Forgotten Fame: The Marion Miley Story

the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions.

NARRATOR: Lexington, Kentucky.

The heart of the Bluegrass State.

An uncommon wealth of beauty, tradition and history.

Some of it nearly forgotten.

During the Great Depression, in an era defined by difficulty and defeat, the achievements of a champion gave the city of Lexington something to celebrate.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: This flower of the fairways is named Marion Miley.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: One look at her, and you know here is a girl with that something.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: The most photographed golfer in the world.

MIKE TROSTEL: She clearly was a top player, an elite player a three-time member of the Curtis Cup team.

CHESTER WILSON: A darn good golfer, and I'll put it stronger, she was a damn good golfer.

MARK STUHLREYER: She was, between 1936 and 1941, the very best golfer in America.

MARION MILEY VOICEOVER: January 1, 1940: Here's hoping the next five years can top the last.

They're starting off with a lot of work to say the least.

NARRATOR: Marion Miley's work, thoroughly documented in her personal scrapbooks, would forge new paths for women in golf, paving the way for what would becme the LPGA.

BEVERLY BELL: The city loved it.

There was a Marion Miley Day in 1935 where the mayor recognizes her.

The city was proud of her.

NARRATOR: On September 28, 1941, Lexington's sense of pride was tragically shattered.

REPORTER VOICEOVER: Marion Miley, famous Lexington woman golfer was shot to death and her mother, Mrs.

Fred Miley, was wounded seriously shortly after 4:00 this morning when burglars broke into the Lexington Country Club on the Paris Road.

NARRATOR: A grief-stricken city launched an intensive nationwide manhunt.

For months, the story dominated headlines until another shocking event overshadowed it.

(BOMBS EXPLODING) (MACHINE GUN FIRING) NARRATOR: Marion Miley's life and death drama faded into a forgotten memory.

(Music) MIKE TROSTEL: Marion Miley was born in Philadelphia in 1914 and she was born into a golfing family.

Her dad was a golf professional, teacher, club maker.

MARK STUHLREYER: He was a well-known player at the time.

He played in the 1918 US Open.

TED BASSETT: As I recall, her father, Fred Miley, was a rather autocratic golf professional.

If you took lessons from him, you asked few questions.

He was very much in control.

MARK STUHLREYER: Elsie was Fred's wife, and she was the club manager, and she had a great business background.

She had been in the fashion industry back in Philadelphia when Fred and Elsie were first married.

NARRATOR: Fred moved his family to Florida during the real estate boom of the Roaring 20s.

As golf courses flourished there, so did Marion, beginning a lifelong love affair with both the state of Florida and the game of golf.

BEVERLY BELL: Every indication says that they were a close family so I don't think it was him being too rough on her.

I think it was, this was what he knew.

He knew golf.

His daughter clearly had an exceptional talent for it.

MARK STUHLREYER: just as she was blooming into this great golfer, the country suffered the Great Depression in 1929.

MIKE TROSTEL: October 1929, stock market crash, Depression hits, that obviously has a big impact on the game of golf.

The men playing the game -- participation, that declines.

People are giving up their country club memberships, they don't have the same leisure time that they did, or money to spend on it.

NARRATOR: In 1930, Fred Miley accepted a position as the golf pro for the Lexington Country Club.

His wife Elsa became the club manager, and, with their teenage daughter Marion, they moved into a small apartment on the second floor of the Kentucky clubhouse.

MARK STUHLREYER: He needed a better job, and he knew and understood that the Lexington Country Club wasn't really paying attention to Prohibition.

And the golf game was flourishing here without all the problems of the Depression or the problems of Prohibition.

NARRATOR: Founded in 1901, the Lexington Country Club offered an array of social and recreational amenities for Lexington society.

And for those interested in the game of golf, it provided an alluring 18-hole golf course designed by Tom Bendelow, the same man who designed the famed courses at Medinah and Mission Hills.

TED BASSETT: The Lexington Country Club was the center of all social activities.

Not only had a beautiful golf course, but it was a beautiful facility.

HARRY MILLER: It was a place that on Saturday nights had an orchestra, and if you had a dollar and went up to the door, you could get in and dance and drink if you wanted to.

MIKE ROWADY: I don't know if you had to be a member or not to get to the dance.

I think they were willing to get the dollars in 1941.

MARK STUHLREYER: I don't think Lexington Country club in 1940 was very different.

It's the same building.

The same golf course.

The same kind of membership.

The era, however, was very different.

NARRATOR: The Depression era, with its soaring unemployment and poverty rates, saw an increase in both crime and punishment.

There were more legal executions in the 1930s than any other decade in American history.

It was an era of bank failures and bank robbers, some of whom were considered folk heroes by a disillusioned public.

As Prohibition laws continued to be enforced, an overburdened prison system became its own problem.

Within the cramped confines of the Frankfort reformatory, two inmates, Thomas Penney and Robert Anderson met for the first time.

Years later, they would reunite to commit one of Kentucky's most notorious crimes.

BEVERLY BELL: Bob Anderson was a nightclub owner in Louisville.

He owned a club called the Cat and Fiddle.

It was on Main Street.

He was a convicted felon, and he and Tom Penney had known each other when they were in prison.

On the night before the crime, Tom Penney was in Louisville.

He had gone there earlier in the week.

He was trying to find a job.

RICK SMOOT, Ph.D.

: I don't think it's hard to see how the conditions of the 1930s and early 40s could have contributed to a crime like the one with Marion Miley's murder.

You're in a Depression era where it's very difficult to find good jobs in the first place, even if you have a sparkling record.

Then add to that that you're an ex-con, and you're going to have a hard time.

