A frequenter of the brothel where she worked, Cowboy fell in love with the midnight-haired beauty and they were married?
?I always knew there was a God running the show. But I thought I could steal just one little act.??Toni Jo Henry
Born in Pleasanton, Texas, on July 14, 1913, heavyweight Cowboy Henry fought out of San Antonio from 1930 to 1934. He wound up with an official record of eight wins, seven by knockout, six losses, four by knockout, one draw, and one no contest. There were also five newspaper decisions (2-2-1).
Cowboy last won on April 7, 1933, stopping Cyclone Evans by fourth-round TKO at the Labor Temple in Tucson. His last fight took place on September 25, 1934, kayoed by Manuel Luna in the second at the Walkathon Arena in San Antonio.
I never heard of Evans or Luna. In fact, except for colorful Wilson Dunn (?I am an Osage Indian, full-blooded and on the war path looking for scalps?), I haven?t heard of any of his opponents. All right, full disclosure: I never heard of Cowboy Henry.
But he?s not the one who?s interesting. His wife?she?s the one who?s interesting.
Born near Shreveport, Louisiana, on January 3, 1916, Annie Beatrice McQuiston became a prostitute at an early age, as well as a drug addict. A frequenter of the brothel where she worked, Cowboy fell in love with the midnight-haired beauty and they were married on November 25, 1939. While honeymooning in Southern California, Cowboy was remarkably successful in weaning Toni Jo Henry (as she was now known) off of drugs. ?He gave me a home and he got that drug monkey off my back?and that drug monkey is a big strong thing,? recalled Toni Jo. ?I remember the day I told him I was a cokie and the look on his face. He thought I just smoked marijuana and grinned. But when I told him my train went a lot further than marijuana he took me to a hotel room and I lay there in bed for a week and he would come in now and then and ask me how I was doing. He would slap my face with a cold towel and we would both laugh.?
But it all went pear-shaped after that. Cowboy was found guilty of a murder he?d committed in Texas and was sentenced to 50 years. ?When I stood there in the courtroom and heard the judge send him away it was like it was me they were locking up,? said Toni Jo. ?I suffered all I could then.?
She hatched a harebrained scheme to break her beloved husband out of the hoosegow. She and a more or less unwitting (not to mention witless) accomplice, Harold ?Arkie? Burks, planned to rob a bank and somehow use the money to get Cowboy out of the notorious Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. Needing a getaway car, they hijacked Joseph P. Calloway and his Ford outside Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Valentine?s Day 1940. Ordered at gunpoint to strip and kneel, Calloway was shot in the head, murdered just four days short of what would have been his 42nd birthday.
Horrified, and balking at the idea of bank robbery, ?Burks wanted to call it a day,? writes crime writer Mark Gribben. ?He turned yellow like a little rat,? snarled Toni the Tigress. ?And I hit him over the head with the butt of my gun.?
Although not a suspect, Toni Jo told the police all. At her first trial, which took place from March 27-29, 1940, she claimed that Arkie pulled the trigger. She was nevertheless convicted and sentenced to death by hanging (as was Arkie). Her appeal was successful, however, and a new trial took place in February 1941. She was again convicted and sentenced to death. Yet another appeal resulted in a third trial, in January 1942, with the same result. Her third appeal was denied.
In the meantime, the Pelican State had changed its method of execution from hanging to the electric chair. ?Gruesome Gertie? was stored at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (better known as Angola), but transported to wherever a condemned prisoner was held (Lake Charles? courthouse in Toni Jo?s case). Whole new meaning to ?Power to the People,? as crime writer Robert Walsh wryly puts it.
A Catholic priest, Father Wayne Richard, befriended the lassoed lass and ultimately baptized her. Perhaps due to Father?s kindness and influence, Toni Jo confessed that it was indeed she who committed the murder, expressing the hope that Arkie?s life would be spared.
Meanwhile, back in Huntsville, Cowboy had broken out of prison in a desperate attempt to rescue his wife, but was soon recaptured. He was allowed, however, to speak by phone one last time with his beloved Toni Jo. ?She urged him to serve his time, go straight, and try to make something of himself,? writes Walsh. ?It was too late for her, but he still had some small chance of a relatively normal existence.? (Um, no. This cast of characters is straight out of a David Goodis novel, and Happily Ever After just doesn?t apply.)
Disappointed that she wouldn?t know how things turned out on the NBC weekly radio series, Abie?s Irish Rose, Toni Jo nevertheless demonstrated her characteristic aplomb. ?Abie?s Irish Rose will go right on without me, laughing and fussing and making wonderful noises for everybody else,? she said.
The 26-year-old was far more upset when her head was shaved for the electrocution. Father Richard arranged for a shawl, ?which hid the marks left by jailers when they clipped her tresses in preparation for the execution,? according to an Associated Press report. In addition to the shawl, she wore a black dress and black pumps, and was of course barelegged (the electrode on the calf, don?t you know). Any last words? ?I believe not,? she said. Escorted from her cell at 12:10 p.m., on November 28, 1942, she was strapped in, the death mask placed over her face, and the electrodes attached. ?Good-by, Toni Jo,? said the executioner as he pulled the switch. There was a response, but it was unintelligible.
Toni Jo Henry is the only woman ever executed in Louisiana?s electric chair. Some say she haunts the courthouse. People hear screams.
She was buried, crucifix in hand, in Orange Grove Cemetery in Lake Charles.
Burks was executed on March 22, 1943, and buried in an unmarked grave.
As for Cowboy, he was released in 1945 because of ill health. He died as the result of a vicious bar fight in Dallas that July 15, the day after his 32nd birthday, and is buried in Tumlinson Cemetery in Leming, Texas.
