Female Fugitives

FEMALE FUGITIVES

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BELLA WILLIAMS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LINDA MCELROY

TWISTED SISTERS : THE TRUE STORY OF REGINA AND MARGARET DE FRANCISCO

KILLER NURSE BEVERLY ALLITT

GWEN HENDRICKS

HOUSEWIFE, MOTHER & KILLER : THE TRUE STORY OF KIM HRICKO

DANA SUE GRAY

HELL’S BELLE : THE TRUE STORY OF BELLE GUNNESS

CAROL SUMNER

DRUG CRAZED KILLER : THE TRUE STORY OF ROSIE ALFARO

KILLER NIECE: THE TRUE STORY OF VERNICE BALLENGER

MYRA HINDLEY

LINDA MCELROY

At first glance, Linda McElroy looked to be another ordinary house cleaner.

Sixty-four years old, overweight and with glasses, she had settled into an anonymous life in Pulaski, Tennessee.

She blended into the community, forensic psychologist Paula Orange said. Her employers all said the same thing about her. That she was a delight. Hard-working, friendly, and trustworthy.

McElroy had remained in small, rural town of Pulaski for over thirty-five years. The reputation she had earned was hard-won.

No one knew about her previous life.

She was a convicted murderer.

But now she was for all intents and purposes, a respected member of the community. A wife, mother and now grandmother to eight grandchildren.

Unassuming and harmless.

But the thirty-five years had to have been tortuous ones for McElroy. Any unexpected knock on the door must have sent her heart racing. Any police siren in the distance must have sent her on edge.

Could this be the day?

The day when the authorities finally catch up with her.

In 2007, they finally did.

THE CRIME

Linda made her home in the riverside city of Ashland, Kentucky in 1961. She was eighteen years old and had four children early in her teen years. She and her growing brood were doomed to a life of poverty in the small Kentucky town.

Linda wasn't particularly attractive, Orange said. She wasn't ugly but she certainly could attract men when she wanted. Little is known about her early life as far as what type of childhood she had and what type of student she was. From what we can gather, however, she was damn good at attracting enablers. People who would look the other way when she would misbehave. Even her own parents harbored her at one point she from an early age you can surmise that she didn't encounter much in the way of discipline.

Linda, like most women her age in rural Kentucky, wanted more out of life. But in the town of Ashland, there were not a whole lot of opportunities. So she did what most women her age did.

She got pregnant.

She was known as a 'good time girl', Orange said. Or what in today's parlance would be called a 'party girl.' Linda wanted it both ways. She wanted a family and she also wanted to do her own thing and hang out with her girlfriends. Which, of course, led to meeting different men as well.

Linda left her then husband one night, telling him that she was off to meet her girlfriends. The two would argue. He wanted her home.  She wanted out after spending all day with the children.

Where do you think you're going?

Out, she replied.

Out? You've got four children. Count them, one, two three-

And I stay home all damn day and take care of them, Linda said. You go out-

I work-

And I don't?

You stay your ass home, her husband said.

No, you stay your ass home, Linda said, looking at the man with disgust. You're going nowhere and taking me with you. No thank you, that is what I say. No, thank you.

Linda would lock herself in the bathroom. Then she would come out, thirty minutes later all dolled up for a night on the town.

The two would engage in horrific fights, Orange said. They were more psychological than physical. He wanted a stay at home wife. She wanted none of that. She had a rapidly fading youth and she was seeing her entire life slip away. So they would argue. Stay home or go out and party.

Linda would always win the arguments.

She would find a new boyfriend in seventeen-year-old Charles Darby. He fell for Linda hook, line and sinker despite the fact she had four children.

Charles had a reputation in town as a serious young man, a good student who was a hard worker. He was in the Navy for a brief spell and served aboard the USS Enterprise. He had seen parts of the world that Linda had only dreamed about, a far cry from the ball and chain that awaited her at the house.

Linda would play on the young man's sympathies, telling him of her rotten home life.

Do you really love him? Charles asked.

