A Bloody Mess

Nitro, West Virginia, is a small town of about 6,800 people on the Kanawha River, about twenty minutes from Charleston and split between Kanawha and Putnam counties. It was built in 1917 and 1918 as a government gunpowder town after the United States entered the First World War and Congress passed the Deficiency Appropriations Act. The plant, Explosive Plant C, was raised in eleven months on 772 acres of farmland, drew workers from every state and forty-one nationalities, and was producing 350 tons of smokeless gunpowder a day by the end of the war, when the town held about 24,000 people. The name comes from nitrocellulose. When the war ended 12,000 people left within two weeks and the government declared the site surplus. The area later became Chemical Valley, the world's leading chemical producer in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with a 12-acre site on the EPA priorities list in 1983 and a 2012 Monsanto settlement over dioxin contamination from Agent Orange manufacture. Today the town is 97.46% white, has a median age of 44, a median household income of about forty-five thousand dollars, an average home price of $82,700, and violent crime under half the national average.

The story begins at 4.30 a.m. on 19 November 1966, when the Nitro police received an anonymous call about a body near Nitro High School. Policemen Charles Sisk and Sergeant Johnson found a young girl doubled up with some clothing missing, covered in stab wounds. The pathologist counted forty-six, all inflicted in a short burst, and said two or three deep wounds to the chest and back, near the heart and lungs, killed her. A hunting knife was found stuck in the ground about eight feet from the body and its sheath about ten feet beyond that. She was identified later that morning by her grandfather and relatives as twelve-year-old Francis K. Voils, tall for her age at about 135 pounds. details of the account remain covered until revealed

Mayor Wayne W. Alexander and police captain Clarence Palmer came to the scene, and the mayor called the county coroner and the state police. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it At the house he found blood on the sidewalk, door frame, walls, floor, window sills and furniture, a recently cleaned floor, green cleanser residue, and the rugs, curtains and slip covers gone. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed His father handed the mayor the house key and the mayor locked the house. 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 Clothing, a sock and a Charleston Gazette dated 18 November were found in the backwater behind the house, and bloodstained curtains were found on Strawberry Road near Coal River.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He got home about 2 a.m. and, according to what he told others, saw Francis slap his daughter over a magazine and stabbed her forty-six times with his hunting knife in front of his children. He put her in the car trunk and left her at the high school, cleaned the house, threw items into the backwater and along Coal River Road, and about 3.30 a.m. woke fellow Monsanto worker Arnold Summers, telling him he had been attacked by five men, may have killed one and cut a girl. He bathed there and left his children with the Summers family. Elky came home about three o'clock and found the babysitter gone but her shoes still there. details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now A state police lieutenant said hair and blood matched Francis's type but the science was inexact. details of the account remain covered until revealed 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 rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

The West Virginia Supreme Court affirmed in 1969. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Defence attorney changes delayed the retrial, set for 19 October 1979, until 2 February 1981 with a changed venue. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Francis, born 28 March 1954, is buried at Spring Hill cemetery in Charleston.