Two Deaths, One Unexpected Murderer

El Dorado, in Saline County in southeastern Illinois, is a town of about 4,000 people in the region known as Little Egypt, roughly two hours from St. Louis. It grew up around a maze of railroad tracks, peaked at 8,000 people in 1925, and was down about ten per cent over fifteen years. Until the mid-1960s it was a sundown town.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it His father worked on the railroad and the family scraped enough money to send him to college and medical school. He came home to practise as a small-town doctor who made house calls, and the town loved him for it. In 1951 he met a nurse, Marian Newbury, and married her in 1952. The marriage was violent: he drank, used drugs he had access to as a doctor, beat her, and played cruel practical jokes on his four sons.

In 1971, driving drunk, he caused a crash that killed a father and his ten-month-old baby. His blood alcohol was more than twice the legal limit, and he was given three years' probation and a $1,500 fine. In about 1973 Marian left him and moved to St. Louis, leaving the four boys with him. He focused his contempt on his oldest son, Mark, whom he called a no-good pot smoker.

On 9 April 1977 the family gathered at Hickory Handle Farm for Easter. Mark, 22, did not appear. His brother Kevin went out to the trailer where Mark lived, and his brother Sean found Mark's body in tall grass about twelve feet from his jeep pickup. He had been dead a little over twelve hours and scavenging animals had stripped much of the body; he was identified by his belt buckle and dental records. A shirt found nearby had a two-and-a-half to four inch hole in the chest, consistent with a 12-gauge buckshot blast. In the truck a shotgun lay on the floorboard with a coat hanger hooked around the trigger and a hunting vest shut in the passenger door. Police theorised Mark reached for the gun and it fired, but the shell on the floorboard bothered the chief investigator, and Kevin said his brother was far too experienced with guns for that. A couple of months earlier Dr. Dale had taken out a $40,000 life insurance policy on Mark naming himself beneficiary. Detective Jack Nolan, a 32-year veteran of the state police, was certain it was murder, and the former Saline County coroner Wendell Lambert was suspicious too, but in May 1977 the death was ruled accidental for lack of physical evidence. The town stood behind the doctor.

this part of the story is covered for now In 1984 he persuaded Sean and Kevin to join an insurance investment, promising to pay the $1,000 monthly premiums, while he owed close to half a million dollars and the farm was heavily mortgaged.

In December 1984 a farmer found Sean's body in a remote area near Times Beach, a ghost town evacuated over dioxin contamination. Sean, 22, had been shot twice in the back of the head with a .357; one bullet exited under his left eye and the other lodged in his brain. He had drunk more than a dozen drinks and his blood alcohol was 0.26, and he was identified by fingerprints from an earlier traffic stop. details of the account remain covered until revealed Dr. Dale said he had not seen Sean for weeks. Witnesses at Sean's apartment had written down his licence plate, seen the two men hugging, and heard them leave at 3 a.m. Hours after the death Dr. Dale was laughing and drinking at a community Christmas party. Confronted with the lie, he said Sean had asked to see his pistol, put it to the back of his head, said 'tell mom I'm sorry' and pulled the trigger; he fired a second shot because a suicide would have destroyed his ex-wife, and took the wallet to make it look like a robbery. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The town was outraged on his behalf and set up a defence fund, started by his friend Burtis Herman, that reached $37,000.

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Sean's girlfriend Tina testified he had been cheerful because his father was showing interest in him. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed The day after his death a suicide clause expired on his life insurance policy, so it paid out. Kevin said his father had, as a final act, cheated another insurance company. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now Darcy O'Brien wrote a book about it, The Murder in Little Egypt, in 1989.