Lyda Southard (her name at the time of her arrest) was wanted in the death of at least five men in Idaho and Montana. Lyda was suspected of killing the men for their life insurance policies. She was formally charged April 22, 1921.
Deputy Virgil Ormsby of Hardin, Montana, collected evidence against her. Ormsby followed her to Boise, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tijuana, Mexico, and finally Honolulu, where Lyda’s latest husband navy chief petty officer Vincent P. Southard was stationed.
Honolulu Captain Arthur McDuffie arrested her and held her until Ormsby arrived on May 24, 1921. He returned to San Francisco with his prisoner on June 7. From there they went by train to Wells, Nevada, and then by car to Twin Falls.
Her trial began on September 26, Judge William Babcock presiding. The prosecuting team was attorney general Roy L. Black, county prospector Frank L. Stephan, and lawyer E. A. Walters. Defense lawyers were W. P. Guthrie, Homer Mills, A. R. Hicks, and A. J. Meyers.
Ormsby testified about his cross country chase and the scientific evidence. Ben Squires told how he got sick at the same time Meyers did. Cook Carrie Howes described how Lyda brought flypaper to the house and put it in bowls of water to catch flies. Twin Falls druggist Sidney B. All saw Lyda in his store buying large quantities of flypaper.
On November 4, she was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 10 years to life at the Idaho State Penitentiary in Boise. She was a model prisoner for the next several years. The guards allowed her to cultivate a garden, complete with roses trellises. Eventually she met inmate David C. Minton, who helped her escape on May 13, 1931. She had worked a bar free in her window. Then she used the rose trellises as a ladder to scale the prison wall. She escaped in a car driven by Minton, who was released two weeks earlier.
In May of 1832, they found Minton in Denver. He was extradited back to Idaho to stand trial for aiding and abetting. At trial he told what he knew of Lyda’s whereabouts. On August 6, 1932, Minton was sentenced to one to five years for helping her escape.
In December 1931, he said, Harry Whitlock advertised for a housekeeper and a nurse to care for his sick mother. After the mother died, Whitlock asked Lyda to marry him, and she did so in March of 1932. She was still there as far as Minton knew.
Lyda heard that Minton was arrested and went to visit him. While away, authorities warned Whitlock. He helped them capture her. When she left to visit her mother, she eventually wrote him a letter postmarked Topeka, Kansas. He sent her a return letter, and when she went to pick it up, the police were waiting for her. Lyda was sent back to prison in August 1932.
In both April and November of 1935 her parole was denied. On October 3, 1941 she was finally released. She went to live with her sister in Nyssa, Oregon. After awhile, she returned to Twin Falls, where she married Hal Shaw. Two years later, he disappeared without at trace. Lyda moved to Salt Lake City, where she died from a heart attack while walking home from the grocery store on February 5, 1958. She was buried at Sunset Memorial Park cemetery at Twin Falls, under her real name, Anna E. Shaw.
SOURCE: Lady Bluebeard, The True Story of Love and Marriage, Death and Flypaper, William C. Anderson, Fred Pruett Books, Boulder, CO, 1994
