Louisiana’s Female Killer

Annie Beatrice McQuiston better known as Toni Jo Henry was 26 years old when she became the first female in Louisiana to be executed in the electric chair.

Toni Jo sitting in her cell
the morning of her
execution.

Toni Jo had both beauty and brains, but a tough childhood left her scarred. Her mother died when she was four, and an aunt took her in. Toni Jo found no love in this household. She didn't finish grade school, and she started to run away at age 13.

It was not long before Toni Jo had a reputation in her hometown of Lake Charles, Louisiana as being a “lewd woman.” By the age of 17, she was addicted to cocaine and was working as a prostitute in a local brothel.

She was arrested several times for assault, larceny, and vagrancy. She served a short stretch in jail for cutting off part of a man’s ear with scissors. Not surprising she gained a reputation for being “the most ornery gal east of the Mississippi.”

The one bright spot in Toni Jo’s life was when she met Claude Henry known as “Cowboy” in a brothel she worked in. The two hit it off right away, and Cowboy helped Toni Jo kick her cocaine habit. They fell in love and were married.

Claude "Cowboy" Henry

But Cowboy had killed a police officer in Texas before he met Toni Jo and when the law caught up to him, he was taken back to Texas. He was tried and convicted of this murder and was sentenced to 50 years in Huntsville.

Toni Jo became determined to break Cowboy out of prison. She enlisted the help of a bum, Harold Finnon Burkes--known as “Arkie.” The two started to hitchhike across Louisiana headed for Texas.

This pair pulled a pistol on a car salesman J.P. Crowley who stopped to give them a ride. They forced this poor man to strip naked and tortured him. As he begged for his life Toni Jo put a pistol between his eyes and shot--he died instantly.

The two took Crowley’s car and went on their way. But they stopped at a roadhouse where they both got drunk. They proceeded to brag about killing Crowley. In short order, they were arrested, and Crowley’s body was found.

Calcasieu Parish Courthouse

They both claimed the other had actually pulled the trigger but this ploy backfired for both were convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. During Toni Jo’s first trial in Lake Charles the hundred plus crowd in the large Calcasieu Parish Courtroom often shouted, “hang her, hang her.”

Texas released Cowboy under close supervision during this time, and he was taken to Lake Charles to coax a confession out of Toni Jo--she openly admitted to him that she shot Crowley “right between the eyes.”

Toni Jo’s lawyers appealed her conviction, and she was granted a second trial where she was sentenced to die again. They then appealed once more, and she was given a third trial where the verdict did not change.

By the end of Toni Jo’s third trial, Louisiana had brought in an electric chair to be used in state executions. She was sentenced to die on November 28, 1942.

Toni Jo became a celebrity and she was often granted privileges other prisoners were not given. She was even allowed to keep a pet in her cell. When it came time for her execution, a hairdresser was called in to cut her hair instead of the prison barber.

Cowboy managed to break out of a prison farm a few days before Toni Jo was to be electrocuted--in an attempt to save her-- but he was re-captured quickly.

It was Toni Jo’s dying wish to talk to Cowboy and even though it broke the rules she was allowed this call. “She did all the talking, and he did all the crying.”

Louisiana's electric chair.

It is said that Toni Jo was calm on the day of her execution. She spent the morning joking with her jailers, waiting for the governor’s call which never came. She did protest loudly when they cut off her hair.

After her execution Cowboy went wild and tore up his prison cell. Ironically, just a few years after Toni Jo’s death Cowboy was released from prison, but within ten years he was shot and killed.

It is said Toni Jo’s ghost haunts the Calcasieu Parish Courthouse in Lake Charles. Footsteps are heard, and a distinct perfume from the 1940s is often noticed around this building.

A woman’s husky voice is often heard in the distance but no one has been able to make out what she is saying.

An electric rotating file is often mysteriously turned off when no one is near it. This file is turned on and off with a key. Courthouse employees consider this to be Toni Jo’s handiwork. 

The door to the entrance to this area has to be unlocked with a key as well. It is then left unlocked during the day--but voter registration employees have found the door locked in the middle of the day.

Even more startling activity occurs on a stair landing. This stair is near where Toni Jo was said to be executed. A woman’s shrill screams are often heard in this area.

Here is a link to a Travel Channel episode of Ghost Stories that has several witnesses sharing their encounters with Toni Jo's ghost.

Haunted Electric Chair: Ted Bundy

Theodore Robert “Ted” Bundy was one of the most notorious murderers in United States history. In fact, the term “serial killer” was first coined to describe his crimes. 

Bundy murdered and raped scores of young women across the United States between 1974 and 1978.

It is not known exactly how many murders Bundy committed but before he was executed he confessed to more than 30. 

Most believe Bundy was a sociopath who most likely killed his first victim when he was just 15 years old. 

Bundy was well-educated, the people who knew him described him as being very likable and charming.

He was able to hide his true nature, for the crimes he committed were very brutal.  

Typically he raped and murdered or murdered then raped (necrophilia) his victims. He killed his young female victims--young woman and girls-- by bludgeoning them or sometimes by strangulation.

FBI Ten Most
Wanted

After a prison escape and a nationwide manhunt Bundy was finally tried and then executed in the electric chair in January of 1989 for his crimes.

In April of 2001, a guard who was retired from the Florida State prison in Raiford, Florida, where Ted Bundy was executed, told a Tampa newspaper the following very disturbing and chilling story, under the condition they not publish his name. *

This guard told a reporter that after Bundy was put to death that he and several other prison guards saw Ted Bundy as they entered the room where the electric chair is located. 

He stated that Ted Bundy was just sitting in the electric chair casually—that he was not strapped in. The guard described how Bundy would smile a “very knowing smile” as a greeting when they entered the room.

This guard told the reporter that when he or his fellow guards tried to speak to Bundy he would vanish. 

He also stated that at one point there were so many sightings of Bundy in this room that prison officials couldn’t find any guards willing to enter the room.

Bundy has also been seen by guards near the holding cell, where he was kept for the last few hours of his life. 

All the guards that reported seeing him here stated that Bundy spoke to them. He said the same thing to each of them, “Well, I beat all of you didn’t I?”

The reporter was told that because so many guards saw Bundy and reported it, that the warden and his staff pulled each of them aside individually and warned them they were not to talk about what they had seen, or they would be fired. 

Several guards didn’t stay around long enough to hear the warden’s warning because after seeing Bundy more than once, they quit.

* I find this story very morbid but fascinating--so I place it here. Since the one witness willing to talk has remained anonymous it leaves the reader with a question as to whether anyone actually saw Ted Bundy as reported.

Update: Just this week, May 22, 2013 inmates at the Florida State Prison, now known as Union Correctional Institution have reported sightings of Ted Bundy's ghost.

Here is a 2-minute recording of Art Bell on Coast to Coast talking about Bundy's ghost.