Ep. 4: The Malevolent Mystic

In a small farmhouse near Bandon, Oregon, there once lived a family named Covell. The head of the household was Dr. Fred Covell, a chiropractor with an office in town. He shared this farmhouse with Ebba, his fourth wife, their three infant children, and two older children from Dr. Covell's third wife, 16-year-old Alton and 14-year-old Lucille. Also living under the same roof was Arthur Covell, Fred's crippled brother, who had been bed-ridden ever since a car accident left him with a broken back.

It was Monday, September 3, 1923, when Dr. Covell received a phone call at his office. It was his brother. "You'd better get home fast, Fred," he said. "Something happened to Ebba."

"What happened to my wife, Arthur?" asked Fred.

"I... I can't tell you over the phone. You'd best come home as soon as possible."

When Fred Covell arrived home, he found his wife's lifeless body in bed. Her face was bruised, her neck was bent at an unnatural angle, as if twisted by strong, powerful hands. Alton and Lucille couldn't provide any information about what tragic fate had befallen their stepmother. According to Alton, he had just returned from the barn when he found Ebba lying in the hall. He carried her to the bed.

Next, Fred questioned his brother. He found Arthur in his room, surrounded by astrological charts. Arthur was obsessed with horoscopes, and all things esoteric and mystical. His bookshelves were laden heavily with volumes on astrology and the zodiac, star charts adorned the bedroom walls. He knew that Ebba was dead, but he hadn't seen or heard a thing inside the home. Arthur declared that he learned of Ebba's death not from Alton or Lucille, but from the stars.

Fred then notified an undertaker and made arrangements for his wife's funeral. Meanwhile, the news of Ebba Covell's mysterious demise reached the ears of the justice of the peace, J.L. Radley, who traveled to the funeral parlor to view the body. Sure enough, Ebba's face and neck were bruised, but Radley noticed another peculiar detail-- Ebba's face bore a strange red stain from her upper lip, just below the nostrils, across her cheek. Radley couldn't be sure what had caused it, but his suspicions were aroused enough to prevent the woman's burial. He promptly notified the sheriff's office, but Sheriff Ellingsen was out of town. His deputy, Sam Malehorn, was dispatched to the Covell farmhouse to make an investigation.

Deputy Malehorn interviewed both Dr. Fred Covell and his handicapped brother. The chiropractor's demeanor struck the deputy as strange; Fred wasn't particularly cooperative, and he claimed that he hadn't even seen the red stain on his wife's face. Arthur Covell, however, to the deputy's surprise, said that he had known about the mark all along.

"How did you know about the red mark, Mr. Covell?" asked Deputy Malehorn.

"Why, the stars had told me, of course."

As a man of the law, a logical man, Sam Malehorn didn't put much stock in astrology or esoteric mumbo-jumbo, and so he focused his attention on the victim's husband. Though he refused to say much, at first, the deputy eventually gleaned from Dr. Covell some interesting information: That Fred and his wife had frequent arguments, and that Fred, according to his wheelchair-bound brother, hadn't answered the phone when Arthur first tried calling him about Ebba. He was apparently out of his office at the time. 

Fred denied this, however, and insisted that his brother had only called one time, and that he had dropped everything and raced home upon learning of his wife's death. Deputy Malehorn wasn't convinced, and he placed Dr. Covell under arrest. He was subsequently charged with murder.

Meanwhile, back in the town of Bandon, Prosecutor Ben Fisher ordered an autopsy on the body of Ebba Covell. The results of the autopsy were disclosed during the inquest two days later but proved unenlightening. The medical examiner agreed that Ebba's neck had been dislocated, but it was impossible to determine if this was what had caused her death. As for the mysterious red mark on her face, medical experts could offer no explanation, and while the coroner's jury rendered a verdict declaring that Ebba's death was not the result of natural causes, they were unable to pin the crime on Fred Covell.

The authorities were not quite ready to release Dr. Covell, however, and, in addition, his two children, Alton and Lucille, were arrested as held as material witnesses. Fred's 16-year-old son, Alton, was said to be of sub-normal intelligence. He appeared neither cunning nor deceptive enough to concoct an elaborate story explaining his stepmother's death, and under questioning he provided nothing of interest except for the fact that he practically worshipped his crippled astrologist uncle, Arthur. 14-year-old Lucille also failed to provide any useful information. According to Lucille, she was downstairs washing clothes when Ebba's body was discovered.

With little to go on, Prosecutor Ben Fisher turned to Luke May, a noted criminologist from Seattle. Upon his arrival, May ordered a second autopsy and Ebba's body was exhumed. This autopsy, performed by Dr. E.L. Mingus, determined that the cause of Ebba's death was suffocation from ammonia fumes, presumably from a soaked rag pressed to her face. This, stated Dr. Mingus, was the cause of the red mark on the victim's face.

