1
00:00:00,050 --> 00:00:04,450
Last time, sister mine,
we left her facing a third jury.

2
00:00:05,090 --> 00:00:08,590
Tonight, we finish her story,
and I want us to do it right.

3
00:00:08,970 --> 00:00:12,790
Before we walk back into that courtroom,
I think we owe folks a look

4
00:00:12,790 --> 00:00:13,530
out the window.

5
00:00:14,150 --> 00:00:19,070
Lake Charles in 1942 wasn't the same
town that tried her in 1940.

6
00:00:19,530 --> 00:00:20,470
Bring it to life.

7
00:00:21,050 --> 00:00:22,530
Paint it for me, dear heart.

8
00:00:22,970 --> 00:00:25,930
What did this town look like
while she sat in that jail?

9
00:00:26,430 --> 00:00:28,570
It looked like a town going to war.

10
00:00:28,570 --> 00:00:30,210
In 1941,

11
00:00:30,810 --> 00:00:35,130
the federal government bought and leased
land in this parish for military use.

12
00:00:35,470 --> 00:00:40,170
By February of 1942, an advanced
flight training squadron was flying out

13
00:00:40,170 --> 00:00:41,410
of the Lake Charles field.

14
00:00:41,850 --> 00:00:46,210
Many young pilots were in the sky over
this parish while she counted days

15
00:00:46,210 --> 00:00:47,030
in a cell.

16
00:00:47,510 --> 00:00:48,830
That gives me a chill.

17
00:00:49,190 --> 00:00:51,450
So much industry came with it.

18
00:00:51,770 --> 00:00:56,310
Mathieson Alkali was already here, and
the war brought a Cities Service refinery

19
00:00:56,310 --> 00:01:00,570
for high-octane gasoline and a Firestone
plant for synthetic rubber.

20
00:01:00,870 --> 00:01:04,170
Then, there were whole neighborhoods
that went up for the workers.

21
00:01:04,790 --> 00:01:07,730
Maplewood was called a war baby, wasn't it?

22
00:01:07,890 --> 00:01:08,890
Yes, it was.

23
00:01:09,390 --> 00:01:11,190
Built to house refinery families,

24
00:01:11,750 --> 00:01:15,310
money and strangers were pouring
into Calcasieu Parish.

25
00:01:15,630 --> 00:01:19,250
Then, I want to tell folks about
a man who was already a giant

26
00:01:19,250 --> 00:01:19,730
here.

27
00:01:20,090 --> 00:01:22,270
Our little Sun’s Paw Paw worked for W.

28
00:01:22,270 --> 00:01:22,710
T.

29
00:01:22,810 --> 00:01:22,950
Burton.

30
00:01:22,950 --> 00:01:24,510
Notre petit soleil.

31
00:01:24,830 --> 00:01:27,730
She told us that with a whole
lot of pride, too.

32
00:01:28,290 --> 00:01:30,170
Here's what the record says about Mr.

33
00:01:30,170 --> 00:01:30,510
Burton.

34
00:01:30,970 --> 00:01:31,130
W.

35
00:01:31,130 --> 00:01:31,590
T.

36
00:01:31,670 --> 00:01:34,590
was born in Orange, Texas in 1884.

37
00:01:35,130 --> 00:01:37,050
He went to school through
the seventh grade,

38
00:01:37,230 --> 00:01:41,630
then came to Sulphur at 17 to work
for his uncle, a railroad agent.

39
00:01:41,970 --> 00:01:44,050
He went to school through
the seventh grade.

40
00:01:44,410 --> 00:01:48,530
Hold that number, Emmie, because Toni Jo
only made it through about the sixth.

41
00:01:48,530 --> 00:01:54,090
Then, over the years, he went into oil,
roads, cattle, and contracting.

42
00:01:54,610 --> 00:01:57,270
His family's account,
and our family's, too,

43
00:01:57,570 --> 00:02:01,770
says he bought a struggling bank in the
Depression and rebuilt it as Calcasieu

44
00:02:01,770 --> 00:02:02,670
Marine National.

