So, a couple months ago, we, Joey, Amanda, and I, were talking about Midland over the years, and how much it's change. Joey had the last 24 years, and Amanda and I living all or most of our lives here when I brought that I'd always been told the Museum of the Southwest was haunted. Amanda jumped at that saying she'd always heard it too, but we didn't know the story.
So, me being me, went down that rabbit hole. It didn't take long...
It was 4:12 Oct. 29 of '63 when neighbors heard screams coming from the Turner Mansion, home to Juliette Turner, who was the wife of Fred Turner, Jr., who made his fortune acquiring lands that belonged to the state’s public free school fund that were not surveyed.
Police didn't find anything on patrols. They didn't try to make entry to look?
If they had, they'd've found Mrs. Turner bludgeoned. What neighbors heard was her scream when James Lee Marion snatched from behind while threatening her with a pistol. After he did the deed, he slept IN THE MANSION!
The maid the next morning, and called the daughter, Dorothy Turner-Scharbauer and her husband, Clarence Scharbauer, Jr. saying she saw muddy tracks inside the home and footprints in the mud outside the house and thought the home had been broken into. The po po were called, and they woke Marion while they were looking around, but he got away after decking Dorothy and holding Clarence, a deputy, and the sheriff, who's name was "Big" Ed Darnell at gunpoint.
Why three dudes couldn't take the one's beyond me. The deputy and sheriff didn't have a gun? Really?
Anyway, they chased him, lost him, and found him in business's attic. He killed Mrs. Turner for A WHOLE $111! That'd be $1102 today. He'd also taken her ID.
In '64, he was tried and convicted in Lubbock, and sentenced to death, but was later commuted to life while becoming a prison minister, eventually getting released.
Marion died in '22.
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