CRIME: Murder in Rhyme

Drab as Dreiser was the murder of Marvin Drew. He was a jobless railroad section hand at Ashland, Miss. His wife Pearl, 30, had borne him three children, was great with a fourth. On a hot July evening last year he was asleep in his bed, with his daughter, Dorothy Louise, 7, at his side, when Mrs. Drew entered his room lumberingly, shot him through the heart. Her reasons: drink, other women, gossip.

Two days later Mrs. Drew delivered her baby just as her father, “Pop” Gunter, was being arrested for murder. Convicted on the perjured testimony of Dorothy Louise, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. Last November, Mrs. Drew’s conscience stung her into confessing the murder to Mississippi’s Governor Theodore Gilmore Bilbo who promptly released her father from prison. Last week Mrs. Drew pleaded guilty to manslaughter at Ashland, awaited sentence.

No formal confession did she send to Governor Bilbo but rather a long rambling rhyme, which was generally printed throughout the South where few recognized it as the stuff of folklore. Primitively sing song, it markedly resembled the ballads that cowboys, railroaders, other migrant workers hear, repeat, embroider and spread throughout the Mid Far West.

Mrs. Drew’s confession:

Down in a lonely graveyard, Where the flowers bloom and jade, There lies darling sleeping In a cold and silent grave.

So listen now, dear people, And hear my story through, I pray God ’twill warn you Of the fate of Marvin Drew.

He died not broken-hearted Nor by a disease he fell, But in an instant parted From the ones he loved so well.

Down on my knees before him I pleaded for his life, But deep into his bosom Had plunged a forty-five.

But, O, How sad the ending To sit beside, my dear For I have often told him My darling, don’t you fear.

Then he said, “No, my darling, “Your words can never be, “For I soon will be sleeping “In Hell away from thee.

“But listen to me, wife, “Come closely while I tell, “When I am gone, please don’t forget me— “The one who loves you well.

“I know I’ve been a rambler, “I know I’ve done you wrong, “But don’t forget me, darling, “Whenever you sing this song.

“I want to work for Jesus, “And work both night and day, “For He will gladly help you “And surely lead, the way.

“The time has come, my darling, “When you and I must part, “The bullet of that forty-five “Has surely plunged my heart.

“But kiss our little children, “And tell them I am gone, “Don’t let them follow my footstep, “For I have led them wrong.”

This poison “mule,” dear people, Did cause this incident; It stole these children’s father, Who for their love was meant.

To prison went my father, All innocent of this crime; I could not long endure this, My father doing time.

Folklore experts were quick to identify Mrs. Drew’s rhymes as a variation of the old ballad “A Jealous Lover” which begins:

Way down in Lone Green Valley Where roses bloom and jade There was a jealous lover In love with a beautiful maid.

In that version the man stabs the girl. Mrs. Drew had neatly reversed the crime and adapted it to her own use.