This is one of three posts on the Pearl Choate case:
1) Pearl Choate, Convicted Murderess, Suspected Serial Killer - Texas, 1967
– A case overview
2) Pearl Choate: “How To Mary A Millionaire” – California,1966
– Long-form article from 1966
3) Predatory Pearl: Portrait of a Psychopath – Pearl Choate Study Notes
– Collection of newspaper articles from 1931-1970
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CONTENTS – 24 articles
[“$25,000 Bond Is Made By Victim of Kidnaping,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Tx.), Apr. 8, 1931, P. 1]
[“Court Shows Leniency In Bad Check Case,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Tx.), Feb. 2, 1934, p. 3]
[“Self Defense Is Offered in Yreka Murder Hearing – Woman Defendant Says Man She Slew Threatened to Kill Her,” The Sacramento Bee (Ca.), Nov. 17, 1938, p. 14]
[“Yreka Cook Freed In Slaying Case,” The Klamath News (Klamath Falls, Or.), Nov. 20, 1938, P. 1]
[“Calvin L. Langston Rites in Portales,” Amarillo Daily News (Tx.), Apr. 1, 1946, p. 1]
[“Knife-Wielding Landlady Must Serve 3 Years – Court Upholds Conviction of Odessa Woman,” The Austin American (Tx.), Dec. 12, 1946. P. 11]
[“Former Odessa Woman Facing Murder Charges,” Apr. 20, 1949, p. 1]
[“Woman Charged In Shooting At Amarillo,” Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (Tx.), Apr. 17, 1949, p. 1]
[“Former New Mexico Man Shot To Death,” The Daily Current-Argus (Carlsbad, N. N.), Apr. 18, 1949, p. 2]
[“Jury Indicts Former Odessan,” The Odessa American (Tx.), Apr. 22, 1949, p. 1]
[“300 Pound Nurse is Sought in Extortion,” The Amarillo Globe Times (Tx.), Dec. 5, 1956, p. 1]
[“Texas Jury Indicts Nurse For Extortion,” The Shreveport Times (La.), Dec. 6, 1956, p. 9-A]
[“Extortion And Theft Suspect Arrested By Monahans Lawmen,” The Odessa American (Tx.), Dec. 6, 1956, p. 1]
[“Nurse Charged With Extortion,” Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Tx.), Dec. 6, 1956, p. 3]
[“Woman Faces Prison Return,” McKinney Daily Courier-Gazette (Tx.), Dec. 13, 1956, “Bank Section” (p.?)]
[Robert Leedom, “Police Seek To Exhume Birch Body,” The Independent (Pasadena, Ca.), Oct. 28, 1966, p. 1]
[“Odd Kidnapping Case – Elderly Millionaire May Give Testimony,” Manchester Evening Herald (Ct.), Oct. 29, 1966, p. 1]
[Nicholas C. Chriss, “Birch’s Bride Tells Court She ‘Died’ in Texas Prison in 1953,” Los Angeles Times (Ca.), Nov. 5, 1966, p. 1]
[“Reversal By Attorney General; Pearl Birch Was ‘Victim’,” Independent (Long Beach, Ca.), Dec. 20, 1966, p. A-3]
[“Mrs. Birch Jailed in Shooting,” Independent Star-News (Pasadena, Ca.), Jul. 15, 1967, p. 22]
[“Assault Trial of Mrs. Birch Opens,” Los Angeles Times (Ca.), Jan. 17, 1968, Pt. 2, P. 1]
[“Mrs. Birch Convicted of Assault,” The Independent (Pasadena, Ca.), Jan. 24, 1968, p. 1]
[“Nurse Who Got Fortune Draws Prison In Shooting,” The Sacramento Bee (Ca.), Jun. 22, 1968, p. A7]
[“Pearl Birch Trial; Close Scrape Says Witness,” Amarillo Globe-Times (Tx.), Jan. 18, 1968, p. 1]
[Odyssey Closes In Court Room; Pearl Ends Up With All the Loot,” The Victoria Advocate (Tx.), Sep. 20, 1970, P. 1]
[Cope Routh, “A $4-A-Night Odessa Room Suits Her Fine – No Luggage, One Dress, Few Cares And $200 Million,” The Odessa American (Tx.), Sep. 24, 1970, P. D-1]
[Preston McGraw, “Late Texan’s Oil Millions Shrivel To Meagre $2,688.66,” The Tampa Tribune (Fl.), Oct. 4, 1970, p. 2-F]
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1) 1931
EXCERPT: Mrs. F. E. Simpson, 35, … told investigators that she was almost blinded and deafened as the result of a blow administered two weeks ago [Mar. 25, 1931] by a robber in Cobb Park [in Fort Worth, Texas] after she had been kidnaped.
The kidnaping to which she referred resulted last week in the indictment of Pearl Horbeck [sic], alias Pearl Choate. Mrs. Simpson said that she and a woman left a party one morning and drove through Cobb Park. At a certain point, she related, the woman, who was driving, stopped the car and two men stepped on the running board. After robbing Mrs. Simpson of her jewelry one of the men struck her on the head when she attempted to jerk a mask from his face, she said. Mrs. Simpson was taken to Decatur and released later in the day.
[“$25,000 Bond Is Made By Victim of Kidnaping,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Tx.), Apr. 8, 1931, P. 1]
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2) 1934 (1930-1934)
FULL TEXT: The wheels of the law ground slowly for Mrs. Pearl [Choate] Hornbeck and in the accounting yesterday they pronounced a lenient verdict.
On Oct. 11, 1930, Mrs. Hornbeck gave a worthless check for $226.85 at a department store [in Fort Worth, Texas] for a quantity of fine clothing. Nearly two years later charges of swindling were filed against her and it was not until yesterday [Feb. 1, 1934] that her case was called in Criminal District Court.
Mrs. Hornbeck pleaded guilty to the charge and received a five-year suspended sentence.
[“Court Shows Leniency In Bad Check Case,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Tx.), Feb. 2, 1934, p. 3]
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3) 1938
FULL TEXT: Yreka (Siskiyou Co.), Nov. 17. – Evidence tending to show that Miss Pearl Choate, 31, shot and killed Clarence Faust, a Negro ranch hand, in self defense, was presented during her trial in the superior court here [Yureka, Siskiyou, Ca.] by Frank King, on whose ranch the killing took place.
Miss Choate surrendered to the sheriff’s office early on the morning of August 8th, after admittedly walking 100 yards from the ranch house to Faust’s quarters, where she shot the Negro at close range with a bullet from a rifle.
Ranchman King testified that following the quarrel between Miss Choate, a former Texan, and the Negro, the latter sought to obtain a gun with which to shoot the woman.
