Friends in high places; high places for friends

As Candace and Jacques were in rescue mode of the four Glenn children, Candace had also been somewhat engulfed in a difficult family situation involving her brother, DeWitt Weatherby, who lived in Buchanan, Georgia. The sticky situation would uniquely illustrate the political pull of the Mosslers, even perhaps moreso than the expedited adoption of the four young Chicago children by the Texas couple.

Long story sorta short, Candace’s brother was imprisoned on murder charges following the May 12, 1956 shooting death of a man he encountered at a bar / restaurant which he owned called The Silver Dollar, in rural Buchanan, Georgia. Witness testimony was that DeWitt had gotten into an altercation with a bar patron by the name of Cecil Thompson, after Cecil went into the bar’s kitchen to confront the cook over a steak not cooked to his liking. This infuriated DeWitt, and witnesses said they heard DeWitt yelling at Thompson immediately prior to hearing the sound of gunshots coming from the kitchen area.

Thompson was reportedly shot in his hip, his chest and in his groin area. DeWitt announced to stunned bar patrons that the man he shot would be fine… since he “shot low” to simply scare Thompson. Thompson, though, was far from fine … an ambulance was called to the scene but Cecil bled to death before he could be taken to the hospital.

DeWitt readily admitted to sheriff’s authorities that he shot Thompson, and he was arrested and incarcerated in the Haralson County Jail. Perhaps related, perhaps not, but either way an “interesting” coincidence, The Silver Dollar burned to the ground the following night. With the confession and witness testimony, it seemed this would be an open and shut case. And it was… until Candace and Jacques got heavily involved.

Candace loved her brother dearly and was there for him in every way she could be. She hired and paid for an attorney to represent DeWitt, and dutifully attended every day of his trial. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Case closed. For the time being, that was.

Candace contacted her old friend, Winthrop Rockefeller (remember him, the wealthy gentleman she became quite friendly with many years ago?). Winthrop now lived in Georgia and as a Rockefeller, carried plenty of political weight whereever he went. But as it is now, Southern politics were pretty darned divided back then and Rockefeller was a strong Republican so coaxing the Democratic Governor of Georgia, Marvin Griffin, to pardon DeWitt Weatherby plainly didn’t work as Candace and Winthrop thought it might. Jacques Mossler also allegedly met with the Governor, with hopes of a pardon, but Griffin wasn’t budging. Some accounts indicate Mossler offered a bribe and when that didn’t work, threatened to expose corruption in Griffin’s administration.

Not to be deterred, however, Candace continued her pursuit of getting her brother freed. She was appalled that she and Jacques were unable to work their magic with the Governor, who could have changed things with a stroke of his pen, but ever-determined, she persisted by seeking another avenue (and promising herself that she would deal with the Governor later for his refusal to help).

The Mosslers contracted a legal dream team, including Georgia Sen. Carl Sanders and two state representatives. The problem at hand, however, was the ironclad case against DeWitt, and efforts at Appeals were denied. In 1962, four years after the State Appeals Court ruled against DeWitt Weatherby, Candace decided upon the other avenue she would take to try to save her brother. The attorney she had hired to lead DeWitt’s legal team, State Sen. Carl Sanders, was exploring running for the Office of Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. She was among those who helped convince him to go bigger… and run for Governor, even offering her and Jacques’ financial help in his election.

Sanders, a Democrat, was the underdog in the primary election against Griffin. However, thanks to deep pockets from supporters, name recognition, and a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling mandating that the Governor of Georgia shall be elected by popular vote rather than the previous way of elections which gave victory to the candidate who carried the most counties, Sanders defeated Griffin handily in the primaries and advanced to the general election. His sole opponent in the general election was killed in a car wreck, and lo and behold, the Mossler’s hand-picked candidate was now the new Governor of Georgia.

The Mossler’s “investment” paid off and just days after Gov. Sanders took office, the State Board of Parole freed DeWitt Weatherby, determining the shooting was an act of self defense. DeWitt served just four years of a life sentence for murder!

Candace prevailed again.

In a bizarre side story to the aforementioned not-so-short story after all, during one of Candace’s visits to her brother at a state prison near Atlanta, in October 1957, she disappeared. She was supposedly heading from the Atlanta area to Buchanan (an approximately 60-mile drive, to see family) when she flat out vanished. Her family filed a missing persons report with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and a subsequent search was conducted over the next three days.

News accounts described Candace as “an attractive blonde matron,” wife of a wealthy Texas businessman and a former model. The search was rather intensive and on the third day of the search, Mossler strangely showed up dazed and confused at a farm home in Cordele, Georgia, some 200 miles south of her destination. News accounts reported that she “staggered” out of a heavily wooded area before finding the farm home, where she sought help. Her rental car (which she had rented from Atlanta) was found wrecked into a tree a short distance away. She had bruising on her face and complained of chest pains, and she hospitalized briefly. She told authorities she had no recollection whatsoever of how she ended up where she ended up.

