Most claimed that Mack had to have been insane at the time to do such a thing. He and his wife were pleased to send both of their children to St. Ann School. The football player told a plausible-enough story: He had dropped Betty off outside her parents house at midnight and had not seen her since. . Acts from her rebellious period had been exposed, such as her sneaking out of her house during the night. Herring stated that Williams chose the weapon he used to kill her. November 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? In the tradition of past attorneys general, I believe I am duty bound to uphold the U.S. Constitution, rather than support a Virginia law that is both unconstitutional and demeaning to Virginias same-sex couples.. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Evelyn Page Herring of the home; a son, Mack B. He didnt have an answer. Betty Williams body was discovered in a stock pond.https://t.co/Gb2DfQzcOt pic.twitter.com/RQg9pQI3hF. In the summer of 1960, they started dating, and Betty wondered if she might be falling in love; Mack, she told friends, really listenedto her. Ones dead, ones still alive. And because many people in town would prefer never to hear the words kiss and kill again, the case still touches a nerve. In a place where fun on a Saturday night might mean deciding to take only right turns while cruising around town, Betty dreamed of her escape. John was eventually charged for murder but was promptly acquitted. We were all supportive, because we couldnt believe it, says a former Tri-Hi-Y girl who asked not to be identified. Whenever something unexplained happensa book falls on the floor in my classroom or the light board goes out during a technical rehearsalsomeone always jokes, Its Betty., What may be nothing more than just a ghost story can also be seen as something more complicatedas a metaphor, perhaps, for the way that one crime has lodged, uneasily, in Odessas collective memory. Shelton Williams, a political scientist and Bettys one-year-older cousin, was deeply affected by her death. 9: Daughter: Sara Herring. The assembled group of lawmen fell silent. If Northam does resign, his lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, would be next in line. Burnett then asked Mack to explain why he killed Betty. [3], Shelton Williams, a cousin of the homicide victim and an alumnus of Permian High School who played against Herring in American football games, wrote the book Washed in the Blood, published in 2006. Though she had pleaded with her father to believe her when she swore to him that she had changed, he could not be convinced. Bettys life had never been worse. Odessa Kiss and Kill Murder in March 1961. As she turned to go, she said to Ike, Ive got to call his bluff, even if he kills me.. Heron was also granted 100 acres of land in Camden County in 1814. Why dredge it up again? But others refuse to forget. 40: Daughter: Goodys Herring. This year the new drama teacher had planned a spring production of Maxwell Andersons Winterset. A lot of kids were cruelthey would shoot something and watch it hobble offbut Mack was different. Mrs. The two teenagers had parked in the alley for a while, but they had been startled to see headlights coming toward them. The self-confessed killer was invited to every party and his friends gloated about knowing him. Under Texas law, if jurors found a defendant temporarily insanethat is, insane only when he committed the crimehe would walk free. When he broke up with her during her senior year at Odessa High School, her world fell apart. view all Enoch Herrin's Timeline. Mack Herring was not one of the elite football players at Odessa High School on whose shoulders rested the hopes for the 1960 season; as a back for the Bronchos, and one of average abilities, he was just another guy on the team. Herring, born in Sampson County, was the son of Lonnie Glen Herring and Lee Ann Faircloth Herring. In the event that both Governor Northam and Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax resign, attorney general Mark Herring would be next in line to take over as governor of Virginia. As promised, at ten-thirty Betty had snuck out the back door and slipped into his car. As for Macks case, Burnetts first move was to get Mack out of going to trial by using a law no one had ever resorted to before. The ex-marine was known to persuade judges with his dramatic arguments involving Shakespeare and Scripture. Mother Milanka Ljubicic And Father, Rishi Sunak slams food tsars warning that bringing cakes into the office is like SMOKING, What Happened To Hoshi Dating? Plenty of girls were flirts, but few of them were as assertive as Betty. She used to ask many guys to kill her after they broke up, which was usually seen as a joke. Betty said that the situation at home was bad, says the friend, who asked not to be named. . Leave them blank to get signed up. Mrs. Give me a kiss to remember you by, Mack asked. She asked a few of the boys to kill her, but they refused. This story is from Texas Monthlys archives. At Kiss and Kill, John Mack Herring was the primary character. Ive done a lot of things, I know, that were bad and cheap, but I swear before God that I didnt mean them to be like that. Mack was taken from class and questioned by officer Bobby McAlpine. He has since worked part time as custodian for St. Ann School. She had roped him into doing it. He worked in a variety of blue-collar occupations professionally. I hope shes the best.BettyP.S. Next, nine character witnesses testified. A second trial was held in Beaumont, Texas, resulting in an acquittal. During her junior year, when the speech team performed the balcony scene from Romeo and Julietat the University Interscholastic League competition, Betty played the doomed, lovesick heroine. Fort Worth Star-Telegram (with photos from AP). He was allegedly the ex-boyfriend of the victim, Betty Williams. I suspect most of us would rather let the thing stay in the past, one Odessa High School alumna wrote me in an e-mail. These were highly unpopular opinions to have