King’s version was corroborated by Mark Allen, a ranch worker.
Miss Choate testified the Negro cursed her and chased her with a gun, threatening to kill her. She said she fled, but later obtained the rifle and walked to the Negro’s quarters, where she shot him while he slept. She said she feared Faust would kill her.
Superior Judge C. A. Paulsen of Trinity County is presiding during the trial.
[“Self Defense Is Offered in Yreka Murder Hearing – Woman Defendant Says Man She Slew Threatened to Kill Her,” The Sacramento Bee (Ca.), Nov. 17, 1938, p. 14]
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4) 1938
FULL TEXT: Yreka, Calif., Nov. 19 – Pearl Choate, 31-year-old ranch cook, was acquitted of the slaying of the slaying of Clarence Fouts [sic], 28, Negro, by a jury of 10 men and two women that deliberated nine hours.
The shooting occurred at a ranch near Weeks on August 7.
Mrs. Choate testified that the negro, prior to the shooting, had made improper advances toward her.
The jury returned its verdict at midnight Friday.
[“Yreka Cook Freed In Slaying Case,” The Klamath News (Klamath Falls, Or.), Nov. 20, 1938, P. 1]
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5) 1946
FULL TEXT: Calvin Lee Langston, 50 years old, Odessa businessman, died yesterday afternoon in a local hospital. He had been in a local hospital. He had been ill health for nearly two years and had been in Amarillo for the past two years and had been in Amarillo for the past two months taking treatment.
Ms. Langston owned a tourist court [motel] and laundry in Odessa. He moved there from Portales, where funeral services will be conducted this afternoon. The body will be taken to Portales by N. S. Griggs & Sons.
Surviving Mr. Langston is his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Pearl Langston.
[“Calvin L. Langston Rites in Portales,” Amarillo Daily News (Tx.), Apr. 1, 1946, p. 1]
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6) 1946
FULL TEXT: A West Texas landlady who sent one of her tenants to the hospital for 10 days must herself serve three years in the penitentiary, the court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday.
The court upheld the conviction of Pearl Crowley, 39, of Mrs. Pearl Crowley, 39, of Odessa, whose attempt to evict Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Bird led to her to conviction for assault to murder. Mrs. Crowley wanted to convert her apartments into a tourist court. Bird said he was going to stay until his time was up.
At this rejoinder, Mrs. Crowley scratched Bird’s face, pulled his wife’s hair and left, testimony showed. A short time later, the landlady was back with a knife. This time she broke the latch on the kitchen door and attacked Bird in the living room, cutting him across the arm and stabbing him in the back. A doctor said two of Bird’s ribs were severed.
Mrs. Crowley had recently returned to Odessa from the West Coast, where she worked in the shipyards. She was described in court as weighing 200 pounds and full of energy. At one point, Mrs. Bird testified. “Pearl passed me like a whirlwind, going somewhere.”
Bird, who was employed on a carbon black plant in Ector County, later moved with his family to Longview.
[“Knife-Wielding Landlady Must Serve 3 Years – Court Upholds Conviction of Odessa Woman,” The Austin American (Tx.), Dec. 12, 1946. P. 11]
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7) 1949
FULL TEXT: Amarillo – The stern-faced, silent women charged with the Saturday staying here of 44-year-old Amarillo carpenter came to this city from Odessa.
She is in county jail here accused of murder, and has been denied bond.
Also, records show that she is charged in 70th district court at Odessa with assault with intent to murder.
The woman is Mrs. Elizabeth Pearl Choate Langston, 41, who while in Odessa was known as Pearl Crowley.
While in Odessa was known as Pearl Crowley.
While in Odessa she operated a tourist court known as the “Y” courts. Here, too, she operated tourists courts [motels] known as the “Y” courts.
Mrs. Langston was arrested here Saturday evening shortly after Alfred Monroe “Bud” Allison, a carpenter, was shot to death while sitting at the wheel of a pickup truck.
Allison, father of seven children, was struck four times by slugs allegedly fired from a .38 super automatic pistol held by Mrs. Langston.
The woman, who asked bystanders to call officers after the shooting, gave the gun to officers when they picked her up at her Pleasant Valley home.
She made no statement then, and Tuesday afternoon officers said the woman still had refused to comment on the shooting.
The gun contained four unfired cartridges when it was handled to investigators.
The bullets pierced the cab of the pickup truck. One slug entered Allison’s body in the center of the back; another at the right shoulder blade, a third near the left kidney and the fourth struck the carpenter in the shoulder.
Witnesses said a woman in a large automobile had stopped alongside the truck and a brief exchange of words preceded the shooting.
The gun contained four unfired cartridges when it was handed to investigators.
The bullets pierced the cab of the pickup truck. One slug entered Allison’s body in the center of the back; another at the right shoulder blade, a third near the left kidney and the fourth struck the carpenter in the shoulder.
Witnesses said a woman in a large automobile had stopped alongside the truck and a brief exchange of words preceded the shooting.
The truck in which Allison was sitting was parked a short distance from the “Y” courts operated by Mrs. Langston.
Sixteen-year-old Jackie Lee Reeves, employed by Allison, was with the gun victim at the time of the shooting.
The boy said the conversation between man and woman before the gunplay indicated a disagreement about “some kind of court business.”
It was revealed that Mrs. Langston by default recently lost a $1500 civil court judgment to Allison, who had brought suit to obtain pay for carpentry work he claimed to have done for the woman.
The young witness also quoted the conversation of the pair as having indicated the carpenter had been evicted by Mrs. Langston while he and his family were living in the tourist court.
Mrs. Langston is charged in the Odessa court under the name of Pearl Crowley with assault with intent to murder T. H. Bird.
The woman allegedly entered a tourist cabin occupied by Bird on the night of April 23, 1945, and stabbed the man while he was in bed.
Twice in the Odessa district court she was convicted of the assault with intent to murder charge and both times she was granted new trials.
At the time of the shooting here she was free on bond awaiting trial for the third time in Odessa. Te case was scheduled to be heard sometime this year.
Court records show that on Oct. 10, 1945 an Ector district court jury found her guilty of the charge and she was sentenced to serve two years in the state penitentiary.
However she was granted a new trial and released on bond.
On April 10, 1946, she was again found guilty of the charge and was given found guilty of the charge and was given a three-year term in the state pen.
The case was appealed and on Feb. 12, 1947 the criminal court of appeals at Austin reversed the district court’s judgment and again a new trial was granted.