OFFICER ROBERT TERRY: Tom Penney went from job to odd job to scams to make ends meet, in order to make money to survive.

He had quite a few charges over the years.

BEVERLY BELL: He came from a very good, very solid family, so there would be every expectation that he would do like his brothers did and his father did and make a life for himself and carry on in kind of a traditional way.

That did not happen.

NARRATOR: While the harsh realities of the Depression led some to a life of crime, most people sought more innocent and entertaining means of escape.

For many Kentuckians, sporting events were a favorite diversion.

In 1930, Adolph Rupp began his stellar career as the coach of the University of Kentucky wildcats.

In 1936, Keeneland racecourse was built, further developing Kentucky's legendary thoroughbred industry.

But it was not just horse racing or basketball that dominated headlines in the 30s.

The city of Lexington had become fascinated with women's amateur golf and the exceptional talent of Marion Miley.

(Music) NARRATOR: In 1931, at the age of 17, Marion Miley became the youngest woman to ever win the Kentucky state amateur championship, a feat she would accomplish a record six times.

It was the beginning of an extraordinary golf career.

REPORTER: She defeated everything in sight in Kentucky, winning the state championship, the central Kentucky championship and setting a new course record on just about every links in this section.

We've a sneaking and disquieting idea that we won't be seeing much of Marion Miley from now on.

She has graduated from Lexington's modest golf circles, the only Lexington golfer to break into the majors.

BEVERLY BELL: In the 1930's when Marion started playing golf, the only option for women at a truly and highly competitive level was amateur.

There wasn't the idea of a professional circuit the way we know it today.

MIKE TROSTEL: It really was a time where the amateur was king as far as golf goes, both on the men's side and the women's side.

The biggest players in the game, the best players in the game were amateur players in the 1920s, 1930s and into the 1940s and there are a couple of reasons for this.

One is that professionals were viewed as very much working class at that time.

Professionals weren't allowed in the club houses at some places, they had to change their shoes in the car and go in.

Golf was in some respects an elite sport at that time, so you had a lot of eliting families of the game with amateurs.

It was a social game at the time and that's a big reason why the amateur play was much more significant than professional play in the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

NARRATOR: The amateur circuit was made up of a series of annual tournaments hosted by different country clubs throughout the nation, many of them in Florida.

The competitions were typically match play whereby each hole was won with the fewest strokes taken and the champion determined by winning the most holes.

MARK STUHLREYER: Most of those ladies were country club children.

They were the young daughters of particularly wealthy individuals.

Marion Miley was very different.

She was the daughter of a club manager and a pro.

She had a different route into the game.

And I think she used that to motivate herself throughout her career.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Marion Miley, the 18-year-old former Kentucky state champion won the Riviera women's golf championship yesterday after a 53-hole marathon match.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Marion Miley, playing in her first Palm Beach golf tournament romped through a speedy field of shot makers.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Miss Marion Miley of Lexington, the Kentucky champion, won the South Atlantic title here today for the first time.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Miss Marion Miley engineered a surprise today in the Florida Women's Championship by winning one up from Helen Hicks, VOICEOVER REPORTER: Marion Miley, just out of her teens and with little more than three seasons of tournament play has notified the old guard she is ready to warrant considerable attention in forthcoming championships.

MIKE TROSTEL: I think it's hard to express at how popular these championships were, the women's amateur golf at the time.

So the men's game certainly with Bob Jones, very popular in the 1920's in that golden age of golf.

Jones wins the Grand Slam in 1930, and there are tens of thousands of people out there watching him at an amateur event.

Well when he retired in November of that year at age 28, there was a little bit of a hole in that game.

There was a gap, and no one filled it right away.

Probably not until Nelson, Hogan or Snead down the line.

So you have a little time in the 1930s where interest may have waned a little bit in the men's game and the women's game is becoming much more popular, it's growing in an unprecedented rate at that time, and not only are the players very skilled, but they're beautiful, they're attractive, they're made for the camera, and I think that really was a big factor of why so many people came out to watch them in the 1930s and 40s.

NARRATOR: In an era before the advent of television and the internet, Marion Miley became a media sensation.

Newspapers loved touting her achievements, scrutinizing her skills, capturing her image and transforming her into a celebrity.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: One look at her-bronzed, with a short cut to her chestnut hair, clear eyes that look directly at one, a broad smile, an even-toned voice, and the loose gait of an athlete, and you know here is a girl with that "something".

In personality, Marion Miley can't be stymied.

Her boyish bob, her clean-cut profile, her generous smile are all indicative of the characteristics of the highest type of American Girl.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: George Hammond analyzes Miss Miley's swing, remarking that she is a factor to be reckoned with in coming championships.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Gene Sarazen says that her low, scudding tee shots are a result of her closing the face of her driver at the top of her swing, but whatever the cause, she smacks a drive that would be the envy of many a stalwart male.

CHESTER WILSON: Yeah, her dad says, he loved her to death, but he says "she thinks she can beat me", but of course, he held the course record there so she couldn't beat him, but she loved to play and as far as I can remember, a very nice lady.

TED BASSETT: She was a lovely person.

She was kind and thoughful.

She was very striking looking and moved around the club with a great deal of grace.

We looked at her in awe.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: The scribes have found Miss Miley to be a very modest and retiring champion, refined and affable and always willing to give them a break.

You're okeydokey with the newspapermen, Marion.

MIKE ROWADY: I don't know of anyone who had the prominence that Marion Miley had.

She was a household name.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Besides playing a brand of golf which may earn her the number one ranking among the nation's women amateurs, Marion Miley is a swimmer, a tennis player, an expert horsewoman and an adept in almost any branch of athletics she undertakes.

As for domestics... MARION MILEY: I'm just not cut out for domesticity.

