“Flypaper” Lyda Southard: Lady Bluebeard

Sept. 7, 1920, Twin Falls, Idaho: Edward F. Meyer, a ranch foreman, dies after a sudden attack of illness.

Both he and one of his ranch hands had taken sick just days earlier, after eating a meal cooked by Ed’s new bride, Lyda. The men were doubled over with cramps, nausea, and diarrhea. The ranch hand recovered, but Ed was taken to the hospital. While there, he too began to recover, but then mysteriously took a turn for the worst.

On his death certificate, the doctor lists Ed’s cause of death as typhoid fever, a common illness at the time, usually resulting from drinking tainted water.

Ed and Lyda had been married scarcely a month, yet Ed had already drawn up a new will, along with a new life insurance policy worth $10,000, both naming Lyda as the sole beneficiary.

People in town are suspicious — Ed was Lyda’s fourth husband, all of whom had died suddenly.

Perhaps because of the rumors circulating around town, or perhaps because Ed’s death had been so sudden, when Lyda attempts to claim his life insurance policy, the company insists that an autopsy be performed. Lyda agrees — then skips town.

This raises even more suspicion with one particular person: Earl Dooley, a chemist and relative of Lyda’s first husband, Robert.

Robert Dooley had fallen for Lyda when they were just teenagers living in central Missouri. Lyda, born Anna Elizabeth Trueblood, was the third of 11 children in a devout, church-going family. She was a petite, blue-eyed red-head whom everyone recalled as charming and popular. Her good looks attracted men “like flies to a honey pot.”

When Lyda was in her teens, her family moved from Missouri to Twin Falls, Idaho, where they bought a large tract of land and began growing crops. Soon, Robert, along with his brother Ed, moved to Twin Falls as well.

In March 1912, when Lyda was 19 years old, she and Robert were wed. They set up house at Robert’s ranch, along with Ed. The couple seemed to be the picture of wedded bliss, and in 1914, they welcomed a daughter, whom they named Lorraine, into their family.

However, the next year, the happy family was struck by a series of tragedies. First, baby Lorraine died, a result of drinking dirty well water, according to Lyda (note: some sources list baby Lorraine’s death as occurring four years later, in 1918).

Then, in August 1915, Ed died after a bout of painful illness. His cause of death was listed as either typhoid fever or ptomaine poisoning — essentially, an infection caused by drinking tainted water. His life insurance policy — which had recently doubled to $2,000 — was split between Lyda and Robert.

Then, in October, Robert fell ill with the same symptoms as his brother: nausea, cramps, diarrhea, weakness. He died on Oct. 12, 1915, and his cause of death was listed as typhoid fever.

Lyda, now in her mid-20s, was now alone, but she had Robert’s property and the insurance money to support herself.

Less than two years after Robert’s death, she met William McHaffle, and in June 1917, the two were married. With the proceeds from the life insurance policies and the sale of Robert’s property, the McHaffles moved to Montana.

However, their marriage would not last long. In late September, William became ill with severe cramps, diarrhea, and fatigue. He died Oct. 1, 1917 — scarcely four months after their wedding — leaving Lyda a widow for a second time.

Since this was in the midst of the deadly Spanish Flu pandemic, with bodies piling up in morgues all over the nation, the physician likely didn’t have time to do a very thorough autopsy. Based on the symptoms Lyda described, William’s cause of death was listed as influenza and diphtheria — again, a common infection brought on by drinking tainted water.

Lyda quickly collected his $500 life insurance policy.

However, she did not remain single long. In March 1919, she married an automotive engineer (or a car salesman; sources differ), Harlan Lewis. This marriage also, coincidentally, only lasted four months before Harlan, too, died. His cause of death was listed as gastroenteritis — basically, an infection of the gastro-intestinal tract that causes severe abdominal pain, weakness, and diarrhea.

After his death, Lyda collected $5,000 in life insurance.

The now thrice-widowed Lyda moved back to Idaho, where she started going by the name Anna Mae McHaffle. There she met and married Ed Meyer. Their marriage had only lasted a month before he took ill and died.

Ed Dooley is highly suspicious of the string of deaths that seem to follow Lyda around. Going on a hunch, he goes to his relative’s old farm and takes a soil sample from the place where Lyda said Robert’s body had fallen when he died.

He tests the soil sample at his lab; it tests positive for the presence of arsenic. He asks two other men — a physician and another chemist — to check his findings. Both men agree: the soil contains arsenic.