[“Former Odessa Woman Facing Murder Charges,” The Odessa American (Tx.), Apr. 20, 1949, p. 1]
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8) 1949
FULL TEXT: Amarillo – Grim-faced Mrs. Elizabeth Pearl Choate Langston, 41, was indicted by the Potter county grand jury Thursday on a charge of murder.
Mrs. Langston, formerly of Odessa where she went under the name of Pearl Crowley, is accused of the slaying of Bud Allison, a carpenter.
The husky woman who operated a tourist court both in Odessa on a charge of assault with intent to murder. She was convicted, but granted a new trial in 1947 by the court of criminal appeals.
The new trial was to be held in Odessa sometime this year.
[“Jury Indicts Former Odessan,” The Odessa American (Tx.), Apr. 22, 1949, p. 1]
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9) 1956
FULL TEXT: Houston – A six-foot, 300-pound nurse who wears a delicate pony tail and is paroled murderess was indicted today in a fantastic tale of extortion.
But the woman, one Pearl Choate, 50, was free. Police armed with a warrant for felony theft searched fir her in West Texas.
Pearl, whom authorities said also uses the name of Elizabeth P. Langston, was convicted of murder in Amarillo and spent from 1949 to 1954 in prison. She was paroled.
The story, involving a white-haired, invalid Pasadena, Tex., woman who was held a prisoner, was disclosed today after the indictment was returned by a Harris county grand jury.
Last Friday the Pasadena woman. Mrs. Lula Lowery, 57, was carried into the grand jury room on a stretcher to tell her story. Mrs. Lowery formerly operated a real estate business.
Mrs. Lowery said she hired Pearl as a trained nurse last Sept. 1 and went to West Texas with her on a trip because Pearl told both her and Mrs. Lowery’s daughter, Mrs. William Billingsley, that “the climate is better.”
Mrs. Billingsley, in mid-October got a call from a Pasadena bank that told her it had received a request from a Kermit, Tex., bank for a $5,000 loan on Mrs. Lowery’s personal property.
Mrs. Billingsley said she called Kermit but Pearl answered the telephone and wouldn’t let her talk to her mother.
Mrs. Billingsley said she flew to Kermit and tracked Pearl down after a wild auto chase to Odessa, 46 miles away, in Mrs. Lowey’s auto. She said she found her mother a “prisoner” in a brand new $5,000 trailer.
“Mother told me she had been forced to write checks for Pearl for between $6,000 and $8,000 and had to hand over some insurance and coffee stocks she owned,” she said.
While Mrs. Billingsley was telephoning her husband Pearl disappeared and hasn’t been found yet. Mrs. Billingsley said Odessa authorities told her they couldn’t file charges.
[“300 Pound Nurse is Sought in Extortion,” The Amarillo Globe Times (Tx.), Dec. 5, 1956, p. 1]
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10) 1956
FULL TEXT: Mrs. Pearl Choate, in jail on charges of taking $2,000 from the invalid woman she hired out to nurse, was in jail Saturday faced with a quick return to prison to finish a murder sentence. A parole for Mrs. Choate was revoked Friday by Gov. Ian Shivers.
[“Woman Faces Prison Return,” McKinney Daily Courier-Gazette (Tx.), Dec. 13, 1956, “Bank Section” (p.?)]
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EXCERPT: Mrs. Birch said she had not told Birch of her criminal record until Tuesday.
"I told him I had a record, 22 years for murder. We left that night to get married,” she said. They were wed the next day in Altus, Okla.
“Did you tell him how many times you’ve been married?” asked plaintiff Ben J. Dean Jr.’
“He didn’t ask,” she said.
[“Odd Kidnapping Case – Elderly Millionaire May Give Testimony,” Manchester Evening Herald (Ct.), Oct. 29, 1966, p. 1]
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12) 1967 – (Mar. 18)
FULL TEXT: A. Otis Birch, 95-year-old South Pasadena millionaire who was the deaf and nearly blind pawn in a squabble over his own estate, died Thursday and was entombed Friday at the order of his ex-convict bride.
Only the 6-foot, 200-pound widow and seven or eight other persons were present at funeral services Friday morning in the William D. Brown Funeral Home at Grand Prairie, near Dallas.
The body was entombed at Laurel Land Mausoleum in Dallas.
Birch’s handwritten will, filed for probate in Dallas only hours after the entombment, left all his property to his widow, Pearl Choate Birch, 59. He cut off his nieces, Louise Smith Hopkins of Laguna Beach and Ruth Smith Hopkins of Washington, D. C., with bequests of $1 each.
Richard Mudge of South Laguna, attorney for the nieces, said his clients have no plans to contest the will.
He said the one desire of Birch’s family is that “his wish to be buried in the family crypt at Inglewood Park Cemetery with his (first) wife Estelle, will be carried out.”
In Dallas, attorneys said they had no idea of the value of Birch’s estate. Mudge estimated it would not be more than $10,000 since most of the property already had been transferred to Mrs. Birch.
~ Autopsy Performed ~
The funeral home said an autopsy was performed at the request of the widow.
“He died of a circulatory collapse and chronic ingestive heart failure,” said Dr. Frank Corpaci. “It was just brought on by old age.”
Mrs. Birch, a practical nurse, married the aged and ailing millionaire last Oct. 26, three weeks after the death of his first wife, Estelle, 93.
The bride had been married six times before and served a Texas prison term for murder.
She and Birch were married in an automobile parked outside a justice court in Altus, Okla. The bridegroom reclined on a mattress during the ceremony.
~ New Mrs. Birch Wins ~
Before her conjugal right was firmly established, however, the new Mrs. Birch successfully fought off churchmen, relatives and charges of bigamy, kidnaping, assault with intent to commit murder and illegal domination over Birch.
At the two-day hearing the bridegroom sat immobile, apparently in total deafness. But when questions were written out for him, he examined them through a large magnifying glass and answered in a voice that carried throughout the courtroom.
“Is Pearl Birch holding you against your will?”
“No, she’s not,” Birch responded.
The judge held that Birch was not being illegally held.
The newlyweds lived in a house trailer, first at Odessa, Tex., and then at Dallas, where he died.
The marriage had been contested by Harlan Moehn of Danville, Iowa, a nephew of the first Mrs. Birch; Mrs. Martha Tulleys of Los Angeles, cousin of the first Mrs. Birch, and Dr. C. Adrian Heaton and Dr. Lawrence Allen of California Baptist Seminary in Covina, one of the beneficiaries of Birch’s philanthropies.
Birch and his first wife were living in a ducal home at 431 Oaklawn Ave., when they vanished about June 1, 1966, with Mrs. Choate, who had been hired as their nurse.
