1
00:00:00,530 --> 00:00:05,150
Last time, sister mine, we left
Joseph on a lonely road in Louisiana,

2
00:00:05,150 --> 00:00:09,270
and we asked who else might
have been on that road with him.

3
00:00:09,270 --> 00:00:11,950
I know her record has something for us.

4
00:00:11,950 --> 00:00:14,130
How many does the record say, Emmie?

5
00:00:14,790 --> 00:00:17,370
There were three people
in that car, Vangie.

6
00:00:17,370 --> 00:00:22,490
Joseph Calloway, Toni Jo Henry,
and a man the newspapers called Arkansas,

7
00:00:22,490 --> 00:00:23,370
sis.

8
00:00:23,370 --> 00:00:27,490
I have brought every story people
have told about that road for the last

9
00:00:27,490 --> 00:00:28,570
eighty years.

10
00:00:28,570 --> 00:00:32,270
Some of them have been told so many
times they feel like scripture.

11
00:00:32,270 --> 00:00:34,670
Then here's how we'll do it tonight.

12
00:00:34,670 --> 00:00:38,870
You tell me the story that lasted,
and I'll lay down what the record

13
00:00:38,870 --> 00:00:40,170
can show beside it.

14
00:00:40,170 --> 00:00:43,030
You know, every time I look at this map,

15
00:00:43,150 --> 00:00:47,730
I think about notre petit soleil. She grew
up around this part of our world.

16
00:00:47,730 --> 00:00:49,110
You know, our little sun.

17
00:00:49,110 --> 00:00:51,290
She'd have something to say about it, too.

18
00:00:51,290 --> 00:00:52,870
She always does.

19
00:00:52,870 --> 00:00:56,210
God love her and all
his angels protect her.

20
00:00:56,210 --> 00:00:57,290
She would.

21
00:00:57,290 --> 00:01:01,210
But tonight we're here
for Joseph and for Toni Jo,

22
00:01:01,430 --> 00:01:02,870
so let's give them the room.

23
00:01:03,050 --> 00:01:05,190
Here's the way the story is usually told.

24
00:01:05,190 --> 00:01:10,090
Toni Jo was working in a Shreveport house
when a down-on-his-luck boxer called

25
00:01:10,090 --> 00:01:12,950
Cowboy walked in, in the fall of 1939,

26
00:01:12,950 --> 00:01:15,810
and the two of them fell hard.

27
00:01:15,810 --> 00:01:21,190
Other tellings put that first meeting
in Beaumont or in Austin or years

28
00:01:21,190 --> 00:01:21,690
earlier.

29
00:01:21,690 --> 00:01:24,810
The stories can't even agree
on the doorway they met in.

30
00:01:24,810 --> 00:01:28,170
And we haven't found a record
of that first meeting at all.

31
00:01:28,170 --> 00:01:32,930
What we have is a Texas newspaper
that February, citing the sheriff,

32
00:01:32,930 --> 00:01:36,390
dating their marriage
to November 25th, 1939.

33
00:01:36,390 --> 00:01:39,730
The marriage record
itself is still missing.

34
00:01:40,290 --> 00:01:45,130
Then comes the part people love:
a honeymoon out in southern California,

35
00:01:45,130 --> 00:01:48,170
and Cowboy getting her off
drugs while they were out there.

36
00:01:48,550 --> 00:01:51,270
That honeymoon has no
source we've found yet.

37
00:01:51,270 --> 00:01:56,070
The drug story is one Toni Jo
herself told a reporter much later.

38
00:01:56,070 --> 00:02:00,270
We're saving her own words for the final
episode so she can say them

39
00:02:00,270 --> 00:02:00,810
herself.

40
00:02:01,210 --> 00:02:05,730
The story goes on that a telegram
called Cowboy back to Texas to face

41
00:02:05,730 --> 00:02:09,570
an old shooting charge,
and that it came as a terrible surprise.

42
00:02:09,950 --> 00:02:13,790
She begged him to run,
and he went back to stand trial anyway.

43
00:02:14,390 --> 00:02:16,670
Here the record pushes back a little.

44
00:02:16,670 --> 00:02:21,210
A Texas appeals court had already
overturned Cowboy's murder conviction

45
00:02:21,210 --> 00:02:24,610
and sent it back
for retrial in January 1939,

46
00:02:24,610 --> 00:02:26,930
ten months before that wedding.

47
00:02:26,930 --> 00:02:30,570
The case was already part
of his life when she married him.

48
00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:36,180
So whatever was in that telegram,
it wasn't news that the case existed.

49
00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:39,760
But I'll grant the story
this much, dear heart.

50
00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:44,500
A woman can know a thing,
and still not believe it's really coming.

51
00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:46,020
Then there's the courtroom.

52
00:02:46,580 --> 00:02:48,640
The story says that when he was sentenced,

53
00:02:49,020 --> 00:02:51,680
she shouted out loud
that they'd taken her man,

54
00:02:51,740 --> 00:02:53,460
and swore she'd get him out.

55
00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:55,420
Prison records show the sentence.

56
00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:58,540
Convicted February 2, 1940.