I don't like it, and I'm no good at it, so I don't see why I shouldn't stick to things I can do well and enjoy.

BEVERLY BELL: Golf was only one thing that she was good at.

We know that she enjoyed writing.

She would later in her career, end up writing some articles for the Lexington newspaper.

She was known to play the piano very well.

She rode horses, and all along she had said that she had an interest in medicine.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Whether to devote her life to wielding the niblick or the scalpel, to jotting down birdies or prescriptions, is the greatest problem confronting Marion Miley, on the eve of her first bid for the woman's national golf championship.

VOICEOVER MARION MILEY: Championship golf is a full-time task, and as everyone knows, so is medicine.

The question is, which shall I give up.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Charlotte Glutting of New Jersey ruined the hopes of Marion Miley for a national golf championship today.

While defeat must have been very bitter as she had set her heart on winning, Marion never lost her smile.

She says she will try again next year.

MARION MILEY VOICEOVER: Oh, I want to get my degree someday.

But right now, playing golf has much to offer in the way of contacts.

I wouldn't give up these past few years of traveling around and meeting all sorts of people.

I don't think much else than golf could have given me that enjoyment.

MIKE TROSTEL: Back in that era, the Women's Amateur Circuit was, well, they're amateur players; they're not playing for any money.

It's difficult to move around and it's across the country.

They're caravanning, they're often sharing rides, they're sharing hotel rooms.

BEVERLY BELL: In a way, it was sort of like a sorority because they all knew each other.

They played, essentially, the same tournaments.

they traveled together.

It was probably a fairly tight knit group as they would work their way through this informal circuit.

MIKE TROSTEL: When they're off and playing in the tournaments they're away from their families, it was not an easy thing to do.

These women loved the game, they had an extreme amount of passion for it, and that's why they did that.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: An hour after Miss Miley won the Women's Kentucky State Golf Championship at Audobon she was bound for Omaha.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: The Trans-Mississippi champion was unbeatable Saturday.

Thirty-five strokes in one under men's par and six under women's regulation figures.

Miss Miley played from the championship tees, full distance, and no conceded putts longer than six inches.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Miss Marion Miley, ascended the throne today as golfdom's "Queen of the West".

The pretty brunette from the Bluegrass state, displaying all the skill of a master craftsman, carved out a 6-5 victory.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Fresh from her triumph Saturday in the Women's Western Golf Tournament in Cleveland, Marion Miley, 21-year-old queen of the western golfing world, will be formally welcomed home by Mayor Charles R. Thompson.

NARRATOR: Marion's reputation for excellence would soon extend beyond the borders of not only Kentucky, but the United States.

( SHIP HORN BLAST ) VOICEOVER REPORTER: Marion Miley, nationally-known golf player, bids Lexington adieu again to sail to Europe where she hopes to gain international recognition playing as a member of the United States Curtis Cup team.

MIKE TROSTEL: The Curtis Cup is the bi-annual competition between the best female amateur golfers from the United States and Great Britain, and it started back in 1932, and almost all the best players throughout time have played in that.

To be named a member of the Curtis Cup team, there's really no bigger honor as an amateur golfer.

NARRATOR: Marion would be named a member of the Curtis Cup team three times over the course of her career.

Her collection of wins included two Trans-Mississippi championships, two Women's Southern titles, two Women's Western Amateur wins, two Western Derby crowns, the Mexican Women's Open and numerous Florida titles, as well as the Augusta Invitational.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Miss Marion Miley added another title to her list Thursday.

She won the second annual Southeastern Women's Invitational Golf Tournament at Nashville.

While en route home, she stopped in Cincinnati to see her father, who resigned at the Lexington club several weeks ago to accept the Maketewah place.

NARRATOR: In 1937, Fred Miley accepted a position as the golf pro for a country club in Cincinnati.

His wife, Elsa and daughter, Marion remained in Lexington.

Over the next four years, he would visit frequently, urging Elsa to station a night watchman at the club.

She made an arrangement with one of the greenskeepers, Raymond "Skeeter" Baxter, who often stayed in a small building on the grounds.

She would keep a whistle by her bed and should she ever need help, she would use the whistle to notify him.

BEVERLY BELL: The door leading to the actual apartment was inside the country club, which means that you would have to break through an external door to get to the door to the apartment.

So, Elsie probably felt pretty secure where she was and safe.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: So long as Fred lives in Cincinnati, it is supposed that Cincinnati will claim Marion Miley.

But Lexington, so long as Mrs.

Miley remains in Lexington as the manager of the Lexington Country Club, doesn't intend to give Marion up to Cincinnati or any other town.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: It takes ecourage and great ability to face the great odds Marion faced down there in Birmingham yesterday, and like a true Kentuckian, she came through when the chips were down.

While most of her opponents were were touring the winter courses in Florida, Marion was recuperating from fan appendicitis operation in a Lexington hospital.

She hit the trail and bad luck hit her again.

This time, it was a sprained ankle.

Back to Lexington she came to turn in a little more time at home recuperating.

BEVERLY BELL: I do think Marion's injuries and chronic issues played a role in being so close to crossing that big hurdle of winning the national championship and never getting there, how often can you get past those injuries and push yourself?

We know that athletes do.

They do it all the time.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Marion Miley is the back in form again, and playing havoc among the golfers swinging out of the south.

The 27th champion of the Women's Southern Golf Association after the most spectacular combat ever played in any round, final or otherwise, in the history of the association.

VO REPORTER: If the airmen of the warring European nations shoot their guns and drop their bombs as accurately as Marion Miley controlled golf balls, the conflict abroad will be of short duration.

NARRATOR: As the war in Europe gained momentum, So did Marion's career, and not just on the golf course.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Miss Marion Miley is a business girl these days.