[Jack Smith, “A. Otis Birch, Pawn in Estate Battle, Dies,” Los Angeles Times (Ca.), Mar. 18, 1967, p. 3]
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13) 1967 – (Jul. 15)
FULL TEXT: Compton police said Friday that Mrs. Pearl Choate Birch, widow of the multimillionaire A. Otis Birch, has been charged with assault with intent to commit murder.
The charge, police said, followed a dispute Thursday with Mary Harris, 35, who rents half of a duplex apartment which Mrs. Birch claims she owns.
After booking, 60, was transferred to the prison ward of Los Angeles County General Hospital.
She was reported to be in satisfactory convention., suffering from leg pains and high blood pressure.
~ Officers Periled ~
Officers said Mrs. Birch told them Miss Harris was behind in her rent and, on the advice of her attorney, Mrs. Birch shut off her tenant’s lights and water and removed the apartment’s doors.
When the quarrel began about 5 p. m. Mrs. Birch called the police. Officers went twice to calm the two women and Miss Harris’ brother-in-law, Rod Ferguson, 35.
The second time, police said, Mrs. Birch yelled “Get off my property” and fired a .22 caliber rifle. The bullet shattered a window and narrowly missed both Ferguson and Officer Rex Council.
Ferguson told police he had been notified that Mrs. Birch no longer was the legal owner of the property and that he had been directed not to make any more payments to her.
~ Rifle Bolt Jams ~
Herpin said the bullet narrowly missed both officer council and Ferguson. At the time the shot was fired, he said, he had turned his back to Mrs. Birch and as trying to persuade Ferguson to go into his apartment.
Mrs. Birch tried to fire a second shot, Herpin said, but the weapon’s bolt jammed and she lowered the barrel when he drew his revolver.
Mrs. Birch reportedly once served 12 years of a 22-year prison sentence for murder in Texas.
The woman’s late husband, a South Pasadena, Calif., oilman and farmer who gave millions to charity and religious groups, died last March 15 in Dallas at the age of 96. Mrs. Birch, who had cared for him and his first wife until he died, eloped with the philanthropist to Altus, Okla., in October 1966. Birch was deaf, crippled and almost blind at the time.
When Birch died, he left two wills, as many as 18 possible beneficiaries and an estate valued at between $250,000 and $20 million. The wills, written within a year of each other, are being contested both in California and Texas.
[“Mrs. Birch Jailed in Shooting,” Independent Star-News (Pasadena, Ca.), Jul. 15, 1967, p. 22]
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14) 1966 – (Oct. 28)
FULL TEXT: South Pasadena Police Chief M. L. Viney said late Thursday he plans to urge District Attorney Evelle Younger to seek a court order to exhume the body of Estelle Birch, wife of South Pasadena oil millionaire Albert Birch, for an autopsy into the cause of her death.
The district attorney’s office said it will review the case today. A spokesman said the district attorney’s office had originally been interested in the Birch family last June when friends reported that Birch, 95, and his wife, 93, had disappeared along with their nurse, Mrs. Pearl Choate, from their luxurious home at 431 Oaktown Ave., South Pasadena.
Reports from Breckenridge, Tex., Thursday that Birch had been married to the nurse alerted Viney to the fact that Mrs. Birch had died in Breckenridge Oct. 7 and had been buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery.
The new Mrs. Birch is a 5-foot, 11 inch, 205-pound platinum blonde who has served a prison term in Texas for murder. She has reportedly been married six times.
~ Trio Disappeared ~
Mrs. Choate was hired by the Birches July 22, 1969, through a nurses registry service after Mrs. Birch fell ill in the home where they had lived 40 years.
The Birches and Mrs. Choate disappeared about June 7, arousing fears among the Birches’ friends that they had been kidnaped.
Wheelhorse in the lengthy searches for the Birches was Dr. C. Adrian Healon, president of the California Baptist Theological Seminary of Covina, who traced the couple and the nurse to Mexico and Texas.
The tangled trail led Dr. Healon to Breckenridge, Tex., Monday when he filed an adoption to be named Birch’s daughter “for purposes of inheritance” and that she had already been awarded power of attorney.
Dr. Healon also encountered Harlan Moehn, Birch’s nephew from Danville, Iowa, who was also searching for the couple.
The two traced Birch and Mrs. Choate to a home in Breckenridge and arranged to talk with the elderly millionaire Tuesday.
~ Nephew Attacked ~
During that discussion, it was reported Mrs. Choate became angered by the course of the conversation and attacked Moehn with a butcher knife.
He wasn’t hurt, but filed a complaint against Mrs. Choate following the attack. She is free on $5,000 bond on suspicion of assault with intent to commit murder.
When Dr. Heaton and Moehn returned to the home where Birch and Mrs. Choate with kidnaping.
Mrs. Choate and Birch returned to Breckenridge Wednesday, however, and disclosed they had been married in a church in Altus, Okla.
Mrs. Choate posted $5,000 bond on the kidnap warrant on her return to Breckenridge.
At the seminary in Covina Thursday, Dr. Heaton said he had just returned from Texas, but would leave again later in the day for Breckenridge after he heard of the marriage.
He said a writ of habeas had been issued to force the new Mrs. Birch to produce her husband at a hearing in Breckenridge today where Birch’s mental status could be determined.
~ Freed on Parole ~
Sheriff Chase Booth of Breckenridge said Mrs. Choate was sentenced to prison in Texas in 1949 on a murder conviction in Amarillo. There she listed her occupation as “companion to the elderly.”
She was released on parole later and then returned to prison in 1957 on violation of the parole terms. She was released again in 1963, Sheriff Booth said.
Dr. Heaton, to whose seminary Birch has reportedly given hundreds of thousands of dollars, said he picked up the trail of the Birches and Mrs. Choate in Mexico July 9 after Birch had told investigators and an FBI agent he was there on his own volition.
The agents, who had tracked the trio to Ensenada, reported that Birch said he was ion Mexico for his health and appeared to be in full possession of his faculties.
~ Furniture Moved ~
They said Mrs. Choate indicated she had obtained financial interests even then in a number of Birch’s properties.
Shortly after that, neighbors of the Birch estate reported seeing furniture being moved from the Birch home.
Police discovered the movers, including Mrs. Choate’s brother William Talmadge Choate, had a legal bill of sale signed by Birch.
Circumstances surrounding the case prompted several of Virc’s relatives to petition Superior Court in Pasadena to have a conservator appointed for his estate.
The court named Security First National Bank of Pasadena to have a conservator appointed for his estate.
