by Ann Rule
On Thursday, June 10, 1976, Dr. Jones received a call from Pat. She was concerned because her husband’s grandfather was vomiting almost every evening—not a great deal, but she just wanted to be sure it wasn’t something serious. Jones prescribed a mild antinausea medication and had it delivered to the house.
The next morning, Pat called and said Paw was no longer vomiting, but she was still worried. “He hasn’t been eating properly,” she told Jones’s receptionist. “And I guess I’d better tell you. He’s been drinking a lot of homemade whiskey. Both of them have been mixing up their pills, putting them in different bottles and squirreling them away. You know how forgetful old people can get.” The two women agreed that old people certainly could be like that, and that it could also be dangerous.
When Dr. Jones took a look at the Allansons’ charts, he was troubled by Pat’s comments about Paw Allanson and pills. It was totally out of character. The old man fought taking pills. Jones had to be firm with him to get him to take his heart medication consistently. He called Pat.
“What is Mr. Allanson drinking?” Jones asked.
“White lightning—over rock candy,” Pat replied.
“White lightning over rock candy?" the doctor asked, amazed. Mr. Allanson had never been a drinker. He had certainly plunged in with a vengeance.
“He’s into it again,” Pat whispered, and Dr. Jones could hear frustration in her voice. He could not go over and snatch a drink out of his patient’s hand, but he urged Pat to keep an eye on Paw and to watch that no medications were combined with the whiskey.
On Saturday morning, Pat was back on the phone to Dr. Jones. She said she and her parents had gone to Paw and Nona’s home in response to a desperate call from Nona. No one answered their knocks on the front door. “We went around to the back of the house,” Pat said. “We could see Paw in the back window, without a stitch of clothes on. He was just babbling and not making any sense, and he wouldn’t open the door for us to get in. My father had to crawl through a window to get in.”
Pat felt that Paw had simply been hitting the white lightning again. He wasn’t sick; he was just drunk as a skunk. Dr. Jones weighed putting him in the hospital, but Saturday was a difficult day for admitting patients with alcohol or psychiatric problems. He asked Pat if Paw was eating, and she assured him that she had been able to get him to eat a little, and that he was taking fluids well.
“Well,” Dr. Jones said, “if someone can be there with him, to see that the medications and the alcohol are out of his reach, he should be feeling better in a matter of a couple of hours.”
Pat said that she and her family would be glad to watch Paw and Nona. She would personally search the house and get all the pills and put them up high. She would keep Paw away from the white lightning.
“Just let him rest. Give him as much fluid as he’ll take,” Dr. Jones advised. “I’ll call you back later and see how he’s doing.”
Dr. Jones did call back that Saturday afternoon and Pat said that Paw was doing better. He had had a nap, and something more to eat, and he was taking fluids well. She promised to stay all night with the old couple. If either one’s condition weakened, she would call the doctor at once.
At nine that evening—despite his vow to keep out of the Allanson family feuds—Dr. Jones took it upon him self to call Jean Boggs. He told her that her father had had too much to drink and was sleeping it off. Jean was baffled. “No, that’s not right,” she exclaimed. “My daddy does not drink.” She offered to go over to her parents’ house, suggesting that Pat was somehow behind this peculiar situation. Dr. Jones didn’t think that was a good idea at all. If Paw was sleeping peacefully, he didn’t need a confrontation between his daughter and his “adopted” granddaughter-in-law.
On Sunday morning, Dr. Jones and his family were preparing for church around nine-thirty when the phone rang.
It was Pat. “I went in to wake up Paw, and he seems to be unconscious,” she said, “I can’t get him to wake up.”
Dr. Jones told her he would be right over.
“It took me about ten minutes to get there,” he later recalled. Pat let him in.
“I went to his bedroom and found him in bed, deeply comatose.” No one was in the room with Paw, which struck Dr. Jones as odd when he saw how desperately ill the patient was.
The old man was in such a deep coma that nothing his doctor did brought him out of it—not shouting, shaking, or even pinching. Paw had secretions bubbling in the back of his throat and he was lying on his back. Dr. Jones was afraid he would aspirate the mucus into his lungs, and he struggled to turn his heavy patient on his side.
