Mel Swoops In
If Candace was looking for trouble… and truth be known, it always seemed she possibly was looking for trouble… then Melvin (Mel) Powers was ready and willing to deliver.
Candace’s newest chapter of trouble came to her by way of her older sister, Mary Elizabeth (Lizzie) Powers, who asked Candace and Jacques to help out her adult son, who himself was finding trouble … and plenty of it, around every corner he turned.
‘He’s a good young man,” Lizzie assured Candace, but the poor lad just somehow or another kept managing to get in with the wrong crowds and to get caught in the wrong places at the wrong times. You know, good guy all in all but through no fault of his own, kept finding himself in sticky situations.
Truth be told, Mel didn’t give a flying flip about law and order. Mel cared about Mel and he relished his prowess at conning people, particularly when money was involved. Mel’s most recent bout with trouble involved the law, as he was among a crew fraudulently selling magazine subscriptions cross country (collect money door to door for subscriptions to popular magazines of the day, but without any intent for the magazines to actually be delivered). Mel and his fellow cons had a close call in St. Louis in the Summer of ‘61 and fled north to Michigan, where they found an ideal subject of their con games. They conned an 89-year-old man into investing $20,000 (the sum of his retirement set asides) into their bogus magazine subscription firm. As authorities honed in on their operation, Mel’s “boss” and the rest of the gang fled Detroit, but Mel was too arrogant to feel any threat and was furthermore enjoying relations with a local woman. Oh yes, women were his weakness for sure.
Mel became experienced sexually when he was a young teenager… he was a fairly good looking guy with a nice physique… he loved girls his age and was especially taken with women , and he enjoyed “getting around.” He was tall (6’4”), with dark black hair and an athletic build. He could be considered physically desirable and he felt honored, pleased, and even called upon to “distribute” himself to as many girls and especially to as many women as possible.
In Detroit, the law caught up to Mel’s swindling ways and he was charged with obtaining money under false pretenses. He stood trial, and his public defender attorney entered a guilty plea on his behalf, resulting in him being required to serve six months in a county jail. He only ended up serving three months before being released on probation.
Soooo… Lizzie Weatherby Powers asked Candace if Jacques could employ Mel in any manner, help him get on his feet, possibly re-possessing cars or something along those lines. Seemed a perfect situation for Mel.
With an invitation from Candace, Mel arrived in all his glory at the Mossler’s River Oaks mansion, in November 1961. He was ready, willing and able to shake up some worlds it would turn out.
Jacques was less than thrilled about helping his nephew-in-law, for he was rather suspicious of and certainly unimpressed by Mel during a couple of earlier meetings (which had been some time before 1961). Candace, however, worked her magic for Mel, pleading with her husband to help him.
“Poor Mel has just run into a spell of bad luck and wants to turn things around,” she told Jacques. “All he needs is the right environment to make things right.”
“Yeah, right” is probably along the lines of what Jacques was thinking. He was far from eager to help Mel. In fact, he didn’t want Mel anywhere near his businesses or his family. He took Mel to be an imbecile, dumb as a rock in life and through the idiotic crimes he had committed and the mistakes he had made during his commission of the crimes and afterwards.
By the time Candace was begging Jacques to help Mel, unfortunately for Jacques, Mel had already taken up residence at the Mossler’s home. Candace must have figured it was best to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
So when the title of this chapter announces, “Mel Swoops In,” well let’s just say this is pretty darned accurate. Picture it: this man… 20 years of age, tall, dark and handsome, arrogant and cocky as all get-out, uncultured, unkind, brash, entitled, lazy, hungry for money and thirsty for women… arrives in all of his self-glory at the upper crust mansion of his attractive older aunt. Candace, likewise, did not fail to notice that her nephew was not the school boy she remembered… he was now an adult (at least in the physical realm) and he had grown up into what she considered a macho man.