45
00:02:03,090 --> 00:02:08,630
Then, in 1936, Governor Noe
assigned him State Lease 340,

46
00:02:08,970 --> 00:02:13,670
the rights to half a million
acres of water bottom for $75,000.

47
00:02:14,450 --> 00:02:18,950
Within days, he reassigned part of it
to the Texas Company for more than

48
00:02:18,950 --> 00:02:19,610
he'd paid.

49
00:02:19,950 --> 00:02:20,850
Think of that.

50
00:02:21,390 --> 00:02:25,090
Half a million acres
with the stroke of a governor's pen.

51
00:02:25,610 --> 00:02:27,330
Lord, that's power.

52
00:02:27,930 --> 00:02:32,830
He also gave a gift to every graduating
senior at Sulphur High year after

53
00:02:32,830 --> 00:02:37,330
year and started a scholarship
for college students in Western Louisiana.

54
00:02:37,990 --> 00:02:42,890
People are wonderfully and sometimes
aggravatingly more than one thing.

55
00:02:43,310 --> 00:02:43,730
Mr.

56
00:02:43,730 --> 00:02:46,150
Burton might be the finest
example we've had.

57
00:02:46,150 --> 00:02:48,630
Let's both be careful here, Vangie.

58
00:02:49,090 --> 00:02:50,790
Nothing we've found ties Mr.

59
00:02:50,790 --> 00:02:52,810
Burton to her case in any way.

60
00:02:53,070 --> 00:02:55,650
Now, I'm not saying he
did one thing to her.

61
00:02:55,930 --> 00:02:57,630
I'm saying, look at the town.

62
00:02:58,050 --> 00:03:02,650
Men could turn water into fortunes,
and a Shreveport girl with a sixth grade

63
00:03:02,650 --> 00:03:06,370
schooling sat in the parish jail
with her life written on paper.

64
00:03:06,750 --> 00:03:10,690
A life, I remind you, she couldn't
tell about herself during at least one

65
00:03:10,690 --> 00:03:11,490
of her trials.

66
00:03:11,970 --> 00:03:17,090
Same parish, same courthouse square,
and two very different kinds of paper.

67
00:03:17,450 --> 00:03:21,150
When we look close,
that's the Lake Charles of her last year.

68
00:03:21,650 --> 00:03:23,650
Now take me back to that third jury.

69
00:03:25,220 --> 00:03:27,280
Again, the jury found her guilty,

70
00:03:27,820 --> 00:03:30,120
and again, she was sentenced to death.

71
00:03:30,260 --> 00:03:35,040
Toni Jo was 26 by then,
hearing the same words a third time.

72
00:03:35,580 --> 00:03:37,960
Finding 12 jurors wasn't easy.

73
00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:43,500
The trial judge reported examining
about 250 people to fill those seats.

74
00:03:43,780 --> 00:03:45,360
Can you believe this number?

75
00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:46,620
250?

76
00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:50,140
That shows you how far
her name had traveled.

77
00:03:50,500 --> 00:03:55,300
Of those 250, two of them already
held opinions from the newspapers.

78
00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,420
Louisiana's Supreme Court said
those opinions weren't fixed,

79
00:03:59,580 --> 00:04:02,480
and the defense used its own
challenges to remove them.

80
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,180
What else did her lawyers fight this time?

81
00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:07,280
In the trial's closing argument,

82
00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:11,200
the prosecutor called her earlier
reversals technicalities.

83
00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:12,760
Technicalities?

84
00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:16,340
Emmie, those were a crowd
shouting for a hanging,

85
00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:21,580
a promise from her own blood, and jurors
who answered before they'd heard her.

86
00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:24,560
That's our comparison, and I share it.

87
00:04:24,940 --> 00:04:28,160
The court said the defense hadn't
preserved a timely objection,

88
00:04:28,420 --> 00:04:32,260
and it accepted the judge's explanation
that the remark answered a defense

89
00:04:32,260 --> 00:04:32,980
argument.

90
00:04:33,220 --> 00:04:36,600
So, on that day, that word got to stand.

91
00:04:36,840 --> 00:04:39,680
That brings us to May 25, 1942.

92
00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:44,000
The day the court affirmed
her conviction and her death sentence.