Dr. Jones turned to ask Pat to call an ambulance to get Paw to the hospital. He had to do it himself; Pat was not in easy summoning distance. To the doctor's amazement, he found her in the bathroom giving a sponge bath to Nona. “It just seemed to be business as usual,” he said. “While a man was lying in such bad shape in the other room, gurgling with secretions like that, it seemed a bit inappropriate that the other household functions would be carried on in what seemed to be such a day-to-day fashion.”
Paw was critically ill. As Dr. Jones was examining him and getting an airway open, Pat wandered into the room and said, “You know, he tried to murder Ma a couple of nights ago. He tried to smother her with a pillow.”
Dr. Jones looked up at her, aghast.
“See, see there?” Pat said with amazing calm. “See those scratches on his elbows? That’s from where she fought him off.”
Dr. Jones felt goose bumps rise along his arms. There was no way that Nona Allanson could have fought her husband off—not with one completely paralyzed arm and the other severely compromised by her strokes. It would have been like a butterfly batting its wings against a buffalo. But more than that, he knew these old people too well to believe that Paw would ever, ever hurt his wife. He loved her, and he had cared for her so gently for years.
The abrasions on the old man’s elbows weren’t scratches; they were the kind of extremely minor abrasions that mark aged skin that has rubbed against sheets. Dr. Jones felt that something was wrong. He didn’t have much time to think about it as he fought to stabilize his patient, but the shock of Pat Allanson’s accusations against Paw stayed with him.
Maybe there was a problem with overdosage. With a patient in a coma, Dr. Jones couldn’t overlook that. “Do you have any of his pill bottles?” he asked Pat.
She led him into a little breakfast nook and pointed to dozens of pill bottles lined up. He quickly sorted out those that were sedatives and slipped them into a paper bag to take to the hospital. It would give them a place to start when they screened for a drug overdose in Paw’s system.
Pat handed him a single yellow capsule. “I found it on the kitchen floor. When we got in Saturday morning, he was just gobbling pills by the handful. I think this is one of them.”
Dr. Jones studied it. It looked like Nembutal, a hypnotic sedative.
Paw? No, that warred with everything the doctor had learned about the old man in ten years. Paw Allanson wouldn't have taken a sleeping pill, not when he had to look after Nona—and turn her several times during the night. But then, the Paw Allanson he knew wouldn’t have touched white lightning either. There were so many things that could go wrong—suddenly—in a man almost eighty years old. A massive stroke, perhaps. Another heart attack. Things that could affect thought processes too.
Dr. Jones’s sense that something was not right grew even stronger. Why would Paw try to kill Nona? And why on earth had Pat Allanson left the old man all alone, unconscious and gurgling, and calmly wheeled Nona into the bathroom for a sponge bath? Those ablutions were not necessary, and taking care of Paw was vital.
“I was a suspicious doctor,” he later commented succinctly.
They heard the wail of an approaching ambulance. Dr. Jones walked from the breakfast nook toward the front door. In the hall, Pat handed him what looked like an old- fashioned whiskey bottle, although it had no label. By tilting
it toward the light, he could see a small amount of clear liquid in the bottom.
“This is the bottle Paw was drinking from yesterday,” she said. “I found it hidden away out in the garage.”
Dr. Jones slipped the bottle into his medical bag. He had already made up his mind to call the police when he got his patient to the hospital. He wasn't even sure what he might be reporting; he would let them sort out the information.
With sirens blaring, the ambulance crew got Paw Allanson to South Fulton Hospital by ten-thirty. Dr. Jones began treating him at once for an overdose of a “sedative nature.” He didn’t know what Paw had overdosed on—perhaps the Nembutal that Pat had pointed out, perhaps something else. The most important thing was to use nasal gastric suction to pump his stomach, and to keep his blood pressure, pulse, respiration, fluids in-and-out, and body chemistry within normal boundaries. Paw was in extremely critical condition, unable to tell Dr. Jones what he had taken. It was quite possible that he would die without speaking.
