Chapter 7: 1937-1939, Murder

“How do I look, Mama?” Flossie asked as she spun around in front of her mother. “Very pretty, but I wish you’d find a nice young man to go and settle down with.”

2 “I think I’ve found a man to ‘settle down with,’” Flossie smiled. “I’m not gonna say another word,” her mother promised. “That’s probably for the best!” Flossie agreed.

3 Just then, someone honked a car horn on the street in front of their mill village home. “That’s him now!” Flossie exclaimed as she grabbed her purse and headed for the front door.

4 “Be careful tonight. It’s stormin out there!” Mrs. Putman warned. “Oh, Mama! You worry way too much,” Flossie giggled as she pushed open the door and stepped out onto the porch.

5 A few seconds later, she opened the car door and slid into the front seat next to Jim. “Where we going tonight?” she asked with a smile. “I don’t know. I thought we’d head out to the White Castle,” he replied.

6 “That little dive!” Flossie pouted. “I like it!” Jim insisted. The car’s headlights came to life as they rolled down the rapidly darkening street of the Dallas Mill Village where the Putmans lived.

7 By the time the lovers reached the saloon, the smile was gone from Flossie’s face. “I’m tired of always going to places where people won’t see us together,” she grumbled as she slammed the car door. They walked across the gravel parking lot toward the entrance without speaking or holding hands.

8 Then Jim grabbed her around the waste from behind and directed her toward a table in the corner. Although they both began drinking, Flossie’s frustration grew as she watched Jim down one shot after another.

9 “When are you going to tell your wife about us?” she pressed. “When I’m good and damn ready too!” he exclaimed. “Leave it alone.” “The hell I will!” Flossie proclaimed.

10 “You’re getting too excited, baby,” Jim whispered through clenched teeth. “Let’s go talk in the car a while,” he insisted as he grabbed her by the arm and headed for the door.

11 It was raining hard now, so they both rushed back across the parking lot to the car. “I mean it, Jim. If you can’t find the backbone to tell her, I will,” Flossie resumed as soon as they were both inside. “You’ll do no such a thing,” Jim growled. “You hide and watch me,” she smirked.

12 At that, the back of his hand made a sickening thud against her mouth and nose. There was blood everywhere. Flossie stumbled out of the car and ran back into the saloon.

13 “Do you need a doctor, Miss?” the bartender asked. “No, no, that’s OK. I just slipped and fell in the damn parking lot. Just leave me the hell alone!” she screamed. She stumbled back to the table they had both occupied a few minutes before and took another drink.

14 There was a loud clap of thunder, and the door to the saloon swung open again. Jim quickly crossed the floor and rejoined her at the table. “Look, baby, I’m sorry,” he began. “But this is no place to do this. Let’s go somewhere where we can have some privacy and talk about it.”

15 She was hurt and confused, but she consented to return to the car with him. They were both drenched, and she was shaking. “I mean it, Jim McAnally. You tell her tonight, or I’ll tell her tomorrow!”

16 There was a determination in her voice and eyes that he had never seen before. Jim felt trapped - like a caged animal.

17 His hands were around her neck before he knew what was happening. She began clawing and scratching and struggling, but he didn’t release his grip until she had stopped resisting him. When he finally let go, she was dead.

18 “Oh, my God!” he thought aloud. “What have I done?” His mind was racing. “What am I going to do now?”

19 He cranked the car and headed off into the rain and darkness. He drove and drove with no particular destination in mind.

20 Then, suddenly, he was home. The house was dark. Martha and the kids were visiting her mother. No one was home, and it had stopped raining.

21 He got out of the car and slowly walked around to the passenger side. His eyes darted back and forth as he scanned the neighborhood to make sure that no one was watching. He opened the door and grabbed Flossie’s now lifeless body under the arms and drug her out of the car.

22 It all seemed surreal to him. She was cold, and her body seemed to be frozen in the seated position she had occupied in his car. He quickly dragged her into the house and stuffed her in the front closet and closed the door.

23 After leaning against the door for a few minutes, exhaustion seemed to envelope him. He walked into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.

24 In the morning, he awoke to a splitting headache. “Was it all a horrible dream?” he wondered.

25 He went back to the closet door and hesitated a moment before opening it. It wasn’t a dream. Flossie was still there. Her now cloudy eyes were staring blankly at the wall behind him.

