The Bootlegger's Missing Head

4/9/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
On August 26, 1979, a family hunting for arrowheads inside the Civil Defense Caves in Dubois, Idaho found a torso stuffed inside a burlap bag. It was clothed in a white shirt with blue stripes and a red sweater, and remained unidentified until January 2020.

No known photograph of Joseph Henry Loveless exists, but researchers created this composite using images of his closest relatives and written descriptions of him. (DOE Project)

Due to the cool temperature in the cave, the remains still smelled and the skin was well preserved. The coroner believed he had died no more than 10 years before.

The next discovery was a mummified hand, found on March 30, 1991 by an 11-year-old girl in the same cave system.

Officials took up the search and later found an arm and two legs wrapped in burlap.

What stymied investigators for so many years was the corpse's head was never found.

What the scientists could determine about the remains was the man had reddish brown hair, he was of European descent, he was about 40 years and that his body was dismembered by sharp tools.

Joseph Loveless' parents

Joseph Henry Loveless was born to Latter-day Saint (LDS) pioneers Joseph Jackson Loveless and Sarah Jane Scriggins on December 3, 1870.

In 1899, 28-year-old Joseph Loveless married Harriet Jane Savage. She filed for divorce in 1904, claiming desertion as well as failure to support their child.

By then his future wife Agnes had already married William W. Smith on April 30, 1896. She was 16, and her husband was 38; a 22-year difference. It was a short-lived marriage because by 1900, she had returned to live with her parents at Bear Lake, Idaho. On July 15, she married William T. Glenn (William Thomas Harry Glenn). This time her husband was only two years old than her. They moved to Washington.

On April 5, 1901 Agnes gave birth to a daughter, Pearl (later referred to as Thelma). Other children were soon to follow, Althica on June 5, 1902 and Robert on March 22, 1904.

During those years the family left Washington and went to Montana. In 1903, William Glenn declared bankruptcy, and perhaps this had something to do with the end of the marriage. In later years he would be arrested for drunkenness. Soon after the birth of their third child in 1904, the couple divorced.

Within a year, Agnes Glenn married J.H. Loveless on August 25, 1905. They had a son, Claude Henry on June 18, 1906; Edison was born in 1909, Thomas on October 4, 1910 and Bernice on March 25, 1913.

During these years it's unknown if Agnes left her children fathered by William Glenn in the care of her parents in Soda Springs, Idaho, or if they were with her.

Around 1913, Loveless abandoned the family who was then living in Montana, and in 1914, he was arrested several times for bootlegging. During this time he used different alias due to all the illegal activities he was involved in.

Agnes Octavia Caldwell (1880-1916), daughter of Robert Caldwell and Hannah Thomas

Agnes Loveless sought a divorce from her husband Henry, and a summons appeared in a Montana newspaper where she resided. This action was filed with the County of Beaverhead, Montana on May 3, 1916, and her attorney W.J. Cushing was located in Dillon, Montana.

She alleged willful desertion since March 15, 1913 of her and their minor children. Not only was she seeking a divorce, she want to resume using her maiden name of Caldwell.

Contrary to stories that Agnes was living with Joseph Loveless (both of them using aliases) in Idaho, and being a bootlegger like him, is not accurate. She was living in Montana, which is why she filed for divorce in that state. A week later after the summons appeared in the newspaper, Agnes arrived in Dubois, Idaho in order to follow up with the divorce suit, since she knew he was living in the area.

On May 10, 1916, exactly a week after the divorce suit was filed, Agnes was attacked and dealt a fatal blow to her head with an axe. She lingered 50 hours in agony before dying.

The attacker was believed to be her estranged husband, Henry Loveless.

Initially Agnes was identified as Mrs. William Smith (or Mrs. Charles Smith), supposedly because Joseph Loveless was using this alias, when in truth she had been Mrs. William Smith in 1896 when she married and quickly divorced this much older man.

The murder was described this way on the Idaho Republican, May 12, 1916:

At their little tent on the outskirts of Dubois the ghastly remains of Mrs. Charles Smith were found Saturday morning, the head hacked to pieces with an axe, which lay at her side covered with her blood. Her husband, Charles Smith, is suspected of the deed because he has been missing since the body was found. His description is being sent broadcast, as follows: weight about 180 pounds; height, 5 feet, 10 inches; a peculiarity of his face is the absence of eye-brows; he is about 40 years of age.

The clothing found on the headless corpse matched the description in the wanted poster for a Joseph Loveless who had murdered his wife.

Joseph Henry Loveless fled and was caught a week later at Spencer, Idaho. He broke out of his jail cell by sawing through the bars on the window.

During the investigation of Agnes' murder, authorities pointed the finger at Joseph Loveless for the murder of J.C. Smith at Pebble, Idaho, even though they had arrested Edward Dunn a farmer on suspicion of the crime. This man was released, and how authorities concluded Loveless was the perpetrator of the Smith murder is never fully explained.

Posses organized by several southern Idaho counties were formed to find Loveless (aka Charles Smith, Walter Curran), but he was never found.

Agnes Loveless was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Soda Springs, Idaho on May 16, 1916. Her parents and some siblings would be buried there a few years later.

J.H. Loveless dropped from sight and in 1936, Thelma Wing (born Pearl Glenn) who was then living in Nevada, asked the Montana authorities to help her locate him since she believed he was living in Jackson Hole. After her mother's death she had not heard from him or knew of his whereabouts. They probably were not able to giver her any answers, since Mr. Loveless was in a hole but not the one in Montana.

Agnes with 3 of her brothers and her mother Hannah c.late 19th century

What ultimately helped in identifying the remains was the fact that Joseph Loveless, Henry's grandfather was a Mormpolygamist with four wives, and his relatives numbered in the hundreds, where a DNA match could easily be made. Also the corpse's clothing corresponded to the description of the wanted poster issued for Joseph Loveless.

When Loveless' remains were finally identified in 2020, an 87-year-old grandson was told of his fate.

What's an interesting mystery aside from the disappearance and obvious murder of Joseph Henry Loveless, is the efforts of the local press to create a character assassination of Agnes Loveless. She was painted as a bootlegger who was in cahoots with her common law husband, and that her murder was spurred when she returned from a dance at 2 a.m. All of this was not accurate.

Some theorize that Loveless was killed by his wife's family, probably by her five older brothers. They had come for her body when he disappeared. However there are no definite answers as to who cut him up, and left his dismembered body inside a cave.