In 1913, about six years after her husband’s death, Daisy Keeton moved her young family from the small town in Pearl River County, Mississippi to a house on Cross Street in Laurel, Mississippi. Laurel was one of the state’s fastest-growing towns. The Laurel Daily Argus proclaimed it as “probably the largest lumber-producing center in the world.” It had a population of about 13,000 and was served by the GM&N, the Illinois Central, and a spur line of the Gulf and Ship Island RR. At that time, Meridian, Mississippi was the state’s largest city with a population of 23,000.
Juanita “Ouida” Keeton was just 8 years of age when her father, who also owned a Sawmill and lumber company, was killed by a train. Her mother Daisy was not only a single mother of four children, she was now a millionaire widow at age 29.
It was sometime during the summer of 1920, after completing a business course in New Orleans that 21-year-old Ouida became the secretary for W. M. Carter, owner of W. M. Carter Lumber Company and Sawmill, in Laurel. Mr. Carter was a well-respected churchgoing businessman. He was over 50 years of age, and old enough to be Ouida’s father but not having lost interest in the opposite sex, apparently he saw himself as more than her employer.
Even though Carter was married he began visiting Ouida, who lived with her mother, in the evenings. Because Carter was closer to Daisy’s age, she might have thought his eyes were for her. Carter would, very discreetly, leave love notes for Ouida and kiss her, quickly, when Daisy wasn’t looking. On some evenings, he would even bring his wife along, probably in the hopes that watchful neighbors would think nothing of his almost nightly visits.
Ouida and Carter had been carrying on their affair for almost 15 years. On a rainy, winter morning in January 1935, Ouida drove north on the muddy, country roads of Jones County. She was attempting to dispose of the package, wrapped in white paper, covering most of the passenger seat. Newspaper had been placed under the package and on the floor, in the event of leakage. The package was found later, the same day, by a hunter and his dog.
The details during the separate murder trials of Ouida Keeton and W. M. Carter were horrific. Neighbors reported having heard gunshots the night before and smelling burning flesh. The fireplace in Daisy Keeton’s bedroom held fragments of bone, and blood stains were observed on the stone. Ouida testified against Carter, even though he continuously denied being involved. Both were given life sentences.
Nothing of Daisy’s body was ever found, other than what was in the white package that Ouida tried to hide. Daisy’s pelvis and legs were buried, during the night, in a grave in the McNeill, Mississippi cemetery in Pearl River County. This was the small town she had left when trying to find a new life, in Laurel.
Because neither ever admitted to the murder, no one knew why Ouida and Carter felt the need to kill her. Was it because of greed? Did Ouida want her money, her property? Or had Daisy become aware of their affair and demanded they stop?
When she died almost 40 years later, Ouida was buried beside the mother she had butchered, burned, and tried to flush down the toilet.
Ouida’s grave is easily found, it’s the one where no grass grows……
.
😳 yikes! I didn’t see THAT coming, nor, apparently did Daisy!