93
00:04:44,340 --> 00:04:49,020
Chief Justice O’Niell agreed with the
result and wrote separately about how juror

94
00:04:49,020 --> 00:04:50,520
challenges ought to work.

95
00:04:50,700 --> 00:04:55,280
Toni Jo had three juries, and every
one of them had those three words

96
00:04:55,280 --> 00:04:56,200
open to them.

97
00:04:56,540 --> 00:04:59,820
Without capital punishment,
not one chose them.

98
00:05:00,020 --> 00:05:01,580
So, that's the record.

99
00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:05,240
This time, the court found
the trial followed the law.

100
00:05:05,460 --> 00:05:08,060
Meanwhile, as her case
moved through the courts,

101
00:05:08,060 --> 00:05:11,420
Louisiana changed how it
carried out death sentences,

102
00:05:11,740 --> 00:05:13,860
from hanging to electrocution.

103
00:05:14,140 --> 00:05:15,220
I heard this part.

104
00:05:15,640 --> 00:05:17,900
Her lawyers fought that too, didn't they?

105
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:19,680
Indeed, they did fight it.

106
00:05:19,980 --> 00:05:22,280
They argued the new law
shouldn't reach her.

107
00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:24,840
On November 4, 1942,

108
00:05:25,460 --> 00:05:27,820
the Supreme Court
rejected those challenges.

109
00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:31,720
That brings us back to power,
and the difference a piece of paper

110
00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:33,980
and the hand holding the pen can make.

111
00:05:34,460 --> 00:05:37,060
Fate came down to one man's pen again.

112
00:05:37,060 --> 00:05:38,280
The governor.

113
00:05:38,660 --> 00:05:42,520
The public heard early from that office
what that pen intended.

114
00:05:42,980 --> 00:05:47,260
The reporting days before the date
said Governor Sam Jones intended no

115
00:05:47,260 --> 00:05:48,020
intervention.

116
00:05:48,460 --> 00:05:51,560
We have two governors’ pens
in one episode, sister.

117
00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:54,280
One handed a man half a million acres,

118
00:05:54,660 --> 00:05:57,460
and one wouldn't move
pen to paper for a girl.

119
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:00,180
Different governors with different powers.

120
00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:02,080
So, I'll mark that as yours.

121
00:06:02,540 --> 00:06:03,620
I do take your point.

122
00:06:04,930 --> 00:06:08,950
Now, I want to talk about the person
who sat with her the most.

123
00:06:09,290 --> 00:06:12,310
That was a young priest
named Wayne Richard.

124
00:06:12,630 --> 00:06:17,370
If you can believe it, Lake Charles'
own paper put Father Richard beside

125
00:06:17,370 --> 00:06:18,990
her at the very end.

126
00:06:19,350 --> 00:06:22,870
Later accounts say he received
her into the Catholic faith while she

127
00:06:22,870 --> 00:06:24,130
was in the parish jail.

128
00:06:24,370 --> 00:06:27,390
So, this is how his own
family remembers it.

129
00:06:27,630 --> 00:06:28,890
This is the way of it.

130
00:06:29,210 --> 00:06:31,050
Lake Charles was his first assignment.

131
00:06:31,050 --> 00:06:35,030
A jailer brought him to her, and he
prayed with her, baptized

132
00:06:35,030 --> 00:06:36,750
her, and buried her.

133
00:06:36,930 --> 00:06:41,110
Father Richard's family also tells
a story from before he came home.

134
00:06:41,470 --> 00:06:43,770
He'd been studying abroad
when the war began,

135
00:06:43,870 --> 00:06:48,070
and they say he and other young priests
walked out of Europe to Portugal.

136
00:06:48,610 --> 00:06:51,890
So, he'd already walked
through a war to get here.

137
00:06:52,170 --> 00:06:56,090
Then he walked of his own
free will into a jail cell.

138
00:06:56,470 --> 00:06:59,930
One later account says he
visited her three times a week.

139
00:06:59,930 --> 00:07:05,350
It also says she wrote to Cowboy
every day and that Cowboy wrote back.

140
00:07:05,890 --> 00:07:09,430
Folks said she found jailhouse
religion because she was scared.

