The Bennett Murder

The location was Kansas City, Kansas. The players in the scene are John Bennett and his wife Myrtle Bennett. We are dealing with a rather successful business man who had over the years become prosperous selling perfumes. John and Myrtle Bennett had met Charles and Myrna Hoffman, who lived in the same building. All four persons shared a common interest. They all played bridge. It was to become a fateful evening.

However, during the court trial, which ensued, it became apparent that John Bennett had at several times abused his wife physically during heated arguments. These arguments had also occurred during the times they played bridge together. Knowing this fact in advance gives the reader a better understanding of the character of John Bennett.

It was on the evening of September 29, 1929, when the game of bridge was still in its early stages, that John and Myrtle Bennett invited Charles and Myrna Hoffman to their apartment for an evening of rubber bridge. The stakes were friendly. Only $0.01 per point.

During the evening, it was quite evident that Myrtle Bennett had become tense and curt with her husband for not bidding and playing correctly, although the two had quite a winning streak during the first several hours of playing. However, Charles and Myrna Hoffman were quickly catching up, and this fact increased the intensity of the play. After the last quick tally of the score, it became evident that Charles and Myrna were ahead in points, although only by a small margin.

Myrna Hoffman related later on, that as the game continued, the Bennetts' criticism of each other grew more and more caustic. Finally, a Spade hand was bought by John and Myrtle in the following manner.

John Bennett South	Charles Hoffman West	Myrtle Bennett South	Myrna Hoffman East
1	2	4	Pass
Pass	Pass

Myrna Hoffman continued to relate later on that Myrtle Bennett, as dummy, laid down a rather good hand. But her husband evidently did not plan the play well. John Bennett managed to fail in his contract by two tricks. This seemed to infuriate his wife and she began goading him with remarks about, as she put it, bum bridge players.

As Myrna Hoffman described the situation, John Bennett came right back at her. She did not remember the exact words, but this confrontation continued for several minutes. She related how she and her husband tried to stop the argument by demanding cards and a new deal, but by this time the row had become so pronounced that John Bennett, reaching across the table, grabbed Myrtle's arm and slapped her several times.

Myrna Hoffman described how she and her husband tried to intervene, but that it was futile. She described further how Myrtle Bennett had repeated over and over in a strained sing-song tone, that nobody but a bum would hit a woman. John Bennett then shouted, after jumping up from the table, that he intended to spend the night at a hotel, and that he was leaving town the next day. It was then that Myrtle Bennett turned to Charles and Myrna Hoffman and said that they had better leave. Charles and Myrna Hoffman politely began making preparations to leave.

It was while Charles and Myrna Hoffman were making preparations to leave the apartment that they noticed Myrtle Bennett quickly going into the bedroom of her mother, Mrs. Alice B. Adkins, and it was there that she retrieved an automatic gun from a dresser drawer. It was reported later that Myrtle Bennett said to her mother that John was going to St. Joseph, Missouri, and that he wanted to be armed. Her mother did not seem alarmed by this.

John Bennett had gone to his den, which was located near the bathroom, to pack for the intended trip to the hotel and for the days he wanted to be out of town. Charles Hoffman, putting on his muffler, had turned back and saw his friend, John Bennett, alone. It was during this time that Myrna Hoffman, who was standing at the front doorway, was waiting for her husband, when Charles Hoffman decided to approach John Bennett, hoping to say a few words of comfort which could relieve the feeling of anger and depression. Charles Hoffman engaged John Bennett in a conversation, and it was at this time that Myrtle Bennett seemed to dart into the room with the pistol unconcealed in her hand.

In a matter of seconds, John Bennett saw his wife brandishing the gun, ran hurriedly to the nearby bathroom, and slammed the door behind him. As soon as the door slammed shut, Myrtle Bennett fired two shots which penetrated the bathroom door. As it was pointed out later at the trial, she missed both times. John Bennett dodged the bullets.

Charles Hoffman, evidently too astonished at what had just happened, became immobile and stood standing in the den. Myrna Hoffman, after hearing the shots, ran down the hallway of the apartment building and began pounding on the door of the nearest apartment, apparently seeking help. Myrtle Bennett simply remained standing in front of the bathroom door with the pistol hanging by her side. However, in the commotion, Myrtle Bennett realized that she had not shot her husband. She heard him nearing the door which lead to the street. She followed, still furious about the play of the hand, the slaps she had received from her husband in front of friends, and determined to take revenge. She fired two additional shots, which allegedly killed her husband.

John Bennett did not die immediately, but was able to drag himself back into the apartment, where he staggered to a chair, sat down, and moaned that: "She got me." His last words. Afterwards, he slumped to the floor unconscious. Myrtle Bennett stood rigidly in the room with the pistol in her hand, and then it seemed that whatever power had held her left her mind and body. She had become again a rational person. She immediately went to her husband, she kneeled down, and began to cry uncontrollably. This is how the police found her. Myrtle Bennett was charged with first degree murder.