The court named Security First National Bank of Pasadena, a third cousin of Mrs. Birch, as “conservator of the individuals.” The appointment was for well-being of Mr. and Mrs. Birch and protection of the estate which has an estimated annual income of $45,000 plus the $55,000 South Pasadena home.
[Robert Leedom, “Police Seek To Exhume Birch Body,” The Independent (Pasadena, Ca.), Oct. 28, 1966, p. 1]
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15) 1966 – (Nov. 5)
FULL TEXT: Breckenridge, Tex. – The 200-pound practical nurse who recently married a 95-year-old South Pasadena millionaire testified Friday that she “died” in 1953 and “I don’t remember nothin’ that happened before I died.”
The testimony from Mrs. Pearl Choate Birch, 59, came as attorneys seeking to overturn the marriage tried to overturn the marriage tried to overturn the marriage tried to question her about her criminal record, which included a murder conviction, and her six marriages before 1953.
“She ain’t dead, your honor,” attorney G. J. Harrell cried at one point, as he leaped to his feet.
But Mrs. Birch insisted she suffered five convulsions, was unconscious for 48 hours and was pronounced dead while serving a term for murder in Texas State Prison at Huntsville.
“Well, you are living now?” asked attorney Bill Thompson. “You are alive at this time?”
“I assume I am,” the 59-year-old bride replied, “but things that have happened before that – I do not remember many of them.”
Shortly after the hearing adjourned, Mrs. Birch complained of illness and sent for nitroglycerin pills. She has said she suffered a mild heart attack two weeks ago.
She rested in the courtroom and then was taken home by ambulance. Relatives said she was resting easily there.
The morning hearing before Judge E. C. Griffin was an unusual legal proceeding so attorneys could take testimony to aid in appealing the judge’s ruling of last week.
That ruling denied a writ of habeas corpus to Harlan J. Moehn of Danville, Iowa, a third cousin to Albert Otis Birch, who maintained the elderly philanthropist is being held illegally by his new wife.
In another legal development, one of many in the case, Birch spent an hour testifying privately before the Stephens County (Tex.) grand jury that is investigating allegations he was kidnaped by his bride. The grand jury later refused to indict her.
Birch, who is mentally alert but physically feeble, earlier this week told the Breckenridge American:
“I don’t know why they don’t just let this thing die down.”
“I feel I should have the privilege of selecting my home and residing there. I’m feeling fine. I can’t work up an appetite staying in bed all the time.”
Birch, who is deaf, reads questions off a clipboard with a magnifying glass, then responds with a magnifying glass, then responds quickly in a surprisingly booming voice.
Mrs. Birch said she has been looking for a family home, and has examined two structures in the $50,000 class.
In another legal action, Friday, attorneys representing Mrs. Martha Tulleys of Los Angeles asked for dismissal of her suit for a writ of habeas corpus, so they could concentrate on appealing last week’s ruling by Judge Griffin.
Mrs. Tulleys was named temporary guardian of Birch in July by a California court. Mrs. Tulleys is a second cousin of Birch’s first wife, Estelle, 93, who died Oct. 7 in Breckenridge.
Attorneys for Mrs. Tulleys warned that “many other legal actions” will be instituted in an effort to wrest control of Birch from the practical nurse.
However, Mrs. Birch’s attorney charged attorneys for the California group with going “wild loose” in filing suits, and requested an injunction to prohibit Mrs. Tulleys from filing further suits.
Friends of the Birches in California alleged that the nurse, who was hired to care for the elderly couple in South Pasadena, spirited them away.
She took them on an extended trip of California, Mexico and Texas before settling here in her home town, where Birch’s wife of 67 years died.
Birch made millions to the early 1900s in California oil and contributed heavily to the Baptist Church, California Baptist Church officials have helped track the couple and are aiding in attempts to take Birch back to California.
The nurse eloped Oct. 26 with Birch to Altus, Okla., ahead of authorities, who were seeking her on a kidnaping charge filed by Moehn.
They were wed in an automobile because Birch, who recently underwent hip surgery, was unable to get out of the car.
Still pending against Mrs. Birch is a charge by Moehn that she attacked him with a butcher knife when he visited the elderly man after the marriage.
Friday’s testimony before Judge Griffin was cut short when the judge ruled that Mrs. Tulleys and Moehn should have been present. He adjourned court until Monday.
Before the hearing adjourned, attorney Harrell said of Mrs. Birch’s claim that she “died” in 1953: “The answer is that she doesn’t remember and the fact that she died is immaterial.”
A prison spokesman, contacted by telephone, said medical records are kept only 10 years and he could not verify Mrs. Birch’s story of having “died.”
Mrs. Birch served about 12 years of a 22-year sentence for the slaying of an Amarillo carpenter.
She told reporters that she and her elderly husband have received hundreds of letters, only two of which were unsympathetic.
[Nicholas C. Chriss, “Birch’s Bride Tells Court She ‘Died’ in Texas Prison in 1953,” Los Angeles Times (Ca.), Nov. 5, 1966, p. 1]
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16) 1966 – (Dec. 20)
FULL TEXT: The California attorney general’s office reversed itself Monday, and said Mrs. Pearl Choate Birch did not commit bigamy when she married a 95-year-old South Pasadena millionaire in October.
Mrs. Birch and Houston A. Perry, a Compton car washer, were “victims” of a “marriage mail fraud,” according to Senior Asst. Atty. Gen. Miles J. Rubin.
“They were married by proxy, but the ceremony was never legally formalized,” Rubin said.
Two weeks ago, the attorney general’s office said a search of Mexican records had proved Perry, a Negro, and the former Mrs. Choate were legally married in Tijuana Sept. 17, 1965. This information was forwarded to officials in Jackson County, Okla., where Mrs. Choate married philanthropist Albert Otis Birch Oct. 26.
Loys Criswell, prosecuting attorney of Jackson County, was expected to file bigamy charges against the 59-year-old practical nurse whose care of and marriage to Birch sparked a cross-country chase and a storm of legal action by his relatives.
Monday, Rubin said the document he thought indicated the Choate-Perry marriage was legal was not an official record.
“There was no official record of any proxy marriages of Americans in 1965,” he said. “There will be a lot of people in the United States who are going to be surprised to find that out.
“Whoever operates the marriage mills doesn’t go through the formality of having the marriage performed.”
Birch – who has a broken hip, is deaf and almost blind – was last reported living with his nurse-wife in a house trailer near Odessa, Tex. Efforts testified in court that she did not kidnap him and was not holding him against his will. He said he wanted to remain with her.
She was repeatedly denied family charges that she took him from his South Pasadena home and married him to gain control of his fortune – once estimated at $200 million.
