#Curt flood books trial#

She testified that she became 'intimate' with Jones in July 1949 and pregnant in November. Miller took the stand on March 1, 1950, at times sobbing, screaming and collapsing. She said she didn't realize until a year later that Jones was married with two children. They'd meet for dates when Jones came to Minneapolis, and she'd fill sheets of paper, 'doodling' her fantasy signature as Laura Jones. That's where Miller first met Jones in August 1948, and quickly became enamored.

Prosecutors countered with witnesses who debunked Miller's naive persona - detailing how she frequented night spots such as the Covered Wagon, a popular pioneer-themed steakhouse and bar in downtown Minneapolis. 'I didn't have much time for dates' with boys who just wanted to party, she wrote, portraying herself as an innocent homebody swept off her feet by the charming attorney from Hutchinson. Laura insisted she was a a serious young woman who read three library books a week, according to a first-person story published in the Minneapolis Tribune shortly after Jones' death. Dell's heart condition forced Laura to give up school for stenography and bookkeeping jobs. Laura's aunt, Dell Miller, promptly adopted her and moved to Minneapolis when Laura was 12.Īfter graduating from Minneapolis West High School in 1944, Laura studied English and psychology at the University of Minnesota. 'It was a backstory made for a Hollywood drama, and one that had captivated not just McLeod County, but much of the state.'īorn in Illinois in 1926, Laura Safford was just eight days old when her mother died. 'The story behind the murder was a tale of romance, deceit and wrongdoing,' Haines wrote on the historical society's website.

Once the high-ceilinged courtroom in Glencoe reached its 200-person limit, remaining spectators were led across the street to the 550-seat Oriel Theater, where a loudspeaker blasted canned audio of the proceedings.

#Curt flood books trial#

'The trial was a spectacle, one where the judge allowed journalists, spectators and photographers to flood the courtroom.' 'The media circus surrounding the murder turned Laura Miller into a local celebrity,' according to Brian Haines, executive director of the McLeod County Historical Society. Left to right, McLeod County Attorney Hubert Smith, Sheriff Otto Guenhagen, and Minneapolis attorneys Frank Warner and Don Morgan conferred on the Jones murder case. Miller was arrested, handcuffed and taken to the McLeod County jail in Glencoe to await her first-degree murder trial three weeks later. 30, 1950, a woman living down the hall from Jones' office heard a gunshot, followed by scuffling and a second shot, and then a woman's cry: 'Gordy, my darling, why did you do it?'įound in a pool of blood, Jones died from a gunshot wound to his chest. She would soon testify that she was pregnant with Jones' child.

That's where she confronted a 36-year-old married lawyer, Gordon Jones, with whom she'd been having an affair for more than a year. Grabbing her mother's Bible, Miller boarded an evening bus for the 60-mile ride west to Hutchinson, Minn. On a January morning in 1950, 23-year-old Minneapolis stenographer Laura Safford Miller pulled a sugar sack from a cedar chest and unwrapped the black handgun that had been in her family for years. The plaque identifies it as 'Exhibit Q' and tells of a murder case in which Nelson's grandfather, attorney Frank Warner, successfully defended an alleged killer 73 years ago. 38-caliber revolver sits on a dresser in Jim Nelson's Minneapolis home.