War Between the States

Last week, in a Plymouth, Mass, jail, Louis Bob Conley, 32, was serving the 35th month of what may be a self-imposed life sentence. All he had to do to gain release was to bring his daughter Lynette, 8, back from Texas to her mother in Brockton, Mass. But Conley is a proud and stubborn Texan. Said he: "I'll spend the rest of my life in prison before I bring her back."

Ten years ago Conley, then a Signal Corps sergeant, met and married pretty Lucille LaCroix. After the war the Conleys settled down in Amarillo. Lucille was unhappy. In January 1947 she shipped her clothes back to Brockton, borrowed $280 from loan companies, withdrew the Conleys' last $430 from the bank. Then one night she got Bob to take her to a movie. During the show she sneaked out, leaving Bob sitting in the theater, picked up the baby and caught a Brockton-bound plane.

Bob went to Brockton, got in a scuffle with Mother-in-Law LaCroix, took baby Lynette back to Amarillo, where she is still cared for by Bob's mother. Bob went to Massachusetts, where Probate Judge Harry Stone, who had given custody of the child to Lucille in a divorce action, sentenced Bob to nine months for contempt because he refused to bring Lynette back from Texas. Since then, Judge Stone has resentenced him four times, as each term expired.

In the midst of the tug of war, Judge Stone delivered some obiter dicta that outraged every Texan. "I've never known a Northern woman to marry one of those Southern gentlemen," he said, "but what she got it in the neck. Some of them would as soon beat a woman as they would a horse." Said Bob Conley: "I never beat a horse."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.