Evelyn Allen Page - A Murder in Our Families

And Allene's mother was Willie Merl Hafer. John Hafer, who married Henry Warren Ogg, Jr's sister Mary Edna, was Willie Merl's uncle, which would have made Willie Merl and Opal (Hafer) Schild first cousins...

Finally, one of Allene's grandfather's sisters married one of Carl Alfred Hegar's brothers, Otto George Hegar.

As I said, not any close relationship, but seems to be many different types of relationships to both the Wallingfords and the Oggs! But then again, Waller County back in those days had all these families - not completely surprising they were variously 'related' - often so distantly they probably didn't even know it themselves at the time...

Allene's Family

Homer and Willie Merl married 20 Aug 1926, in Harris County, Texas. Both had been born and raised in Waller County, but moved to Houston, probably not long before their wedding. Both the Page and the Hafer families had been in Waller County for many years.

Evelyn Allene Page was born 20 Aug 1926 in Harris County. She probably got her names from both sides of the family - "Evelyn" was her father's mother's name, and "Allene" was her mother's sister's name...

For the 1930 Harris County census, the family was living at 118 Drennan Street, Houston - that was just north of Harrisburg Blvd, off of Milby Street. Homer was employed as trainman on a 'street railway' - I believe that would mean on the cable cars. Several of the neighbors were similarly employed.

1930 Harris County census

Sometime around 1930, Homer and Willie got divorced.

Daniel Parker

Daniel Pleas Parker, Jr., was also born in Harris County, only a few months before, on 25 March 1927. His parents were Daniel Pleas Parker, Sr., and Alice O. Williams. Both had been born in Texas. They were living at 1402 McIlhenny Street in Houston, a bit south of the main city area, at the time of his birth.

In the 1930 Harris County census, the Parkers were living at 584 78th Street, Houston - that is near the corner of Avenue F and 78th St. Daniel, Sr. was a milktruck driver.

1930 Harris County census

Daniel, Jr., was sent to Gatesville, a juvenile corrections facility, for burglary and theft when he was 15 years old. That would have been about 1942.

Daniel and Allene

According to Daniel, Jr., he and Allene met after Daniel returned to Texas in 1948, having been in the army for 4 years, spending most of the time in Europe. Daniel had another brush with the law in 1949, fined $100 for carrying a pistol. He was known to the police as "Dapper Dan".

Allene appears to have married and divorced before marrying Daniel. No record of that marriage or divorce has been located yet. After graduating from a beauty college, she worked variously as a beauty operator, night club photographer, barmaid and at other jobs.

They married on 15 October 1951. It does not appear to have been a happy marriage; they separated in about in early May 1952, less than 7 months after they married. Allene got a divorce fairly quickly after. Allene's mother and Daniel were agreed that the two, Allene and Daniel, had reconciled to some extent, and even planned to remarry.

That was not to happen... The evening of Monday, 15 September 1952 brought a sudden end - Daniel killed Allene. The story received considerable newspaper publicity. Rather than me re-phrasing it, I have included a transcription from both the Houston Post and the Houston Chronicle to describe it.

Allene Page Parker's death certificate

Allene Parker Obituary

Allene was burid in the Field's Store Cemetery, along with so many of our other relations

Nothing much is known after the murder of her ex-husband Daniel Pleas Parker. He was convicted about two months later, with only 95 minutes for the jury to deliberate and find him guilty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was heard to mutter under his breath that the sentence was fair!

He died on 3 March 1970 in San Bernadino, California.

Houston Chronicle, 16 September 1952

Lubbock Journal, 16 September 1952

Houston Post, 17 September 1952

Lubbock Avalanche, 17 September 1952

Lubbock Journal, 13 November 1952

Houston Chronicle, 16 September 1952, page 1.

Pretty Girl Stabbed And Garroted

A tight-lipped young railroad switchman maintained a stubborn silence Tuesday about the reason for the sudden burst of rage in which he strangled his pretty es-wife with an electric cord Monday night.

"She'd been lying to me," the 25-year-old killer, Daniel Pleas Parker, said over and over again to questioners at the police station, where he is held on a charge of murder. He would add no further explanation.

His victim was Mrs. Evelyn Allene Parker, also 25, a blue-eyed, blonde beautician, who had also once worked as a night club photographer.

Her body, in a bright crimpson strapless and backless gown, was found on a bed in Apartment 2 at 1219 West Gray by Homicide Detective B. Porter and W.W. Walker, who were led to the scene by Parker.

Completely around her neck was a thin blue discoloration, and beside her on the rumpled sheets was a six-foot-long cord to an electric fan. The fan had toppled to the floor from a chair beside the bed. Her dress and undergarments had been pulled down to her waist.