57
00:02:58,540 --> 00:03:02,760
Received into prison on the 8th,
a 50-year entry.

58
00:03:03,120 --> 00:03:05,940
We haven't found any record
of what she said that day.

59
00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:08,400
Here's the telling of it everybody knows.

60
00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:11,100
She meant to break Cowboy out of prison.

61
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:15,420
She needed money, guns, and clothes
for him to wear when he walked out.

62
00:03:15,660 --> 00:03:18,160
She found a partner
who claimed to know the prison,

63
00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:20,100
and they set out to rob a bank.

64
00:03:20,300 --> 00:03:24,980
Court records we've read actually say
the Louisiana Supreme Court's summary

65
00:03:24,980 --> 00:03:29,300
in the partner's appeal says the two
of them were carrying out a preconceived

66
00:03:29,300 --> 00:03:30,980
plan to rob a bank.

67
00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:32,840
And the jailbreak, Emmie?

68
00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:34,700
Where does that part come in?

69
00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:37,080
It isn't in the opinions we've read.

70
00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:39,640
They don't say what the bank money was for.

71
00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:43,620
We're still looking for an early
source that ties the plan to Cowboy.

72
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:48,240
So the heart of the legend,
the love story behind the whole plan,

73
00:03:48,500 --> 00:03:51,280
is the one piece the record
hasn't confirmed yet.

74
00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:52,760
That doesn't make it false.

75
00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:56,720
It means we hold it as the story
people tell until we find it

76
00:03:56,720 --> 00:03:58,460
written down closer to the time.

77
00:03:58,600 --> 00:04:01,220
Court documents call him Finnon Burks.

78
00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:06,660
The Lake Charles paper gave his name
as Horace Finnon Burks, 23 years old.

79
00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:10,580
In the papers,
he was mostly Arkansas, or Arkie.

80
00:04:10,820 --> 00:04:15,200
As the stories go, they make him
an ex-convict and an army deserter,

81
00:04:15,580 --> 00:04:18,980
a man who said he knew
the prison and talked a big game.

82
00:04:18,980 --> 00:04:23,840
We haven't checked his military
or prison history yet, so for now,

83
00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:26,700
that stays in your stack, Vangie, not mine.

84
00:04:27,540 --> 00:04:28,880
23 and 24.

85
00:04:29,420 --> 00:04:33,140
Two young people out on the highway
with a plan bigger than either

86
00:04:33,140 --> 00:04:33,700
of them.

87
00:04:34,260 --> 00:04:38,380
The way it's told, they were thumbing
rides and posing as newlyweds,

88
00:04:38,580 --> 00:04:42,200
and a salesman from Houston stopped
for them on Valentine's Day.

89
00:04:42,420 --> 00:04:47,340
Court summaries agree they were hitchhiking
and that Joseph Calloway gave them a ride.

90
00:04:47,340 --> 00:04:50,560
It says they held him up
and robbed him of his belongings

91
00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:51,760
and his car.

92
00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:57,980
The story says they took his clothes
so Cowboy would have something to wear

93
00:04:57,980 --> 00:04:59,420
when they broke him out.

94
00:04:59,740 --> 00:05:02,060
The court summary gives a different reason.

95
00:05:02,520 --> 00:05:06,820
It says his clothing was taken
to delay pursuit if his body was found.

96
00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:11,500
So we're hearing even the clothes off
his back got two different stories.

97
00:05:11,900 --> 00:05:16,560
Our court summary says Joseph
was on his knees begging for his life when

98
00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:17,300
he was shot.

99
00:05:17,700 --> 00:05:21,100
The Lake Charles paper placed it
behind a haystack near the city.

100
00:05:21,100 --> 00:05:25,200
Every single telling I've read
rushes past this part to get back

101
00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:26,220
to the love story.

102
00:05:26,540 --> 00:05:27,820
I don't want us to.

103
00:05:28,260 --> 00:05:32,380
That was a man with a wife
and a daughter and brothers and sisters,

104
00:05:32,380 --> 00:05:34,900
and he was asking to go home.

105
00:05:35,100 --> 00:05:36,320
He truly was.

106
00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:38,920
He wanted to go home to that family.

107
00:05:39,380 --> 00:05:42,820
Whatever else we learn in this
story that part doesn't change.

108
00:05:42,820 --> 00:05:48,000
As the story goes, they drove on into
Arkansas and that Arkie got scared

109
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:51,120
of how far she'd go and left
her there with nothing.

110
00:05:51,500 --> 00:05:55,140
That is indeed one place the old
papers back the story up.

111
00:05:55,460 --> 00:05:59,880
The Lake Charles paper reported they
parted in Arkansas and that Burks said he

112
00:05:59,880 --> 00:06:02,780
deserted her because he was afraid of her.

113
00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:07,640
Then from there the story says she
went back to Shreveport to a madam

114
00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:10,540
she knew and the madam called
her uncle the policeman.

115
00:06:10,540 --> 00:06:14,100
In another she went to her aunt
with the same result.

116
00:06:14,420 --> 00:06:19,820
Sister, the court record tells us her aunt
Emma Holt testified that her niece

117
00:06:19,820 --> 00:06:23,340
came to her house near Shreveport
and said she had shot a man.