141
00:07:09,890 --> 00:07:12,930
The way that account tells it,
he never believed that.

142
00:07:13,250 --> 00:07:15,930
The father believed
the faith she found was real.

143
00:07:16,250 --> 00:07:20,110
What we hear in that retelling,
he said she wasn't afraid.

144
00:07:20,510 --> 00:07:23,950
She was pessimistic because she
thought she didn't have a chance.

145
00:07:24,310 --> 00:07:27,970
That comes from a later book,
and we haven't seen its original source.

146
00:07:27,970 --> 00:07:31,110
Toni Jo never thought she had a chance.

147
00:07:31,750 --> 00:07:36,130
sister mine, that might be the saddest
sentence in this whole season.

148
00:07:36,750 --> 00:07:39,250
The priest's family
remembers him as joyful.

149
00:07:39,750 --> 00:07:41,470
A man who loved his life.

150
00:07:42,010 --> 00:07:46,250
Later, he'd fly to Haiti wearing layers
of clothes and come home in shorts

151
00:07:46,250 --> 00:07:48,830
and flip-flops, having given the rest away.

152
00:07:49,050 --> 00:07:52,130
I'm so truly glad she
had somebody like that.

153
00:07:52,510 --> 00:07:57,910
Somebody who kept coming back,
week after week, for no reason except her.

154
00:07:58,090 --> 00:08:01,310
Emmie, you know what I
asked for in this episode.

155
00:08:01,650 --> 00:08:06,170
Every hardship we can find said
out loud so she finally gets heard.

156
00:08:06,490 --> 00:08:07,930
Every gift as well.

157
00:08:08,210 --> 00:08:09,010
Okay, sister.

158
00:08:09,490 --> 00:08:12,330
Then I'll keep each one honest
about where it comes from.

159
00:08:12,670 --> 00:08:17,030
As you know, in court, her aunt
testified about her mother's early death

160
00:08:17,030 --> 00:08:19,070
and a father described as cruel.

161
00:08:19,470 --> 00:08:21,130
We won't forget how she grew up.

162
00:08:21,130 --> 00:08:23,930
So, on the day Toni Jo died,

163
00:08:24,290 --> 00:08:28,310
Lake Charles's paper described her as a
woman who said she'd been a prostitute

164
00:08:28,310 --> 00:08:31,130
at 13 and a drug addict at 16.

165
00:08:31,490 --> 00:08:32,970
Did you really hear that?

166
00:08:33,610 --> 00:08:34,110
13.

167
00:08:34,610 --> 00:08:34,990
Emmie.

168
00:08:35,550 --> 00:08:37,050
13 is a child.

169
00:08:37,490 --> 00:08:38,110
A baby.

170
00:08:38,590 --> 00:08:42,950
Whatever name that paper gave it,
a grown-up world did that to a child.

171
00:08:43,250 --> 00:08:46,910
Then we have a later historian wrote
that she was born into poverty,

172
00:08:47,230 --> 00:08:51,070
had about a sixth grade education,
and ran away at 13.

173
00:08:51,790 --> 00:08:55,110
Seems to me, a lot of folks
failed her before they were asked

174
00:08:55,110 --> 00:08:55,950
to judge her.

175
00:08:56,270 --> 00:08:58,670
Here's the story folks
tell about why she ran.

176
00:08:59,210 --> 00:09:01,310
She got a job at a macaroni factory.

177
00:09:01,790 --> 00:09:05,930
Lost it when they learned her mama
had died of tuberculosis and her daddy

178
00:09:05,930 --> 00:09:07,530
beat her for losing it.

179
00:09:07,890 --> 00:09:10,390
That one I can't confirm yet, Vangie.

180
00:09:10,690 --> 00:09:13,430
It's a later retelling,
not a record we've seen.

181
00:09:13,890 --> 00:09:16,490
Then I'll hold onto it for her as a story.

182
00:09:16,490 --> 00:09:21,090
Even as a story, it tells something
true about how a girl ends up

183
00:09:21,090 --> 00:09:21,590
alone.

