Tulsan Admits Victimizing Women in Huge Swindle

Took Thousands of Dollars; Had Ration Book for Her Dog; Victims Lived in Virtual Poverty

By Cleve Bullette

Originally Published in The Tulsa Tribune on Thursday, March 30, 1944

Mrs. Fay H. Smith, 10 East 21st St., known in Tulsa for the past several years as Mrs. R. B. Fontane, admitted to police today in a signed statement that she had victimized two young Tulsa women and had swindled a Stroud business man out of several thousand dollars, but denied the allegations of cruelty and “mesmerism” hurled by one of the girls.

In a story so fantastic that officers were incredulous, Nell Willetta Horner, 30, a former trusted employee of an oil company, declared that Mrs. Smith “starved and beat her under the guise of religious purification.”

With her during five years of intense privation was Virgina Evans, 31, daughter of Tom Evans of Stroud. Virginia had lived with Mrs. Smith for seven years and has worked diligently, turning over most of her income to the woman.

The father, under the impression that his daughter was an invalid at the same time paid Mrs. Smith $35 a week for Virginia’s support and supplied money for nurses.

Mrs. Smith admitted the financial angles of the weird case in a statement taken Wednesday night by Detective Bob Cleveland of the police department. She contended, however, that she had been “a mother to the girls.”

Among new facts uncovered by Policewomen Alice Whitney and Buela Johnson, who have worked long hours on the case, was that Mrs. Smith has never married a “Mr. Fontane.” Her “husband” was fictitious and a photograph of a dashing young aviator that she told Assistant Country Attorney M.S. Simms was her husband, is in reality a relative of Virginia Evans.

A boy who has been living with Mrs. Smith, told deputy sheriffs that he has accepted Mrs. Smith as his mother, is held at the Mohawk Boys’ home. The boy, 11, was reluctant to admit he had any other parents, and officers are studying the possibility that he, too, may be a victim of the woman’s uncanny power to control certain individuals.

Tom Evans said today that “I’ve found my daughter after seven years.” The lonely father, who presumed his daughter mentally ill, was almost overcome with relief at the courthouse today when Virginia appeared finally to have broken the control Mrs. Smith allegedly held over her. Until this morning, Virginia had refused to believe that the woman to whom she had paid every dime she made for the past seven years was anything but a saintly guide in a troubled world.

Willetta Horner, who also is known as Janet D. Sherman, today is a vivacious and attractive young woman. Until March 4, she was a dull eyed and colorless girl in cotton hose and a threadbare dress she had worn for a year. The girl, like Virginia, believed that Mrs. Smith’s teachings constituted a way of life that would lead to eventual peace and security. “I can’t understand it,” Miss Horner said. “I think I was hypnotized. I tried several times to break away, and a few months ago I believed I began to see that something was wrong.”

Miss Horner had separated herself completely from her family and in February 1943 declined to see her frantic mother of Centralia, Illinois who came to Tulsa to see what had happened to her daughter. The girl said her mother made every effort to see her, legal and otherwise, but was baffled at every turn by Mrs. Smith. In February, her mother died.

“I would give anything in the world if I could put my arm around my mother and tell her I love her now,” she said.

Mrs. Horner was valedictorian of her high school class, won a statewide typing contest once, and was editor of her high school paper. The girl today seems vastly relieved as though she had laid down a heavy burden.

A brother, Jack Horner, lives in Tulsa and is a tool designer for the Franks Manufacturing Company. During the years, he has made repeated efforts to see his sister.

When Tom Evans came to see his daughter, Mrs. Smith required her to quit work for the days and to remain in bed. The girl cooperated with Mrs. Smith and while under her influence, even assisted in misleading her devoted father.

Virginia Evans, like Miss Horner, appeared today to be what her father said was a “a different girl.” Her extreme timidity is disappearing and she talked with officers with a great deal more confidence.

County Attorney Dixie Gilmer spent the entire morning in conference with officials of the department of internal revenue. Mrs. Smith has reported none of the large income she has received and according to Gilmer can be prosecuted under federal statutes.

He will confer further with postal authorities and Office of Price Administration officials.

J. A. Hays is conducting an OPA investigation that disclosed, with the aid of police, that Mrs. Smith had had ration books issued to her dog Bon Bon, now dead, to a fictitious Mrs. Charles Phillip Meredith, to Beverly Fontane (another name for Virginia Evans) and three more to Willetta Horner, Janet Donnel Sherman and J.D. and Marie Sherman. Police said eight had been issued altogether.

Inspecting Mrs. Smith’s home, police and deputy sheriffs found that Mrs. Smith lived in luxury while forcing the girls to sleep on orange crates in the servants quarters or in the basement.

As the property, a duplex, has been thrown into receivership through a $10,000 civil suit brought by Miss Horner, officers were taking an inventory. Sheriff A. Garland Marrs was appointed receiver after the suit was brought Wednesday by Irvin Ungerman and Walter C. Henneberry, Miss Horner’s attorneys.

The officers found 45 pairs of expensive women’s shoes, many of them unworn, silverware and glassware worth a sum estimated at from $1,500 to $3,000; clothing, jewelry, valuable chinaware, expensive furniture, 18 pairs of new gloves, and $126 in cash.

