In July 1911, Louise Beattie was found mortally wounded after a late-night drive outside Richmond, Virginia, and her husband insisted a stranger had stepped from the darkness and fired the fatal shot. But the story he told began to crack almost as soon as investigators looked more closely at the road, the evidence, and the life he had been hiding. What followed was a murder case filled with scandal, deception, and testimony that gripped the nation. In this episode, Southern Mysteries examines the death of Louise Beattie and the trial that turned a Virginia killing into one of the most infamous crimes of its time.
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Episode Sources
- Style Weekly Richmond — ‘Finding Beulah’ (styleweekly.com)
- Virginia Chronicle Digital Newspaper Archive — The News Leader, September 7, 1911 (virginiachronicle.com)
- San Francisco Call — August 29, 1911 — Paul Beattie testimony (California Digital Newspaper Collection, cdnc.ucr.edu)
- Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection — Rocky Mountain News, September 9, 1911
- Pottsville Republican — November 24, 1911 — Beattie confession and execution (newspapers.com)
- Old Songs — Henry Clay Beattie folk ballad, Kelly Harrell 1927 recording (lizlyle.lofgrens.org)
- Find a Grave — Henry Clay Beattie Jr. (memorial #11571632), Louise Wellford Owen Beattie (#11571649), Henry Clay Beattie Sr. (#11571129)
- WikiTree — Henry Clay (Beattie) Owen — Wellford Beattie name change record
- William & Mary Law School Digital Repository — A Full and Complete History of the Great Beattie Murder Case (scholarship.law.wm.edu)
- Trotti, Michael Ayers. The Body in the Reservoir: Murder and Sensationalism in the South (University of North Carolina Press, 2014)
- Grossman, Mark. The Trunk Dripped Blood: Five Sensational Murder Cases of the Early 20th Century (Exposit Books, 2018)
- A Full and Complete History of the Beattie Case, Most Highly Sensational Tragedy of the Century (Phoenix Publishing Co., 1911) — Harvard CURIOSity Digital Collections and WorldCat
- Virginia Museum of History & Culture — Richmond automobile culture and Kline Kar history, 1911 (virginiahistory.org)
- Venture Richmond / Wikipedia — Manchester neighborhood history and 1910 consolidation with Richmond
- Chesterfield Historical Society of Virginia — Russ Lescault, board member, quoted in Style Weekly
Episode Music
Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.