26 He went out to the garage and got a shovel, crowbar and hammer and returned to the house. He was surprised at how naturally it all came to him. There wasn’t much thought or planning involved. It was as if he was operating on instinct now.

27 He pried up some of the floor boards in the kitchen and began digging in the red soil under the house. It wasn’t long until he was finished. Jim was crying as he lowered the corpse into the hole and began to pull the dirt in over it. He was sobbing by the time he had finished.

28 “No time for this,” he thought. Martha and the children would be home soon. He had to hurry. He grabbed the boards and hammered them back into place and replaced the rug that had been there before he’d started.

29 There was only one problem with his handiwork. In his haste, Jim hadn’t noticed that he had flipped some of the floorboards when he replaced them. The undersides of those boards were a slightly different color and texture from the sides which had been facing up since the house was built. Those surfaces had not been exposed to human traffic and light. Jim, however, wasn’t paying attention to the color of the wood he was nailing back into place. He was a little distracted by other considerations at the moment.

30 He packed a suitcase full of clothes and returned to the car. He was still in a daze as he crossed the border into Mississippi. Jim eventually stopped running in Texas, but it would be a couple of months before anyone in Huntsville heard from him again.

31 In the meantime, Mrs. Putman had reported her daughter missing at the beginning of May. Chief Blakemore of the Huntsville Police began his investigation almost immediately, but he quickly came to a dead end.

32 He learned that Jim had been seen with Flossie at the White Castle the evening of her disappearance, but Mr. McAnally was never home when he stopped by to talk to him about that night. Finally, Martha admitted that Jim had disappeared at about the same time as Flossie.

33 Months passed without any new developments in the case. Life went on as if nothing had happened. Chief Blakemore decided to run for sheriff of Madison County and won.

34 Then, one day, Martha McAnally burst into his office and proclaimed that she had heard from Jim. “He’s in McKinney, Texas. He found a job there, and he’s sent for me and the children to join him there,” she reported. “I see,” the sheriff said as he casually scratched his head.

35 “Well, then, you won’t mind if I look around the house before you leave for Texas?” he asked. “Yes, I would mind that very much!” she snorted. “Everything is fine now,” she insisted and promptly turned around and left the office.

36 Sheriff Blakemore, however, wasn’t as convinced as Mrs. McAnally appeared to be that everything was “fine now.” Even so, there wasn’t much he could do under the circumstances.

37 Moreover, when Jim’s wife and children vacated the premises, his father occupied the house. And Edward McAnally was just as adamant about not allowing any searches as his daughter-in-law had been.

38 “I’m not getting in that house without a search warrant,” he told one of his deputies. “And I’m not going to get one of those issued on a hunch.”

39 It had been a little over two years since Flossie had disappeared when the sheriff received a report from one of the McAnally’s’ neighbors that changed everything. “My dog keeps trying to dig up something at the back of Ed’s house,” Mr. Cantrell reported.

40 With that information in hand, Sheriff Blakemore was finally able to persuade a judge to grant him a search warrant. He quickly assembled a team of deputies and headed for the McAnally residence.

41 They discovered the discolored floorboards in the kitchen within fifteen minutes of entering the house. A few minutes later, they were digging in the same red dirt that Jim had excavated just two years before.

42 What remained of Flossie was still there. The skeleton was discovered in a seated position. Mrs. Putman identified the tattered shoes and clothing as her daughter’s the following day.

43 The sheriff placed Ed under arrest, and Jim was arrested in Texas a few days later. It would take a little more time to have him extradited back to Alabama. Nevertheless, Flossie had finally made good on her promise to reveal Jim’s secret to the world.

44 “I’m sure there’s been some mistake,” Albert tried to reassure his brother. He simply could not believe that the nephew that was his namesake (James Albert) was a murderer.

45 “I think the sheriff is just tryin to frame my boy!” Ed declared. “He may be doin all of this just to make sure he gets reelected,” Albert agreed.

46 Everyone in Merrimack (and greater Huntsville) was talking about what had happened. As a consequence, the McAnally clan quickly closed ranks, and the legend of Jim’s innocence was born. After all, this was a swipe at the reputation of the entire family, and it couldn’t be allowed to go unanswered.

47 Jim, however, was eventually convicted of the crime and sent to a prison near Montgomery to serve out his life sentence. Although Jim died in prison a few years later, his family and friends could never quite bring themselves to believe that one of their own could have been involved in such a sordid affair.