of chicken thefts around the region. While none of the thefts individually amounted to grand larceny, altogether they caused a great loss to the farmers.
Carner, who had previously served time in prison, pleaded guilty to the charges of burglary in the third degree, and petit larceny. He was sentenced to a five-year term at Auburn Prison. His co-conspirator, William English, pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary in the third degree. He was given a ninety-day sentence and ordered to pay a fine of $200 ($2,900 in today’s money).
1938
Just what happens when person A attempts to kill person B, who unknowingly gets person C to kill person D instead?
Dolores Myerly. That name probably means absolutely nothing to you. And there is a good reason for that: she was born in obscurity, she lived in obscurity, and if it weren’t for one little sip of alcohol, she would have died in obscurity.
Little is recorded publicly about Myerly’s life, but here is what I was able to piece together. First, Dolores Myerly was not her real name. She was born Marie Bayouth in Oklahoma on April 19, 1919, to Alex and Bessie Bayouth. She died a bit shy of her nineteenth birthday. Her body was identified by her sister, Mrs. Ted Myerly of Jacksonville, Florida, and then transported back to Tulsa for burial in the Rose Hill Memorial Park Cemetery. Just how and when Marie Bayouth transformed herself into Dolores Myerly is neither known, nor needed, to tell her story.
Perhaps the most important thing to note was that Myerly was supposedly a member of the world’s oldest profession. She had been staying at the San Juan Hotel in Orlando, Florida, for the ten days prior to her death. On February 15, 1938, Myerly found herself in Jack Holloway’s, a bar within a short walking distance of her room at the hotel. It was there that she met forty-one-year-old Robert Etty of nearby Pine Castle, and the two struck up a conversation.
A pudgy, balding painter by trade, Etty was making ends meet through a combination of legitimate work at the bar and dealing illegal card games in the rear of the establishment to supplement his income. Etty later said, “I’d never been with her before, but I’d heard several of the fellows talking about her. She asked me for $15 to pay her room rent, and I told her that I didn’t have it but that I’d try to get it.” He added, “She told me that I was just giving her the runaround, but I told her I’d see her about midnight, after I got off from work.”
Dolores Myerly had just made a date with death.
Around 11:45 that evening, Etty made his way up to room 208 at the San Juan. He was greeted by Myerly, who was scantily clad in a thin silk slip, stockings, and shoes. As Myerly got closer to Etty, she could feel a miniature bottle of alcohol in his pocket. He offered her a drink, and she mixed the bottle’s contents with water in a tumbler. Etty said, “Hey, don’t drink it all, save some for me.”
He then described what happened next. “She put the tumbler to her lips, took a sip, started to walk toward the bathroom and came back toward me, asking, ‘What did you put in this?’ ”
Those were the last words that Dolores Myerly, a.k.a. Marie Bayouth, ever said. She suddenly dropped to the floor near the foot of her bed.
Postcard of the San Juan Hotel dated “Not After 1941.”
Etty panicked and immediately sought help. While awaiting assistance, he tried to comfort Myerly by applying wet towels to her head. Dr. Duncan McEwan, a resident of the hotel, was first on the scene, but was unable to revive her. He stated, “The girl died within five minutes after I arrived.”
The fact that Myerly succumbed so quickly, coupled with the distinct almond smell observed on both the tumbler and bottle, brought the immediate suspicion of cyanide poisoning. That would later be confirmed by laboratory tests.
A search by police of Myerly’s room turned up nothing out of the ordinary: a newly penned letter to her sister expressing how much she liked Orlando and its residents, a couple of newly purchased suitcases, a new pair of riding boots, some change in her pocketbook, eight one-dollar bills hidden inside a package of Kleenex tissues, several pawn tickets, and a number of love letters. On her dresser was a dog-eared copy of Love Stories. There was also the usual assortment of clothing and toiletries, but not a single shred of evidence suggested that she was unhappy or intended to take her own life.
This could mean only one thing: Etty murdered Myerly with that poisoned bottle of alcohol. But if he was the murderer, why did he seek help so quickly? Was he trying to cover his tracks by pretending to be concerned?
Etty was the one and only suspect in the case, but he offered up the most bizarre of excuses. He claimed that an unidentified man had given him the poisoned whisky about forty-five minutes prior to his meeting with Myerly. “He had the bottle in his hand at the time and I asked him what he was going to do with it. He tried to hand it to me saying, ‘You take it, I don’t drink whisky—I drink beer.’ ” Etty continued, “I offered to buy him a bottle of beer and we went into the taproom and he drank it. As he left, he stuck the bottle of whisky in my pocket.” Etty added that the man said something about losing $125 in a poker game and described the unknown suspect as “wearing a small mustache, [weighing] about 130 pounds and [standing at about] 5 feet 7 inches tall.”
Robert Etty was then placed under arrest as the police began their investigation. Accompanied by a detective, he was released from jail just long enough to search for the mysterious mustachioed man, if he truly did exist.
Their first stop was the tavern itself. Owner Jack Holloway confirmed that Etty had purchased a bottle of beer for someone who matched the mystery man’s description. Yet, he was unable to confirm that this man had passed the tainted bottle of whisky to Etty. A porter at Holloway’s was able to supply one piece of evidence critical to the search: he remembered that the suspect was having problems with his dentures.
A check with local dentists led them right to the suspect.
On February 17, police arrested Donald Long at his home at 627 East Washington Street in Orlando. The thirty-three-year-old, married, father of two fit Etty’s description perfectly, excluding the fact that he was clean shaven. Under questioning, Long admitted that he had shaved his mustache off the previous evening.
Long wasn’t exactly what one would call a model citizen. In 1931, he was sentenced to two years in the penitentiary for stealing a car. After his release in 1934, he somehow landed a job as a plainclothes officer for the Orlando Police Department. After public outcry over his appointment, he was transferred to the city’s sanitation department to drive a truck. Long had also been questioned in the unsolved October 5, 1937, murder of a man named Frank Beane. Shortly after the murder took place, Long contacted Sheriff J. C. Stone, who later testified, “He called me on the telephone and asked me to come out and get the gun, which he claimed was hidden in his garage by an unidentified person. His exact words were: ‘You come and get it. I’m afraid it might have been used in a murder.’ ” Sure enough, a gun of similar caliber to the one used in Beane’s murder was found in Long’s garage. But we’ll get back to that later…
Upon being brought in for questioning on the death of Dolores Myerly, Long asked the officer to stop at a local drugstore so he could purchase two capsules of sodium amytal (the legal limit without a prescription at the time), which he downed with a bottle of beer. Needless to say, he was whacked out of his mind by the time he arrived at the police station. As he sobered up, Long admitted to everything except giving Etty the bottle of liquor and gambling away $125. He also denied ever