184
00:09:21,850 --> 00:09:26,550
Toni Jo told a writer that nobody had
ever cared about her before Cowboy,

185
00:09:26,710 --> 00:09:28,190
and that he got her off cocaine.

186
00:09:28,910 --> 00:09:32,550
That's her account, through a later book,
and we keep it as hers.

187
00:09:33,150 --> 00:09:37,690
Whatever else Cowboy was, she believed
he was the first one who cared.

188
00:09:38,090 --> 00:09:41,530
Think of how she'd fight to hold
onto the first one that cared.

189
00:09:41,750 --> 00:09:43,870
Then we hear the account of in jail,

190
00:09:44,190 --> 00:09:49,390
saying she sometimes got more than 200
letters in a single day from strangers

191
00:09:49,390 --> 00:09:52,610
who adored her and strangers who hated her.

192
00:09:53,050 --> 00:09:57,590
200 letters a day, and hardly
a soul in her corner when she

193
00:09:57,590 --> 00:09:58,390
was 13.

194
00:09:58,970 --> 00:10:02,130
She also kept a little black
and white dog in that jail.

195
00:10:02,570 --> 00:10:05,730
Before the end, she arranged
for it to go to Shreveport.

196
00:10:06,270 --> 00:10:07,450
Of course she did.

197
00:10:07,770 --> 00:10:10,490
She made sure something
she loved made it home.

198
00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:16,420
In August, an Associated Press
writer named Elliot Chaze interviewed

199
00:10:16,420 --> 00:10:17,400
her in the jail.

200
00:10:18,140 --> 00:10:23,420
We haven't inspected his original page yet,
so everything I read tonight is marked

201
00:10:23,420 --> 00:10:24,080
for checking.

202
00:10:24,460 --> 00:10:26,500
So, read it anyway, Emmie.

203
00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:27,700
Let her talk.

204
00:10:27,940 --> 00:10:29,720
Toni Jo admitted the shooting.

205
00:10:30,220 --> 00:10:34,320
She said there was no use lying anymore,
and that Burks didn't do it.

206
00:10:34,760 --> 00:10:38,920
After three trials of pointing at
each other, she finally set it down.

207
00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:42,240
Toni Jo described that night
as being like drunk.

208
00:10:42,680 --> 00:10:45,720
Drunk on pressure
and worry over her husband.

209
00:10:46,260 --> 00:10:50,200
That's not an excuse,
and I don't hear her offering it as one.

210
00:10:50,560 --> 00:10:53,380
It sounds like a girl trying
to explain it to herself.

211
00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:55,380
Then she said something hard.

212
00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:58,520
She said she never thought
of the man she killed,

213
00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:02,240
and that she'd known all along
it would be her life for his.

214
00:11:02,820 --> 00:11:04,240
That stings, Emmie.

215
00:11:04,820 --> 00:11:06,580
Joseph deserved to be thought of.

216
00:11:06,580 --> 00:11:08,580
He absolutely did.

217
00:11:09,080 --> 00:11:11,360
She also said her life was worth as much

218
00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:15,260
to her as his was to him,
and she wondered why it was legal

219
00:11:15,260 --> 00:11:17,400
now for somebody else to kill her.

220
00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:19,760
Both of those are hard to hear.

221
00:11:20,300 --> 00:11:23,640
My guess is she'd stopped letting
herself look at him at all.

222
00:11:23,880 --> 00:11:26,020
And that's my guess, not the record.

223
00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:28,260
That's totally fair to mark as yours.

224
00:11:28,760 --> 00:11:31,620
One more line, and it's
the one I can't shake.

225
00:11:31,620 --> 00:11:35,700
She said she was scared because
her favorite radio serial,

226
00:11:36,020 --> 00:11:39,080
Abie’s Irish Rose,
would go right on without her.

227
00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:40,960
Oh, lil sha.

228
00:11:41,540 --> 00:11:44,400
A girl afraid of missing
her story on the radio.

229
00:11:44,680 --> 00:11:47,780
That's the most 26-year-old
thing I ever heard.

230
00:11:48,220 --> 00:11:51,120
In November, she put another
statement in writing.

231
00:11:51,580 --> 00:11:55,440
Reporting describes it as notarized
and issued through her attorney.

