Mysterious Mardi Gras | Strange Traditions and Stories

3/2/2022

Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday is the last day before Lent and is celebrated all over the Christian world with carnivals, celebrations and masks, and a "farewell to the flesh." Many strange stories have sprung up during the centuries it's been celebrated from the Venice Carnivals to the streets of New Orleans. Let's talk ghost stories and more cherie.

The murder of Mamie Herbert c.1925

February 26, 1925, New Orleans

James V. Glynn 38, a switchman was arrested and charged with the murder of Mamie Herbert, who died from burns received Mardi Gras night during a dance at Moose Hall. He was charged with having set fire to the paper costume worn by the poor woman, inflicting wounds from which she died.

Identification of Glynn was made by Bessie Maund, a policewoman. Glynn is alleged to have thrown liquid from a bottle on the dress of the woman after lighting a cigarette and throwing a match at her. She burst into flames and Deputy Alfred Kippers was severely burned in an attempt to aid the young woman.

James V. Glynn is convicted to 5 years for a holdup

Glynn was arrested for the crime, but there are no further details if he was prosecuted and served time for the murder.

The next mention of Glynn was in 1936. Eleven years have passed, and is convicted to serve 5 years in the state penitentiary as being complicit in the holdup of a grocer.

James V. Glynn died in 1939. It's unknown if he was still serving his sentence, but likely he was, and probably at Angola State Prison.

Tiny Lawrence was gunned down in Mardi Gras c.1930

March 1930
Joseph Adair "Tiny" Lawrence former Tulane university football player from Oklahoma, was shot in the forehead and wounded fatally in a Mardi Gras Festival. He measured 6'7" and was a medical student at the university when he was killed during a riot at the celebrations. He was 28 years old. His family hailed from the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

His slayer George Johnson, 25, was convicted in August, 1930 and sentenced to life in prison.

Jack O'Day was eventually convicted of killing Estelle Hughes during Mardi Gras, New Orleans, c.1936

February 25, 1936
Estelle Hughes, 29, from Panama City had been in New Orleans only two months. She was found with a bullet hole in her temple in a remote grassy spot behind the Louisiana & Arkansas railway station, by a railroad worker who was doing his rounds at 6 a.m. A few hours after her body was found, Jack O’Day came to the station claiming he was attacked and robbed of $200. He was a 26-year-old jockey who worked at the fair. When asked about the murdered woman he told police, "I was too drunk to know anything" about what happened and said "I might have shot the woman for all I know."

O'Day's car was found by police a short distance away. A .38 caliber revolver with a spent cartridge lay on the front seat.

His wife was in the hospital giving birth to their child, but her condition was complicated because she had a ruptured appendix.

Otho W. Gray 25, a cook aboard the USS Arkansas and Ethel Bernard, 29, were questioned since they all accompanied Mrs. Hughes the night before. They described how they had all come separately to the cabaret where Estelle worked as a hostess. Some time during the night, they decided to leave together to continue celebrations. They told police that shortly after midnight they were forced from the car at gun-point by the jockey.

Estelle Hughes appeared she'd been shot some distance from where her body was found. She was dragged dead or dying to the secluded spot.

Her 9 year old daughter Jenelle, had come from Panama City to visit her mother for the weekend. Her two little brothers had stayed in Panama City with their father, Benjamin. The girl said her father Benjamin sent her mother money regularly and was soon to join them in New Orleans. In the meantime Estelle worked as a cabaret hostess.

Jack O'Day was questioned about murders in other states

The day after the discovery of Estelle Hughes' body, O'Day was arrested and charged with murder. Within two days, New Orleans police were asked to send O'Day's picture to police in Texas. They were reopening a 5-year old mystery surrounding the death of Thomas L. Gray. The man was shot with his own gun and robbed of his money and automobile. He was found dead in a clump of brush near Henly in Blanco County in August 1931. He was traveling from Arizona to Austin, and he picked up a hitchhiker at El Paso. They stopped at a family home in Kimble County where the hitchhiker made a comment that he was a jockey.

O'Day denied his involvement with the slaying of Mr. Gray, but did admit he traveled through Travis County, and that he had served jail terms for robbery in Salem, Oregon and in Prince Albert Saskatchewan. Eventually he was cleared of the Texas murder after a witness brought from Texas, could not identify him as the man that traveled with Gray.

Jockey, Andrew "Jack" O'Day was killed in a riding accident at Roswell, NM c.1948

On March 18, O'Day was charged with murdering Estelle Hughes. He went to trial in November and was convicted of manslaughter. His wife with the baby, sat in the courtroom during the trial. She was planning to return to Montana where they originally hailed from. He was sentenced to serve 40 to 80 years at hard labor in the Louisiana penitentiary; however in May 1938 the case was set aside on a technicality.

