The Bowler and The Cabbie

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories​
On a warm, spring night in 1961, a 20-year-old student shot a taxi driver on the outskirts of Tallahassee. She said she believed he was about to attack her, but it turned out that wasn't exactly accurate. 

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Una Byrd (Source - Tallahassee Democrat)

Una Catherine Byrd started attending Florida State University (FSU) in the summer and fall of 1959. She once worked at the W. T. Edwards Tuberculosis Hospital, and the Florida Industrial Commission, however on April 13, 1961 she was unemployed. She lived in a rooming house, and was a member of the local bowling team which was set to participate in a tournament a week later.

None could have anticipated what happened that evening.

Una Byrd left her motorcycle behind Moon's jewelry store at 436 N. Monroe St., walked to the post office where she called a Victory cab at 8p.m. Adam "Bud" Jenkins, 36, was the cab driver. They were traveling northbound on U.S. 27 when three miles out, she told him to pull over close to a rural church. It turned out he was being robbed. The young lady demanded he put his money on the hood of the car. Suddenly shots rang out and Jenkins slumped to the ground. He had been shot in the chest and leg.

Later Byrd would claim he made a sudden move, and she thought he was about to attack her. 

​She left his body where it lay, masked her face with adhesive tape and took his car. She arrived at the J. C. Bland service station on U.S. 90, and with gun in hand forced the attendant Hosie Barnes to give her $187. Byrd shot at him as she was leaving. During the trial she claimed it was an accidental discharge.

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Body of Bud Jenkins c.1961 (Source - Florida Memory)

State Trooper Ralph Moore stopped the cab after she committed the robbery, and she gave up meekly.  He said the "boyish-looking woman" was wearing a GI cap and leather gloves. She had masked her face so well that the gas station attendant thought she was a man

Byrd told the trooper, "I'm going to give up. You'd better check out around the church, there's a man there who may be dead."

Trooper Moore went back to the churchyard where Jenkins' lay dead. The revolver used by Byrd turned out to have been reported stolen three months before from the home of State Trooper Sam Oswald.
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Only $50 were recovered from Miss Byrd when she was arrested, what happened to the difference remained unknown. She was charged with the fatal shooting of Jenkins by the grand jury. She pled innocent.

Jenkins's services were held on April 16, 1961, at the Aenon Church. He was 36 years old, and the father of three children. He had worked as a taxi cab driver for 15 years, and according to police had a clean record.

Don Carmen later told the courts, he and three other friends had spoken to "Cathy" as they referred to her, shortly before the crimes took place. He said she looked cheerful, and was driving her motorcycle, a red, 1958 Harley Davidson. Her only comments were that she was looking for a job, but she wasn't in a hurry since she planned on traveling to Indiana for the bowling tournament

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Una Byrd's red Harley left hidden behind a jewelry store when she went on a murder, robbery spree. c.1961

In June 1961, the court requested a mental examination for Byrd. Her court-appointed attorney Wilfred Varn filed a motion to quash the indictment charging Miss Byrd with murder and armed robbery. He alleged that her arrest was illegal, and the affidavit on which the arrest warrant was issued failed to show probable cause for the arrest as required by Florida and the U.S. Constitution. 

A second indictment was issued by the Leon County grand jury, and her trial was set for October, 1961.

Una Byrd  was the youngest daughter of Vena and William Byrd of Chattahoochee, Florida. She had no criminal past and her rent was paid up at the room she had moved into two weeks before, located at 216 W. College Ave. 

There was little in the way of motive, beyond robbery for the crime.

During the trial Byrd tried to present an insanity plea, but two state psychiatrists testified as expert witnesses that she was sane.

In October, 1961 Byrd was convicted of first degree murder. She faced life in prison, but the jury recommended mercy, otherwise she would have faced execution in the electric chair. The judge imposed a life sentence. In December, 1961 the robbery charge pending against Byrd was dropped, since she had been convicted of the murder charge.

​Byrd did not serve a life sentence, and might have been released as early as the 1980s, even possibly in the 1960s. Great pains were taken to keep this out of public knowledge, especially after she did not appeal her conviction in 1961. She stayed living in Florida.

The question begs to be asked: what went wrong that a young woman could murder an unknown man in cold blood?

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