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| Marie "Boots" Williams (Evening Public ledger. November 25, 1920) |
Newspapers had a heyday after the arrest of
eighteen-year-old Marie Williams (aka Boots), calling her “the prettiest girl
ever arrested in West Virginia.”
That same day, Marie told reporters, “They
haven’t got a thing on me. I’m having a lot of fun—a regular lark—and the laugh
will be on the cops.”
She was talking about her arrest as an
accomplice in the murder of Henry T. Pierce in Philadelphia.
The girl entranced detectives with her beauty
and fun-loving personality. “She is the most remarkable girl prisoner we ever
had in custody,” said Police Chief Frazier. “Her nerve is simply astounding.
She eclipses anybody that has ever come under my observation.”
After her lover and partner in crime, Peter T.
Treadway, told her he confessed everything, Marie talked. She told detectives
she had moved in with Treadwell about three weeks before the murder occurred.
She described the murder as a drunken brawl.
“Don’t you believe it was anything else, either,” she told detectives.
“They cannot put the crime of murder on us,”
she continued. “We were invited to Pierce’s apartment to have a midnight lunch
after a ride and nothing else.” Of course, she wanted a ride in his fast red
car.
Neither Treadwell nor she had anything to do
with the murder. Two men busted into the apartment while they were eating and
attacked Pierce.
And just like that, she was done talking. “It’s
getting late,” she told Detective Hanley. “I’m sleepy. I think I’ll jump into
my Billy Burke’s and get my beauty sleep.”
Treadway said the killer’s name was Al Smith.
He lived near Eighth and Spruce streets in Philadelphia and “had quite a rep as
a crapshooter.”
Saturday night, they met up with Al Smith and
his friend Jack. They were stinking drunk. Eventually, he and Marie escaped
them and went to Pierce’s place. They were not there long before Al and Jack
walked in.
“Al flashed a gun at our heads,” said
Treadwell. “I put my hands up, but Pierce didn’t act quickly enough. Marie and
another girl who came with us ran out of the room and down the stairs.”
Al pulled out a jack and smacked Pierce’s arm,
then beat him on the head.
“Al went bad then and took the butt end of the
revolver and hit Pierce over the head with it several times. Then he pulled out
the heavy wrench from his pocket and hit him with that.”
Marie Williams and her two husbands, Ross Rogers and Peter Treadwell
(The Bismarck Tribune. March 1, 1920)
When they finished, Al and Jack searched Pierce and took his valuables. They made Treadway drive the car and told him they needed him to take them across the state line. Marie jumped into the car and they headed out.
They stopped at a gas station on Cobb Creek Boulevard and again on Calvin Street in Baltimore.
”It was a terrible trip through the mountains,”
said Treadway. “In some places, there was a foot and a half of snow. We had to
keep both headlights and both spotlights going full tilt to get enough light
not to break our necks.
“Three or four times, I thought we were done
for.”
The train ride back to Philadelphia contained
an unusual crowd—just Treadway, “Boots,” a dozen detectives, and a handful of
reporters. “Boots” sang and danced, performing her rendition of “Lead Me to the
Land of Jazz.”
“Oh, by the way,” she smiled and winked at the
reporter, “you’re still my manager, you know?”
Everything was a joke to Boots. When they
arrived in Philadelphia, she cracked, “Why Broad Street Station was simply
packed with people wanting to see me, and City Hall was as bad.”
In Philadelphia, Marie told detectives her
rendition of the murder.
“Pierce was killed by two men whose names my
hubby tells me were Al Smith and another man he knows only as Jack. Neither of
us ever met the dead man before that.”
The two drunken men came to their home. They
were loud and noisy, so Treadway and she left and went to a restaurant where
they met Pierce. He was drunk and standing beside his car, talking to everyone
who passed by.
Somehow, they ended up taking a ride with
Pierce and went to his house to get more whiskey. Al and Jack followed them in
and ordered them to put their hands up. Pierce was too drunk to follow
directions, so they hit him on the head with a blackjack.
Marie and Treadway ran out of the door and
headed home. Fifteen minutes later, Al and Jack busted in on them. “You’re in
this jam just as much as we are,” said Jack. “You better beat it, too.”
Boots and Treadway traveled to Wheeling, West
Virginia, with Al and Jack, where the car broke down, so they were stranded.
Detectives arrested them the next day.
A quick check of Peter Treadway’s record proved
he was no angel. Police suspected Treadway had been involved in several
robberies and holdups.
Peter Treadway and the red convertible he stole from Henry pierce after killing him.