118
00:06:23,660 --> 00:06:28,100
Then her uncle, a state police captain
was called and she was taken into

119
00:06:28,100 --> 00:06:28,680
custody.

120
00:06:29,060 --> 00:06:32,720
So we have the madam in the story
and aunt in the record.

121
00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:36,580
Either way she ran home
to the people she had and they turned

122
00:06:36,580 --> 00:06:36,980
her in.

123
00:06:36,980 --> 00:06:41,400
I don't know whether to call
that betrayal or love or both.

124
00:06:41,860 --> 00:06:45,360
What I can tell you was what
was promised to her in that house

125
00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:48,220
is a question the courts
took very seriously.

126
00:06:48,580 --> 00:06:50,920
We'll open it up properly next episode.

127
00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:53,100
Here's a part that touches my heart.

128
00:06:53,500 --> 00:06:57,340
A piece of the telling I care about
deeply on behalf of that young

129
00:06:57,340 --> 00:06:58,280
lost girl.

130
00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:02,880
The story I was always told
is that those two truly cared for one

131
00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:03,320
another.

132
00:07:03,540 --> 00:07:06,220
That piece the record does help us with.

133
00:07:06,220 --> 00:07:11,240
After Joseph was killed, the Lake Charles
paper reported that authorities arranged

134
00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:15,280
a midnight meeting between Toni Jo
and her husband in Beaumont.

135
00:07:15,620 --> 00:07:18,860
After that meeting, she named
the man who had been with her.

136
00:07:19,220 --> 00:07:22,720
So when they needed her to talk,
they went and got the one person

137
00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:23,740
she'd listened to.

138
00:07:24,020 --> 00:07:26,000
And he told her to tell the truth,

139
00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:28,320
knowing what the truth could cost her.

140
00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:30,900
That's a complicated kind of love, sister.

141
00:07:31,300 --> 00:07:33,680
Then we have another wire
report from that week.

142
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:38,940
It says officials credited Cowboy
with urging her to tell the whole story.

143
00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:42,160
Those are officials' accounts
reported in the papers.

144
00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:45,280
We don't have a record
of what was said in that room.

145
00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:48,120
On February 23rd, 1940,

146
00:07:48,700 --> 00:07:52,440
the Lake Charles paper reported
that Toni Jo and Burks met again

147
00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:56,480
in the main corridor of the parish
jail for the first time since they'd

148
00:07:56,480 --> 00:07:57,500
parted in Arkansas.

149
00:07:58,100 --> 00:08:02,980
Two young people who'd been partners
a week before, standing in a jail hallway,

150
00:08:02,980 --> 00:08:04,920
each pointing at the other.

151
00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:09,200
She said she'd left him because
he was a little yellow rat.

152
00:08:09,580 --> 00:08:13,740
And each one accused the other
of firing the shot that killed Joseph.

153
00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:17,320
The legend has mostly made up its
mind about which of them pulled

154
00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:17,880
the trigger.

155
00:08:18,340 --> 00:08:20,580
That's why I want us to slow down here.

156
00:08:21,140 --> 00:08:24,920
Burks told the same story at
his arrest to the sheriff in front

157
00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:28,120
of three witnesses
and again at his own trial.

158
00:08:28,540 --> 00:08:30,400
Toni Jo fired the shot.

159
00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:33,020
He didn't ask his jury to acquit him.

160
00:08:33,300 --> 00:08:35,320
He asked them to spare his life.

161
00:08:35,740 --> 00:08:40,380
During her first trial, a wire report
says Toni Jo acknowledged her earlier

162
00:08:40,380 --> 00:08:44,200
statements, but denied firing
the shot and blamed Burks.

163
00:08:44,700 --> 00:08:48,620
A jury had to decide which of those
accounts to believe and what

164
00:08:48,620 --> 00:08:49,560
to do about it.

165
00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:51,100
That's where we go next.

166
00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:53,260
Look at these two piles, Emmie.

167
00:08:53,740 --> 00:08:57,060
Mine has the honeymoon and the telegram
and the clothes for Cowboy.

168
00:08:57,060 --> 00:09:01,760
Yours has a marriage date,
a prison ledger, and a court summary.

169
00:09:02,340 --> 00:09:03,840
And both piles matter.

170
00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:07,280
Yours tells us what people
needed this story to mean.

171
00:09:07,740 --> 00:09:10,660
Mine tells us what we
can actually stand on.

172
00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:15,200
Every one of these accounts,
the old stories and the statements both,

173
00:09:15,440 --> 00:09:19,360
came from somebody who had something
to gain or lose by telling it

174
00:09:19,360 --> 00:09:20,160
a certain way.

175
00:09:20,340 --> 00:09:22,600
Which brings us
to the question for next time.

176
00:09:22,600 --> 00:09:27,600
What makes a statement reliable
enough to use and who gets to decide?

177
00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:30,520
We are keeping Joseph
with us the whole way,

178
00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:34,000
because he never got to tell
his side of the story on that lonely

179
00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:34,520
road.