Mission Hills residents were certainly well aware that something was amiss in their quiet little neighborhood the morning of Monday, November 16, 1931. If they hadn’t heard the shot that rang out around 1:30 the previous afternoon, they had undoubtedly noticed the police cars hurtling along Jefferson Drive and the coroner’s van that soon followed on that unusually temperate 69-degree day. So, all the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s page-one banner headline did that morning was confirm the gossip that was surely swirling throughout the community:
“WIFE KILLS MT. LEBANON MAN”
The article related how Albert L. Culbertson, 37, and his wife of nearly 12 years, Laverna, 35, had argued in their Colonial brick house at 397 Jefferson Drive the previous afternoon over a proposed hunting trip. Details in that first article were muddled — not surprising considering how “violently hysterical” Laverna was in the shooting’s aftermath. But the end result was the same: whether accidentally or on purpose, the 20-gauge pump shotgun Laverna was holding went off. Albert, dressed in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, crumpled to the floor bleeding from his side. A doctor was summoned — there were no ambulances or local hospitals in 1930s Mt. Lebanon — only to pronounce Albert dead.
When police officers arrived, Laverna was weeping on the davenport as her friend, Hazel Walker, attempted to console her. Both women sported lounging pajamas and appeared bruised.
Laverna first confessed that she had picked up the shotgun and fired in self-defense after Albert hit her, but a little later she claimed the gun had gone off accidentally when Albert grabbed it as she attempted to hide it. Hazel and her husband, Ralph, who were visiting from Mt. Vernon, Ohio, were of no help as neither witnessed the shooting: Hazel was dressing in another room while Ralph was out gassing up the car for their trip home.
Laverna’s changing stories coupled with her 11-year-old son’s comment that he’d heard a loud argument just before the shot was fired, convinced police officers that this was no accident. They whisked Laverna and “material witness” Hazel off to jail.
The next day, The Pittsburgh Press covered Laverna’s handcuffless walk between the district attorney’s office, where she and Hazel had been taken for questioning, and the jailhouse as if it was a cross between a James M. Cain novel — “Blond, composed, aloof … she gave no sign of her grief and anxiety”— and a style column —“Her hat a suede felt Eugenie, of cinnamon brown trimmed with a plain band of satin ribbon … she carried a pocketbook of Spanish tile red with a silver top on which her initials were engraved. Over her arm was a muskrat sports coat.”
“If you’ve been waiting for me to give you a sob story,” the paper quoted Laverna, “your wait has been in vain. I don’t want sympathy.” Quotes like that coupled with sensational headlines — including “Widow Ready for Fight to Escape Chair” — did little to assuage the story’s noir undertones. One paper even included a photo of the family dog who had reportedly “stood guard over his master’s body after the shooting.”
On December 18, a grand jury indicted Laverna for murder and involuntary manslaughter based on testimony by ballistic experts who claimed the gun was shot five to eight feet from the victim and not the close range that Laverna claimed.
“What does it mean and what does it matter?” Laverna was reported asking the coroner’s jury. “[L]ife will never be the same with ‘Cub’ — my husband —gone. I guess it’s because I was happier than most wives that I cannot stand to think of life without him.” She added that the previous summer they had, for the first time, taken separate vacations but were “so lonely apart from each other, we vowed it would be the last time we would ever be ‘modern’ and spend our vacations in different places.” Her voice breaking and with tears in her eyes, she mentioned that their 12th wedding anniversary was only days away.
Meanwhile, Albert’s two brothers returned his body to their hometown of Mt. Vernon for burial. The paper reported the men were standing by their sister-in-law — even offering to post bond — despite the fact that Albert’s death certificate listed cause of death as “shock and hemorrhage following a gunshot wound to the chest (probably murder).”
Following the inquest, Laverna was released on $5,000 bond. After having spent two days in jail, she retreated to her home to await trial. A week later, newspapers reported that Albert’s will had been probated and Laverna, the executrix, would receive everything, including the house, which was valued at $18,000 as well as a $66,000 insurance policy (that’s about $380,000 and nearly $1.3 million respectively today).
THE TRIAL
On March 6, 1932, the Pittsburgh Press article “Trial of Wife in Culbertson Killing Monday” recapped the story’s sordid details and mentioned the district attorney would seek a life term if the verdict was guilty. A photo of Laverna clinging to son Albert Jr. accompanied the story.
Post-Gazette reporter Anna Jane Phillips described the scene at jury selection when “the pretty defendant, wearing a tiny black hat and a black cloth coat, collared with lynx,” stood to hear the indictment read: “not a muscle in her thin, palid (sic) face moved … She is 30 pounds lighter than on the night of the fatal shooting and her face is lined with worry, but she shows no nervousness.”
During jury selection, 50 potential jurors were asked if they “would be swayed in their judgment because of [Laverna’s] beauty.” Her beauty may not have been an issue, but a few prospective jurors took umbrage with the alcohol consumption while Prohibition was still in effect, and were dismissed.