Mel quickly made it known that Jacques was of no use to him, and that Candace (his aunt, a detail not be lost in all of this) was top of his agenda. Well, actually and more realistically stated, Candace was the means to his own personal self-serving agenda. Mel stepped right in at the River Oaks mansion and perhaps as a tom cat would, began marking his territory so to speak. He began ordering servants around, taking control of things around the house, and taking whatever liberties he wanted to as he made himself quite at home.
Candace and Mel had met multiple times in the past, but the past meetings were when he was a boy and before Candace reinvented herself as a younger, blonder, curvier woman who was flirtatious in spirit and in her new styles of fashion. As did many men, Mel found Candace to be hot and sexy. Never mind she was his aunt, Mel was no more considerate of any sort of moral code than he was respectful of any laws of society. So Candace being his aunt was a minor, useless detail. He knew a gravy train when he saw it and Candace was his way to attaining new heights. If it involved a little hanky panky, all the better. Besides Candace being attractive, Mel could sense that Candace was quite wanten and lascivious… and, he knew he could woe Candace… “Look at my competition!” he no doubt thought. An easy score, he determined. He noticed Candace’s flirtatious ways with other men and her lack of apparent enthusiasm for her ancient husband, and Mel felt confident that Aunt Candace could be a conquest for him.
Jacques was at no point welcoming of his nephew-in-law and Mel’s brazen behavior and obvious strong sense of entitlement rubbed him the wrong way from the get go. No doubt, Mel noticed this… and perhaps he even got a thrill of sorts out of it. He probably thought “haters gonna hate” long before a pop star of the new milleneum ever wrote the sticky lyrics into a pop culture tune. One biographer noted that Mel overheard Jacques telling Candace he was a juvenile delinquent, which likely emboldened Mel even more towards his intended agenda.
Candace, meanwhile, showed kindness, patience and caring towards Mel. She might have been the only one, but she definitely saw potential in him and expressed that she wanted to help him get established in some desirable career field. Mel expressed all kinds of interests, but his obvious passions lied in self-entertainment… he slept most of the day and partied at local bars and strip clubs most of the nights. He had full access to Jacques’ fleet of repossessed vehicles, and showed preference towards the fancy sports cars.
To Candace, Mel was an entertaining project. She worked her magic (through gosh knows how much money) to give him a full-blown makeover. She bought him a brand new wardrobe… including suits tailored just for him at expensive stores in Houston, and paid for aesthetic surgery to tuck his protruding ears back a little, and expensive facials to help rid of him of the pock-marks from teenage acne, and she funded a circumcision for him. Candace paid for most of this with her monthly allowance, no doubt an attempt to hide her efforts from Jacques.
Jacques grew more and more frustrated with the “lazy bum” who had taken up residence in his home. He was rude, uncultured, messy, ate everything in the house, and contributed absolutely nothing. At some point (in the year 1961), Jacques told Candace he had enough of Mel, but Candace pleaded with him to be patient and give him time to get himself set up and find a job… she explained he would like to work in some capacity at one of Jacques’ businesses but wanted to wait until after the first of the year.
The first of the year came and Jacques offered Mel a position in maintenance at one of his lots where he sold mobile homes. Mel was neither grateful nor accomodating, but rather was quite unamused, believing that ‘maintenance’ was far beneath his worth. Candace tried to convince Jacques he would be better in some sort of a management capacity. That must have generated a heck of an eye roll from Jacques, who eventually offered to send him to one of his Chicago or Miami operations, but Candace fought that idea, stressing that he needed to be around family to keep an eye on him as he found his footing.
Months passed and nothing changed… Mel was not even looking for a job of any sort. Why should he? He was living the life and being personally financed in his living of his life by his adoring aunt! What more could a young man ask for, he must’ve contemplated.
Jacques told Mel and Candace it was time for Mel to leave the mansion. Mel wasn’t ready to go and of greater importance, Candace was not ready for him to go. So she told him not to worry about Jacques’ ultimatums… he was fine where he was. Mel and Candace became an alliance against Jacques and he was a man alone on his giant ship shared with his wife and ingrate nephew in law.
