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| Party Taxi Thad Mitchell's body was found in |
If you wanted to take a walk on the wild
side in 1920s Des Moines, Thad (T. W.) Mitchell was your guy. Mitchell ran a
prosperous party-taxi business, a smaller version of today’s party buses.
He carried a book containing the names and
phone numbers of over three hundred clients to whom he acted as a pimp,
chauffeur, and guide, so whether you needed a bottle of moonshine, a woman, or
a safe spot to meet—Mitchell could hook you up.
He ran the Consolidated Taxi Company with
his partner, “Bullets” Richart. The partners had a fleet of six Cadillacs that
ran from 6 p.m. into the wee hours of the morning, transporting passengers to
roadhouses and other rendezvous points. Or just giving them a refuge where they
could make out, drink, and take advantage of the extended backseat as they rode
along.
Off-duty policeman William Winburn found
Mitchell dead in his Cadillac sedan early on December 8, 1922. Mitchell was
seated behind the wheel, with the ignition on and the gear thrown in
reverse.
The car had slammed into the curb at the bottom of the hill off Twentieth Street and Joseph Avenue. It was a desolate, out-of-the-way area where people often gathered to party.
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| Thad (T.W.) Mitchell |
Winburn walked over to investigate. “I looked more closely,” he said, “and saw a man lying back against the cushions of the front seat.” At first, Winburn thought the man was sleeping, but when he grabbed his arm, it was cold and limp.
“His eyes were closed, and he was in a
position to indicate that he had been shifting gears. I saw no blood and
figured the man might have died a natural death.”
The only clues were a woman’s rubber shoe
covering under the rear seat, two spent .32 caliber shells, and a black woman’s
hat lying on the ground outside the car. The pavement was icy, so there were no
footprints to follow. Coroner Guy Clift put the time of death at 2 a.m.
“Bullets” Richart, Mitchell’s partner, said
he knew nothing about the murder, but the police had their doubts. They figured
he knew more than he was saying.
Initially, police believed the murderer
might have been a woman—maybe the victim of a love affair gone wrong.
Detectives had their eyes on a pretty young prostitute who had ridden in
Mitchell’s cab multiple times over the past few months, but they wouldn’t give
her name.
map showing location where party taxi murder took place
The police suspected that “after killing Mitchell, [she] slipped quietly away and out of sight, covering her tracks so that it was almost impossible to trace her.”
“The theory is,” said the reporter for
the Des Moines Tribune, “that the woman was sitting on the front
seat with Mitchell, and as he shifted gears, she drew her .32 caliber automatic
and shot Mitchell.” Two steel-jacketed bullets plowed through his heart and
killed him.
That might have been the way it happened.
Mrs. Mitchell had her own theory about who
killed her husband. She believed he picked up a couple heading out to a party.
Things got out of hand. Maybe the man attacked the woman, and her husband
stepped in to break things up, so the man popped him.
Detectives knew robbery was not the motive
because Mitchell still had his jewelry and a big wad of cash on him.
Mitchell left his taxi stand outside the
Lafayette Cafe on West Fifth and Locust Streets at about 11 p.m. He had
received a call on his private phone outside the cafe, and it was assumed he
had left to pick up a fare.
The meter on his car showed he traveled 6.9
miles on his last trip.
A week after Mitchell’s murder, the case was
going nowhere, so Mrs. Mitchell asked Governor Kendall to help track down her
husband’s killer. Kendall issued a proclamation offering a $500 reward, hoping it
would loosen tongues and get someone talking. The Rell and Press taxi companies
each kicked in $50, and the local Cadillac dealership where Mitchell bought his
taxis added $100 to the fund, bringing the total reward to $700.
Police received their first tangible clue on
December 20. Mrs. Merle Hutton Smithson said she saw Mitchell talking with
“Bullets” Richart at the Orris Roadhouse on the night he died.
Mitchell and Richart were arguing over a
female passenger. Richart wanted her to tour the city with a male passenger in
his car. Mitchell objected because the man was drunk. Mrs. Smithson thought the
woman’s name was “Edna” or “Ida.” She wasn’t sure.
Richart left the roadhouse first, followed
by Mitchell a few minutes later.
A month after Mitchell’s murder, detectives remained
stumped. No new clues had surfaced.
Mitchell’s work brought him in contact with
many unsavory characters. His customer list contained many prostitutes who
employed him to drive them to roadhouses, where they met their clients. One
woman had ridden in Mitchell’s cab that night, but no charges were brought
against her.
Two years later, the police were hot on the
trail of another unnamed woman they believed was involved in the slaying, but
like the other leads—it went nowhere.
Thad Mitchell’s murder remains unsolved to
this day.
(All pictures from the Des Moines Tribune. December 8, 1922)
Stuff like this is what I always end up chasing—the little lines in old newspapers and magazines, the parts most books skip over.
I pulled a bunch of those stories together into Iowa Crime Time if you want more of it.
And if you just like
reading this kind of thing, Buy me a Big Gulp / Support Retro Iowa
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