SHE FLEW HALF-WAY ACROSS THE
WORLD TO MAKE HER HUSBAND FULFILL HIS OBLIGATIONS. THEN SHE SHOT HIM.
“I didn’t intend to kill him.”
— Bridget Waters, regarding her
slain husband
Irish “war bride” Bridget Waters
traveled thousands of miles to challenge her husband’s efforts to file for
divorce. Matters took a tragic turn when Bridget shot her husband during a
custody exchange. The local, national, and international press broadcast the
ins-and-outs of her trial. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District)
A FATAL END AFTER SURVIVING WORLD
WAR II
Las Vegas resident Frank Waters
survived his service with the U.S. military in Europe during World War II. But only a year after the War’s end, the
consequences of Frank’s actions overseas followed him thousands of miles back
to the middle of the Mojave Desert, leading to a series of events that would
ultimately result in Frank’s murder by his estranged wife in front of his young
son, followed by a trial that made international headlines.
A WAR-TIME ROMANCE SOURS QUICKLY
The first U.S. soldiers arrived
in Britain in 1942 to join the war against Nazi Germany. By the end of World War II, over 3 million
American troops had passed through the United Kingdom, and not all of these
soldiers went home alone – about 70,000 British women married American soldiers
between 1942 and 1945.
One of these unions was between
Frank Waters, a resident of Los Angeles that worked as a civilian employee for
the Lockheed company, and Bridget McCluskey, a 24-year-old nurse from the small
town of Cootehill near the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern
Ireland that worked at a hospital in Liverpool during the War. Frank, while on furlough from his work in
London, met Bridget in Liverpool and the two were quickly wed. It was not long before Bridget left her
nursing job in Liverpool to move in with Frank back in London.
Soon after the marriage, Bridget
learned she was pregnant. And not long
after that, Frank decided he no longer liked married life. In October of 1944, shortly after learning of
the pregnancy, Frank received orders transferring him to France. Having the perfect
excuse to leave his wife, Frank gave Bridget $50, told her that he had paid for
the next two weeks of rent on their apartment, and proceeded to move out.
Frank promised to write after
being transferred to France, but he was no better at keeping this promise to
Bridget than the others he had made over the course of their whirlwind
relationship. The letters from Frank were
few and far between, and when they did arrive they did little to inspire
sentimental feelings. Bridget received a
letter from Frank in May of 1945 offering to pay her delivery expenses but
denying paternity of their son. Then, in
December of 1945, Bridget received correspondence from Frank containing $150,
but the enclosed letter made clear this money was not a Christmas present but
was only intended as child support.
Then the letters – and the
occasional child support payments – stopped arriving at all.
FRANK WATERS SEEKS A SPEEDY
REMEDY IN THE DIVORCE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
Frank Waters was discharged from
his civilian service with Lockheed in July of 1945 and returned to his home in
Los Angeles. Frank was anxious to move
on with his life and put his wartime experiences, including his wife and child,
behind him. That’s what led Frank in
late-1945 to temporarily relocate to Las Vegas to take advantage of the
shortest divorce residency requirements in the country.
Nevada had loosened the residency
requirements to obtain a divorce during the early years of the Great Depression
in an effort to increase tourism to the State, even if it was tourists seeking
a quick divorce. In 1946 as today, a
person only had to live in Nevada for six weeks before being eligible to file
for divorce.
While Frank followed in the
footsteps of countless other “divorce tourists” that took up temporary
residence in Nevada, he was different in that his family had links to Las Vegas
that stretched back to the town’s founding in 1905. Frank Waters’ father had
been among the first real estate developers and land agents to set up shop in
the Las Vegas Valley, and the Waters family made a tidy sum by selling real
estate and pursuing related business ventures in early Vegas before moving to
California. In fact, Frank used his father’s connections with Las Vegas
newspaper publisher Charles “Pop” Squires to land a job as a teller at a local
bank while he established Nevada residency.
SETTING A PRECEDENT FOR ABANDONED
WAR-TIME WIVES
After not hearing from her
husband for several months, Bridget Waters received notice in October of 1945
that Frank had filed for divorce in Nevada.
Frank had been expecting an easy
uncontested divorce. After all, his wife
lived halfway across the world and international travel was far more costly and
cumbersome than it is today, especially in the immediate aftermath of the
War. What Frank didn’t know is that he
was one of thousands of former American soldiers and military civilian
employees that sought to divorce the women they had married overseas. And a backlash was building in Britain to
what was perceived as American men acting to legally abandon their wives and
children.