Sadly, a defeated Jacques opted to begin spending more time away from home to avoid being around Mel and his obnoxious ways. Meanwhile, Candace and Mel grew closer, spending days together dining at classy restaurants, shopping, hanging out here and there, and chilling together cozily at the mansion. Others attested that they appeared comfortable with each other, were strangely playful with one another, and oddly appeared like a young couple in love (or in lust, whatever the case might have been). Mel teased Candace and eventually felt comfortable enough to announce to her all the ways he could pleasure a woman, offering that he could pleasure her if she would like. She made it known she would like that and well… you can unfortunately guess where this went.
Jacques probably (possibly?) didn’t know the extent of the relationship that had developed between Mel and Candace, but at some point in 1962, after Mel had been at the mansion almost a year, Jacques was done with at all. He tried to make things very uncomfortable for Mel, even calling him “Melvin” (which he knew he hated) and holding back no comments of judgment of Mel… from Mel or the children or servants in the home. Fact of the matter, every one in the house except Candace was sick and tired of Mel. The servants didn’t like the way he treated them (and Jacques himself scolded Mel on multiple occasions for his awful treatment of the house staff, reminding him they don’t work for him), the children were sure to have picked up on some of the weird vibes that were going on in their home between their mother and father and their houseguest/step-uncle, and the servants later acknowledged to seeing things going on between Candace and Mel. It was an entire mess, but neither of the culprits involved wanted to change things. Instead, Candace and Mel doubled down on all things inappropriate and the two accelerated and intensified their goings ons, leaving the level of discomfort in the Willowick mansion to grow more and more until it was through the roof.
By the summer of 1962, Jacques took a different course of action… he hired Mel at his Houston branch of Mossler Acceptance Corporation. His strategy was to give Mel a source of income to enable him to get his own place. Surely, once he had some money of his own, he would want to move out of the Mossler home, right? It had become ridiculously apparent that Mel wasn’t going to look for a job on his own, that he was willing to freeload for an infinite period of time, so if paying his incompetent nephew was the only way to get rid of him, then so be it.
There were glitches in Jacques’ plan, and they pretty much revolved around the intensity of Candace and Mel’s relationship and Mel’s sense of entitlement and desire to keep things just as they were at the Willowick mansion. He was simply disinterested in giving up the life of comfort and luxury to which he had become accustomed. He swayed Candace to spar back with Jacques on his behalf… and she did.
First, Candace complained to her husband about Mel’s salary… she thought he should be paid more. Also, Mel’s supervisor complained that Mel was not at all a good employee, and that he spent much of his time on the phone to his “girlfriend,” which Jacques presumed was actually “girl friends” who he met at the strip clubs he was known to frequent. .
Candace introduced Mel to others not as her nephew but rather as her husband’s “protege.” In time, their intimacy became obvious outside of the mansion… to neighbors and acquaintances. A sighting of the two at the Houston airport, by a ticket agent, described the couple as apparent lovers as they obtained tickets on a flight to Las Vegas… Candace in a full length mink coat and while she searched her purse for a credit card, the coat opened enough to reveal she was nude underneath.
For a while, Jacques probably suspected nothing other than his wife being somehow or another “too protective” of Mel, but eventually, he had to have suspicions… if not all ideas… that the two had become far too affectionate for their relationship to be platonic… outlandish as this may have seemed. Also, Jacques was married to Candace… which frankly meant he had to know that she was an absolute mess with few moral boundaries. It has been said that Jacques knew Candace had strayed from the sanctity of her marriage with younger men… which would surely be upsetting… but having sex with her nephew had to be next level upsetting for Jacques to even consider. Still, the talk was all over town by 1963… and Mel was exploiting Candace’s attraction to him in many ways, not the least of which was being an absolute jerk to Jacques… almost even toying with him as if to flaunt that he was sleeping with Jacques’ wife in part because she no longer wanted her aging husband.