Another search was made of the Covell home, but while nothing incriminating was found, authorities discovered that Arthur had made quite a handsome income by reading fortunes by mail. Some of his customers were Hollywood celebrities. After searching the farmhouse, Luke May and local law enforcement drove to Bandon and made a search of Fred Covell's chiropractic office. They found nothing of interest, except a large collection of Arthur's astrological notes. By day's end, authorities were only certain of two things-- that Ebba Covell had been murdered, and that the killer had been a member of her own household. But who did it, and why?

Because of his paralysis and limited mobility, Arthur was cleared as a suspect. Alton and Lucille had provided solid alibis and didn't appear to have any motive for murdering their stepmother. The process of elimination led them right back to Fred. What if Arthur had told the truth about Fred being out of the office when he first called? Could authorities prove that Fred was lying?

Now, authorities searched feverishly for Dr. Covell's appointment book, but to no avail. And then the Seattle criminologist, Luke May, came across something that aroused his attention. It was one of Arthur's notebooks, containing pages written in a strange unintelligible code. May felt that if the case was to be solved, the notebook would have to be deciphered. It took a while for experts to crack the code, and what they discovered left them speechless.

The notebook revealed a most diabolical plot. Whomever had written the notes had planned the murders of more than two dozen local residents in and around Bandon, Oregon. And it wasn't just murder-- the notebook's author had also planned other sinister crimes-- scams designed to fleece and local businessmen and extort upstanding citizens. Investigators homed in on two entries dated September 3, the day of Ebba's death:

6:20 AM. Monday. Will Al do his part?

11:00 AM. Made mistake about configuration of the stars. Should have been 11:14.

Investigators believed that Al referred to Alton, and that 11:14 was supposed to be the time of the murder, which had been carried out, in error, 14 minutes too early. 

The following day, Arthur was carried into Prosecutor Fisher's office and confronted with the notebook. He admitted that the notebook was his, and that he had been the author of the diabolical plots, but so what? He had merely written down what he had seen in the stars. His only crime, he insisted, was foretelling the future.

"Did you dislike your sister-in-law, Arthur?"

"That's irrelevant. The stars merely indicated that September would be a bad month for her." 

Unable to get anything more from him, authorities ordered him held in jail until they could decide their next move. And their next move was to question Alton Covell again.

"Say, Alton, do you have a nickname by any chance? Does anybody ever call you Al for short?"

"Only my uncle Arthur."

When confronted with his uncle's notebook, Alton lost his composure and made a full confession.

"I was the one who put the ammonia on the rag. My stepmother was standing by the stove. I walked up to her from behind and put the cloth over her nose with my right hand and held her arms with my left. I pressed hard for about two or three minutes, then I let her down on the floor.

"Then I went and told my uncle I had done it. He and Lucille knew about the plan before I did. Uncle Arthur was the one who told me to get the ammonia and what to do with it."

Lucille was questioned next and she, too, confessed. And then Arthur was interrogated again, and he also confessed, though he insisted that Lucille played no part in the murder. He bragged that his niece and nephew had no will of their own; they were completely under his control. Like devoted followers of Rasputin, they did anything he commanded them to do without protest.

Arthur confessed that there was no particular motive for murdering Ebba Covell. She was just in the way and needed to be removed, and young Alton wasn't to blame-- for he had merely been the tool used for the job. 

Carried into the courtroom by guards, Arthur Covell went on trial before Judge John C. Kendall on November 5, 1923. and entered a plea of not guilty. Throughout his trial, the handicapped defendant remained on the floor, on a cot in front of the bench. In a shocking twist, he recanted his confession and pinned the blame on Alton, admitting only to having purchased the ammonia for cleaning purposes around the house. 

The star witness for the prosecution was Lucille Covell, who turned state's evidence and provided damning testimony, which the defense couldn't pick apart. On November 11, the jury left the courtroom to deliberate, returning two hours later with a verdict, finding Arthur Covell guilty of murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to death by hanging.

Sixteen-year-old Alton Covell was subsequently tried for murder. Although his attorney, Grant Corby, argued that Alton only had the mental development of an eleven-year-old child, the jury needed less than an hour to find Alton guilty of murder, but with a recommendation for life imprisonment. He would be pardoned nine years later. he passed away in 2002, living to the ripe old age of 94. His sister, Lucille, died in 2005 at the age of 95.

Arthur Covell, however, was not so lucky. After a series of unsuccessful appeals, the original sentence was upheld.  And when the day of his execution arrived-- May 22, 1925-- Arthur was taken from his cell at the Salem Penitentiary and pushed to the gallows in his wheelchair. After wishing the world a pleasant goodbye, the black cap was lowered over his head and the trap was sprung.

After the execution, Arthur's body was taken to the Oregon State Psychiatric Hospital, where it was cremated. His ashes were unclaimed until 2025.

Did the stars and planets truly foretell the death of Ebba Covell, or was her brother-in-law nothing more than a cold-blooded killer with a fascination with horoscopes and astrology? Maybe the alignment of celestial objects can foretell the future, or maybe not, but one thing that Arthur Covell didn't see in the stars was his fifteen minutes of infamy.