[“Reversal By Attorney General; Pearl Birch Was ‘Victim’,” Independent (Long Beach, Ca.), Dec. 20, 1966, p. A-3]
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17) 1968 – (Jan. 17)
FULL TEXT: Mrs. Pearl Choate Birch, 60, widow of multimillionaire Albert Otis Birch, went on trial Tuesday on charges of assault with intent to murder.
The 6-foot, 200-pound practical nurse, who now lives in Kern County, was arrested July 13 after a .22-caliber rifle was fired and almost hit a Compton police officer who reportedly had been summoned to settle a dispute between defendant and one of her tenants over alleged overdue rent.
The bullet barely missed the officer, passed through an open window and nearly lit a man on the sidewalk, according to Dep. Dist. Atty. Irvin S. Cohen, who is prosecuting the case before a jury in Superior Judge Kathleen Parker’s court. No one was injured.
Attorney Charles Hollopeter, representing Mrs. Birch, said the gun discharged accidentally and that his client did not intend to shoot either the policeman or the pedestrian.
Mrs. Birch, who once served 12 years on a murder charge in Texas, married the 95-year-old Birch, reportedly her seventh husband, in October, 1966, three weeks after his previous wife died. He died last year and left his estate to Mrs. birch.
[“Assault Trial of Mrs. Birch Opens,” Los Angeles Times (Ca.), Jan. 17, 1968, Pt. 2, P. 1]
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18) 1968 – (Jan. 18)
FULL TEXT: Los Angeles – A witness quoted Pearl Choate Birch as telling spectators and two policemen “in a loud voice that if they didn’t get off her property, she would kill them.”
Then, said the witness, “I felt something brush the top of my head … My ears were ringing like when a firecracker goes off close to you.”
The witness was Rod Ferguson, 35, testifying Wednesday in the two-day-old trial of Mrs. Birch, 60, on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to murder.
Mrs. Birch, a 200-pound practical nurse, is the widow of A. Otis Birch, millionaire philanthropist from nearby South Pasadena.
She is charged with shooting of Ferguson and Rex Council, a policeman in suburban Compton.
Asked if the sound that had his ears ring seemed to be a gunshot, Ferguson replied, “It didn’t sound like a gun – it was a gun.”
Ferguson told the jury he went to the home of his sister-in-law, Mary Harris, last July 13 after being told that donors in Mrs. Harris’ half of the Compton duplex were removed.
There he saw Mrs. Birch, the duplex’ owner, he said. After Mrs. Birch’s warning to the policemen and the spectators, Ferguson said, he ducked under a tree branch and heard a shot.
Dept. Dist. Atty. Irvin Cohen alleged that Mrs. Birch fired a rifle through the window of the half of the duplex where she lived. He said the shot missed Council by inches, passed over Ferguson’s head and hit a house across the street.
Cohen said Mrs. Birch had the doors taken off the Harris side of the duplex because the rent was overdue. Ferguson’s wife had called police and asked them to arbitrate a dispute over the rent.
Mrs. Birch married Birch in October of 1966, three weeks after his first wife died. Birch died last year at 95.
Meanwhile, a legal contest over Birch’s handwritten will was continued until Feb. 21 by Los Angeles Superior Court.
The will left his fortune to his widow. It is being challenged by several charitable organizations.
Pearl Choate Birch was tried in 47th District Court here is June, 1949 under the name of Elizabeth Pearl Langston and was found guilty of the April 16, 1949, pistol slaying of Bud Allison, an Amarillo carpenter.
She was sentenced to serve [22] years in the Texas penitentiary. She was paroled in 1955 but a year later was returned to prison as a parole violator after being charged with felony theft from an elderly Houston woman she had been hired to nurse. She was released from custody in 1963.
At the time of her trial here, Mrs. Birch was the operator of a motel on the Dallas highway. Allison was shot four times as he sat in the cab of his pickup truck in front of a drive-in near the motel.
Trial testimony indicated the shooting was the outcome of a quarrel over a bill submitted by Allison for work done for Mrs. Birch.
[“Pearl Birch Trial; Close Scrape Says Witness,” Amarillo Globe-Times (Tx.), Jan. 18, 1968, p. 1; error “2” corrected to “22”]
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19) 1968 – (Jan. 24)
FULL TEXT: Mrs. Pearl Choate Birch was convicted Tuesday of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon in a rifle attack last summer on a neighbor and a Compton policeman.
The 66-year-old widow of South Pasadena millionaire Albert Otis Birch originally was charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder.
But a 10-man, two-woman superior court jury in Los Angeles dropped the “intent” charge after five hours of deliberation.
After the verdict was read in Judge Kathleen Parker’s courtroom, jury foreman Howard L. Titch told newsmen:
“We felt the people did not prove its case on intent to commit murder.”
Mrs. Birch, who will appear before Judge Parker for sentencing Feb. 15, said she was “very surprised” she was convicted of anything.
She faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in state prison or one year in county jail with a possible $5,000 fine on each count.
The defendant remains free on $27,500 bond.
Mrs. Birch is a 200-pound, 6-foot practical nurse who once served 12 years on a murder conviction in a Texas prison.
Birch, her seventh husband, died last March 16 at the age of 95, leaving his estate to Mrs. Birch.
[“Mrs. Birch Convicted of Assault,” The Independent (Pasadena, Ca.), Jan. 24, 1968, p. 1]
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20) 1968 – (Feb. 9)
FULL TEXT: Los Angeles – Pearl Choate Birch, free on bail and awaiting sentencing on her conviction of assault with a deadly weapon, has filed suit against oilman Thomas Park for $73,451 she says he owes her.
The 60-year-widow of millionaire Otis Birch was joined in the suit by Birch’s physician, Dr. Bernard Pearson. They are to share the proceeds equally.
Park was alleged to have signed a promissory note in July, 1964 which was to be paid within one year with 7 per cent interest.
[“Mrs. Birch Files Suit,” Brownwood Bulletin (Tx.), Feb. 9, 1968, p. 12]
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21) 1968 – (Jun. 22)
FULL TEXT: Los Angeles – Pearl Choate Birch must go back to prison, this time for the near-wounding of a police officer and another man.
Mrs. Birch, 60, who made national headlines when she eloped in 1966 with a 95-year-old millionaire, was sentenced Friday to two 1-10 year prison sentences for assault with a deadly weapon.
The sentences, to run concurrently, were imposed by Superior Court Kathleen Parker. A jury convicted Mrs. Birch Jan. 23.
The hefty practical nurse served 12 years of a 22-year prison sentence for the fatal shooting of an Amarillo, Tex., drive-in restaurant in 1949.