Women’s advocacy organizations
pushed Bridget to contest the divorce in an effort to turn the young nurse into
a cause celebre while establishing a legal precedent to protect thousands of
other deserted “war brides.” Bridget, furious and heartbroken over news that
Frank was seeking a divorce, did not need much convincing. With the advocacy
organizations paying for her airfare and legal fees, Bridget flew from London
with her infant son, Frank, Jr., and landed in Las Vegas just as the small
desert town was heating up in April of 1946.
FIGHTING FOR HER MARRIAGE
Bridget did not want a divorce;
she wanted a husband. That is why she
reached out to Frank within hours of her arrival in Las Vegas to introduce him
to his son. The meeting went well, but
Frank made it clear that he intended to proceed with the divorce case he had
filed.
Bridget retained the services of
a local attorney who filed a counterclaim against Frank for “separate
maintenance.” Separate maintenance would
leave Bridget’s marriage with Frank legally intact even though the two were
separated (which was important to the devoutly Catholic Bridget) and include
financial orders for child and spousal support.
If Bridget could not live with Frank and their son as a family, then she
would keep the marriage intact and force Frank to fulfill his financial
obligations to his family.
There was plenty of legal
maneuvering by attorneys for Frank and Bridget leading up to the divorce
trial. Frank’s counsel announced that
two surprise witnesses would be arriving from Los Angeles to take sworn
depositions at the local courthouse, intimating that the witnesses would
testify to alleged “indiscreet actions” by Bridget after Frank transferred to
France. Bridget’s attorney responded to
this news by demanding a jury for the divorce trial, which would allow Bridget
to play on the sympathies of a local community that would not look kindly on a
man failing to support his family.
It is important to remember that
spousal and child support laws took on added importance in 1946. While women
were encouraged to enter the workforce during World War II, with mass
demobilization women were again expected to largely return to the domestic
sphere. In addition to systemic barriers to employment, women also were unable
to obtain individual consumer credit until the 1970’s. These economic obstacles
created a situation where women with children faced a very real threat of being
forced into poverty as a result of divorce or separation absent an order of
support.
A DRAMATIC DIVORCE TRIAL
The divorce case finally went to
trial in July of 1946. Even though
Nevada had established a reputation for loose morals it had not yet become a
“no fault” State – meaning a spouse seeking a divorce had to prove one of
several grounds for divorce, such as extreme cruelty, adultery, or
abandonment. If you couldn’t prove the
grounds for divorce, the divorce wasn’t happening.
Over the course of two days in a
sweltering Las Vegas courtroom a jury of seven women and five men heard
testimony from Frank and Bridget.
Frank and several of his
witnesses testified that Bridget had been unfaithful after Frank was
transferred to France, including an account of Bridget being in the frequent
company of a Royal Air Force officer.
Then for good measure, Frank testified that Bridget had repeatedly
“belittled American culture and ideals.”
On cross-examination, Frank was
forced to admit that he had intended to abandon Bridget when he learned of her
pregnancy but that he had been too afraid to outright tell her this, then his
transfer to France seemed to solve the problem as far as he was concerned. Frank was also confronted with evidence of
letters he had written detailing his own extramarital escapades in France.
When it came time for Bridget to
present her case, she testified in a soft-spoken Irish accent about the
difficulties she experienced after she was abandoned by Frank. “My baby was born in a charity nursing
home. He was delivered by a nurse. I had waived the services of a doctor because
I didn’t feel I could afford the obligation.”
When she was asked about her response to a letter she received from
Frank informing her that their marriage had been a mistake, she said, “My heart
was broken. I was still in love with
him.”
Bridget also countered Frank’s
allegations of infidelity by noting the Royal Air Force officer she had been
seen with was her cousin – the same cousin that had served as the best man at
their wedding. The jury disapproved of Frank’s hypocrisy, and based upon a
finding that he had abandoned Bridget and their son the jury entered a verdict
denying the divorce. Bridget was awarded her separate maintenance, custody of
their son, and $220 per month in child support from Frank, while Frank was
allowed reasonable visitation.
A CUSTODY EXCHANGE TURNS DEADLY
There weren’t many custody
exchanges between the separated couple before things took a violent turn.
Frank’s plans to make a speedy
return to Los Angeles after obtaining a Vegas divorce had been derailed. After his request for divorce was denied,
Frank decided to settle into his life in Las Vegas, though the fact he rented a
room at a house owned by an elderly woman and her daughter shows he intended to
set down the weakest roots possible. His
plan was to spend another year in Nevada, at which point he would be able to
seek divorce from Bridget based on new grounds – a period of separation lasting
at least three years.