Jacques, who traveled to Georgia to retrieve his wife, told inquiring reporters that she had been very stressed by her brother’s situation. “She has been under a severe strain,” he said. “She hasn’t been able to sleep, so she’s been taking sleeping pills,” he continued, perhaps insinuating that the pills were responsible for her lapse in memory and moreever for her disappearance itself.

Whether this blip in time was the beginning of Candace’s “courtship” with sleeping pills (and later, more) or this had been going on for a while is unknown to this day. Regardless of the when that it started, Candace would struggle with addiction to prescribed pills and drugs for the remainder of her life.

Not very long after the Mossler’s used political influence and strategy to help Candace’s brother get out of jail, they had another close associate who needed their “help”. This particular associate wasn’t a relative but rather a long-time trusted employee who the Mosslers relied upon and who they readily geared up to keep out of jail.

In early 1961, one of the Mossler’s best all-around staffers, Johnny Will Ford, was arrested as a habitual felon in possession of a firearm. Ford had previous arrests for stealing, but nonetheless the Mosslers trusted him and needed him. The Mossler’s described Ford as their “houseboy,” but he could be more adequately described as a “personal assistant” whose duties were basically whatever the Mosslers needed him to do, and included being a personal chaeffeur. Jacques provided Ford with a pistol to carry on chauffeur jobs because the Mossler business sometimes required working with less than reputable people.

When Ford was eventually imprisoned on the firearms charges, the Mosslers stepped into action quickly. They called on Texas Gov. Price Daniels, swinging their political influence again and adding a nice contribution to his campaign as he was seeking re-election. It worked! Gov. Daniel paroled Ford, Ford was released and back into the service of Jacques and Candace, and all was well with the Mosslers again. Until it wasn’t.

The Harris County Sheriff, C. V. “Buster” Kern, had plenty of hard feelings towards Candace Mossler and furthermore didn’t like to be left out of the loop on individuals paroled in his county. Kern had served as a “strong armed” Sheriff for almost a quarter of a century and was all about having some say-so and control over all things relating to law and order in Harris County.

Candace Mossler took some serious swipes at Sheriff Kern a couple of years before, when she served on a Harris County Grand Jury and made things difficult for the Sheriff and the District Attorney. Candace was big into rooting for the underdog, and so it might not have come as a surprise that she was not eager to play a role in sending someone to jail, particularly during the same time frame her brother was incarcerated himself on a homicide charge.

In 1960, Candace resigned from the Harris County grand jury before completing her term. She alleged the grand jury foreman and the prosecutor collided to make the jury nothing more than a rubber stamp entity. At the time she resigned, she said “wild horses” could not bring her back, but she did return about a month later to hear a case.

Candace was on the jury which heard the case of Howard Stickney, who had been arrested on murder charges stemming from the beating death of a woman near Galveston. The majority of the grand jury voted to indict Stickney, with only Candace voting against the indicment. She resigned once and for all from the grand jury. Stickney was ultimately convicted, incarcerated and then executed in 1962.

During his trial process, Candace publicly criticized Sheriff Kern and the Sheriff’s Department itself, alleging that they did not properly investigate the case and ignored many tips because they were set on the idea that they found their man in Stickney. Candace stated publicly that Stickney was framed for the crime of murder, with evidence fabricated by law enforcement, and furthermore that Kern’s officers had beaten a confession out of the defendant.

Buster Kern expressed his displeasure about the parole to Gov. Daniels and since it was an election year, Daniels couldn’t get out of the possible scandal quickly enough and immediately rescinded the gubernatorial parole of Ford. He informed the local press that the particulars in Ford’s case had been misrepresented (they likely were, by the Mosslers, who conveniently left out some critical details in asking Gov. Daniels for parole for their friend).

Jacques and Candace saw the Governor’s action of rescinding Ford’s parole as a betrayal, and saw Gov. Daniels as a less-than-honorable man who did not value his word and promises to constituents as important and influental as were they. It didn’t matter to them that they had, in fact, misrepresented the facts of Ford’s case… the truth was a non-issue particularly with Candace. The Mosslers began pumping money into the campaign coffers of two Democratic hopefuls challenging Price Daniels for the Office of Governor of the State of Texas (keep in mind, this also being the same time frame when they were contributing to the campaign of Carl Sanders in Georgia as a means of helping Candace’s brother get out of jail.)

Gov. Daniels was defeated by John Connally, one of the opponents partially funded by the Mosslers. In 1963, the Mosslers tried to use political favor to get Gov. Connally to grant parole to Ford. He opted to stay out of that battle.

Ford served his sentence and when he was released, he returned to the Mossler’s employment and picked up where he left off.