Also on the floor, the homicide officers said, was a small black-handled kitchen knife - its blade bent slight askew and blood. There was a small knife wound in her back on the left side.

Justice W.C. Regan, in whose court the murder charge against Parker was filed, said his Inquest indicated the young woman first had been stabbed in the back and, when the knife blade bent, the killer grabbed up the electric cord, still attached to the fan, and choked her to death with it.

There were small bruises about her chin and on her hands, as if she had fought vainly to prevent the cord from cutting off life-giving breath.

"Death was due to strangulation" Judge Regan said. "It was a killing in a burst of sudden rage."

Although Parker kept his own counsel as to the reason for his rage, he orally admitted to police and reporters that he had killed his ex-wife and told how he did it.

"I guess I did it on the spur of the moment," he told the Chronicle. "We were in the bedroom. Suddenly I yanked her on the bed. I grabbed one end of a cord to a fan she had sitting on a chair nearby and I wrapped it around her and tightened it. I don't remember seeing or using a knife.

"The next thing I recall was I came out of the apartment and I was sweating. I stood outside on the pavement I don't know how long."

He stopped and calmly puffed on a cigarette and a newsman interrupted:

"Do you think you will get the chair?"

Parker looked judiciously at the cigarette tip.

Could be, he said easily.

"I guess the state is going to spend some money on me.

"Old Man Ellis (Prison Director O.B. Ellis) will meet me at the gate and say, 'I've been waiting for you a long time.' I guess I'll get the reserved seat. I guess I'll have to pay. We have laws and I have violated one of them"

Then resuming his story, he said he and Mrs. Parker were married October 15, 1951.

"She got a divorce about three months ago, after we separated," he added. "Then about a month ago we made up and I came to her apartment to live with her. We planned to get married again."

Mrs. Parker had shared a two-bedroom apartment with Miss Joyce Marie Atkins, 24-year-old telephone operator.

Miss Atkins in a written statement to police said that Parker and his ex-wife had been reconciled about six weeks ago and he moved into Mrs. Parker's room.

She gave a dramatic account of how she reached the apartment in a taxicab, apparently shortly after Parker's wife was strangled.

"I saw Daniel standing in front of the apartment," she said. "He was calm and asked me to take him to Kelley's cafe in my cab. We both got in the back seat of the cab and I told the driver to take us there.

"While we were riding alone Daniel said, 'Well, Joyce! I did it." I asked what he meant. He said, 'I killed Allene.'

"I did not know what to think about what he had told me and was reluctant to believe him. When the cab got to Kelley's he got out without saying anything and went in. I told the cab driver to take me to 1930 West Dallas to the home of Allene's mother.

"But she was not there. I then went to her grandmother's house on Pecore and got her to come back with me to my house.

"When we got there, the police were already there. I went in and saw Allene lying on the bed and Daniel sitting in a chair. I asked why he did this and he just looked at the floor and didn't say anything."

Homicide Detective Porter, an acquaintance of Parker for a number of years, said he received a personal call from Parker shortly before midnight as he was on duty at the police station.

"Parker told me," Porter said, "to come to Kelley's cafe at 910 Texas to get him. I asked why I should. He replied, 'I murdered my wife about 30 minutes ago and I am now at Kelley's drinking coffee and I want you to come after me.'

"I asked him over the phone why he had killed her and he said, 'Oh! She was lying to me.' I then asked how he killed her and he replied calmly, 'I choked her to death with an electric cord and left her in our apartment at 1219 West Gray.'"

Detective Porter said he told Parker to wait for him and, without knowing whether the man's story was true or false, sped to the cafe with his partner, Detective Walker. Officer Porter added:

"We found Parker seated on a stool in front of the restaurant drinking coffee. He was neatly dressed in a light tan, small-check suit and tan hat. He did not look to me like a man who had just killed his wife.

"When he saw us, he asked if we wanted coffee. We told him it could wait until we finished our investigation, as we didn't know if his wife was really dead. Then he said, 'Well, come on! Let's go out there and get it over with.'

"We asked how he knew she was dead. And he replied that he had been in service in Europe in the last war and had seen a lot of dead people."

The officers added that they drove out to the West Gray apartment with Parker setting calmly and silently between them; that he led them straight to the first floor apartment, thrw back the French doors to his wife's bedroom, and stepped back and pointed.

"There she is," the two officers quoted him as saying to them.

In his account of the events leading up to the slaying, the railroad switchman told The Chronicle that he and his wife had aargued several times during the day Monday, and early in the night went to a grocery store and then returned to the apartment, where they argued again.