After her wealthy husband Otis Birch died five months after their marriage, Mrs. Birch inherited his $200 million fortune.
Police records indicate she had been married six times before and had a criminal record dating back to 1926. Besides the murder conviction and assault and kidnapping charges, she had been convicted of vagrancy, drunk driving, shoplifting, resisting arrest and theft.
The new conviction came after a rent dispute with a tenant in a duplex Mrs. Birch owns. She had ordered the doors to a tenant’s apartment removed for alleged nonpayment of rent and .22-caliber bullets were fired during an argument involving a policeman and a brother-in-law of the tenant involved.
[“Nurse Who Got Fortune Draws Prison In Shooting,” The Sacramento Bee (Ca.), Jun. 22, 1968, p. A7]
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22) 1970 – (Sep. 20)
FULL TEXT: Dallas – The sometimes sad and sometimes hilarious odyssey of A. Otis and Pearl Choate Birch ended anticlimactically in a Dallas courtroom this weekend.
Pearl got all the loot.
It was in 1966 that the travels of A. Otis and Pearle were followed as closely as the chases for such persons as Bonnie and Clyde – for entirely different reasons.
The people chasing the pair were newspaperman and an occasional officer simply because there hadn’t been anything like that story in decades.
The saga began in 1963 after Pearl got out of the Texas prison after serving a part of a 22-year term for knocking off a fellow in Amarillo.
The 205-pound, aggressive blonde hooked up with Mr. and Mrs. Birch in South Pasadena, Calif., and became a nurse – her occupation listed on her prison record was “companion to the elderly”
Birch made millions in citrus and oil and gave away vast sums to churches. His estate still is valued at $200 million.
The Birches disappeared from their usual placed and were traced to Mexico, where they were interviewed by the FBI agents who apparently found nothing wrong.
Friends tried to catch the couple in Harlingen, Tex., but before they arrived, Pearl put her patients in an ambulance and drove off with them.
They turned up in Breckenridge, Tex., shortly after. Mrs. Birch died of cancer Oct. 7, 1966, in the home of Pearl’s brother in Breckenridge.
Four days later, the 95-year-old Birch – deaf, nearly blind, and crippled – took steps to adopt Pearl, 59.
But before the adoption proceedings could be completed, Birch and his nurse slipped from under the noses of Texas Rangers guarding their residence and turned up in Altus, Okla.
The couple had difficulty finding anyone who would marry them – because at 95 and 59 they could not prove they were old enough to wed – or so the story goes.
The resourceful Pearl hit upon an excellent idea. She went to a place that sold fishing licenses and purchased one for each of them. The licenses required that they state their ages.
This was proper evidence. Pearl took the licenses to Mrs. Connie Connell, the court clerk, and Mrs. Connell went down three flights of stairs to the automobile and issue the license. Apparently they were married in Altus.
It was Pearl’s sixth or seventh wedding.
Back home in Breckenridge.
Pearl found she faced a charge of kidnaping her husband. At a hearing asked by a Birch relative, birch loudly declared that he didn’t want to go back to California because people there wanted him to take a sanity test. At another point, he said church people and relatives in California bothered him.
In effect Pearl gained custody of her husband and from then on they lived several places in Texas.
To accusations that Pearl only married Birch for his money, Pearl said it couldn’t be so – she had gotten control months before.
Birch died March 15, 1967, in Dallas.
Immediately contested was a handwritten will signed May 14, 1965. The contestants claimed Birch was mentally incompetent to make a will.
[Odyssey Closes In Court Room; Pearl Ends Up With All the Loot,” The Victoria Advocate (Tx.), Sep. 20, 1970, P. 1]
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23) 1970 – (Sep. 24)
FULL TEXT: Pearl Choate Birch, the poor little rich lady worth an estimated $200 million, relaxed in grand in grand fashion here Wednesday afternoon in her $4-a-night hotel room with an adjoining bath.
She had arrived on a transcontinental bus from Breckenridge, had no baggage and the only clothing she boasted was the printed cotton dress she was wearing.
A pair of sneakers adorned her feet. Strands of her greying hair kept falling in her eyes.
“I haven’t seen a nickel of the estate,” said the 63-year-old woman, in a matter-of-fact tone, “but within 30 days the money will be coming in.”
Mrs. Birch last week was virtually assured of the estate left her by her 95-year-old husband, A. Otis Birch, when he died March 15, 1967.
A probate court in Dallas threw out a lawsuit attacking the will left by Birch, whom she married in October, 1966, when beneficiaries of an earlier will failed to appear for a scheduled hearing.
With that matter out of the way, she is now on her way to California, where much of the estate’s land, citrus and oil buildings are located.
Mrs. birch herself doesn’t know how much they’re worth.
“I frankly don’t know,” she said. “He had many holdings outside this country and there are oil holdings I don’t even know about.
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t even wasted a postage stamp trying to find out. No use spending money when the thing was up in the air.”
She said she came to Odessa, where she lived for 19 years, to attend “to some business” before going on to California. she planned to leave this afternoon by bus for the west coast.
“I went down to the bank this morning,” she said, “to attend to some drafts and several people I had known in the past recognized me and said hello.”
She said she first came to Odessa in 1927 with her husband at the time, Harry Hornbeck, an oil well driller, who has since died.
“I worked hard when I was here,” she explained. “I built the 19th Street laundry and the old Y Motel on North Grant.
“When I sold out in 1946 and left Odessa. I didn’t owe a penny and had money in the back.”
She said she headed for Canada from Odessa.
“I figured on buying some kind of business up there,” Mrs. Birch explained, “but
She said she first came to Odessa in 1927 with her husband at the time, Harry Hardwick, an oil well driller, who has since died.
“I worked hard when I was here,” she explained. “I built the 19th Street laundry and the old Y Motel on North Grant.
“When I sold out in 1946 and left Odessa, I didn’t owe a penny and had money in the bank.”
She said she headed for Canada from Odessa.
“I figured on burying some kind of business up there,” Mrs. Birch explained, “but the closer I got to Canada the colder it was. I didn’t like the weather so I came back to Texas.”
Her share of the limelight began glowing when she married the aged philanthropist who had given away vast sums to churches.
She had just gotten out of prison in Texas, where she was serving a 22-year sentence for killing a man, when she became a nurse to Mrs. Birch in her home in South Pasadena, Calif.
The Birches shortly thereafter disappeared, were traced to Mexico and finally to Breckenridge where Mrs. Birch – “he always called her ‘Dovie’” – died of cancer on Oct. 7, 1966.
“We were married 19 days later, said Pearl Birch. “Before his wife died they were planning on adopting me.
