall John Sartwell, Livingston Parish Coroner Dr. Edwin Walker, and John Koche, a former state police laboratory criminologist.

Koche testified that the bullet taken from the body and a test bullet fired from the pistol and admitted in evidence matched ballistically. He also explained the weapon would only fire if someone pressed the trigger, and he pounded the gun on the edge of the witness box to demonstrate. As he described, hitting the hammer did not cause the gun to fire.

During cross-examination, Ossie Brown took the pistol from Koche and again hit the hammer on the edge of the jury box during his cross-examination until it clicked.

When District Attorney Duncan Kemp told Koche to try again, the ballistics expert pounded the jury box until the pistol broke, but the hammer never fell.

On the last day of the trial, Ossie Brown began by insisting that Margaret Jean, a petite woman of one hundred pounds, would never intentionally challenge a six-foot-tall man who weighed two hundred pounds. That fact alone, he insisted, should prove the shooting was an accident.

Brown also blasted the district attorney for bringing the case to court and ended his defense by introducing the victim’s criminal record.

Harrison served time in Mississippi’s Parchman Penitentiary for burglary and escaped twice. The last time, he slugged a guard and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Ossie Brown represented him at trial.

Harrison, a reputed member of the cross-roaders gang (later called the Dixie Mafia), was on parole at the time of his death. Witnesses testified that his behavior during parole was satisfactory. However, no one in court or the trial’s newspaper coverage mentioned Ossie Brown’s history of representing cross-roaders.

Before the court, Defense Attorney Erlo Durbin mocked the State’s case in his closing argument, saying, “You gentlemen wouldn’t convict Stalin of playing ping pong on the evidence submitted by the state in this case.”

Durbin paused his closing arguments to smile at a little girl. Margaret Jean’s three-year-old daughter, the only witness to the killing, ran in and out of the courtroom throughout the trial.

Durbin shook his head side-to-side, prompting Ossie Brown to stand and say, “The State should be ashamed, trying to send this little girl’s mother to the electric chair.”

Before the trial began, Judge Warren Comish barred District Attorney Duncan Kemp from telling the grand jury about Margaret Jean’s probation and her manslaughter sentence. In 1950, she shot her first husband during an argument over a bar of soap.

Her second husband died in an Amite bar. Entering the place, he found his wife sitting with another man. An argument ensued, and someone in the bar shot husband number two dead. However, witnesses at the bar could not agree on who fired the fatal shot.

At 5:25 on the evening of Tuesday, April 3, 1962, Margaret Jean Davis sat crying, awaiting the verdict as the grand jury filed back into the courtroom. Having deliberated a full nine minutes, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and the accused “Black Widow,” Margaret Jean Davis, walked free a third time.