The Supreme Court held that the State of Louisiana did not show that a crime for which O'Day was convicted in Canada would have been a felony in Louisiana. His sentence was changed to the charge of manslaughter, and the state court decided on a flat 20 year prison term. Every year thereafter he applied for clemency to the state. It's apparent Jack didn't serve his entire sentence because in 1948 he was killed while riding a horse at Ruidoso's Hollywood Park in New Mexico. The horse he was riding somersaulted, fell on him and crushed him.

His wife lived at Big Sandy, Montana and he was buried in an unmarked grave in Roswell, New Mexico.

Lillian McDowell was killed on Mardi Gras night c.1936

Estelle Hughes' murder wasn't the only on Mardi Gras, 1936. Lillian McDowell, 36, was fatally stabbed near a French Quarter saloon after drinking with a party of men, and police were seeking a man named "Slim" for questioning. Eventually the Slim turned out be Joseph McQuillon aka Slim Sebro, who was released a few days later even though Estelle told the saloon keeper that "Slim cut me." She died two hours later in Charity Hospital.

Lillian Alexander Rodwell shot her policeman husband Thomas Rodwell on Mardi Gras. She claimed it was self defense. He was beating her and accusing her of being unfaithful. He struck her several times, and she went to his patrol car where his pistol was at, went back in and shot him 4 times. They had been married 17 years. She was acquitted based on self defense.

Louis Eugene Hoover (1923-1965)

February, 1949, James A. Mahoney, 56, a millionaire from Virginia was killed in cold blood. He was staying at the Monteleone Hotel, and a bell boy found his body. He was seen drinking with another man about two hours before he was murdered. He was found brutally beaten in his Vieux Carre hotel room. His slight, nude body was lying on a blood-soaked bed. A blood-drenched towel was knotted around his neck which had been broken. The killer had washed the blood from his hands after the crime. A wallet and gold watch were missing.

The police were looking for a powerfully built, middle-aged man, over 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. He was very broad-shouldered with iron gray hair and a ruddy complexion.

On March 1, police arrested Louis (Lewis) Eugene Hoover, 25, who said he ate dinner with Mahoney a few hours before the murder. He admitted himself to a veteran hospital’s psych ward the morning of the murder, since he had served with the U. S. Army in WWII, ironically

Hoover fainted several times when questioned about his whereabouts between 11 pm and 1:30 am. He told police he didn't remember anything after having dinner with the millionaire until he woke up in a different hotel the next morning. He said he "bumped into" Mahoney on a downtown street and window shopped with him. The millionaire asked him if there was anything he could buy for him. Later they dined at a French Quarter café, and after this he claimed he "blacked out". He had bloody bruises on his hands and bloodstains on his trousers.

Hoover had a troubled past. In his youth he lived at the Louisville and Jefferson County Children's Home. It was known as Ormsby Village, which served as a reform school.

Louis Hoover was granted a new trial in 1951, where he was found guilty again but spared execution

Louisville Police, where Hoover once lived, told New Orleans authorities the suspect had been arrested seven times, ranging from disorderly conduct to grand larceny. Some of the arrests dated back to 1939. He was once hospitalized at the veteran's hospital in Topeka, Kansas.

Hoover's wife came to see him at the police station. She said, "He definitely was a mental case." They had married in her hometown of Yates Center, Kansas and came to New Orleans on their honeymoon. She would go on to divorce him while he was in jail. She testified as a state witness, stating she was afraid of her husband.

By mid-March, Hoover was indicted in the murder of Mahoney. He said he engaged in a fight with Mahoney with the millionaire, because he called his 19-year-old bride "a name." Later it came out Mahoney had made homosexual advances.

In July, a lunacy commission reported he was sane and able to tell right from wrong. Informed of the results of the report he said: "Oh, thank God. I know I am not insane. I'd rather go to the electric chair than to have them find me insane. I know I'm innocent."

Louis Hoover claimed he blacked out during the murder

In December he was found guilty, and was facing execution in the electric chair.

In May 1951, he was granted a new trial, and he entered a new plea of innocent by reason of insanity. During the trial a neuro-psychiatrist testified that Hoover was a psychopathic personality, and passed through periods of mental derangement.

Alberta Stroh, Hoover's wife said after their marriage they came to New Orleans where he persuaded her to become a "B drink" in a Canal Street bar. She explained she was supposed to entice male customers to buy drinks, and once they were drunk to obtain their money. She said she quit because she was too softhearted to "roll" the customer. When she left the job, Hoover hit her in the stomach, so she walked out on him.

One of the articles stated she was pregnant at the time, but this was never verified one way or another.

In October 1952, a second jury found Hoover guilty with a verdict that carried an automatic penalty of life imprisonment at hard labor. The day after his arrival at the Louisiana State Prison at Angola he was confined to solitary, after he staged a one-man rebellion for refusing to enter a camp to which he was assigned. In August 1953, he had to be taken to the East Louisiana Mental Hospital at Jackson after slashing his arm with a piece of glass and shouting hysterically, "I'm being persecuted."

He died in 1965 at the age of 41.