In May of 1963, one of Jacques’ employees witnessed Candace and Mel on a dinner date in a Houston restaurant. The two were very cozy and the employee reported indirectly to Jacques what he witnessed, including Mel’s hand on Candace’s thigh and Candace’s hand on Mel’s crotch area. The news spread swiftly through Mossler Credit Corporation, where loyalty to Jacques was high and Mel was quite disliked as those who worked there found him lazy, rude and obnoxious. Jacques questioned staff at the Willowick mansion, and they reluctantly confirmed that Candace and Mel had been carrying on.
There were reports from some of the staff that when Jacques was out of town, Candace slept in the guest bedroom that was given to Mel. The staffers were disgusted by what they had been seeing, but opted to keep quiet about it all until they were asked, in part at least because Candace had told them to keep quiet about it. The servants were definitely put in a lousy position… do the right thing by their boss Jacques and tell him what was going on, but risk alienating their other boss (Candace)… they just hoped Jacques would eventually open his eyes and find out about it all in some way that didn’t involve them.
For Jacques, the time had come. Something drastic needed to happen and it needed to happen right away. Mel had to go. He wasn’t going to reveal to Candace what be knew, but rather decided just to tell her it was time for him to find his own place. If she cared, she could try to figure out what he knew. So one morning in the summer of ‘63, Jacques presented this in terms of a direct order (since previous kinder attempts to ask him to leave had failed). Candace basically flipped out and told Jacques without hesitation that this was not going to happen.
“Mel isn’t going any where,” she screamed at her husband, proceeding to accuse him of being gone all the time anyway, doing gosh knows what with gosh knows whom and gosh knows where, but Mel on the other hand has been there for her and has been a big help to her and the children. Yep, that was her tactic! I think they might call this gaslighting by today’s standards. Bringing the children into this dispute was particularly offensive to Jacques, who could hold back no more and finally revealed that he knew the extent of Candace’s relationship with Mel.
This revealation empowered Candace, who seemed to be relieved that her ridiculously unaware husband finally opened his eyes. As off and odd as Candace’s moral code was, she pushed the envelope with apparently pride that her husband knew she was sleeping with an “eligible bachelor” such as Mel. She told him Mel pays attention to her, dotes on her, appreciates her, and pleases her sexually… none of which Jacques had done for quite some time. In fact, Candace taunted, Mel was a better lover by far than Jacques ever was. Jacques was fuming.
He met with a friend who worked at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office asking for advice. The friend, Frank Briscoe, was aware of the situation (word had gotten around in elite circles). Briscoe acknowledged that incest was a felony offense in Texas, but advised Jacques not to go down that very messy road… as it would ultimatley be very public and very embarassing to Jacques, his company and to the children. He suggested plain ole’ divorce court. Briscoe did offer to send some DA investigators to handle evicting Mel, and Jacques accepted this offer.
At 2:15 on the afternoon of June 20, 1963, two investigators were greeted at the door of the Willowick mansion by a butler, and they were led to the kitchen where Mel was scarfing down a big fat sandwich. Without much fanfare, they served Mel with an eviction notice and began to escort him out of the home. Jacques was there… in spite of being advised to stay away, he couldn’t help himself… he had to see Mel being taken away, out of his home. So he managed to arrive as this scene was unfolding. As Mel was led out of the home, he caught sight of Jacques in the foyer and expressed tremendous anger with his facial expressions and body language alone. If looks could kill, this would a huge problem for Jacques. As Mel left, he threatened Jacques, telling him he would be back and essentially, that Jacques would wish this never happened.
Jacques had made sure to slip a termination of employment notice to Mel, who drove away (in one of Jacques’ vehicles, mind you) with extreme bitterness and even a high level of vengeance swelling in his mind.