232
00:11:55,920 --> 00:11:57,820
Burks's attorney, J.A.

233
00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:01,100
Williams, said she signed
it on November 20th.

234
00:12:01,160 --> 00:12:03,240
It said she fired the fatal shot,

235
00:12:03,380 --> 00:12:05,880
and it hoped Burks would
escape the death penalty.

236
00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:07,840
It went to the pardon board.

237
00:12:08,180 --> 00:12:12,940
So, eight days before her own death,
she spent her ink trying to save

238
00:12:12,940 --> 00:12:13,620
Arkie.

239
00:12:14,020 --> 00:12:16,640
One later account gives
her reason this way.

240
00:12:17,060 --> 00:12:19,380
He had a mother, and she didn't.

241
00:12:19,620 --> 00:12:22,000
He had a mother, and she didn't.

242
00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:26,060
Emmie, that's her whole
childhood in seven words.

243
00:12:26,580 --> 00:12:30,880
We don't have the signed original,
so we can't say for certain why she

244
00:12:30,880 --> 00:12:31,460
wrote it.

245
00:12:31,660 --> 00:12:33,900
We only know what it reportedly said.

246
00:12:34,140 --> 00:12:36,740
I'm still going to hold
it gently either way.

247
00:12:37,180 --> 00:12:39,760
It was one of the last things
she could give anybody,

248
00:12:40,080 --> 00:12:41,400
and she gave it to him.

249
00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:47,540
On November 23rd, an individual
escaped from a Texas prison farm.

250
00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:53,240
Their prison register records the escape,
then another entry two days later.

251
00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:55,000
This is how the old story goes.

252
00:12:55,560 --> 00:12:57,180
He broke out to go get her.

253
00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:00,920
Then, a later historian
writes that he escaped,

254
00:13:01,020 --> 00:13:04,940
intending to help her break out
and was caught in a Beaumont flop house.

255
00:13:05,420 --> 00:13:09,360
Papers at the time reported the escape
and tighter guard at the Lake Charles

256
00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:09,820
jail.

257
00:13:10,500 --> 00:13:15,060
There it is, the best and worst
of Cowboy, side by side.

258
00:13:15,460 --> 00:13:19,180
He loved her enough to run and it
couldn't do one bit of good.

259
00:13:19,580 --> 00:13:24,140
Contemporary reporting of the day also
says she spoke with him by telephone before

260
00:13:24,140 --> 00:13:24,860
the end.

261
00:13:25,180 --> 00:13:25,720
Do tell.

262
00:13:26,180 --> 00:13:27,660
Tell me what she said to him.

263
00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:31,640
Well, a later account says she
told him to get rid of that prison

264
00:13:31,640 --> 00:13:32,840
suit and go straight.

265
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:36,500
It says he cried and she
stayed bright and cheerful.

266
00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:38,680
We haven't verified those words.

267
00:13:38,940 --> 00:13:39,700
Just think.

268
00:13:40,140 --> 00:13:44,340
If that's true, she spent her last
night telling her Cowboy to live

269
00:13:44,340 --> 00:13:45,120
a good life.

270
00:13:45,540 --> 00:13:47,280
She was the one doing the comforting.

271
00:13:47,700 --> 00:13:51,220
Well, what I can say
is that the record shows a call.

272
00:13:51,660 --> 00:13:54,960
Those words belong to the legend
until we find better.

273
00:13:55,280 --> 00:13:58,820
It was a Saturday, November 28th, 1942.

274
00:13:59,420 --> 00:14:02,500
I'll tell this part plainly and only once.

275
00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:04,160
Gently, sister.

276
00:14:04,740 --> 00:14:05,240
Please.

277
00:14:05,860 --> 00:14:10,000
The record accounts that Toni Jo's
long dark hair was shaved that morning

278
00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:11,660
and that she cried.

279
00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:16,680
Another account says Father Richard had
given her a scarf to cover her head.

280
00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:20,800
All that long dark hair
the papers love to photograph.

281
00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:24,040
That was the last pretty thing
they'd been selling of her.

282
00:14:24,140 --> 00:14:26,000
And they took even that from her.