(Evening Public Ledger. November 25, 1920
Marie Williams (Boots) had been arrested for shoplifting. Her identity remained somewhat of a mystery. She went by Marie Williams, Marie Phillips, Marie Steele, and just “Boots.” Another time, she gave the names Pearl and Faith. In late November, it was learned that her real name was Rogers. She was married to a sailor named Ross Rogers, and her first name was Susie, not Marie.
Marie married Ross Rogers in March 1920 and
Peter Treadway toward the end of 1920.
By the end of November, police had arrested J.
Archibald Moss—or Jack. Moss worked as a scale repairman. According to the
Standard Scale Company, he was one of the best in the business. Moss made $40 a
week, the equivalent of $516 in 2020. By that time, Marie had changed her story
again. She said Moss fled with her when the first blow was struck. Al and
Treadway stayed behind and killed Smith.
“I didn’t touch (Pierce),” said Moss. “I wasn’t
in the room [that] he was murdered in more than a minute or two.”
“I did not even see the first blow,” continued
Moss. “I heard the thud. It sounded as if Smith had hit Pierce with the
revolver. I didn’t wait to see.” Later, he changed that story a bit. “Al
slammed him with a blackjack. Pierce was hurt badly.” Al was still clubbing
Pierce when he and “Boots” ran out of the room. Treadway was there, but “I
don’t know that he struck a blow.”
When Treadway and Al came back, they asked what
had happened. “We croaked him,” said Al, “and have to make a fast getaway.” They
rounded up their stuff and hit the road.
Later, on the ride to Wheeling, Treadway “told
the girl he’d put the blame on her if he and Smith got in a jam because she was
a good liar and could worm out of it.”
Detective Belshaw said the girl’s revised story
confirmed Moss’s story, so they believed their account of the crime.
Peter Treadway reconsidered on December 2 and
reversed his story. “It’s all true,” he told detectives, “I killed him. Moss
and the girl were innocent witnesses to the killing.”
Al Smith knocked Pierce to the ground, said
Treadway, and finished the gruesome work. “I held a towel over Pierce’s face
until he was dead. I got blood on my trousers when I placed the towel over his
face, but I held it there until I was satisfied that he was dead.”
The next day, Treadway repudiated his
confession and pushed the blame back on Al Smith. Police then issued a warrant
for Al Smith, whom they believed was known as Marion Elliott.
Meanwhile, Ross Rogers said his wife was a
“tool” in the hands of Peter Treadway. He told reporters he loved his wife and
would stand by her throughout the trial. While he was away in the service, a
neighbor-woman introduced Marie to Al Smith, who introduced her to Peter
Treadway. Treadway “flattered Susie—and called me a boob,” said Rogers.
Marie "Boots" Williams and Peter Treadway
(Evening Public Ledger. November 26, 1920)
The trial opened on March 15, 1921. The court decided to try Treadway first, then Moss, followed by “Boots.”
The papers expected that “Boots” would be the
State’s star witness during Treadway’s trial, and they weren’t disappointed.
She testified for fifty-five minutes straight without questions or
interruptions.
“Boots” lived in constant fear of Treadway and
was afraid to disobey him. Her story remained consistent with what she had told
the detectives earlier. Then, Al Smith busted into Pierce’s room and hit him on
the arm and the head with a blackjack. She hurried out of the room, followed by
Moss, and headed back to her apartment.
Treadway and Smith came back about thirty
minutes later and said they needed to get out of there—quick. When they stopped
at Moss’s place to get his stuff, Marie wanted to run away but was afraid
of Treadway. That’s why the police found her with him in Wheeling.
The jury found Treadway guilty of murder in the
second degree and sentenced him to twenty years of hard labor.
The court dropped the murder charge against
Marie, but she was still tried as an accessory after the fact, even though both
sides were unsure if that was true. “There is nothing to indicate that the girl
came to Pierce’s room to take part in the killing or robbing,” said Judge
Audenried. “But she was in bad company.”
Prosecutor Speiser agreed but thought the jury
should be allowed “to draw its own inference.” It would not be right for the
judge to acquit her.
“She’s just a nineteen-year-old kid,” said
Boots’s lawyer as he summarized the case for the jury.
“Her guilt hangs on a slender thread. Do not
condemn her because she does not measure up to your ideal of a woman. Throw out
of the case all her immorality. That has nothing to do with it. This young
woman may have been led astray or fallen as Mary Magdalen, but you have to
consider only whether or not she is guilty of this charge.”
The jury acquitted her.
Moss pleaded guilty as an accessory after the
fact and received an eighteen-month sentence at the Eastern Penitentiary at
Cherry Hill. With credit for time served awaiting trial, he would be out in ten
months.
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