I don't really know anything about the case or evidence, and I don't see much reliable stuff written on it (there's a number of articles that get basic facts wrong). Anyone know much about it? Seems like the jury was somewhat conflicted.
Yes. He killed her. He shot Mrs. Mors in the head at their apartment late at night. Then he found a couple who were friends with Mrs. Mors' husband and shot them (Sam and Ann Schapps) - but they lived. Then he went to her husband's antique shop to kill him when the husband arrived in the morning. But Mr. Mors was late, and customers and employees of a lighting fixture company upstairs kept showing up, and McCoy would let them in and then rob them and tell them to take their clothes off and sit in the corner. He'd robbed and stripped about five people when one of them, William Ross, ran for the door and McCoy shot him trying to escape, hitting him, but Ross kept running and got away and spent three months in the hospital. The prosecutors decided to focus on the murder charge first, and not the other three shootings and robbery. McCoy's lawyers claimed McCoy's mom, dad and another sibling were all insane and had been in psychiatric hospitals, so he couldn't be held responsible for his actions, because he was probably crazy, too. McCoy got on the stand and claimed Mrs. Mors was trying to commit suicide by stabbing herself with a kitchen knife and as he struggled to get the knife away from her he somehow shot her in the head with a gun on accident. Half the jury wanted to sentence him to death, the other half was awed that a famous fighter who had also acted was in their midst (like O.J. Simpson, apparently), so they compromised and found him guilty of manslaughter. He ended up only serving like eight years in prison for killing one woman ... and he wasn't ever brought to trial for shooting the three others (another woman and two men) and committing armed robbery in the hours after he killed Mrs. Mors. Pretty messed up, actually. Edwin Valero-esque.
The evidence was McCoy had a safety deposit box containing valuable items (jewelry, etc.) owned by Mrs. Mors, all the money he'd stolen from the naked people in the antique shop, the gun he used to kill Mrs. Mors, the gun he used to shoot the other three people - Mr and Mrs Schaap and the guy who tried to escape the antique shop, William Ross. They also had the statements of the Schaaps, who survived McCoy shooting them, Ross, who survived McCoy shooting him, all the people in the antique shop who were robbed, stripped and saw McCoy shoot Ross as he ran out the door, and the statements of the police who arrested McCoy. And they had the testimony of McCoy, who said he shot Mrs. Mors trying to get a knife away from her. So they had the weapon, the money and jewelry he stole, the people who survived being shot and robbed by him, and his own admission he shot Mrs. Mors. That's usually enough to put someone away for more than eight years. But the prosecutors just decided to charge him with the murder in his initial trial, and it ended up being the only trial. Women who were cheating on their husbands often didn't get a lot of sympathy from juries back then. George Remus, the famous bootlegger, went to jail for a couple years during prohibition, and when he got out, his wife and lawyer had blown nearly his entire fortune and had been having an affair. Remus saw her driving to court for their divorce hearing, ran her off the road with his car, pulled out a gun and shot her to death in the street. And the jury let him off because they felt he'd been wronged by her. McCoy may have gotten off completely if it wasn't common knowledge he'd shot the people who weren't having affairs, too.
Is there not any more? From that it sounds like there's a good chance he done it, but it doesn't sound totally beyond reasonable doubt he murdered Mr Mors. Almost all that evidence relates to other crimes.
HE said he killed her (accidentally). And then he went to kill her husband's friends and shot them but they didn't die. Then he went to kill her husband at work, took hostages and shot a hostage trying to escape. This all happened in a span of like 12 hours. It was a classic killing spree, but only one of the four he shot died. What do you want ... a film of him doing it? It was the 1920s. That's about all you got - people saying they did it and people who saw them do it saying they did it. If you believe the way to stop someone from stabbing themselves to death is to "accidentally" shoot them in the head, and then try to kill their friends and husband, good for you. Jesus. And you're welcome. Look up the rest yourself.
McCoy's version of what happened, part 14 of an auto-bio published in 1938-39 in Melbourne's Sporting Globe. This content is protected