283
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:29,080
All of the accounts even
disagree about her dress.

284
00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:32,060
Most say black and one says white.

285
00:14:32,300 --> 00:14:34,860
So we'll leave the color
where the record leaves it.

286
00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:40,020
Then Lake Charles's paper reported that she
spent her last minutes alone with Father

287
00:14:40,020 --> 00:14:40,560
Richard.

288
00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:45,120
At five past noon, she came
down 22 steps from her cell

289
00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:49,440
to the jail's first floor corridor where
the state's portable chair had been set

290
00:14:49,440 --> 00:14:49,780
up.

291
00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:52,680
Some 300 people waited outside.

292
00:14:52,680 --> 00:14:56,380
A few watching from the courthouse
steps across the street.

293
00:14:56,800 --> 00:15:02,060
300 people outside and inside
the one man who'd come three times

294
00:15:02,060 --> 00:15:02,520
a week.

295
00:15:02,840 --> 00:15:07,540
That same newspaper says she kept
a smile until the end and said nothing.

296
00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:10,080
Within minutes, she was gone.

297
00:15:10,660 --> 00:15:14,340
Every story in my stack gives
her different last words, Emmie.

298
00:15:14,920 --> 00:15:16,960
Then let's lay them side by side.

299
00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:21,500
One retelling says that when they asked
for a final statement, she answered,

300
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:22,660
I think not.

301
00:15:23,220 --> 00:15:26,520
Another says she looked at
her priest and told him goodbye.

302
00:15:27,140 --> 00:15:31,780
Lake Charles's own paper written
that same day says she was silent.

303
00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:34,760
Then I say I won't put words in her mouth.

304
00:15:35,140 --> 00:15:37,340
If she chose silence, she earned it.

305
00:15:37,540 --> 00:15:39,960
Toni Jo was 26 years old.

306
00:15:44,410 --> 00:15:49,770
One account says her last request
was a crucifix in her hand when

307
00:15:49,770 --> 00:15:50,790
she was buried.

308
00:15:51,430 --> 00:15:55,850
Then, a newspaper two days later reported
that her kin had claimed her body.

309
00:15:56,250 --> 00:16:00,390
Father Richard officiated at
her burial in Orange Grove Cemetery,

310
00:16:00,650 --> 00:16:01,910
right here in Lake Charles.

311
00:16:02,490 --> 00:16:04,290
Family came for her at the end.

312
00:16:04,690 --> 00:16:05,650
I'm glad of that.

313
00:16:06,150 --> 00:16:09,330
Her November statement went
before the pardon board for Burks.

314
00:16:09,330 --> 00:16:14,550
In March, he got an eight-day reprieve
while his lawyers challenged how the board

315
00:16:14,550 --> 00:16:15,410
was made up.

316
00:16:15,530 --> 00:16:18,830
But then, on March 23, 1943,

317
00:16:19,670 --> 00:16:21,270
Burks was executed too.

318
00:16:21,850 --> 00:16:23,910
Her last gift didn't save him.

319
00:16:24,470 --> 00:16:28,130
Arkie, I promised to learn
you before I judged you.

320
00:16:28,470 --> 00:16:30,590
I learned you were young and scared,

321
00:16:30,830 --> 00:16:34,450
and you climbed into a car
on the worst night of three lives.

322
00:16:34,710 --> 00:16:37,150
Toni Jo's Cowboy did get out eventually.

323
00:16:37,150 --> 00:16:41,270
Later accounts say he was on parole
when he was shot and killed

324
00:16:41,270 --> 00:16:44,070
in Dallas in July of 1945.

325
00:16:44,710 --> 00:16:49,130
I asked for this episode to be
one final hearing for a lost girl

326
00:16:49,130 --> 00:16:49,730
in love.

327
00:16:50,090 --> 00:16:51,430
Not a pardon, Emmie.

328
00:16:51,930 --> 00:16:52,550
A hearing.

329
00:16:53,110 --> 00:16:55,190
Then, let's say plainly what we heard.

330
00:16:55,550 --> 00:16:57,430
She admitted she fired the shot.