I thought I did, Linda said. No, I don't know. I mean, I want what is best for the kids.

There's no way we can keep going on like this.

I know. I hate going back there. I hate leaving you for him.

So do the opposite.

What do you mean?

Leave him for me.

For good?

Yes.

The two kissed and sealed their deal. Linda would divorce her husband for Charles and they would settle into a life where they would live happily ever after.

Linda would play upon the chivalry of the young Charles, Orange said. She established herself as the sympathetic figure, the damsel in distress. Charles was a nice guy. He saw himself as better than the man that Linda was currently with. So he 'stepped up', so to speak. Little did he know that a fate that awaited him was much worse.

Word of their affair spread and the cheating couple was shunned by the neighbors and friends.

In 1962, Linda would divorce her husband and marry Charles. The newlywed couple would move all the way to Hammond, Indiana in order to get far removed from both of their families in Kentucky.

The union would last over seven years before Charles began being bogged down by bills. Linda had brought her four children from her previous marriage into the relationship and the couple had an additional child of their own, Charles Jr, aka Chuckie.

Neither parent was a big earner. Linda did not have a regular job while Charles worked as a freelance carpenter as well as putting in the aluminum siding on houses. Both were described as hard-working by neighbors, with Linda being described as a meticulous housewife and a good mother.

Linda was a classic entitlement case, Orange said. She would take what little money the couple had and would treat herself. Clothes, shoes, furniture. She would treat herself before paying any bills. Then that is when the trouble started. The gas went out. The lights went out.

Charles went ballistic when he discovered Linda wasn't paying the bills.

She then revealed to Charles that she had cancer and had used the money to pay for her doctor bills.

The ruse worked.

Charles, a sensitive type, immediately broke down in tears and guilt. He didn't have insurance as a self-employed carpenter and felt he wasn't fulfilling his obligation as a provider.

Linda was the type to make up whatever story she needed, Orange said. She wanted money. When she told Charles that she had cancer she did it in order to extract more money out of him.

Charles soon found out that Linda's cancer story was a lie.

He kept pestering her about her cancer, Orange said. Eventually, the ruse cracked. It had to. Charles was a dutiful man who would have wanted to do right by a sickly wife. He would have been the type to take her to weekly chemotherapy treatments and be the doting husband. But when she revealed that it was all a lie. A lie to cover-up her bad money habits that must have devastated him. He felt as if he had been played and he saw no way out. Linda, on the other hand, was all about finding an escape route. She had no conscience and didn't care about anything.

He then took out an ad in the newspaper, revealing to the public that he was not responsible for Linda's debt.

The advertisement read:

I, Charles Darby disavow any future debts incurred by my wife, Linda Darby, who is guilty of lying and overspending.

The public humiliation did little to heal things between the young couple. The two quickly became enemies and Linda privately vowed revenge.

Charles was a nice guy, Orange said. He got caught up into caring for a woman who really cared only for herself. So he got trapped in a really bad situation. He could have left her with the four children but had the one biological child with Linda. So he felt a sense of duty that would ultimately prove to be fatal.

Taking out an ad in the paper was a smart move by Charles in hindsight, Orange said. He set the stage for the public to see the kind of person Linda was. There were on a limited budget and rather than using the money for the children she would use the money on herself. So he was able to establish the fact that he was the responsible one. She could not use the 'battered wife' defense against Charles because he was for all intents and purposes, a good guy that was covering his tracks.

The couple had been subjected to vandalism and threats but police chalked those incidents up to Linda. Someone had spray painted graffiti on their homes and threatened the household with phone calls. Police determined that the perpetrator was Linda in both of those cases in bizarre attempts to scare Charles and the children. 

A TIME FOR POISON

Charles would then come down with a mysterious illness following his public disclaimer in the newspaper. He remained bed-ridden for some time, unable to rid himself of the illness.

Linda doted on Charles for a  few days then revealed that she is going to visit her parents with their children.

You'll be okay, won't you? she asked.