Frank continued his job as a bank
teller while exercising a few hours of visitation with his son on the
weekends. But the 38-year-old was
bristling under the desert heat over the summer of 1946, eager to find a way to
break free from the bonds of matrimony with his estranged wife. For her part, Bridget seemed agreeable to a
divorce at an unspecified future date provided she received assurances that
Frank would continue to make his support payments. Bridget had suffered financial strain over
the course of the divorce litigation that led her to obtain work as a
housekeeper at a residence in a quiet neighborhood a few blocks north of
downtown.
With this background of
underlying tension, Frank arrived at 130 Palm Lane around 12:30 p.m. on Labor
Day in 1946. Her boss was out of town on
vacation, so just Bridget and her young son were in the home. Frank’s landlady accompanied him to pick up
his son as she always did – Frank wanted a witness for the custody exchanges to
support his role as a dutiful father during a future attempt at divorce.
Bridget answered Frank’s knock
and invited him in. It was not long
before Frank broached the same topic he had raised repeatedly since the outcome
of the divorce trial in July. He became
irate as he demanded to know what Bridget wanted in order to agree to
divorce. Bridget replied, “Once you make
a home for me and the baby, we can talk about divorce.” She ended the conversation by pointing Frank
to the living room where Frank, Jr. was playing on the floor and then stepping
outside to take clothes off of the line.
Bridget reentered the house a few
moments later, walked past the living room where Frank was in the process of
changing their son’s diaper, and into her bedroom. She pulled a baby hammerless revolver from a
dresser drawer and placed it in her pocket.
She entered the living room where
Frank was crouched over their son playing on the floor. “Don’t touch the baby,” Bridget said.
A shot rang out. Frank slumped forward against the wall. Frank, Jr. wailed.
Bridget picked up the phone and
called the police, informing them between sobs that her husband had been
shot. Frank’s landlady Maude Griffith
ran from the car parked outside and into the home where she encountered her
tenant motionless on the ground while Bridget paced back and forth, tending to
an injury to her baby’s leg. “What
happened?” she asked.
Bridget replied, “Go away from
here. You and your daughter have caused
me enough trouble. She has come between
me and my husband.”
It did not take long for police
to arrive. There was no way to save Frank. The coroner later found that the .22
bullet fired by Bridget was a “1 in a 1,000 shot.” The round entered Frank’s
back and traveled downward directly through his heart without striking a single
bone. Bridget was arrested and booked while Frank, Jr. was taken to the
hospital to treat a superficial wound to his leg caused by the .22 round.
A WIDOW CHARGED WITH MURDER AND A
PUBLIC OUTPOURING OF SUPPORT
During her interrogation by Las
Vegas police, Bridget admitted that Frank had not made any threatening gestures
leading up to the shooting though she stressed he had made a vague promise to
“get rid of” her and their baby with a vicious look in his eye. Clark County District Attorney V. Gray Gubler
promptly charged Bridget with open murder, meaning she could be convicted of
anything from involuntary manslaughter to first-degree murder. Keep in mind this was at a time when being
found guilty of first-degree murder in Nevada often led to a death sentence that
was usually carried out within months.
Bridget was ordered held without bail pending her trial.
While prosecutors acted swiftly
to hold Bridget to account, many residents of Las Vegas reacted differently to
news of the slaying of Frank Waters.
Local citizens established a legal defense fund that allowed Bridget to
retain prominent legal counsel. The
murder of Frank Waters soon became sensational news across the U.S. and Europe
thanks in no small part to the work of publicists hired by Bridget’s legal team. Letters soon started pouring into the city
jail from Britain in support of Bridget, many recognizing her actions as a
nurse during the war.
District Attorney Gray Gubler
vented his frustration about the level of public support for Bridget shortly
before her first hearing. He alleged
that Bridget had written letters disparaging American culture and defended the
reputation of Frank Waters, noting he had been a lawyer in good standing in
California prior to working for Lockheed during the War. In a sign of the escalating tensions of the
Cold War that served as a backdrop to the Waters case, Gubler told the press,
“The subscription for Mrs. Waters’ defense is largely typical for America,
which is today shipping great quantities of merchandise to a Russia that is
closed to Americans...Some are wondering what the situation would be were
conditions reversed and had an American girl married a European and shot him in
his homeland.”
As the summer heat gave way to
the cooler temperatures of October, domestic and foreign press made their way
to a town in southern Nevada that few had even heard of up to that point. Daily stories rippled across the wire
detailing Bridget’s wardrobe choices, and it was the rare article that didn’t
feature Bridget carrying her young son in her arms. A representative from the British consulate
in San Francisco even traveled to Las Vegas to ensure Bridget received a fair
trial.