Arsenic poisoning is very hard to detect — first of all, it’s tasteless and odorless, making it easy to sneak into food or drink. The symptoms include abdominal pain, cramps, diarrhea, weakness, and seizures — symptoms easily mistaken for any number of gastrointestinal ailments such as typhoid, diphtheria, and gastroenteritis.

Ed takes his results to the state prosecuting attorney, Frank Stephan. Frank orders Robert Dooley’s remains to be exhumed and tested for arsenic.

Indeed, Robert’s body is shown to contain a high amount of arsenic, enough to have killed five men.

Frank issues an arrest warrant for Lyda — but when Deputy Sheriff Virgil Ormsby arrives at her home, she is gone. Upon searching the home, Virgil finds a barrel containing a foot-high stack of flypapers. At the time, flypaper contained arsenic, which could be easily extracted by boiling or soaking.

As Virgil attempts to find Lyda, the bodies of her other victims are also exhumed; all are shown to have toxic amounts of arsenic in their bodies. Only Lorraine’s tests are inconclusive, though signs point to her being poisoned too.

During his investigation tracking down Lyda, Virgil encounters a druggist in Montana who recalled selling Lyda a large amount of flypaper.

Finally, in May 1921, eight months after Ed Meyer’s murder, police find Lyda in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she is married to husband number five, a Naval petty officer named Paul Southard. Paul refuses to believe the charges laid against his new wife.

She returns to Idaho to face charges of murdering Ed Meyer (she isn’t charged with any of the other murders, for some reason). Her trial begins Oct. 3, 1921, and lasts for six weeks. It’s a national spectacle — the courtroom is packed with spectators, and her trial makes front-page headlines in the New York Times. A French reporter uses the term “serial killer” to describe her — perhaps the first time the term is used.

In the end, she is only found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 10 years to life. Upon her conviction, Paul files for divorce.

However, Lyda would spend comparatively little time behind bars.

While incarcerated in the Idaho State Penitentiary, she once again used her charms on men who could be of use to her. She struck up a pen-pal romance with fellow inmate David Minton while simultaneously wooing a prison guard. The prison guard, she convinced to smuggle in a saw and extra bedsheets.

On May 4, 1931, three weeks after David was released, she used the saw to remove a bar from her prison window, then used the bedsheets as a ladder to climb down. Outside, David was waiting for her.

Police searched for the couple, but it wasn’t until July that they got a lead on her location. David Minton came forward with information about where she was; Lyda had ditched him to marry husband number six: Harry Whitlock.

While she and David were in Denver, Colorado, Lyda had taken a job as a housekeeper for Harry, a wealthy widow who lived with his mother and son. Soon after she started working for him, Harry’s mother died of a gastric ailment.

Harry soon married Lyda and took out a life insurance policy naming her as the beneficiary. But when she read in the newspapers that she was a wanted woman, she fled to Topeka, Kansas.

Police tracked her down in Topeka, where she had dyed her hair black and replaced two of her front teeth with gold ones. She surrendered peacefully, saying, “I expected to be caught.”

Harry Whitlock had the marriage annulled.

So Lyda was returned to the Idaho State Penitentiary. However, she was not done using her charms to get her way. She convinced the warden, George Rudd, to grant her trustee status, despite her earlier escape (and possible murder).

He did, allowing her to leave the prison to go to movies and spas, and even drove her to visit her mother, leaving her unsupervised for hours at a time. She was even allowed curtains and flowered wallpaper in her cell.

She was paroled in 1941. Two years later, the governor issued her a full pardon.

Despite having killed at least six, and possibly seven, people, Lyda Southard was a free woman.

Yet even after all this, she was not done playing the marriage game. She married a wealthy man named Hal Shaw, and after two years, he disappeared. To this day, his whereabouts is unknown.

Later, Lyda moved to Salt Lake City and took a job as a housekeeper for a well-off bachelor. On Feb. 5, 1958, she suffered a heart attack while walking home with groceries and passed away. An autopsy revealed there was no hair on her body, likely a result of long-term exposure to arsenic.

Anna Elizabeth “Lyda” Trueblood Dooley McHaffie Lewis Meyer Southard Whitlock Shaw was buried in the dead of night in Twin Falls, near her relatives and two of her husbands. Her headstone lists her name as “Anna E. Shaw.”