at the time, but that didnt stop Betty from writing her thoughts down on paper and distributing them as letters throughout her school. His own neighborhood lacks the gracious lawns and spreading trees of his childhood; the house, which is a bit down at the heels, looks like the province of a man who lives alone. His lawyers argued he had temporary insanity. At seventeen, Betty was pretty in an unremarkable way, with sandy-blond hair that brushed her shoulders and big, expressive blue eyes that could feign sincerity when talking to authority figures but were alive with irreverence. When Mack Herring was born on 24 May 1896, in Abbeville, Henry, Alabama, United States, his father, George Arba Herring, was 30 and his mother, Harriet Pamelia "Bug" Whitehead, was 29. Most claimed that Mack was an exemplary teenager and that he represented everything that was good. Nevertheless, Betty sat in the car and wrote a letter for Mack to keep. Universal Studios Is Coming to Frisco. Would they be willing to do it for her, she asked? True Crime and Unbelievably Real Stories; we aim to shine a light on the forgotten and unknown. So many teenagers made the late-night pilgrimage to see Betty that the high school deemed it prudent to paint over the windows of the school auditorium. During this time, she also won $10,000 on a game show . Mark Herring is the attorney general of Virginia. As a result, locals sided with Mack, claiming she had tricked him into committing the crime. While Burnett had been careful not to malign Bettys character during the hearing, some details of the case, like her sneaking out of her house in her nightclothes to meet Ike Nail, had tarred her as a loose, immoral girl. I dont know, Mack stammered. The couple regularly fought and Betty was not allowed to meet his parents or go to parties with him. And he points to his work on the opiod crisis, where he pushed for easier access to the overdose treatment drug naloxone, as another success for his office. I take upon myself all blame, for there it lies, on me alone! However, no one took her request seriously and shrug it off as attention seeking. I hope our story about Jerry makes it. She kept saying what it was going to be like in heaven. Then they had walked down to the pond together. Two days earlier, Mack and Betty had planned how he would kill and dispose of her body. The murderer is no longer among us. If they turn out half-way decent, Ill send you one. He was the back of the Bronchos, belonged to a middle-class family, and was an avid hunter with his father O.H. Not Mack! a sixteen-year-old girl shrieked as she collapsed in tears against a wall in the police station. Williams, who had counter-cultural views, was not considered popular, while Herring, an American football player, was considered to be popular. It sounds ridiculous even now writing it. Betty disdained conformity and reserved particular contempt for the girls with matching sweater sets and saddle shoes who seemed to look right through her. She is the pretty wife of Attorney General of VirginiaMark Herring. After she began acting even more erratically than usual, John searched Bettys bedroom looking for an explanation. He never had any trouble with the law again. She had hanged herself in the theater. But on Wednesday morning, Herring came forward to talk about his own past. She made no secret of the fact that she was not a prude and that she was willing to prove it. Sullivan tried to establish jealousy as a motive by calling to the stand Bill Rose, the popular football player whom Betty had parked with when she was dating Mack. of service. Attorney Warren Burnett (left) and Mack after hearing the final verdict. The first person Burnett called to the stand was Macks father, O. H. Herring, who told the jury that on the day of his sons arrest, Mack had handed him a letter Betty had written. Birth of Enoch Herrin. When Ronnie White, who graduated from Odessa High the year that the murder took place, returned to his alma mater to teach history, in 1978, he was astonished to hear students talking about the former drama student named Betty whose spirit supposedly haunted the auditorium and the popular football player who had had a hand in her killing. I just stood there with the gun, Mack told reporters. Herring studied at FTCC after high school and began working as a Tire Specialist for Kelly Springfield through Goodyear. She even went so far as to write out a wildly melodramatic note clearing him of culpability were he to be apprehended for her murder, a note that Howard would later say had seemed like a joke. . [2], Last edited on 14 November 2022, at 05:36, OBITUARY John Mack Herring September 23, 1943 January 5, 2019, "FIRST ON CBS7: "Kiss and Kill" killer has died", "Prosecution Rests Case in Kiss-and-Kill Trial", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kiss_and_Kill&oldid=1121797351, This page was last edited on 14 November 2022, at 05:36. After 11 hours of deliberation, Mack was deemed to have been insane at the time of pulling the trigger. We had our pictures made last week. So she became not the victim but the villain., Sullivan appealed the verdict to the Texas Supreme Court, on the grounds that Judge Olsen did not have the authority to grant a hearing that only evaluated Macks sanity at the time of the crime. I caught sight of him one afternoon in November as he pulled up to his house, a mint-green frame house not far from where he grew up. Ive never been so hurt in my life and I guess your note was the jolt I needed to get me back on the straight and narrow. This has not been a free ride for Mack, says his childhood friend Larry Francell. They turned off the highway onto a winding dirt road and continued on until Mack directed them to stop. His request was granted. Her tale was included on the television episode A Crime to Remember. Upon hearing the verdict, Mack slumped in his chair and wept, while friends and classmates rushed to his side to embrace him. Tall and good-looking, with jet-black hair that framed a long, contemplative face, Mack was a guys