In a streamlined, 20th century manner, she is even doing a little pioneering, breaking into a field not hitherto open to women.

She is doing promotion for an old-line firm only recently converted to the thought of women in their advertising offices.

MARK STUHLREYER: She did accept a job with the Standard Oil Company of Kentucky to inspect gas stations of all things.

She'd inspect the gas stations on the way to the tournament so Standard Oil company could essentially pay her expense.

She knew what it was all about, but she had a lot of integrity and did the work as well as play the golf.

VOICEOVER MARION: Up at 4:30 and off to Birmingham.

Got there at 3: 00 pm and went to the office only to be sent on to Mobile.

A session at the office explaining that golf was a hobby and not my work.

Didn't get away because of reports.

All day rained so I checked stations -- 25 of them.

Quiet day.

Went to all the stations on the beach then to the office and back to the house, practiced with the clubs that came today.

Stations all morning with Standard Oil man.

MIKE TROSTEL: It was very unusual at the time for, especially a woman to represent a company like Standard Oil, something separate from golf.

Marion had gotten her fame from golf and that's why people knew her, but the fact that she was representing Standard Oil because of her golf was something totally new.

It's something we really didn't see until later years.

She was ahead of the curve.

MARK STUHLREYER: These are lovely young women, athletic, full of energy, wined and dined all over the tour, they packed their golf clothes and their evening gowns and went to the hotels and clubs, and they met everybody.

Bing Crosby, Bob Hope.

Also all the most prominent business people of the era.

Politicians, so they were moving at high levels.

BEVERLY BELL: Her way of life afforded her opportunities and contact with people that you normally just wouldn't run across.

VOICEOVER MARION: To office early.

practiced long, but not too well.

Went to a barbecue given by the ball players.

Met Paul Derringer and found him swell.

VOICEOVER MARION: Played golf with Dolores Hope, Ruby Keeler and Peggy Rutledge.

Met Clark Gable - saw Heddy LaMar.

Dinner at Hope's - cocktails at Ruby's.

Met His Royal Highness Edward, Duke of Windsor and Wally.

To the beach - dinner and to the nightclubs.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Tribute to Lexington's gift to the world, Marion Miley, was paid by her admirers here today which by decree of Mayor E. Reed Wilson had been proclaimed as Marion Miley Day.

NARRATOR: Praise for Marion Miley's achievements was well deserved.

But for all her victories, the National crown would remain elusive.

She lost at every attempt.

MIKE TROSTEL: She was a great player.

Never won the US Women's Amateur but when you look at who she beat in other events, Louise Suggs, Betty Jamison, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, they were all in that group.

And just because she didn't win the US Women's Amateur, I don't think that defines her career.

PATTY BERG VOICEOVER: We were all pulling for Marion to win the national championship this year.

She has been so close so many times to winning the title.

And look at this year.

She lost by one stroke on the 19th hole.

She is always right there, and the one to beat to win the championship.

She never gives up, and with a little more luck, she would have been this year's champion.

NARRATOR: No one could have known that 1941 was Marion's last chance to win a championship.

On the morning of September 28, 1941.

Marion Miley would once again make headlines.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Marion Miley, famous Lexington woman golfer was shot to death and her mother, Mrs.

Fred Miley was wounded seriously shortly after 4: 00 this morning when burglars broke into the Lexington Country Club on Paris Road.

Mrs.

Miley, wounded three times in the abdomen, had walked 200 yards to a nearby sanitarium to call for help.

BEVERLY BELL: Her mother tries heroically to save her daughter by crawling through gravel and dirt and bleeding.

Lexington was horrified by this.

NARRATOR: Before collapsing into a coma, Elsa Miley was able to tell police that two masked men, one tall, one short, broke into their apartment and attacked them, demanding the money received from a dance held at the club a few hours earlier.

MIKE ROWADY: It was right at 12:00, and I think they stopped the music in those days, and Marion Miley who wasn't at the dance, came in, and I remember she was wearing a skirt and a blouse, and she started up those stairs you see on the far part of the dining room there.

And Bob and I were standing there, and she leaned over and shook his hand and shook mine and went up the stairs.

Next morning, I got home and read in the Lexington Herald that she's been murdered.

Every time something cataclysmic happened, the papers would run an Extra.

Oh, I remember people running around "Extra, Extra read all about it!"

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Fred Miley, husband of Mrs.

Miley and father of Marion, was not reached at Cincinnati until several hours after the tragedy.

He was told merely that an accident had occurred and that he should come to Lexington at once.

Not until he reached Georgetown and heard a boy crying a Herald-Leader "Extra" that Marion Miley had been slain did he know what actually had occurred.

BEVERLY BELL: Think about a father hearing that about his only child.

You know, shock, horror.

how do you keep your hands on the steering wheel.

I think it is one of the most upsetting aspects of the story.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Fred Miley, who looked haggard from worry and loss of sleep, said that Marion would have fought if they had touched Elsa.

She was a strong girl from her golfing and would have struggled with them.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Evidence of a furious struggle was all around.

A panel of the door leading to the Miley apartment had been smashed in.

A bed in Mrs.

Miley's room was soaked with blood; a nearby telephone had been ripped from from the wall, and several master switches had been thrown to turn off the lights.

HARRY MILLER: That day, several men came down to see my father, and they wanted to employ him to be in the role of a special prosecutor.

He decided he needed to go out to the country club to look at scene, and he asked if I'd like to go along with him.

and I, of course, said yes.

And they were showing us various things up the stairs when they identified something as Marion Miley's brains and with that, it just turned my stomach completely.

I ran down the steps, went outside and threw up.

Wasn't much help to my father after that.