“But those people were supposed to get his money bucked the idea so he finally said “The least I can do for Dovie now, is to marry you.”
So they were married in Altus, Okla.
Mrs. Birch wasn’t sure whether it was her sixth or seventh marriage.”
“Too many times,” she laughed when asked how many times she had been married.
“I always married men older than I was and they were good men,” she said.
It was while she lived in Odessa that she learned to fly an airplane.
“I had my own airplane and I learned to fly at this little air field just outside of town, she explained.
“And I can still fly an airplane.
“The last time was in 1966 when I borrowed a plane and flew from Los Angeles to Utah. The only trouble was when my engine conked out while I was coming back and I had to make a dead-stick landing in Santa Monica.
“That’s a funny feeling when you’re over a city and lose your power with no open space below you: just houses.
“But I finally made it to the airport.”
Although she has yet to realize the benefits of her inheritance, she said, she is far from penniless.
“I never knew the day,” she said, “when I couldn’t walk into the First National Bank od Artesia and sign a note for $20,000 and get the money.”
And even when the money starts rolling in, she said, she doesn’t think it will change her way of life.
“Not really,” she said.
“I’ve always had a better than average home so it won’t make a difference.
“And I’ve already seen a lot of country in my lifetime so I have no real desire to travel.
“Maybe, though, I’ll be able to join some bridge clubs. I’ve always liked to play bridge.”
Mrs. Birch said she had raised four sons and sent them through college, as well as a nephew “who was just like a son to me.”
“He’s now in the ship building business and is worth something like $70 million,” she added. “He’s helped me out a lot in the past few years.”
She also has one daughter.
She said she had learned “long ago” not to indulge in any bad habits to an excess.
“It’s unfortunate when you let your whims overcome common sense,” she explained.
“I take a drink now and then but not to any excess. I can take a drink tonight and not have another one for six months. I just don’t care for it that much.
“I smoke moderately. I didn’t at one time but when I saw what cigarettes can do to you I started cutting down.
“And gambling? Well, occasionally I’ll go into a place and may lose $20 at blackjack. But it’s stupid when you keep gambling and know that sooner or later the house is going to wind up with your money.”
Obviously she was not interested in throwing away her money on fine clothes.
“A good friend of mine – he’s a successful businessman – asked me not long ago what I thought of mini-skirts,” she said.
“I told him he was lucky they hadn’t come along years ago. If they had he’d have spent all of his time looking at the girls’ legs instead of making money.
“He’s got a real bang out of that and said he guessed I was right.”
[Cope Routh, “A $4-A-Night Odessa Room Suits Her Fine – No Luggage, One Dress, Few Cares And $200 Million,” The Odessa American (Tx.), Sep. 24, 1970, P. D-1]
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24) 1970 – (Oct. 4)
FULL TEXT: Dallas – The late oilman A. Otis Birch may have left property worth $200 million around somewhere but all the Texas administrator of his estate can find is S2.688.66.
The adminstrator, the Mercantile National Bank of Dallas, has made a thorough search because it would like to be paid for its efforts. So would the undertaker who gave Birch a $4.666.06 funeral after his death March 15, 1967.
The cash on hand does not look Uke the fortune expected by Mrs. Pearle Choate Birch, 63, Birch's second wife. She passed through Odessa, Tex., a week ago headed west and said the money would start "rolling in" soon.
The second Mrs. Birch, a 6- foot, 200-pound former practical nurse from Breckenridge, Tex., put up overnight in a $4 hotel room in Odessa. Her reference to the money rolling in was in connection with a Dallas judge's action a few days earlier, making her the sole owner of the Birch estate
Before and after his death, Birch was spoken of as a man who had a $200 million estate.
“This seems to have seen one of those estates which was supposed to be worth a lot but which is worth practically nothing,” said Hubert D. Johnson, an attorney for Mercantile]at 431 Oaklawn in South Pasadena Bank.
Nobody is sure where the $200 million figure came from. But it does not frighten Edwin L. Davis, the attorney Mrs. Choate Birch hired t6 defend the estate against a suit by a California Baptist church and four Baptist organisatons.
"In Texas, he probably didn't have much,' Davis said. "California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah is where the bulk of the estate's property lies. Most of it is in patented (proven) mines. Some are not producing, though patented.
Davis could not provide a list of the mines through he said he thinks one must be on file in some court in Los Angeles.
Birch might have died quietly in his 30-room in South Pasadena, Calif., and the size of the estate might never have been a real issue if it had not been for Mrs. Choate Birch, who in 1966 became the nurse for him and his 93-year-old wife, Estell.
MRS. CHOATE, who had five or six husbands and served a prison term for murdering an Amarillo, Tex., carpenter, put Birch and his first wife in the back seat of her car and brought them to Breckenridge.
The first Mrs. Birch, in an advanced stage of cancer, died in Mrs. Choate’s Breckenridge home Oct. 7, 1966.
Within days of his first wife’s death, Birch undertook to adopt Mrs. Choate. This having failed, Mrs. Choate eloped to Altus, Okla., with Birch and a justice of the peace came out to the curb and married them in their automobile.
The new Mrs. Birch was promptly charged in Texas with kidnaping, but a grand jury refused to indict her. Birch, a devout Baptist, died the following March and was buried in Dallas.
The Baptist groups claimed Birch was senile on May 14, 1966, when he left Mrs. Birch everything he had except $2 in a handwritten bill. The religious organizations were favored in an earlier will.
THE FIGHT went on until Sept. 9, when lawyer David E. Agnew wrote Davis from Los Angeles: “The charitable beneficiaries whom I represent as a group have directed me to abandon the contest.”
“It was a long fight, but I knew I would win some day,” Mrs. Birch said.
All of the money that has “rolled in” from the estate to the Texas administrator so far is $2,678.66, which is listed in an inventory and appraisement filed with the probate court. Despite what Davis believes about untold millions being in mining property in four states, the Mercantile National Bank and its lawyers never have been able to turn up more than this amount.
“Pearl took all of Otis’ records with her, so that there are no coherent records – just a big gap,” Agnew said. “But all I’ve been able to find out is that the estate is almost worthless.”
Agnew estimates that legal costs will be $200,000.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER their marriage in 1967, Mrs. Pearl Choate Birch explained her husband’s fondness for her as follows:
“I guess I’m one of the few people who have been near him who hasn’t asked for something.”
Except for Davis, nobody believes she will get very much, either.
[Preston McGraw, “Late Texan’s Oil Millions Shrivel To Meagre $2,688.66,” The Tampa Tribune (Fl.), Oct. 4, 1970, p. 2-F]
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