The Shocking End of a Suspected Serial Killer
It’s often said that truth is stranger than fiction, and that can certainly apply to the story of Willie Maxwell. He was an army veteran who’d been in World War II, a self ordained reverend living in rural Alabama who was also well known for practicing voodoo.
He was also either a serial killer obsessed with cars or had the worst luck in history.
Willie’s first wife, Mary Lou Maxwell, was found beaten a strangled inside a car in August 1970 (an old article in the New York Times says it was in 1969). Willie was charged for the murder but before the trial could begin, the prosecution’s star witness, a woman called Dorcus (also named Darkis) Anderson who was a neighbor of the Maxwells, ended up marrying Willie. She changed her testimony and gave him an alibi, so he was found not guilty and walked away free and with the money he got from his dead wife’s insurance policy.
Two years later, in February, Columbus Maxwell, Willie’s brother, was found dead on a roadside. The cause of death was alcohol poisoning and exposure, but given what had happened with Mary Lou, the Sheriff suspected that someone –Willie– had forced Columbus to drink all that alcohol. They couldn’t find evidence so he was never charged.
Then in September of that year, it was Dorcus’ turn. Like Willie’s first wife, she was found dead inside a car. The autopsy determined she had died of “acute asthmatic bronchitis” but there was a deep wound on her forehead too. Willie eventually got money from the insurance as well.
In 1976, James Hicks, who was Maxwell’s nephew, was found dead… inside his car. The vehicle had ran off the road but it wasn’t damaged and James’ body didn’t show evident signs of injury either. His cause of death was never determined. To put the cherry on top, James had an insurance policy that named his mother, Willie’s sister, as the beneficiary, but the investigation showed that it was been Willie who had filled the form. He later tried to convince his sister to give him power of attorney, but she refused.
On June 11, 1977, Shirley-Ann Ellington was found dead under a car. She was the 16 year old foster daughter of Willie’s third wife and lived with them. At first glance, it looked like the car had fallen on her while she was trying to change a tire, but the autopsy determined she was dead before she was placed under the car and that the crime scene was staged.
Five family members dead around cars in seven years is a lot, wouldn’t you agree? Willie became the obvious suspect in Shirley’s murder, but he never got to face trial. On June 20, right after he finished delivering the eulogy at Shirley’s funeral, he was shot to death, right there in the chapel and in front of 600 people, by Robert Burns, Shirley’s uncle.
And to add a little irony to the story, the lawyer that defended Burns at his trial was Tom Radney, the very same lawyer that had previously represented Willie Maxwell in all his legal problems. Burns was found not guilty for reason of temporal insanity.
This story attracted the interest of Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird and close friend of Truman Capote. She worked on it for years in the hope of writing a book about it, but it never happened.