As the trial began, what was not in question was that the Walkers, longtime friends of Albert and Laverna, had arrived in Mt. Lebanon on Friday, November 14, to attend the Saturday Army-Pitt football game (Pitt trounced Army 26-0). The foursome imbibed heavily at the game, when they returned from the game, at the Culbertsons’ house party that evening, and the next morning when, as Ralph Walker testified, the two men polished off “two-thirds of a quart” of Albert’s homemade gin. There was also no question that Laverna had opposed the men’s plans to go hunting, that both she and Hazel were bruised, and that Albert’s face sported deep scratches.
Upon taking the stand, both Hazel and Ralph denied any disharmony in casa Culbertson that weekend except for “a few words about orange juice.” Ralph added that Albert greeted Laverna at Sunday breakfast with a cheery “Good morning, sweetheart.”
Ralph claimed neither man was intoxicated Sunday morning when Albert, clad in a bathrobe and slippers, grabbed him by the shoulder and pointed to a pheasant on the lawn. According to Ralph, Albert “dashed for his gun and loaded it,” but was unable to open the basement door. After Ralph convinced him not to shoot at the bird through the door’s transom, Albert put the gun down.
“I don’t know where he put the gun then,” Ralph said. “He left it loaded and did not put the safety on. We took the gin and went to the bathroom and began drinking.”
An hour later, the two men emerged. Ralph left to gas up the car while Albert went to get dressed. “I guess we had about 15 drinks Sunday from the time we got up until the time I drove off in my car,” Ralph concluded.
On the trial’s last day, Laverna took the stand in her own defense. She explained that upon returning from the game, she had prepared highballs for all (although she did not partake) and had started dinner. Albert and their sons — Albert Jr., 11, and Charles, 7 — began wrestling in the living room. As the boys playfully attempted to take down their nearly six-foot father, Laverna joined in to help. As the family foursome wrestled on the floor, Albert Sr. pulled Hazel Walker
into the fray and “they all tussled for three-quarters of an hour,” getting bruised and scratched in the melee.
Laverna’s testimony also revealed darker side to the weekend. On Saturday, when Albert accused her of being “stingy” with the orange juice, he had shoved Hazel —who tried to defuse the argument — so hard she fell to the floor. Shaken, she asked Ralph to take her home immediately; he demurred. So, the two women donned their “travel clothes,” packed their bags, and got in the car. When the car failed to start, they changed clothes again and unpacked. That evening they entertained guests, consuming more alcohol.
After the party was when Laverna first objected to Albert’s hunting trip. He responded by shoving her so hard she fell into a chest of drawers, bruising her chin. He apologized, but slept on the couch that night. Still opposed to the trip the next morning, she retrieved Albert’s travel bag, some alcohol, and the single barrel shotgun from his car and disconnected the car’s wires.
Intending to hide the gun in a closet, she proceeded into the bedroom where Albert was sitting on a chair getting dressed and told him he couldn’t go on the trip. “He reached for the gun. I jumped back to the door. The gun was discharged,” she testified on the stand. She added that she never consciously touched the trigger and denied an “awful struggle” for the gun.
Laverna then claimed that upon seeing her husband prostrate and bleeding, she’d picked up the shotgun and retreated to the basement to kill herself. Albert Jr., however, stopped her, taking the gun from her hands and throwing it on the floor where police would later find it. Albert Jr. confirmed this when he later took the stand, contradicting what he’d originally told the police the day of the shooting: that he had taken the gun to the basement after seeing his father bleeding on the bedroom floor.
At this point the jury had two conflicting stories: a weekend of innocent merriment that ended in a tragic accident or four belligerent drunks bumbling around the house for several days until a gun fatally discharged.
THE VERDICT
The trial lasted three days; the jury took four hours to deliberate. Although the Culbertson case had been front page news in Pittsburgh throughout the trial, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby had stolen all the banner headlines — that was until March 11 when the Pittsburgh Press headline screamed “Mrs. Culbertson is Acquitted.”
The next day, Laverna granted the Pittsburgh Press an exclusive interview from her home. “Freed of all charges arising from the death of Albert L. Culbertson, World War flier, his widow today faces the future confidently,” the article reported, noting two framed photos of Albert were prominently displayed on the piano and on a table in the home.
Laverna told the reporter she planned to remain in Mt. Lebanon as the schools offered “educational advantages” for her sons and because her neighbors had been supportive throughout the ordeal. “We have only lived here four years,” she said. “But everyone has done everything possible to help me.”
The article ended on a somewhat poetic note. “A new moon rose over the house opposite the Colonial brick house where Albert Culbertson died. Mrs. Culbertson looked upon it as a symbol of a future stripped of shadows that might have been — a future of peace.”
The Culbertsons did remain in Mt. Lebanon as Albert Jr. and Charles graduated from Mt. Lebanon High School in August 1938 and February 1941 respectively. Albert continued to wrestle. He’s pictured in the school’s 1938 wrestling team photo.
Charles was still living at the Jefferson Drive house with his mother when he applied for a marriage license in 1946 (the wedding took place at Southminster Church). But by the 1950 census, widow Laverna was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, working as a bookkeeper for a life insurance company. She died April 15, 1988, four months short of her 92nd birthday. She outlived Charles by five years; Albert Jr. died 14 years later in Missouri.
It appears the woman whose beauty prosecutors worried would sway jurors never remarried.