The Bride in the Well

"Charlotte Observer," January 23, 1937, via Newspapers.com

From all outward appearances, Lue Cree Overcash had, in a modest, unremarkable way, a charmed life.  Her family was decently well off and well-regarded.  The girl grew up to be one of the prettiest women in Iredell County, North Carolina.  She was described as a very cheerful person, and a devout Christian active in her local church.  In November 1936, the 20-year-old married 21-year-old Herman Westmoreland, a handsome, prosperous young man with an unsullied reputation.  His family was of some prominence in the community. The pair had been high school sweethearts.  In short, all looked bright for Lue Cree.  

Until the night when out of nowhere, life went full Strange Company on her.

After their marriage, Lue Cree and Herman settled in his family home, in the Amity Hill area.  As far as anyone could see, the new Mrs. Westmoreland got along excellently with her in-laws.  On the night of January 19, 1937, two months after her marriage, Lue Cree retired to bed after a day that was, as far as we know, uneventful.  In the house with her at the time was Herman’s father Harlee, two young sisters, Marie and Rachel, and Herman’s 17-year-old brother Clyde.  Herman was away at the time--during the week, he boarded with an uncle in order to be close to his job at Mooresville’s Cascade Mills.  There had been a severe storm during the day, and it was still raining hard when the family retired for the night.  The unpaved roads around the neighborhood were impassable quagmires.

Lue Cree’s bedroom was on the second floor of the eight-room house.  The rest of the family slept on the first floor.  We are told that no one in the household heard any unusual or suspicious noises during the night.  We are also told that the Westmorelands were completely baffled when they called Lue Cree to breakfast the next morning, only to find she was not in her bedroom.  Her watch and ring were on a table in her room, and the clothes she had worn the previous day were neatly draped on a chair.  Her bed had not been slept in.  The family immediately reported her disappearance to authorities.

As volunteers began to search around the home, someone noticed the odd fact that a mule was refusing to drink from a nearby well.  When searchers peered into the well, the mystery of Lue Cree’s whereabouts was quickly solved.

Mrs. Westmoreland was face-down in the well, wearing the silk pajamas she had donned the night before.  On one of her legs was a stocking and shoe, but the other was bare.   (When the well was drained, her other shoe and stocking were found at the bottom.)  She had a distinctive triangular wound on the back of her head.  Initial theories assumed that this was a case of either suicide or an accidental fall, but when the autopsy determined that she was already dead of a skull fracture before her body went into the well, police realized that, hard as it was to imagine, they had a murder case on their hands.  The coroner believed Lue Cree had been dead for about six hours before the body was thrown head-first into the well.  Another puzzling fact: her shoe prints were found on the opposite side of the house from the well.

"Statesville Record," January 26, 1937

The local authorities investigated her death as vigorously as they could, given their limited resources, but they were immediately hampered by an inability to find strong suspects or any trace of a motive.  Lue Cree’s in-laws were, of course, the most obvious culprits, but they all stoutly denied knowing anything of how their newest family member met her death, and no one could prove otherwise.  As for Herman Westmoreland, he was apparently able to show conclusively that he was in Mooresville at the time his bride perished.  

When the corpse was removed from the well, it was noted that the top of Lue Cree's one bare foot was heavily bruised. In December 1937, her body was exhumed and that foot amputated for forensic investigation.  Bits of clay were found between the toes, which strengthened the police theory that the murderer had planted his/her foot on that of Lue Cree's, either during the death struggle or during the progress to the well, where she was dumped to give the appearance that she had committed suicide.  This little revelation, of course, did nothing to help solve the case.

So that was that.  Although the investigation ended fairly early, the sinister mystery of Lue Cree’s death was one that haunted both the Overcash and Westmoreland families for many years later.  The case is still one that fascinates local historians.  Among them was a high school history teacher named Chris Stonestreet, who spent years researching the case.  After his story about the unsolved murder was published in the “Mooresville Tribune” in 2008, a member of the Westmoreland family sent him a poem titled “A Voice From the Grave,” which she had found in the attic of the family home.  Its author is unknown.  It read, in part:

I wonder why no arrest was made,

Was your sheriff so afraid?

Is his back bone of the hue?

Applied to jealousy and cowardice too?

Oh men, hang not your heads in shame,

Rise up, make your county worth its name.

That will probably be the closest we will ever get to an answer about who killed Lue Cree Westmoreland, and why.