Dozens of men and women from
across Clark County were summoned as prospective jurors and questioned over
several days. Bridget took offense when
District Attorney Gray Gubler asked every prospective juror, “Does a wife have
any more right to kill her husband than anyone else?” Bridget’s retort to this line of questioning
was, “Of course a wife has no more right, but she certainly may have more reason
than anyone else.”
TRIAL BEGINS: COLD-BLOODED KILLER
OR JUSTIFIED HOMICIDE?
When the first day of trial
opened on October 21, 1946 the tiny courtroom of Judge A.S. Henderson was
packed. The prosecution painted Bridget
as a jealous cold-blooded killer willing to place her child in harm’s way while
getting revenge for her husband’s dalliances with local women. Just as during her divorce trial, Bridget did
little to contain her emotions as the State presented its case – she softly
sobbed, fidgeted with the wedding ring Frank had placed on her finger, and at
one point called a deputy district attorney an “idiot” for the way he examined
a witness. Needless to say, there were
frequent recesses called during the sensational trial.
A highlight of the prosecution’s
case was when the responding officer testified Bridget said of her husband
lying dead feet away, “He can’t take my baby from me now.” Another key witness was Maude Griffith,
Frank’s landlady that had driven him to the fatal custody exchange. Her testimony supported jealousy as a motive
for the killing and defended against charges by Bridget that her daughter had
carried on an affair with Frank. In his
closing, the deputy district attorney warned the jury that if they found
Bridget not guilty, “She may get a Hollywood contract or do a personal
appearance tour. Perhaps the gun
manufacturer will even seek her endorsement of his product.”
Bridget’s attorneys countered by
presenting a series of witnesses that testified to Frank’s rendezvous about
town. There was the owner of a local
auto court that told about the time Frank spent the night there with a young
woman shortly after Bridget arrived in town to contest the divorce case. And then there was the witness that lived on
Palm Lane who told of a young woman that arrived a few hours after the shooting
and broke down crying in front of the home.
The defense strategy was to play
on the sympathy of the jury with a plea of temporary insanity – Bridget only
wanted to reconcile with her husband and his constant affairs finally led to a
momentary loss of control. Bridget even
took the stand in her defense, and when questioned by District Attorney Gray
Gubler about the immediate aftermath of the killing, she stated she “couldn’t
be sure about what happened there.”
But the entire defense strategy
was derailed when Judge Henderson ruled that the evidence presented did not
show Bridget lacked control of her ability to tell right from wrong. This left a claim of self-defense as the only
viable defense strategy for acquittal.
Bridget’s attorneys argued the fact that the killing was done with such
a small handgun and that only one shot had been fired demonstrated she could
not possibly have acted with premeditation.
Her counsel further highlighted that only a few short months before the
slaying a jury had found Frank committed acts of extreme cruelty against
Bridget during the divorce case.
Then, in a last ditch effort to
stoke the jury’s emotions, Bridget’s defense attorneys pleaded, “All she has is
her baby. Don’t take that lady away from her baby.” The combination of logic
and emotion worked. After 15 hours of deliberation, the jury returned a
conviction on the lightest possible charge – involuntary manslaughter. Bridget
was sentenced to serve 1 to 5 years in the Nevada State Prison.
SURPRISE PAROLE AND NOT THE LAST
“WAR BRIDE” MURDER IN LAS VEGAS
After serving only 15 months in
prison, and over the strenuous objections of Judge Henderson and the Clark
County District Attorney, Bridget was paroled on condition that she return to
Britain. The young woman made her way to
New York City where she left by ship from Ellis Island for home. No one greeted Bridget Waters when she disembarked
at Southampton.
Bridget was the most notorious
case of a “war bride” murdering her American spouse, but she was not the
last. There was the 1949 case of Pamela
Hurt out of Indianapolis, a 19-year-old English woman that killed her American
husband while he slept, claiming self-defense because her husband had
threatened to kill her for engaging in an affair during a separation. Then
there also was the 1953 “kiss of death” case where a German woman killed her
American husband while driving on a road near Niles, California - before
Hildegard Pelton abandoned the scene of the crime, she left a lipstick imprint
on her slain husband’s bloodied forehead.
In fact, the Bridget Waters case
would not be the last “war bride” murder to shock the residents of Las Vegas.
During the early hours of Mother’s Day, 1953, Alice White – a 32-year-old
mother of two young children that was pregnant with her third – fired a shotgun
into the head of her husband, Sergeant Andrew White, while he slept at their
apartment on the grounds of Nellis Air Force Base on the north-eastern edge of
Las Vegas. Alice was tried for the murder of her husband that she met during
the War, but at trial it came out that Sergeant White was an excessive drinker
and had threatened to kill her the night he was shot. The jury found the
killing was done in self-defense and Alice went free.
