The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son: Murder, Sin, and Scandal in the Shadow of Jesse James
Laura James, an attorney and crime historian from Detroit, has written a crackling, true-life account of a brazen femme fatale who was murdered in Kansas City in 1924.
Zeo Zoe Wilkins (her mother appropriated the curious name from the heroine of a 19th-century romance novel) grew up in squalor and poverty on a hog farm in rural Ohio. The 11th child of a prolific family, she was also the smartest and best-looking, with flawless skin, electric blue eyes and a willowy figure.
At 17, a high school drop-out, Zeo finagled her way into the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Mo. Her striking good looks attracted many male admirers, one of whom, Richard Dryer, the son of a banker, she married.
Details are murky, but it appears the marriage lasted only a few weeks. A new suitor entered her life, another ASO student named Charles Garring. They married in 1904; a year later, Zeo graduated from ASO and moved to Oklahoma with Garring. Oklahoma was in the throes of an oil boom. The number of men in the town of Durant, where Garring had set up an osteopathic clinic, outnumbered women 20-to-1. Zeo dallied openly with the roughnecks. Her career as a gold digger was launched.
Garring took out a life insurance policy, with Zeo the sole beneficiary. One night, at home alone, clutching a loaded pistol, she heard him tramp up the front steps. Thinking it was a burglar, she fired, not once but twice, wounding him. Overcome by remorse, she tended his wounds; only later did Garring find out that Zeo had rubbed her hands in horse manure before changing the dressings on his wounds.
Read the rest of the review here, or get a copy of The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son: Murder, Sin, and Scandal in the Shadow of Jesse James now!
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