It was a crisp January morning in San Angelo, Texas, when architect Harry E. Weaver went out to his green 1954 Chevy to transfer some tools and files from the trunk of his car to another car. Normally, if Weaver and his wife, Helen Harris Weaver, were planning on going out at the same time, he would start the car for Helen to warm it up.
On January 19, 1955, Harry put the keys in the ignition of the car but didn’t push the starter because he was suddenly overcome by “the call of nature” (as it was benignly referred to in court records).
He returned to the house he and his wife were sharing with his elderly mother-in-law and while he was in the bathroom,
Helen went outside and got in the car. She was planning to visit her mother who was in a local hospital.
Within milliseconds of engaging the starter, Helen was engulfed in a huge fireball caused by an explosion under the hood of the car. The force of the blast hurled engine parts as far as a block away.
“I heard a terrific explosion, heard my wife scream four or five times and ran to the car,” Harry Weaver told police.
Helen was groaning but unconscious by the time he reached her. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
About three hours later and some 400 miles away, the Weavers’ ex-son-in-law, Harry L. Washburn, was driving with a friend when the news of Helen’s death was broadcast.
Washburn turned pale at the news.
“My God,” he exclaimed. “That’s the wrong one!”
The friend, a 45-year-old ex-con named Andrew H. Nelson, knew exactly what Washburn was talking about. After all, he was the one who showed Washburn how to connect dynamite and a blasting cap to the generator of the Chevy.
“Harry, is that your job?” he asked.
When Washburn, 38, said that it was, Nelson asked him how he did it.
“I took a dozen sticks of that dynamite and put it in a sack and put it on the back of the motor,” he said.
“Harry, that’s murder,” Nelson replied. “You better play it cool.”
“I better get me a job digging ditches,” Washburn replied.
Six days before the murder, Washburn and Nelson purchased 50 pounds of dynamite from a store in Houston and took the explosives to a remote area where Nelson instructed Washburn in how to connect the blasting cap to the electrical system of a car and insert the cap into the dynamite. They successfully detonated a small charge using Washburn’s Ford.
Washburn had been trying to kill Harry Weaver for more than a year. An unsuccessful businessman and one-time candidate for the Houston city council, Washburn had been married to the Weavers’ daughter. When that marriage ended in divorce and Washburn’s business failed, he began leaning on his wealthy in-laws for financial support.
Because Washburn had custody of his children, Helen was more inclined to be generous with her former son-in-law. Harry, however, had no tolerance or sympathy for Washburn.
The Weavers were, to put it bluntly, loaded. Harry was a nationally respected architect and civilian advisor to the U.S. Navy, and Helen had inherited a large parcel of ranch land from her father. The Weavers were successful both in farming and in business. They were fixtures on the Texas social circuit.
Authorities at the San Angelo bombing site searched the rest of the motor vehicles and found no more bombs. For about 10 minutes they looked at Harry Weaver as their prime suspect, but within a day or so of the murder, their attention turned to Washburn.
Investigators did so when they realized that Helen rarely drove the green Chevy and that she did so the morning of her death because it was blocking her vehicle.
“It was a mistake, no doubt about it,” District Attorney Aubrey Stokes told the press.
Harry Weaver agreed.
“It was meant for me,” he said.
There were two strong indicators that Washburn was at least connected to the murder.
In 1951 Washburn was charged with threatening the Weavers, trying to extort a $20,000 payment from them. He broke into their home while the couple was sleeping and woke them up at gunpoint. He demanded that Helen write out a $20,000 check and threatened her life.
Harry managed to convince Washburn that his plan could not succeed. First, Harry Weaver explained, if he killed the Weavers, there would be no way he could cash the check. Second, if he didn’t kill the couple, they would file a police report and have him arrested. In either way, he would not get his money.
Washburn accepted a $5,000 payment from the couple, but was arrested anyway. The family opted not to press charges to save them from any embarrassment.