Charles nodded, now too weak to put up an argument.

Linda just got up and left, Orange said. Here her husband was seriously ill and needed professional medical attention. But she took that as an opportunity to 'visit her parents.' This all was very strange.

Linda would leave the town of Hammond for four days. She would return but not go home immediately.

Linda was a meticulous planner, Orange said. She left the household with the full expectation that when she returned, Charles would be dead from the poison. Instead, she left town for four days and upon return realized that Charles was still alive. Determined to free herself of her ball and chain, she had to come up with a more direct plan.

Linda returned to the town of Hammond and rented out a motel room.

She told the older children to watch over the young ones and if they either left the motel or told anyone where she went that they would receive a spanking.

Linda then took the youngest child, Chuckie, with her and went to the gas station. She filled up two five-gallon cartons with gas.

She left Chuckie in the car as she pulled up in front of their home.

She walked into that home like the Terminator, Orange said. There was no subtlety to her actions whatsoever. She walked in determined to shoot her husband Charles to death.

She found the weakened Charles sleeping on his side in the bedroom. Linda wasted no time, firing one shot into his side. She then wrapped his body in a highly flammable garment bag.

Linda doused the bag with gas and kerosene.

She lit a match and toss it down on the body.

The entire room caught fire before the entire house exploded in flames, blowing out two walls.

Linda fled the scene of the crime with young Chuckie in tow.

THE AFTERMATH

Police and firefighters emerged on the scene almost immediately. Charles Darby's body was burned but not beyond recognition. Police then went searching for Linda and her missing children.

Linda left behind volumes of evidence, Orange said. She was identified by the service station attendant who remembered her pouring the gas into a carton instead of her vehicle. Tire tracks were discovered at the same which matched those of Linda's car. She took the rifle and hid it behind the vending machine at the motel where she stayed. She didn't go to great lengths to cover up her crime as again, it is my belief that she fully expected Charles to be dead from food poisoning when she returned home.

Linda had left the children behind at the motel and fled to the home of her parents. The police converged on her parent's home, dragging the wanted killer out of her mother's closet.

An autopsy on Charles' body would reveal large amounts of poison in his system.

She was poisoning him over time, Orange said. She thought she had finally done enough to kill him so she decided to leave town. When she would come back, she would let loose with some crocodile tears and act completely innocent.

At the murder trial, Linda's nine-year-old daughter Terri would take the stand. The young girl would testify that on the night of the murder her mother had entrusted her with the care of her younger siblings. Terri said that her mother gave her a stern warning before she left, stating that she would whip the girl if she told anyone that she had left and that she wouldn't buy me anything else new.

The most compelling evidence came from the daughter, Orange said. She just left the children in the motel room, on their own, and then went to kill her husband in cold blood with a baby waiting out in the car. It was shocking then as it is now. 

Linda's own defense attorney placed no witnesses on the stand. He instead focused on what he described as rehearsed witnesses and tainted evidence.

The jury didn't buy his argument or Linda's innocence. They needed less than two hours to find Linda Darby guilty of first-degree murder.

SENTENCING AND ESCAPE

In October of 1970, Linda Darby was sentenced to life inside the Indiana State Women's Prison.

Two years later, however, Linda scaled the fence at the prison. Bloodied and scraped, she runs to her freedom.

She didn't plan out the escape. Linda was left alone, she saw the opportunity and she took it.

She was under 'soft' surveillance, Orange said. This really wasn't a high-security prison. Linda was placed in with low-level drug dealers and petty thieves. It took two years but she finally got fed up and wanted an escape. An out. That was Linda was all about. A woman who screwed up her life and others and sought escape only for herself.

Linda would later state that she ran away from prison because she believed that no one would ever found her innocent.

I knew, you know, nobody would believe, you know, anything, Linda said. Because every time while I was there, people came in and said I am innocent, I did not do it. That was the standard thing. And I got so I would not even say anything. Because I would think, well, they're lumping me with the rest of them.

She told a reporter that when she first escaped