Following an application for a receivership of Mrs. Smith’s property by Willetta Horner’s attorneys, District Judge S. J. Clendinning this afternoon sign an “order directing receive how to proceed” and instructed Sheriff A. Garland Marrs to remove all the property, silverware, luggage, furniture, jewelry, and a Packard automobile to a bonded warehouse.

While Mrs. Smith compelled the girls to go about without makeup, she herself possessed “enough to stock a drug store,” officers said. Expensive perfumes and hundreds of beauty items were kept in her bedroom.

Mrs. Smith in her statement, admitted giving “metaphysical” treatments to Virginia Evans, for which she charged. She admitted that the three of them put their income into a “pot” and that she handled the “pot.” Mrs. Smith said she had an income of approximately $159 a month from an annuity policy. Her remaining funds, about $350 monthly came from the girls and Evans. She was the beneficiary of a $4,000 insurance policy issued to a Beulah Walker and was paid the money when the woman was killed in an automobile accident, police ascertained. Mrs. Smith admitted this.

Asked by Cleveland about the purported misery she compelled the young women to undergo, Mrs. Smith replied:

“I have punished them by words, rebuked them and slapped Virginia and whipped Willetta and broke a mirror over her head, a hand mirror.” She also admitted she had forced Willetta to sleep in an unheated servants quarters in near-zero weather.

But though Mrs. Smith’s treatment of the girls was allegedly cruel, she was fond of animals and permitted the boy that was staying with her to own a dog and cat.

Following are some verbatim extracts from Mrs. Smith’s signed statement: Asked if it were not true that Virginia Evans wrote her father she was ill and needed a nurse, she replied that the letter was written “So Virginia and I could have more money.”

Q. “Didn’t Virginia also receive another check from her father for $31 a week?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Didn’t you on the date of March 26, write Mr. Evans a letter telling him that in another month or two she (Virginia) could get rid of the nurses?”

A. “I told him that Virginia was looking much better and I told him that in a month or two she would go on her own without a nurse.” (The girl worked every day except the occasions that her father chose to visit her.)

Q. “When Willetta did something that you did not approve of, didn’t you confine her to the basement or to the quarters where there was no heat?”

A. “That is not my habit. Yes, she has been in the quarters and in the basement. Yes, I have sent her out.”

Q. “Is it true that over half the time you would not permit these girls to sit in a chair?”

A. “They were not prohibited from sitting in a chair, but they sat on the floor through choice a great deal. I probably told them that I like to sit and lie on the floor myself.”

Q. “Isn’t true that you had these girls starved much of the time when they were at your home?”

A. “I told them to keep themselves pure and to go on a diet.”

Q. “Isn’t it true that you made Willetta Horner sleep in the garage?”

A. “The last three weeks she was there she slept in the quarters with my consent. She had a bed out there with orange crates and a blanket.” (This in February.)

Mrs. Smith, in her statement, said she first met Willetta Horner in about 1938. Previously, in 1937 or so, Virginia Evans had asked to live with her, she said. Mrs. Smith lived at that time in a two-room apartment at the Sophian Plaza.

“I had never rented a room to anyone and was hesitant about it but she talked to her folks and decided to take it. It was not pleasant to me to have someone in the room and I asked her to leave and she said she wanted to stay. Sher first paid $25 a month (rent) and then I raised it to $35. In addition to this rent, she was having metaphysical work done and was paying for that. She decided to leave once but came back and decided to stay.

“She said that ‘if I had the bacon, she had the eggs.’ I was very unhappy about her being there and hoped that when I raised the rent she would move. “After Virginia had been with me for about a year and a half, I met Willetta Horner at Aiken’s food market and an acquaintance arose between us. I got sick and went to a hospital. I didn’t see Willetta at the hospital but she wrote me a letter every day. When I got home, I was very ill. I was unable to walk.

“In the meantime we (Willetta) had become friends and we were talking about her coming to live with me. It was in the interest of the home that prompted her to give me money. She paid her own expenses and gave me the rest. This was before she moved in with me.

“She said she was alone and unhappy and always wanted a home or someone to adopt her. She said she had had a very difficult childhood and girlhood and wanted someone to adopt her.

“I had told her to come (to my home) as my girl and that these mistakes had been made through ignorance and that she could have a new life by discarding her old friends, associates, and family.

“Before I went east (on a trip) there was a change of managers at the Sophian Plaza. I owed about $400. My rent was $90 a month. I had lived there for years and was accustomed to pay every three months. The new manager wanted everyone to pay up their rent and I could not raise $400 immediately. He told me he did not like them (the girls).

“In about three weeks we moved out—and later to 10 East 21st Street. “The heating stoves and cooking stoves were purchased by Virginia Evans and the refrigerator I bought on contract. Virginia bought the large radio at Christmas and gave it to me. It was to $200.”

Asked where a silver service set came from she said:

“I bought that at Boswell’s about a year ago. It was less than $200—just a cheap set.”

She was asked: “Isn’t it true that you took every nickel Willetta Horner and Virginia Evans made in the last five years?”

She replied: “I received Willetta’s check after she cashed it. Willetta brought it home and gave it to me. Virginia gave me money. It varied. She got paid every week. I don’t know how much she had left. I don’t know how much, but she gave me all she had left.”

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