1. Rattlesnake James was charged with murdering his wife, Mary Emma Busch, to collect her life insurance benefit.
24 Facts About Rattlesnake James
1. 2.
Rattlesnake James was suspected of killing his fourth wife, Winona Wallace, and his nephew, Cornelius Wright, to collect on life insurance benefits.
3.
Rattlesnake James's father was a sharecropper, and he was taken out of school at age eight to do agricultural work.
4.
Rattlesnake James enlisted and served as a US Marine Corps private during WWI.
5.
Rattlesnake James apparently "failed to return" to her after the war.
6.
Rattlesnake James moved to California in 1932 with his 17-year-old niece Lois Wright, who had Hollywood ambitions.
7.
Rattlesnake James got a pair of $5,000 insurance policies for both from Prudential Insurance.
8.
Rattlesnake James smelled of liquor and had a massive wound behind her ear.
9.
At the coroner's inquest, medical examiner George B Gilmore testified that James told him his wife had ignored physician's orders to avoid washing her hair because of the head wound and drowned as a result.
10.
Rattlesnake James pointed out that Winona's death had not been due not merely to drowning, but that the head injury she received in the accident had been a contributing cause.
11.
At the later "rattlesnake murder" trial, the Colorado toll-road operator to whom James had reported the accident testified that James' "shoes were not muddy and there were no footprints in the soft dirt of the hillside," which contradicted James' claim that he had jumped from the out-of-control car to safety.
12.
Robert Rattlesnake James reported his next wife was Ruth Thomas but said he wasn't sure about their marriage because he was drunk.
13.
Rattlesnake James was a beauty shop operator and the wedding was October 8,1934 in New Orleans.
14.
Rattlesnake James reported the marriage annulled in New Orleans in 1934.
15.
Rattlesnake James reportedly had the marriage annulled because she wouldn't "take the physical required" for him to get life insurance on her.
16.
Rattlesnake James took out an insurance policy on his nephew Cornelius Wright, a young sailor.
17.
Rattlesnake James invited Wright to visit him while he was on leave.
18.
In 1935, the subsequent visit, Rattlesnake James allowed his nephew to use his car.
19.
The mechanic who towed the wreck back to Rattlesnake James told him that something was wrong with the steering wheel.
20.
In March 1935, Ray Rattlesnake James met Mary Emma Busch, who would become his sixth and final wife.
21.
Rattlesnake James worked as a manicurist in his barber shop.
22.
Rattlesnake James had told her that if she wanted an illegal abortion, he needed to cover her face "to protect the doctor's identity".
23.
Under intense questioning, Hope explained the plot thoroughly and Rattlesnake James was arrested in 1936.
24.
On May 1,1942, Rattlesnake James was executed by hanging at San Quentin State Prison in California.