“I’ve been afraid of Harry Washburn for years,” Harry Weaver said after his wife’s death.
The second, and stronger evidence that Washburn was the guiding hand behind Helen’s murder came from two men whom Washburn had tried to hire to kill her. John McKinnis and Ray Fife told police that about a year before the murder, Washburn contacted them and hired them to kill Harry. He provided them with a 12-gauge shotgun, a car, and cash in an effort to induce them to make Harry’s death look like a murder that occured in the course of a robbery.
Little did Washburn know, McKinnis and Fife were simply stringing him along to earn some easy cash.
They were never connected in any way to the actual murder.
Inside of a week, Washburn and another Houston man, Carl Heninger, 37, were arrested for Helen’s murder. Heninger was an unemployed carpenter who had once worked for Washburn, and why he was arrested can only be surmised.
Within days Heninger was released. He was never formally connected with the crime.
Washburn had what he believed was a very strong alibi. He was seen in Houston in the evening before the murder, and was seen there again at 7 a.m. January 19. Houston is about 400 miles southeast from San Angelo, and in that era before interstate highways, the drive would have taken well over 9 hours.
He predicted that he would not be indicted, and if indicted, would not be convicted.
“I’m innocent of the damned thing,” he told the press after he was arrested.
What Washburn didn’t count on was Nelson, a two-time loser, being arrested on a penny-ante burglary charge that had the potential to send him back to prison for life.
Nelson had previously been sentenced to a life sentence for a series of robberies, but after serving around 10 years, he was granted conditional parole contingent on his good behavior.
Trying to avoid going away forever, Nelson began talking about the Washburn plot. His evidence was borne out by the facts. The clerk who sold him the dynamite confirmed his identity, and identified Washburn as the man who sat in the car while Nelson made his purchase. The wires and debris from Washburn’s demolition lesson were still in the field where they exploded, and the wires matched those found at the scene of Helen’s murder. Similar wire was found in Washburn’s home.
Other clues blew Washburn’s alibi out of the water.
Catherine Nelson, Andrew’s wife, told authorities that she babysat for Washburn on the night of January 18, and that Washburn was gone all night.
The police chief in Columbus, Texas, about 70 miles from Houston, produced a traffic citation issued at 4 a.m. on January 19 to Harry L. Washburn. The ticket was signed by Washburn and described his red-over-black Ford. The citation indicated that Washburn ran a red light while traveling somewhere between 80 and 90 mph.
Another witness in San Angelo, an airman at a local base moonlighting at a gas station reported the driver of a red-over-black Ford buying gasoline across the street from the Weaver home late on the night before the explosion.
Perhaps the most unique witness in the Washburn case was Carl Heninger’s estranged wife, Adela Heninger, a petite 24-year-old woman whose prior claim to fame was her status as a professional wrestler. Adela wrestled under the professional name “Nature Girl.” Her evidence was totally circumstantial, but she was finally able to provide authorities with the motive they were seeking.
Adela had also been approached by Washburn to earn the trust of Harry Weaver. Her role was simply to use her feminine wiles to get Weaver to teach her how to shoot. Then, when she got him alone somewhere, she was directed to “accidentally” shoot her instructor.
“I know where you can make some money, and there is nothing wrong with it,” Washburn reportedly told her.
Adela never carried out her part in any plot.
“Weaver is a hard touch,” Washburn told Nature Girl. “Mrs. Weaver is a very easy touch. If I can get rid of Weaver, his wife will pay off to keep her family from harm.”
In December 1955, Washburn went on trial in Waco, where his case had been moved because of extensive publicity. In what is believed to be the first trial ever broadcast live on television, he was convicted of the murder of Helen Harris Weaver.
His first conviction was overturned on appeal because Nelson’s immunity deal was never approved by a court before he testified. However, in 1957, after the i’s had been dotted and the t’s crossed, Washburn was convicted and sentenced to a life term.