Chapter 24
A Most Tragic Event
1931
“She was such a fine character, so useful and adored by so many –
it seems so hard that she should have met such a fate.”
Sarah [Shapard] Whiteside (1848-1933) letter to David E. Shapard, dated May 17, 1931
The evening of Friday, April 3, 1931, was seemingly like any other, David’s 59 year old sister, Lizzie Shapard Jaynes, had finished her secretarial shift at her husband’s law practice before casually parting ways to assist Mr. Sloat. For over 20 years, Mr. & Mrs. Jaynes had boarded at 1316 New Hampshire Avenue Northwest in Washington D.C., on the fifth floor of the apartment house owned by Mr. Sloat, who operated a chain of Washington’s most fashionable restaurants. Over the last year, Mrs. Jaynes began assisting the elderly Mr. Sloat by checking up on the cash registers each night while on her way home.
Shortly before midnight, Lizzie was tending to the register at the Garden T Shoppe, located at 1835 Columbia Road N. W., when, to the terror of the staff and several customers, two young white men, about 6 feet tall, entered the establishment one brandishing a pistol - their faces concealed behind black rubber bathing caps. Both bandits rushed the cash register, ordering Lizzie to give them the money. At gunpoint, she quickly complied, nervously opening the register drawer. While the gunman, pointing the firearm directly at Lizzie, emptied the drawer of approximately $90, the other turned his attention to Miss Mildred Colt, the 20 year old waitress, harshly interrogating her if there was any more money in the place. To the shock of everyone, at that instant the gun discharged. “Did you hit her?” shouted the bandit beside Miss Colt. “No” replied the gunman, looking at Lizzie. “Let’s go.” Both robbers backed slowly out of the restaurant and sped off in their getaway car that had been parked out front with an accomplice.
In the immediate aftermath, the police were rapidly summoned and Lizzie, Miss Colt and the customers gave a full account of what occurred. Despite a plea to have herself examined at the hospital, Lizzie insisted that she had not been injured, suggesting that the shot must have been a blank. A pedestrian on the street relayed the license plate numbers to the police, as well as, a description of the car. As it came to pass, the following evening, the automobile was located abandoned at the Connecticut Avenue entrance to the Zoo. The police discovered that the car had been stolen, before the robbery, and a stolen tag had been secured over the original license plate.
After Lizzie gave her statement to the police, the manager of the shop drove her to the safety of her home and husband. Over an hour had passed since the incident, and she was telling her husband the terrifying details of the hold-up, when suddenly her leg became numb. Mr. Jaynes phoned Dr. W. P. Reeves who arrived with haste. Upon careful inspection, it was discovered that Lizzie indeed had sustained a gunshot wound in her abdomen from a small caliber projectile. Due to the unusual delay in symptoms, it was initially thought that the bullet wound may be superficial, however, she was immediately transported to Garfield Hospital where she came under the care of multiple physicians.
Examinations and x-rays revealed that a 25 caliber bullet had entered the left side of her abdomen, traversing to the right side of her body, lodging itself just below her rib. The bullet wound was small enough to close almost immediately, explaining why Lizzie had failed to detect it. Although the exterior wound was miniscule, the damage it did to her organs was inevitably significant. Throughout the day of April 4th, Lizzie’s condition continued to decline as she was gradually bleeding out internally.
On Saturday night, first news of the tragedy reached Fort Smith by way of a telegram sent by Miss Daisy G. Davis, a former resident that had moved to Washington D. C. Unfortunately, David Shapard could not be located, as he had traveled to Tulsa Saturday morning. Upon his return later that day, he visited his brother Edwin at Muskogee, who was also oblivious of the situation, and did not reach Fort Smith until after midnight. The first news received by him came by way of his friends at the Southwest Times Record newspaper who sought him out in the late hour. David immediately contacted his brother-in-law Mr. W. B. Jaynes, learning the seriousness of her condition.
The morning of Sunday, April 5th, Lizzie slipped into unconsciousness, and was rushed into the operating room where surgery was performed and the bullet was removed. The doctors decided a blood transfusion was desperately needed, and a call was put out to the community to find an appropriate donor. A large outpouring of friends responded, including members of the Jaynes Bible class of young women, which Lizzie taught for 22 years at Mount Vernon Place Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Miss Lucy Mary Graves, who was a friend and neighbor in the Jayne’s apartment house, was select as the best blood donor.
Throughout the day, David received a number of telegrams notifying him that Lizzie’s condition was becoming more crucial. It was decided that Edwin Shapard and his son, Edwin III, would drive over to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where David, driving up from Fort Smith, would intersect them; then, together, the three men would make a non-stop 1,200 mile trek northeast by automobile to Washington D. C., hopefully reaching their sister sometime late Monday or early Tuesday. At 6:15, Sunday evening, as David was preparing to leave Fort Smith, he received a phone call from Mr. Jaynes, informing him that despite a valiant effort to save her life, Lizzie had just passed away. She died on Easter Sunday 1931.
Completely bereaved, David, Edwin and Edwin III made the tedious and perilous journey, driving all throughout the night to reach Washington D. C., where they met their brother Sumner who had traveled from East Orange, New Jersey. Lizzie’s remains were resting at the S. H. Hines Co., funeral home at 2901 Fourteenth Street Northwest, where the family somberly convened. Lizzie’s widely attended funeral was held Wednesday, April 8, at 2 p. m., at her beloved Mount Vernon Place Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and she was laid to rest at Fort Lincoln Cemetery. David, Edwin and Edwin III left Washington D. C. after the service, David arriving home to Fort Smith late on April 10th.
Due to the circumstances, Lizzie’s death was now a murder. During the two weeks before Lizzie’s killing, there had been a rise in violent crime in Washington D. C., with 15 armed robberies resulting in two homicides. Immediately after the Garden T Shoppe shooting, police patrols were doubled on the streets to help curb the upswing in crime before Easter. Four detectives were initially assigned to the Jayne’s murder case, and by August, over 30 arrests had been made in an effort to identify the perpetrators, yet, to no avail. In tandem, Mr. W. B. Jaynes hired his own detectives on the case and even involved the F. B. I.
Five years later, a former bus boy of the Garden T Shoppe, who had been an early suspect, was convicted of the murder after confessing to the police, and was duly sentenced to the electric chair. In June of 1937, days before his execution, President Franklin D. Roosevelt commuted to ‘life in prison’ the death sentence imposed by the earlier District Court. John Miller Shapard, son of Edwin R. Shapard, stated that this decision by the president absolutely devastated his father, just as the family was about to have resolution and justice for the murder of their loved one. As a result, for at least the next 13 years, the convicted man filed numerous petitions for retrials to be freed, never allowing the family to rest. Understandably, Edwin held a great distain for Roosevelt over his intervention in the case. Lizzie’s husband, Mr. W. B. Jaynes, died in 1950, having never fully recovered from the terrible death of his wife. He was buried next to her at Fort Lincoln Cemetery.
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