Back at Washington Road, Pat soothed Nona, telling her that Paw would be home soon and that she would stay right there with her. Boppo and the colonel had rushed to the hospital to be sure that Paw was getting the proper care.
CHAPTER 29
***
Almost exactly two years after the double murder of Walter and Carolyn Allanson, the East Point police received another call to respond to a case involving a Walter Allanson. It was jarring for a moment—until the dispatcher realized that this was Walter Allanson, the elder. He dispatched Officer G.W. Pirkle to the emergency room of South Fulton Hospital. When he learned that the patient apparently had taken a massive overdose of sedatives, Pirkle called Detective Sergeant William R. Tedford for investigative backup.
Bob Tedford was introduced to Colonel and Mrs. Clifford Radcliffe. He spoke with them in the waiting room while he waited for Dr. Jones. The pair seemed very concerned about the old man. Mrs. Radcliffe reconstructed the bizarre weekend for the young detective. “Ma called us yesterday morning—Saturday,” she began. “She said that Paw was acting strange and wild, and begged us to come over right away and help her.”
She said that both she and Pat were on phone extensions and heard Nona Allanson begging for help. They had thrown on their clothes and raced over to the Washington Road house. When no one answered their pounding knocks on the front door, they had gone to the back of the house. Colonel Radcliffe had started prying a rear window open.
The colonel took up the story, remarking that it was fortunate that the ladies hadn’t seen Paw without warning. “He was naked except for a T-shirt and an Ace bandage on his ankle.” He had shouted for Pat not to look—that Paw was headed toward the door naked as a jaybird. Boppo nodded. “When he opened the door, he was naked, all right, and he had a handful of pills.”
All three of them had burst into the kitchen, but Paw had walked away from them, they said, stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them down with orange juice. “He was cramming so many in his mouth that they were dropping out the sides and falling on the floor,” the colonel said. “I told him that Dr. Jones wouldn’t want him to take all those pills, trying to reason with him, you see. He replied, ‘To hell with the doctor!’ and just kept on taking pills.”
The Radcliffes explained that their daughter Pat was basically the one taking care of the old couple. “Is there any closer relative that I could call about Mr. Allanson’s overdose?” Tedford asked.
“Yes. Well, I don’t know—they have a daughter, Jean Boggs. But they don’t get along. Pat has been staying with them, running errands, this type of thing, for the past several years,” Margureitte explained. Detective Tedford’s impression was that these people were the patient’s family—or at least the closest thing to it.
After a tense hour and a half, Dr. Jones came out and said that Paw Allanson’s condition was stable and that he could say, albeit cautiously, that the elderly man might survive. It was touchy, of course, treating a man with a history of cardiac problems, but Paw Allanson had always been a tremendously strong man. Even now, although he was considerably weaker since his heart attack five months before, he seemed to be fighting his way back to consciousness.
“What have you prescribed for Mr. Allanson?” Tedford asked Dr. Jones.
“Vistaril—that’s a very mild sedative. Nembutal—a barbiturate—and Librax for his stomach. But I suspect he’s taken something other than what I prescribed. I found so many empty pill bottles in their home.”
Paw’s condition could have been an accident, and a fairly common one at that. An old man, confused and perhaps a little senile, had had too much alcohol and too many of the wrong pills. But Tedford was inclined to code it as a possible suicide attempt. Elderly people were often depressed by their diminished capacities.
Dr. Jones called Jean Boggs again. He explained that he had admitted her father to the hospital, and that he was in a coma.
“From what?”
Dr. Jones explained that her father had apparently been drinking again and taking pills. He also said that Paw had allegedly tried to kill his wife.
Jean was shocked almost speechless. “This doesn’t make any sense at all!” she burst out. “There is something wrong.”
Dr. Jones agreed with her. He told her he felt that whatever had happened, it was a matter for the police. Jean immediately called the East Point police and asked for a complete investigation. “We already have a detective on it,” she was told.
