Harmon’s Histories: Plains Murder II: Beauty Parlor Gossip Proves Damning
By Jim Harmon
Travel with us, back in time, to the early spring of 1925, when a sordid love triangle in the small community of Plains, Montana generated headlines across the country.
In Part I of our story last week, you’ll remember that 34-year-old Mrs. Cecil Long claimed self-defense in the fatal shooting of Mrs. Ora Pierce, age 22, her rival for the affections of a young man named George Gunther.
Despite defense attempts to have the case continued, Judge Theodore Lentz of Thompson Falls set the murder trial of Mrs. Cecil Long for Monday morning, March 30, 1925 at 9 o’clock – and things moved at a lightning pace.
The jury was impaneled within two hours, and testimony began immediately. Among the first to be called to the witness stand was Mrs. A.E. Chantry, owner of the Chantry Hair Dressing parlors in Plains.
The local rumor mill was apparently oiled, polished and well maintained in Plains in 1925. Mrs. Chantry had already heard that Long had invited Pierce to Plains “for a showdown in the love triangle, and that Long had said Gunther did not want either of them.”
Chantry testified that the first time the two women came to her shop, Mrs. Long had been quarrelsome and that Long returned a bit later to apologize for Pierce’s conduct, but not her own.
On the pair’s second visit (the afternoon preceding the shooting), they arrived “together, but while she was working on Mrs. Long, Mrs. Pierce had gone for a ride.”
In press coverage of the trial, Chantry testified that during Pierce’s absence, Long had appeared “worried and agitated, and declared (to the hairdresser) if Mrs. Pierce did not leave town, she was going to shoot things up!”
George Gunther, the love interest in this sordid affair, had actually been in jail since the shooting, kept there as a material witness.
When he was called to the stand, it was clear he’d rather be somewhere else – anywhere else. His testimony was, to say the least, reluctant.
But under pressure from both sides, he admitted he had “been engaged to Mrs. Long” and told of the “unpleasant relations which followed the coming of Mrs. Pierce to Montana.” He also admitted that Mrs. Long had made threats of suicide.
The jury, made up of 11 farmers and one merchant, only one of whom lived nearby and knew anything of the case, reached a verdict quickly: guilty of second degree murder. The judge sentenced her to 20 to 45 years in prison, and a short time later Mrs. Long was placed aboard an eastbound train to Deer Lodge.
What of the two men connected to the case? Well, Mr. Cecil Long stuck by his wife through it all. Meantime, George Gunther, the central character, was promptly arrested and charged with bootlegging at the request of federal officers.