While this scene was being acted out, it seems that the bridge cards were neglected. When John Bennett was hitting his wife, the cards were flying around and off the table. The exact nature of the holding between North and South, and East and West, will most likely never be revealed, although Charles and Myrna Hoffman attempted to reconstruct the hands as best they could remember. The four hands played that evening, reconstructed by memory, began to circulate in periodicals shortly after the crime, and they were analyzed by the governing authorities on bridge of that time. The hands, as delivered to the present time, are illustrated below.

Myrtle Bennett
North

	A1063
	1085
	4
	A9842

Charles Hoffman
West

	Q72
	AJ3
	AQ1092
	J6

Myrna Hoffman
East

	4
	Q94
	KJ763
	Q753

John Bennett
South

	KJ985
	K762
	85
	K10

After the shooting, many bridge players became intrigued by the cards. They were reconstructed by the three remaining survivors to the best of their ability. Mr. Sydney Lenz and Mr. Eli Culbertson actually proved that John Bennett could have successfully fulfilled the contract. However, the opening by John Bennett was criticized as being too light since he did have insufficient values to make an opening bid. The lead, by West or Charles Hoffman, was the Ace of Diamonds, which took the trick. Charles Hoffman, after seeing the dummy void of Diamonds shifted to the Club suit, and lead the Jack on the second trick. John Bennett won this trick with his King of Clubs and began pulling trump. The more appropriate play would have been for John Bennett to establish the Club suit after ruffing his last Diamond.

If John Bennett, after winning the Club trick with his King of Clubs, had led his last Diamond and trumped it with one of the dummy's small trumps, he could then lead a trump and go up with the King. Then he would lead the Club 10, and , when Charles Hoffman followed suit, his worries would have been over. John Bennett would play the Ace of Clubs and lead the Nine or Eight. If Myrna Hoffman would have played the Queen of Clubs, John Bennett would have trumped and allowed Charles Hoffman to overtrump, if he decided to overtrump.

If that were the case, then Charles Hoffman, if he led a Heart, the contract would have been fulfilled. If Charles Hoffman had instead led a Diamond, the contract would also have been makeable. If Charles Hoffman had decided to lead a trump, then John Bennett may not have been able to fulfill the contract. The conclusion of both Sydney Lenz and Eli Culbertson was that John Bennett did not plan his strategy before playing the cards, and that was his fatal mistake.

Although the story occurred in Kansas City, Kansas, the larger metropolitan newspapers got a hold of the details and the New York Time and the Chicago Tribune reported it. At the trial for first degree murder of her husband, Myrtle Bennett was advised by her lawyer to alter somewhat the alleged confession. Myrtle Bennett wept ostensibly throughout the proceedings, and at one point avowed that she would rather have been dead than to have in any fashion caused the death of her husband.

It seems that this line of defense was advantageous when the judge declined to admit into evidence the original statement Myrtle. Bennett had given to the police. Even the last words of John Bennett had been altered to the degree that the impression was left that John Bennett had meant to state that he was leaving his wife forever, and that he was conducting business the next day in St. Joseph, Missouri. During the trial it seemed that Myrtle Bennett convincingly stated that her husband had requested her to retrieve the pistol, since he normally carried the weapon while on trips out of town. This statement was backed up by her mother, Mrs. Alice B. Adkins.

Myrtle Bennett was also able to alter the circumstances to leave the impression that while she was retrieving the weapon, she stumbled over a chair and the pistol went off accidentally, wounding her husband, and when her husband grabbed her arm in order to remove the pistol, the pistol once again discharged, this time fatally wounding her husband.

Myrtle Bennett was acquitted, because the jury decided to ignore the physical evidence of the two bullet holes found in the bathroom door. The jury also found nothing strange that the body of John Bennett was found lying on the living room floor and no suitcase to be found. The jury also ignored the fact that the pistol had been fired four times. The jury found that the death of John Bennett had been an accident. After the acquittal, Myrtle Bennett collected $30,000.00 from her husband's life insurance policy, which was a significant sum during the years of the depression.

Myrtle Bennett resumed her hobby of playing bridge soon thereafter, but it seems that her partners were rather cautious in their bidding and playing.

In his 1934 collection, While Rome Burns, drama critic and essayist Alexander Woollcott reported on the delicate matter of Myrtle Bennett, the shooting, the trial, and the acquittal. And also, David Daniels, in his book, The Golden Age of Contract Bridge, described the scene, the characters, and the events that followed.

This incident happened during the time when the game of bridge was emerging as a favorite pastime. But this pastime was headed by the males of the bridge community, and women had very little to say when it came to the conventions, the guidelines, conduct and propriety. Women were not exactly quoted in the many books published by the so-called authorities. It was, however, Myrtle Bennett who gave the woman of the bridge world an impetus to become more bolder in their conduct, and not present themselves as the weaker sex. It seems that the males heard the message, and understood it. It was not that Myrtle Bennett was idolized in any fashion by the female bridge players of that era, but her example and acquittal were the talk of the bridge community for some time.


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