By the time Jean got to South Fulton Hospital, her father had been taken to his room. He was still unconscious and he had tubes sprouting from every body orifice. “Paw,” she said, “Paw, it’s Jean. Can you hear me?”
He gave no sign that he was with her at all.
Jean noticed that the Radcliffes seemed to be everywhere she went. She wondered where Pat was—probably home with her mother. That thought gave her a sudden chill.
When she was distraught and frustrated, Jean Boggs could be abrasive and demanding. She had been shut off from her parents for months, and her father might be dying. She approached the detective, who was making notes, and demanded that he investigate thoroughly. A bit ruffled, Tedford assured her he was doing just that. She also suggested that he familiarize himself with her brother’s and sister-in-law’s murders. Jean minced no words; she flat out accused Pat Allanson of having something to do with her father’s coma. “He does not drink, and he does not take pills,” she insisted. “If he’s in a coma, she did something to him. She’s practically moved in with them, and I think she’s after what they have.”
Tedford had seen his share of family beefs and rivalries, and he had heard wild accusations tossed around. But there was something about Jean Boggs’s words that made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. After assuring her that he would keep at it until he found out what had caused her father’s coma, he hurried back to the ER to ask that the contents of Paw Allanson’s stomach be retained for examination.
It was too late. The emesis had already been disposed of.
***
By Monday morning, June 14, Paw seemed to be out of danger but he remained a miserably sick man. Bob Tedford and Detective H. R. Turner drove out to 4137 Washington Road to talk with Nona Allanson. They were not prepared to find the lady as incapacitated as she was. Debbie Cole, Pat’s younger daughter, answered their knock and invited them into the living room. From somewhere in the rear of the little house they could hear a woman sobbing and wailing; she sounded as if she were in desperate distress.
“That's Mrs. Allanson,” Debbie explained. “She’s really upset about everything. If you’ll wait here, I’ll try to get her out here to talk with you. My mother’s with her.”
A few minutes later, a lushly pretty woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties approached. Although she limped noticeably herself, she was pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair. She introduced herself as Mrs. Tom Allanson, the “granddaughter” of the senior Allansons.
Tedford quickly real
ized how compromised Nona Allanson’s speech was. He couldn’t understand a word she said.
“I’ll translate,” Pat said. “I can understand her.”
It was a good thing she could, Tedford thought, be cause he sure couldn’t. Pat repeated what she said the older woman had said. “She said that Paw’s been taking pills—too many pills. No, she hasn’t seen him, but she says he’s been drinking more than usual, and she hasn’t seen him eat for several days. She called us Saturday morning and told us that Big Allanson—that’s what she calls Paw—was trying to kill her, so of course we rushed right over.”
It was apparent that the old woman was growing more and more upset and Tedford stopped the interview. Pat ushered the detectives out onto the front porch, where they could talk privately. She repeated, almost verbatim, the story that Tedford had heard from the Radcliffes the day before. He noticed that her eyes brimmed with tears as she recalled how Paw had gone downhill with the drinking and the pills. She seemed about to break into sobs.
“He tried to run me off the road, you know,” Pat said quietly.
“What?"
“He did. He tried to run me off the road.”
Tedford recalled the elderly shell of a man he had seen in the ER. He scarcely looked capable of driving a car, much less aiming it at another vehicle and forcing it off the road. “Why would he try to run you off the road?” he asked.
Pat cast her green eyes down and sighed. “When Paw was in the hospital during his last heart attack, he felt he was going to die. He had me send for his attorneys—Mr. Hamner and Mr. Reeves. He told them about a killing in 1974. He admitted to them that he did it—not my husband. Personally, I was never so shocked in my life. It just took me by surprise that he would tell that to his attorneys. I sat in the corner, and I started taking notes . . . and he realizes that I know about this. His attitude toward me completely changed.”
Tedford had read the case file on the Allanson murders. He wondered if Pat was telling him that old Walter had killed his own son and daughter-in-law. If she was, it was a startling—an almost unbelievable—revelation, but she seemed incapable of saying it in so many words.
