Major Charles A. Shepard was âÀ¦â‚¬œone of the U.S. armyâs most distinguished doctors.âÀšÂ� Born in Toronto in 1871, he married his first wife in 1897; she died in 1913. In 1917, while working in a tuberculosis sanitarium in California, he married the former Zenana McCoskey. This remarriage was not a happy one, due, according to Dr. Shepard, to his wifeâs heavy drinking â unexceptional now, perhaps, but more of a committed effort back during the Prohibition Era, particularly in a fervently dry state such as Kansas, where the couple was stationed during the last few years of Mrs. Shepardâs life.
Enter the other woman. In the fall of 1928, Shepard was temporarily transferred to a post in San Antonio, Texas, where he met one Grace Brandon. Shepard soon fell in love, or something like it, with the much, much, much younger (35 years younger, to be precise) Brandon. He gave her expensive gifts, including âÀ¦â‚¬œa $1,500 coupe, two bracelets, toilet set, gold ring, canary, check to buy ice skates, necklace, diamond in platinum setting, crystal band necklace, two pearl necklaces, mesh bag, fitted week-end bag, [and] silver fox fur pieces.âÀšÂ� According to Brandon, testifying at Shepardâs trial, Shepard asked her to marry him â not once, not twice, but eight times. In any event, less than a year after Dr. Shepard met Brandon, Mrs. Shepard was dead, seemingly before her time (she was just 37 at the time of her death).
Suspicions settled upon Shepard, of course. Worsening matters, Shepard opposed any autopsy on his wife, on the curious ground that she had been âÀ¦â‚¬œinordinately proud of her figure, and had begged him not to let it be mutilated upon her death.âÀšÂ� The autopsy was conducted, regardless, and it was discovered that she had died from poisoning by bichloride of mercury â which Dr. Shepard kept in his medicine chest.
Photo measures 8.5 x 6.5 inches.
Photo is dated 01-31-1935
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