Kentwood banker freed on uxoricide charge
Friday evening, March 22, 1929, Walter B. Burris, a cashier of the Bank of Kentwood, shot and killed his wife. He placed her gently on a couch and kissed her as their daughter looked on. The man kissed both goodbye before walking a mile into Kentwood and surrendering to police, refusing to explain his actions.
According to the couple’s second oldest daughter, one of five children, her mother, Ida, was cooking supper when her father walked into the kitchen through the back door. He drew a revolver and fired one shot into the back of her mother’s head without speaking to anyone.
Ida Burris fell over upon a table, dead.
The daughter was the only other person in the house with the couple when the shooting occurred and the only witness against her father.
Two Kentwood Police officials told The Hammond Vindicator they could determine no cause for the trouble between the middle-aged couple beyond the occasional family quarrels. These officers took Burris to Amite shortly after the killing and locked him up.
District Attorney Lee Ponder charged Burris with Uxoricide, the act of a man killing his wife, something considered in 1929 only to afflict people who were legally insane.
The following Sunday morning, just after ten, calm but seemingly heartbroken, Walter Burris watched the wife he had slain lowered to her grave. Kentwood Police escorted him to the service after Judge Columbus Reid temporarily freed him from confinement under a ten-thousand-dollar bond.
Reverend C. Walton Jones, pastor of the Kentwood Baptist Church, and the Reverend William Cutrer, pastor of the Spring Creek Baptist Church, officiated the funeral in Kentwood Cemetery. Over one thousand mourners attended the service.
Three days later, the grand jury indicted Walter Burris for his wife’s murder, and Judge Nate Tycer revoked the banker’s bond. His attorneys, Colonel Amos Ponder and Judge Robert Ellis, filed a petition asking for the appointment of a lunacy commission to determine the man’s mental condition.
In answer to the petition, the judge created a commission composed of Dr. Luther E. Ricks, parish coroner, Dr. Thomas J. Perkins, superintendent of the Jackson asylum, and Dr. Glenn J. Smith, the superintendent of the Pineville asylum. When they came together, he ordered the commission to “make such examinations as are warranted and report its findings” to the court.
Monday, October 22, 1929, the commission reported to Judge Tycer that they adjudged Walter Burris “temporarily insane” at the time of his wife’s murder. However, they believed he was now sane again. Unconvinced, Judge Tycer remanded Burris to the Pineville Asylum for a nine-month evaluation.
Wednesday, June 18, 1930, the Associated Press reported:
“Walter Burris, who has been confined in the East Louisiana hospital for insane under an order or the court, today was freed when declared sane by a trial Jury which reached a verdict in less than five minutes, and this ends the case, it was announced afterward by the authorities.”
The commission declared Walter Burris sane and set him free.
And the Associated Press report concluded, “District Attorney Lee Ponder looked after the state’s interest in the case” throughout the final hearing.
I’m still scratching my head over this one.
If you have any thoughts on this one, please drop me a note.
He went insane, killed his wife while his daughter looked on, served nine months in an insane asylum, and then walked free. When he got out, he moved to Franklinton, remarried, and opened a bakery.
If justice was served in this case, someone knew something we don’t. I wonder if Walter confessed to keeping his daughter from prison, and perhaps the authorities knew this and helped him.
What do you think?