guy, his classmates remember, who was quiet and self-contained. She is survived by her daughters, Tina Marie Lane, of Baker, and. Bettys parents slipped through the exuberant crowd and out of the courtroom before reporters could reach them for comment. Mack, on the other hand, was given the role of Trock Estrella, a killer. If I am to live I have to fight [or] else it will pull me down, down, down into that thankless pit of fear, pain, and agonized loneliness. Betty Williams was put to rest at the Sunset Memorial Gardens. The teenagers who pass down stories about Betty are too young to remember the Kiss and Kill Murder, as it was christened by the press in 1961, but it was the most sensational crime in West Texas in its day. According to Betty, Mack was different than all the other boys at school. He has vowed not to step down as governor. He worked as a dock foreman at a chemical company, a carpenter, a welder, and, for at least the past 25 years, as an electrician. Her father, John, was a carpenter who had difficulty finding steady work, and her mother, Mary, had taken a job at J.C. Penney to help make ends meet. . Im waging a war within myself, a war to find the true me and I fear that I am losing the battle. In his cross-examination, the district attorney pressed Mack to explain at what moment, exactly, he had decided to kill Betty. . I dont believe that Betty ever wanted to die. In the Williams family, grandiose threats and melodramatic bids for attention had not been unique to Betty. As he got closer, officers saw he was holding onto Bettys feet. Maybe its better that waytheyll never be exposed to the critics or the public. The 17-year-old was now telling her schoolmates shed rather be dead. Genealogy profile for Mack Dwayne Herring Mack Dwayne Herring (deceased) - Genealogy Genealogy for Mack Dwayne Herring (deceased) family tree on Geni, with over 230 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. She told me, I have to get him back. Her mood turned darker after her father rummaged through her dresser drawers, looking for evidence of her disobedience. While they talked, a jeep pulled up beside them it was Mack. Betty, on the other hand, refused to conform to other peoples views. When football season ended and there was nothing much to do on Friday nights except drink beer and stare up at the wide-open sky, teenagers used to park their pickups across the street from Odessa High School and wait to see the ghost they called Betty. 6/12: Not the Mack Herring . She may have been shunned at the time, but many of the girls who knew her were inspired to become school counselors, her death having had a profound effect on them. But outside the circle, he is a loving father, husband, and role . Still reeling from their breakup and depressed at the prospect of not being cast in a single play her senior year, Betty began to feel hopeless. Tom Foster writes about business, innovation, and creative people. On the drive out to the hunting lease, she was cheerful and chatted about how happy she was going to be when she was dead, Mack explained. Ill not trouble you again, and Mack, I havent forgotten the good times we had. So rather than admit defeat Im going to beat a quick retreat into the no mans land of death. A strict Baptist, her father often preached to Betty about sin and eternal damnation, and on more than one Sunday morning, he prayed that she might learn to be a more obedient daughter. Pamela Coloff of Texas Monthly stated that he appeared "utterly unremarkable", at odds with his appearance in his youth. He was still invited to parties at Carol McCutchans house and was welcome at Tommys Drive-In. Besides, Bill maintained, the incident had not had much of an effect on Mack. On January 5, 2019, Mack Herring died at the age of 75. He became so mixed up and so sick that he felt pulling the trigger was what he should do for her, Grice testified. Betty Williams was a fast girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Nobody talked about how Mack could have said no, observes Sandra Scofield, who graduated from Odessa High a year before the murder. Mack, who had once worried aloud to a reporter that he would be sent to the electric chair, was a free man. 4: Daughter: Babby Herring. A former principal has even claimed to have seen a glimpse of Betty after hours in the study hall as a result, he refused to ever be in the school alone again. Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax is also expected to run for governor, although he has not officially announced plans yet. He looked at her confused and she explained that she had finally convinced Mack to kill her. Theres still a lot I want to accomplish as attorney general, but when the time comes Ill be ready.. Grice claimed that Bettys imploring had impaired Macks judgment leading him to go insane and shoot her. I cant explain. He had difficulty understanding it all himself, he told the jury in a halting voice. Reportedly, he was the ex-boyfriend of the victim, Betty Williams. The pre-trial took place in the nearby town of Kermit. Elizabeth Jean Betty Williams was born on August 11, 1943, and grew up in Odessa, Texas, with three younger siblings. One time she wrote about sports. After a legal challenge the Texas Supreme Court stated that the judge lacked the authority to do so. Stay tuned for details. Herring was born Laura A. Huff, on August 6, 1960. Herring says that, as attorney general, his priorities are cracking down on heroin dealers, and going after violent gang members, gun runners, and human traffickers. Three classmates testified that Betty had also asked them to kill her. Ron DeSantis, an expected Republicancontender for President in 2024,, The little blue pill is good for more than just one body, Cholesterol is a blood fat that is made in the liver, but, A father being sought by police after disappearing with a missing aristocrat, John Mack Herring Today Kiss and Kill: Revisit Betty Williams Murder, Steve Bronski Death Cause: How Did The Beat Founder Die? 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