NARRATOR: Police had very few clues to go on - Two buttons from a man's coat and three slugs from a .32 caliber automatic.

Not until a newspaper boy came forward did police have their first genuine lead.

Sixteen year old, Hugh Cramer had noticed an unfamiliar vehicle in the country club's driveway while delivering papers that morning.

HUGH CRAMER VOICEOVER: This car was a 1940 Buick and was a four-door sedan.

The front door on the right-hand side of the car was open.

There was no one in the car at the time I seen it.

I never did see this Buick car at the club before.

NARRATOR: Two days later, a car matching Cramer's description was reported stolen by a Louisville nightclub owner, Robert Anderson.

As law enforcement agencies across the country kept watch for a 1940 Buick sedan, the grief-stricken city of Lexington mourned their fallen champion.

MIKE ROWADY: It was some kind of a profound shock.

I think it's the best way I could put it.

People couldn't believe it.

Here's this prominent young lady that had been in the papers, and everybody knew her name, slaughtered by some animal.

It was really a traumatic period.

VO: Police temporarily halted their investigation today to attend the funeral of Miss Marion Miley.

Hundreds of friends and relatives, including other national golfing figures from afar, crowded St.

Peter's Catholic church today to pay their last respects to the slain girl.

MIKE TROSTEL: There is an outpouring of grief and support, mourning from the golf community.

Patty Berg attended the funeral, Helen Dettweiler, thousand of others including many from the golf community went ther to show their support.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Golfers the country over were stunned by the tragedy.

Senator Happy Chandler heard the news over the radio.

Turning to his friend, chief of the state police, he said "I have to go back to Washington in an hour, but you do all you can to catch those bandits.

If there's any extra expenses involved, send the bill to me."

HARRY MILLER: People were more or less horrified by what had happened and wanted to apprehend whoever was involved in it.

And they did raise a considerable sum of money, I know, and offered a reward.

NARRATOR: Police lost their only witness to the crime when just eight hours after Marion's funeral, Elsa Miley died of her wounds.

However, a prime suspect would soon emerge.

Two men, Bud Tomlinson and Tom Lunsford informed police that they had been approached separately by a friend who wanted help robbing the country club.

His name was Tom Penney.

VOICEOVER TOM LUNSFORD: A couple of weeks before this Miley business, I was having a beer in Rube Thompson's place when Penney came in.

Tom said he thought we might be able to get a thousand dollars at the country club on Paris Pike.

He wanted to know if I had a gun, or could get one and if I had a car.

When he found out I definitely wasn't interested, he told me to keep quiet about the whole proposition.

I did until two weeks later when I saw a newspaper extra headline that Marion Miley and her mother had been slain at the Country Club.

VOICEOVER BUD TOMLINSON: He said this place was out to Joyland, there was just an old woman out there and put a mask on and said he did not have to have any bullets if he could get hold of a gun.

I ask him why he was going to do it, and he said he needed the money bad, and just had to have it.

NARRATOR: Lexington police shared a description of the suspect with law enforcement agencies across the country.

On October 11, 1941, two detectives in Fort Worth, Texas spotted a Buick sedan with Kentucky license plates.

The driver was a scar-faced man named Tom Penney.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: They had no particular feeling of drama or excitement when they saw a two-tone Buick automobile parked in front of a beer tavern.

It was just a hunch that made them turn back, halt and investigate, and as a result break the two-weeks-old Miley murder case in Lexington, Kentucky.

NARRATOR: Tom Penney and his friend from Louisville, Leo Gaddis were arrested along with two local people riding in the car with them.

Lexington authorities were notified, and Lexington Police Chief Austin Price immediately set out for Texas, bringing along Bud Tomlinson and Tommy Lunsford as leverage for securing a confession.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: A gaunt, lanky Kentuckian, his eyes sunk back in his head, his black stubble unshaven since last Wednesday waited impatiently in the city jail here Monday to be taken back to Kentucky and "get the rest of it over with."

He is Tom Penney, scarfaced ex-convict, who Sunday confessed his part in the slaying of Marion Miley and her mother VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: Dear Mother, I don't know what to write to inspire you.

I know you are heartbroken.

However, Mother, don't worry; it is not as bad as it seems.

Don't believe everything that is printed in the papers.

I can tell you one thing that will make you feel better: I am NOT guilty of murder!

I have definite proof of that.

NARRATOR: In Fort Worth, Penney's three traveling companions were cleared of suspicion and set free.

A thorough inspection of the Buick sedan yielded a critical piece of evidence, a .32 caliber shell, the same size as those found at the crime scene.

It was sent to the FBI for analysis.

VOICEOVER J. EDGAR HOOVER: My dear Chief.. The fired cartridge case forwarded by you was compared with the evidence cartridge cases in the Miley murder case and they were identified as having been fired in the same weapon, assuring you of my desire to cooperate with you in these matters.

I am, sincerely yours, John Edgar Hoover.

OFFICER ROBERT TERRY: J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigaton.

He and his staff were very instrumental in taking the evidence that was recovered at the crime scene and being able to analyze it.

Later on, when the firearms were recovered in Louisville, they were able to take shell casings fired from those weapons and compare it to the actual ones recovered from the scene and positively identify it as the weapons that were used in the crime.

NARRATOR: In his confession to police, Penney identified an accomplice, 36-year-old Robert Anderson, the Louisville nightclub owner who had reported his car stolen.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Anderson, also an ex-convict, was arrested Sunday afternoon at his caf and made a statement in which he categorically denied any knowledge of the crime.

VOICEOVER ROBERT ANDERSON: I deny any knowledge of the Miley case.

I haven't been in Lexington since the latter part of August.

I know of no reason why Penney would want to say that I was with him.