"I went to town," he continued, "and spent several hours. I had a couple of beers and I got home between 10 and 10:30 p.m., and we had another argument."

It was then, Parker added, that in a sudden rage he strangled her.

"Why?" he was asked then.

"She'd been lying to me," he said calmly, puffing on a cigarette.

Parker told reporters that Mrs. Parker had been married and divorced once before he met her. He said they met when he got out of the army in 1948, after serving four years, most of it in Europe.

The young woman's grandmother, Mrs. Mollie M. Hafer of 523 Pecore, confirmed that her granddaughter had been married and divorced twice. She, too, said the Parkers recently had been reconciled and planned to re-marry.

The Houston Post, 17 September 1952. Section 1, page 3.

'SHE WAS CURSING ME...'

Switchman Admits Garroting Wife, 25

"She was cursing me and calling me all kinds of foul names. I picked up the fan cord and wrapped it around her neck and squeezed."

With these matter of fact words, Daniel P. Parker calmly told Homicide Detective W.W. Waycott Tuesday afternoon now he killed his divorced wife, Mrs. Evelyn Allene Parker, just before midnight Monday.

Parker had been just as cool and collected at 12:25 AM when he called homicide Detective B. Porter from a downtown restaurant and told hime, "Come and get me."

Asked why, Parker said:

"I murdered my wife about 30 minutes ago and I am at Kelley's now, drinking coffee." He said she had been lying to him.

Parker airily invited Detectives Porter and W.W. Walker to have coffee with himi. When they declined, he led them to his apartment at 1219 West Gray Ave, pointed to his wife's body lying on a bed and said, "There she is."

Mrs Parker lay on her back, her clothing torn and disarranged. A purple indentation around her nect showed where the electric cord had been pulled taut. There was a stab wound in her back and a bloody buther knife on the floor.

While parker readily admitted choking the woman to death, he denied any knowledge of the knife wound.

He was charged with murder before Justice of the Peace W.C. Regan and held in the County Jail without bond.

Parker is 25. So was his ex-wife. Parker is a railroad switchman and has a minor police record.

When he was 15, Parker was sent to Gatesville for burglary and theft. In 1949, he was fined $100 for carrying a pistol. Police knew him as Dapper Dan.

Mrs Parker was a beauty college graduate and had been married and divorced twice. In between she had worked as a beauty operator, night club photographer, barmaid and at other jobs.

Parker, in his written statement, said he met Evelyn Allene Page ???(her first married name)??? about three years ago. They got married Oct 13, 1951, and separated about May 1, 1952.

I was sick, our finances were not too good and we were not getting along too good, anyway," Parker said. After they were divorced, the couple went back together last July, he said.

About two weeks ago, he said, they got into an argument over money. He said he told her she would either have to cut down on her spending or go back to work. She promised to go back to work after she felt better, he said.

The next day after that argument she went out and did not come back until 3:30 A.M. She was highly intoxicated, he said. She had dept the car, he said, and he was unable to go to work that night.

When he questioned her about it, she told him that what she did was none of his business, he said.

"She has done this about four times in the last two weeks," he said.

Last Saturday, he said, she promised to quit running around and go back to work. They spent a pleasant week end together. Monday night they had some beer downtown and went home about 10PM. as Parker had to change clothes and go to work.

He said she told him that after this she would keep the car, taking him to work and calling for him.

"I accused her of going out on me and that is the reason she wanted to keep the car." Parker said. He said he accused her of being with people whom he would not name in the statement. He said she raised cain.

"I was standing by the fan in the bedroom," he said. "She swung at me with her left hand and I shoved her on the bed. The fan was turned over and the cord was laying across the foot of the bed. She was cursing me and calling me all kinds of foul names. I picked up the cord and wrapped it around her neck and squeezed.

"The next thing I knew, I don't know how much later, I was in the kitchen and the sweat was pouring of my brow and face and arms. I went back into the bedroom and looked and I knew she was dead."

He said he didn't remember anything about a knivfe or how she got the wound in the back.

"I went into the front yard and Joyce Atkins drove up in the cab and I asked her to take me to Kelley's Cafe. I told her what had happened." Parker said.

The woman who took him downtown is Mrs Joyce Marie Atkins, 24, a telephone company operator, who shared the two-bedroom apartment with the Parkers.

Mrs Parker is the daughter of Mrs. W.M. Kazlauski of 1930 West Dallas Ave, and the grand-daughter of Mrs. Mattie M. Hafer of 523 Pecore St. The body was taken to the Fogle-West Funeral Home.