Avon Acker

Vigilante Caretaker Avon Acker

On January 7,1951, the peace and tranquility of southern Hobson County, Texas, was shattered by a blast from a double-barrel twelve-gauge shotgun.

A local farmer, Homer Lofton, had been murdered in his own barn. Lofton was an alcoholic who had been abusing his wife and children for years. Seventeen days later, Barbara Harrison and Jesse Simmons were gunned down in the loft of a hay barn while engaged in an adulterous sexual liaison. The three murders were almost identical and all were eerily similar to the murder of Billy Krum, a man accused of the attempted rape of a sixteen-year-old girl eleven years earlier.

Deputy Sheriff Leonard Cranford was assigned to investigate the murders and he was astounded to learn all of the evidence he gathered pointed to a young woman he had known all of her life. Her name was Ann Parsons and she had been a friend of Cranfords daughter since the two of them were in the first grade. Ann Parsons was the prettiest,richest,and most respected,young woman in the county. Ann was also a close friend of Alice Hammond, Billy Krum's attempted rape victim, who later became Homer Lofton's wife. When Ann was charged, the citizens of Hobson County were outraged that Cranford, or anyone, could believe she committed the brutal crimes.

But Ann Parsons' life had not been the perfect existence many had thought. Her never- failing smile and caring heart hid a hurt she believed would prevent any chance for the kind of life she had always dreamed would be hers. Ann had her own dark secrets and hidden passions that shaped her life, and influenced her actions, in ways her friends would have never guessed.