I only lent him my car on the one occasion to go and get the sample of the whiskey.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Smoking an endless chain of cigarettes, Tom Penney, confessed robber-killer, told to a reporter the story of the double slayings at the Lexington Country Club.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: I never dreamed there'd be a killing, or I wouldn't have had anything to do with it.

Our information was all wrong.

We thought there was a lot more money there, about $10,000, that's what Baxter told us.

Why we didn't even know there was anyone in the clubhouse but one old woman.

Baxter had talked to me several times about how much money was kept at the club and how easy it would be to get.

CHESTER WILSON: Now the guy, Skeeter Baxter, I think his name was, I had caddied with him, and he was working watering the greens at night.

He thought he made up in brains what he lacked in looks, I think, and he didn't have either one.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Police Chief Austin Price announced that Raymond Skeeter Baxter, 27, was arrested Friday as the "inside man" in the crime.

Baxter, had tended the country club grounds and lived only a stone's throw from the club.

It was Baxter, both he and Penney agreed, who hatched the robbery plot that turned swiftly into a double murder.

Baxter confessed his part in the crime, as lookout for the two men who entered the Miley apartment.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Raymond Baxter signed a written statement implicating Robert Anderson, who has steadfastly denied any knowledge of the slayings.

VOICEOVER BOB ANDERSON: Why, I could have been to Jericho by now, if I'd of had anything to do with that.

They can tell by the fingerprints on a gun, and they wouldn't find my fingerprints on any gun.

NARRATOR: Police were unable to identify Anderson's fingerprints, they did, however, find other markings, not on the gun, but on Anderson himself.

VOICEOVER CHIEF J.W.

McCORD: Upon reaching the penitentiary Anderson was taken to the basement and his clothes taken from him, and he was given prison garb.

I noticed when he changed his clothes, there was large splotch or red mark on the inner front side of his left leg.

I didn't examine this mark closely.

BEVERLY BELL: A couple of days after the crime, Bob Anderson went in to see his doctor with what the doctor determined was a bite, a human bite.

VOR reporter: With the savage Miley murders declared solved in a full confession, Lexington authorities today looked for quick action by the Fayette County grand jury tomorrow.

Police worked to get all possible odds and ends of evidence in hand for what may be a dramatic face-to-face meeting of Tom Penney and Robert Anderson.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: I saw Anderson last night.

He's keeping his mouth shut, that's the only smart thing to do, and I think they'll have a hard time convicting him if he sticks to it.

Anyway, they brought us together and I stood up and told him face to face that he was as guilty as I was, but that didn't faze Anderson.

He just kept calling us liars and denying everything.

He's sure a cool customer.

I could tell he was worried, but the cops couldn't.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Chief Howard, after Penney had given his preliminary confession told Penney: "Tom, you better give your heart to God because your body already belongs to him."

NARRATOR: It was a suggestion that Tom Penney would fervently embrace.

In October 1941, Lexington Police Chief Austin Price gave two Catholic nuns an impromptu tour of the Fayette County jail, introducing them to the infamous criminal, Tom Penney.

It was a meeting that would change his life forever.

VOICEOVER SISTER ROBERT ANN: He did not look like the murderer I had expected to see, the character described in the daily newspapers.

He had a kind face, spoke in a quiet, respectful manner, and his downcast eyes gave one the impression that he was humiliated and ashamed.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: Dear Chief, you will never know just how much I appreciated your visit this afternoon.

I never knew an officer could be so human before now.

Isn't it strange how one learns those things too late, and the price one pays, it isn't worth it.

Mr.Price, I would like very much to know the Sisters' names who were with you today.

God bless them they are the same, so kind and sympthetic.

Try not to think too bad of me, and remember, I honestly am sincere in all I've said.

Respectfully, Thomas Penney.

NARRATOR: Not only would the nuns return to visit Penney, they would develop an ongoing correspondence that spread throughout the Catholic Church, leading to what they believed was an authentic religious conversion.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: It is a great consolation to see, recognize and admit my mistakes.

I cannot erase them before the eyes of men, but there is not a day or a night that I do not ask forgiveness from God.

I can hardly hope to know pleasure in my present position, but true peace is always within my reach.

Sister, there are thousands of ponderous books which have been written by learned men on the means to attain happiness, but all together, they do not say as much for the peace of the soul as those four little words in the Our Father, "Thy will be done."

Mother, if you only knew how this thing has changed me, you would not worry half so much.

Anything I say seems so small.

I just can't express my regret, All I can say is, if I do go, I'll go to a better world.

So try to look at it that way.

NARRATOR: Beginning with Robert Anderson on December 8, 1941, the Commonwealth of Kentucky conducted three separate and consecutive jury trials for the murder of Marion Miley.

MIKE ROWADY: The courtrooms, I know this, they were crowded with people, and there was a lot of intensity, hot feelings, that this would happen.

And it turned out there wasn't a whole lot of money in it.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: With painstaking care, prosecutors placed Anderson at the scene of the crime, First Tom Penney singled Anderson out as his principal confederate.

Then the state arrayed a mass of evidence -- circumstantial but conclusive.

Anderson never took the stand.

VO CIRCUIT CLERK DELONG: Commopnwealth vs.

Robert Anderson.

Guilty.

And fix his punishment.

Death.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Baxter, the principal witness in his own defense, told the jury that on the night of the murders he was drinking heavily and smoking "muggles" cigarettes and could not remember anything that happened during the hours of midnight and 5:30 a.m.

A surprise witness for the prosecution was Jackie Reeves who testified that about three weeks before the murders, Baxter asked him to help rob the country club.

VO CIRCUIT CLERK DELONG: Commonwealth versus Raymond"Skeeter" Baxter.