331
00:16:58,010 --> 00:17:02,850
Louisiana's highest court corrected
two unfair trials and upheld the third.

332
00:17:03,170 --> 00:17:06,250
I still don't think she got a fair
shake those first two times.

333
00:17:06,530 --> 00:17:07,690
Maybe not the third.

334
00:17:08,110 --> 00:17:12,810
A hard childhood, a hungry press,
and a crowd that wanted a hanging all

335
00:17:12,810 --> 00:17:13,990
leaned on that scale.

336
00:17:14,470 --> 00:17:18,710
Part of that, the record supports,
because the court said so about the crowd

337
00:17:18,710 --> 00:17:20,130
and the first two trials.

338
00:17:20,630 --> 00:17:23,950
The rest is our judgment,
and we'll own it as ours.

339
00:17:23,950 --> 00:17:27,330
Here's my verdict for my own heart, sister.

340
00:17:27,930 --> 00:17:29,230
She wasn't a monster.

341
00:17:29,750 --> 00:17:33,170
She was a girl nobody kept
in their care when they should have.

342
00:17:33,410 --> 00:17:37,830
A girl who loved one man past all
sense and did a terrible thing

343
00:17:37,830 --> 00:17:38,950
on a dark road.

344
00:17:39,510 --> 00:17:40,710
Mine is quieter.

345
00:17:41,310 --> 00:17:44,030
Every part of that machine
had a chance to listen,

346
00:17:44,250 --> 00:17:45,490
and some of them did.

347
00:17:45,930 --> 00:17:47,690
She was heard three times.

348
00:17:48,130 --> 00:17:51,030
Then there's one more hearing
we owe, ma douce sœur.

349
00:17:51,030 --> 00:17:52,510
We head back to…

350
00:17:53,030 --> 00:17:55,690
Joseph Calloway
was a salesman out of Houston.

351
00:17:56,170 --> 00:18:00,450
A newspaper said he came from North
Carolina and that he left five brothers

352
00:18:00,450 --> 00:18:01,730
and three sisters.

353
00:18:02,450 --> 00:18:04,190
His wife was Lulu Pearl.

354
00:18:04,630 --> 00:18:09,030
His daughter was Lita, and she was 17
when she sat in that courtroom.

355
00:18:09,590 --> 00:18:11,930
Tell them what else we found, dear heart.

356
00:18:12,430 --> 00:18:16,090
We think he's the Joseph P.
Calloway in the 1930 census,

357
00:18:16,090 --> 00:18:21,190
a salesman living in St. Petersburg,
Florida with Lula P. and their little girl.

358
00:18:21,570 --> 00:18:23,450
We're still working to prove that link.

359
00:18:23,990 --> 00:18:26,370
His family held his funeral in Houston.

360
00:18:26,810 --> 00:18:31,450
Toni Jo had three juries,
a priest, 200 letters a day,

361
00:18:31,690 --> 00:18:32,570
and now us.

362
00:18:33,170 --> 00:18:36,330
He had one dark road and one chance to ask.

363
00:18:36,470 --> 00:18:39,950
Then he asked for his life,
and it wasn't given.

364
00:18:40,470 --> 00:18:44,230
Everything we've told this season
began with what was taken from him.

365
00:18:44,230 --> 00:18:47,970
We heard her, Emmie,
all the way to the end.

366
00:18:48,390 --> 00:18:50,090
Now let's end where we began.

367
00:18:50,570 --> 00:18:54,250
Every step of the way,
sister mine, he was there first.

368
00:18:54,950 --> 00:18:57,210
Say his name for them one more time.

369
00:18:57,530 --> 00:18:58,310
Dear listeners,

370
00:18:59,010 --> 00:19:01,230
his name was Joseph Calloway.

371
00:19:12,890 --> 00:19:16,350
If the signal found you, you are meant to be here.

372
00:19:16,810 --> 00:19:19,910
Subscribe and join us at 104.7 The Between

373
00:19:19,910 --> 00:19:21,850
for more Stories Through the Static.

374
00:19:22,470 --> 00:19:24,410
We'd love to see you drop in at the Mansion:

375
00:19:25,610 --> 00:19:26,810
storiesthroughthestatic.com.