Guilty.

And fix his punishment.

Death.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Like the two co-defendants he helped to convict, Thomas Penney today heard a Fayette Circuit Court jury decree that he must die in the electric chair for the Miley murders at the Lexington Country Club.

VOICEOVER CIRCUIT CLERK: Commonwealth versus Thomas Penney.

Guilty.

And fix his punishment.

Death.

MIKE ROWADY: Now that was a well-followed news event, the trial of Baxter and Tom Penney.

It was well followed.

Everybody wanted to know what ever happened and was hoping they'd get the worst, and I guess they got it.

BEVERLY BELL: You have to remember how horrendous of a crime this was.

The first trial began the day after Pearl Harbor, and maybe less than two weeks later, all three of the men had been convicted and sentenced to death.

There were some appeals, but I don't think anybody could say that the justice was not swift because it certainly was.

VOICEOVER SISTER ROBERT ANN: We saw Tom the day after he was baptized.

"I have been condemned to death", he said "but I was never this happy in my life.

I cannot understand what has happened to me.

He asked if we would see Bob Anderson, whom he had tried to help spiritually and failed.

He wanted so much to help Bob find the happiness God had given to him since he had become a prisoner.

NARRATOR: As word of Penney's religious conversion spread, the Catholic community reached out to him in support while lobbying the governor for clemency.

A letter to Sister Robert Ann foreshadowed events that would turn the case upside down.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: Sister, I know this is a question for my confessor, but I want to ask you, too.

Is it a very great sin to tell a little lie to save the soul of another and maybe the souls of several?

Don't answer if you had rather not.

NARRATOR: One week before their scheduled execution, Penney made a shocking change to his testimony.

He announced Bob Anderson was innocent.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Tom Penney, one of three men sentenced to be electrocuted January 22nd, said in a deposition today that previous statements he had made implicating Robert Anderson in the murder of Marion Miley were false.

BEVERLY BELL: He did change his story.

He made all these confusing statements and recanted testimony in sort of this boyish attempt to undo the wrong.

NARRATOR: Anderson's unwavering claims of innocence along with Penney's inconsistent testimony generated uncertainty for some, Including Jesse Buchanan, Warden of the State Penitentiary at Eddyville.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: There is no doubt in my mind about Anderson's guilt.

I am positive he is the third man guilty of the Miley murders.

This was the statement made today by Commonwealth's Attorney James Park when asked about the deposition made by Tom Penney at Eddyville.

Penney, Anderson and Raymond Baxter are now in death row at the penitentiary.

Mr.

Park said the cells were so arranged that the three men easily could converse.

He added that he thought the new story was the result of long and careful planning by Anderson and Penney.

NARRATOR: When a visiting priest identified Penny's conflicting statements as a misguided attempt to save Anderson's life, he advised Penney to say nothing else about the story.

At the hearing for Anderson's new trial, Tom Penney emphatically refused to repeat his change of testimony.

The judge had no choice but to uphold the original ruling.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Three men convicted for the slaying of Marion Miley died in the electric chair at the state penitentiary here early today.

The executions were started at 1: 01 with Robert H. Anderson.

VOICEOVER ROBERT ANDERSON: Gentlemen, the only thing I can say is that I'm innocent of what I've been charged with.

VOICEOVER REPORTER: Penney entered the death chamber at 1:14 and when asked by Warden Buchanan if he had anything to say, he replied... VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: I want you to publish my closing statement.

NARRATOR: After the executions, Warden Buchanan told reporters that Penney admitted conspiring with Anderson to change his testimony in hopes of giving him a second chance at life.

Penney asked the Warden to verify that his original confession to reporters was accurate and reiterated the facts.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: We came to Lexington that Saturday night.

We started around the various bars and roadhouses, drinking beer and whiskey.

Out at one joint we ran into Baxter and that's when we made plans for the job.

At 2: 00, we drove in the gate of the club and parked.

Baxter told us he had a key, but he didn't, so I climbed in a window.

Baxter left about then.

I let Anderson in the back door.

We went and looked for the light switches.

Anderson had a flashlight and turned them off.

Then we tore out the telephone.

NARRATOR: The flashlight was purchased at Hutchinson's drugstore just before closing on the night of the crime.

The sales clerk identified Bob Anderson as the person who made the purchase.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: When we got to the top of the steps and found the door locked, we didn't know what to do.

We saw the lights of a truck or something, and we got scared and left the building.

Baxter met us and told us that it was him we had seen.

We got over our scare and went back, but Anderson stopped at the car, parked in the drive, and got out a couple of guns, handing one to me and keeping the other himself.

NARRATOR: There were two guns used in the crime, one a .380 caliber and one a .32 caliber.

Both belonged to Bob Anderson.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: We went back upstairs.

I stood on the steps about six steps below Anderson, and he broke out a panel of the door and reached through to unlock it.

As he stepped into the hall, I heard a woman scream and then a scuffle started.

I hurried up the stairs to help Anderson.

NARRATOR: Elsa Miley told police she awoke when she heard the noise at the door and was met by a man who immediately knocked her to the floor and shot her.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: As soon as I got in the door, somebody hit me in the face and knocked me down.

I got up and wrestled with whoever it was and finally got them around in front of me and hit at them with my gun.

That's when the first shot was fired, when my gun went off accidentally, but I know the first shot didn't hit anybody.

There was a lot of shooting after that.

NARRATOR: Ballistics evidence would prove that the fatal shots were all fired from the same weapon.

During the struggle, Penney's gun discharged a slug into the floor.

It did not match those found in the victim's bodies.

BEVERLY BELL: Bob met her in the hallway.

He had his gun.

We believe that Marion was also trying to fight him, was maybe knocked to the ground and she bit him.

She bit him really hard.

Definitely broke flesh.

She was fighting for her life.

She was fighting for her mother's life.

At that point, Bob held his gun to her head and shot her.

( Muffled gunshot ) NARRATOR: Bob Anderson claimed he sought treatment for the bite on his leg before the murder ever occurred.

His physician testified in court that he first treated Anderson the day after the crime.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: The next thing I know, we were in a room at the end of the hall.

A woman was reaching for-- I believe she had hold of a telephone.

We jerked it out of her hand and asked her where the money was.

Anderson and I both got the money out of a drawer.

Then we left.

We had to walk around a body in the hall, but I didn't know who it was or if they were dead.

NARRATOR: Marion Miley, the pride and joy of Lexington Kentucky, was brutally murdered for a sum of $130.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: When we got outside, we were in a hurry and scared, we didn't see Baxter.

We saw some lights in the driveway and thought it was the cops.

But, I guess now it was the paper boy who saw our car.

As soon as he had gone, we got in the car and drove away in a hurry.

We drove back through Lexington and on to Louisville and out to Fontaine Ferry Park.

We parked the car and Anderson went to hide the guns.

He'd already given me my split, about $60.

I watched while we buried the guns and then drove back to town.

I knew I was hot.

Too many people had seen me in Lexington.

NARRATOR: Witnesses in both Louisville and Lexington testified to seeing Anderson and Penney together on the night of the crime.

VOICEOVER PENNEY: We thought the car was hot, too, so Anderson told me to take it and burn it, that he'd give me 12 hours before reporting it stolen.

I was going to get rid of it, but I ran into Gaddis, and I couldn't shake him.

That's how I came to keep the car so long.

I didn't want to burn it with him along, and I couldn't get rid of him.

I guess you know the rest of the story.

When they got me at Fort Worth, and Price showed that he had enough evidence to hook me up with the crime.

VOICEOVER SISTER ROBERT ANN: Many beautiful lessons I learned from this prisoner.

He admitted his guilt.

he blamed no one but himself for his misdeeds.

He was not afraid to die.

In fact, he longed for death, if God willed it that way.

VOICEOVER TOM PENNEY: Even as bad as I have been, I see now what I might have been.

I never knew there were so many kind people in the world.

But how could I-- I never went to the trouble to look for them.

Oh merciful God, how really ignorant I have been!

NARRATOR: After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the City of Lexington, like the rest of the nation, focused its attention on the war effort.

Marion Miley's tragedy -- as well as her triumphs -- were willingly forgotten.

a painful chapter in the city's proud history.

MARK STUHLREYER: Most people were pretty reluctant to even discuss the matter.

They would just as soon it had never happened.

Of course that's true of all of us.

But it wounded the community.

It certainly was a setback to the Lexington Country Club for many years.

NARRATOR: In 1951, a decade after her murder, a Catholic priest, Father Raymond Flanagan, published a book detailing Tom Penney's religious conversion.

"God Goes to Murderer's Row" comprised of Penney's numerous letters to his mother, friends and member of the Church, became popular reading in the Catholic community.

BEVERLY BELL: Then another book came out in the nineties and this was written by the son of the warden at the penitentiary.

And it was a fictionalized treatment of the story.

NARRATOR: Based on the Miley murders, "Execution Eve" by William Buchanan, is a crime novel exploring the guilt or innocence of the incarcerated suspects.

As the son of the warden, the author held unique insights into his father's perceptions, asserting that after the Miley case, Warden Buchanan reversed his position on capital punishment and advocated for its abolishment for the rest of his life.

RICK SMOOT, Ph.

D.: I think it's important to tell stories like Marion Miley's so we have an understanding of the importance of our lives and the lives of others and the impact they have.

Our lives are interconnected.

It's important to always keep that in forefront, I think, and understand that.

That we are all interconnected.

MIKE TROSTEL: She certainly had a lot to do with making the game more accessible for a lot of women players.

And let's not forget, she was only 27 years old when she died so she was still in the prime of her career.

She still had a lot of time in her late 20s and 30s when she could have won the US Women's Amateur and more of those other events she'd already won.

OFFICER ROBERT TERRY: She was a strong, attractive young woman who had been a role model for a lot of other women across the globe.

She was a rising star during an era when women's normal societal roles were as housewives.

BEVERLY BELL: Marion and many of her counterparts at that time, in the amateur golfing world, they were cutting new paths all the time.

MIKE TROSTEL: With Marion, and Glenna Collett and Patty Berg, some of the best amateur players from that time in the 20s, 30s and into the 1940s, people saw how good they were.

People saw there was a significant interest in the game and I think that really spurred what would eventually become the Women's Professional Golf Association and the LPGA.

NARRATOR: In recognition of her impact on the game of golf, the Lexington Country Club established the annual Marion Miley Tournament in 1947.

Another prestigious amateur tournament, the Women's Western awards their winners the Miley bracelet.

BEVERLY BELL: Her legacy already exists.

The only thing that's missing, in the full picture, is the recognition of that legacy, of how she impacted the game.

NARRATOR: The tragedy of Marion Miley's exceptional life is that her shocking death deprived her of the recognition she deserves.

She earned her fame by hard work, dedication, accomplishment and character - qualities from a past too soon forgotten.

By remembering Marion Miley, she is restored what was stolen in a senseless crime - a legacy courage and achievement that paved the way for future generations.

VOICEOVER MARION MILEY: Good-bye!

Good-bye!

Though sets the sun Though falls the darkness coldly Remember thou hast duties yet And face the future boldly Good-bye!

Good-bye!

From out the past Look forth thy face to cheer me Oh, do not ask me to forget If memory brings thee near me Funding for this program is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions.