Introduction: In this article, James Pylant writes about an 1827 Vermont tragedy that is eerily connected to a 1980 Texas tragedy. James is an editor at GenealogyMagazine.com and author for JacobusBooks.com, is an award-winning historical true-crime writer, and authorized celebrity biographer.

The Vermont township of Elmore in Orleans County was home to 28 households totaling 164 people in 1820. Among the 14 residents “engaged in agriculture” was Josiah Warren, who had six children at home. The following year, Elmore was annexed to Washington County, where it remained until becoming a part of the newly created Lamoille County in 1836. “The surface is not very uneven, and the soil is of a middling quality,” wrote historians about Elmore, adding that much of it remained “an unbroken wilderness.”

In this quiet community, 19 miles from Montpelier, gunfire erupted one Wednesday morning when Josiah “literally blew his brains out,” as indelicately described by the Vermont Watchman and State Gazette.

The Vermont Watchman and Gazette added:

“He was seen at the moment, by a gentleman at a distance, but not in season to prevent the awful and fatal catastrophe. He left a wife and eight or ten children to feel, most keenly, the effects of that ‘mother of miseries,’ intemperance.”

Several eastern presses, including Boston and Baltimore, reprinted news of the suicide.

After Warren’s death, probate began.

On 22 October 1828, estate administrators accepted a claim by Sarah Warren, Josiah’s mother, for $100, predicated on an obligation he made during his lifetime to:

“provide & maintain his mother during his natural life which is said to have been verbal by furnishing yearly certain articles of subsistence and the privilege of room in his house.”

Online family trees (including WikiTree), which state Sarah died five years earlier on 30 January 1822, purport Josiah was the son of Josiah and Sarah Katherine (Pratt) Warren and a descendant of Mayflower passengers Richard Warren and John Billington. Mayflower Families Through Five Generations notes the elder Josiah was the son of Josiah (1724-1760) and Joanna (Spooner) Warren. (1)

In March 1827, the widowed Tirzah Warren was appointed guardian of four minors, all under 14, while two other orphan children, over 14, chose Jonathan Bridge as their guardian. Josiah’s wife, born Tirzah Smith in Woodstock, Connecticut, on 9 November 1788, remarried. Her grave marker states:

“Tirzah S. / Wife of / J. S. Warren, / & S. Stow / Died / Sept. 15, 1877, / age 88 yrs.”

Josiah Warren’s progeny persevered and stayed in the Green Mountain State. Generations would pass before another blood-splattered, newspaper-splashed tragedy occurred – but 1,700 miles away from idyllic Elmore, as you’ll learn at the end of this article.

Asa Warren, son of Josiah and Tirzah, was born on 3 July 1814. He married Louisa Phelps. In 1860, 45-year-old farmer Asa held $1,200 in real estate and $400 in personal estate, as indicated in the federal census. He and Louisa, 44, lived in Middlesex with four children. Louisa died in Middlesex on 25 May 1868. Her death record states she was born there to David and Esther Phelps. Asa remarried on 1 June 1869 in Middlesex to Belinda Rowell. He died at 74 of pneumonia in Middlesex on 14 May 1889.

Benjamin G. Warren, son of Asa and Louisa, was born on 30 April 1851. He married his stepsister, Sarah Rowell, on 1 January 1870 in Middlesex. The daughter of Harvey and Belinda (Story) Rowell, she was born on 19 November 1853. (2) Sarah’s mother had married Benjamin’s father, Asa, seven months earlier. In 1880, 70-year-old Asa – retired and palsied – and 50-year-old Belinda, a servant, lived with Benjamin and Sarah. After Asa’s death, Belinda continued to live with her daughter and son-in-law/stepson. Benjamin, a farmer, died at 54 of heart failure on 28 November 1905 in Middlesex. Sarah died on 18 April 1948.

Benjamin and Sarah’s graves have a double marker in Middlesex Center Cemetery, Middlesex, Vermont. Here is a picture of their shared gravestone, courtesy of David William Tucker, contributor 47410222, FindAGrave.com

Ola Grace Warren, daughter of Benjamin and Sarah, was born on 17 October 1889 in Middlesex, where she attended school and later married Fred L. Wheeler on 16 June 1907. The couple lived in Moretown from 1907 until relocating to Berlin in 1923. (3) The 1930 census listed the Wheelers, their nine children, and five other relatives living with them: Fred’s two brothers, his nephew, and Ola’s mother and sister. A Methodist, Ola once worked at the First National Store in Northfield. After a brief illness, she died at 86 in Berlin on 5 May 1976. (4)

Perley Walter Wheeler, son of Fred and Ola, was born on 20 November 1920 in Moretown, Vermont. During World War II, he served in the 10th Armored Division and the 21st Tank Battalion of the U.S. Army, receiving the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. He married Celeste DeLaigle, and they had two daughters. He died at 85 on 5 June 2006 in Augusta, Georgia.

Candace Lynn Wheeler, daughter of Perley and Celeste, was born on 15 November 1949 in Augusta, Georgia. (5) She married Pat Montgomery, and they had two children. Candy made national news when she confessed to the axe slaying of her friend, Betty Gore, following a confrontation in the Gore home in Wylie, Texas, in June 1980. The bizarre case was the subject of a book, a movie, and two miniseries, as well as my two-part GenealogyBank Blog article, “The Ultimate Soap Opera.”

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Note on the header image: Vermont state flag. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Related Articles:

• Ultimate Soap Opera: The Bizarre Case of Candy Montgomery (part 1)
• Ultimate Soap Opera: The Bizarre Case of Candy Montgomery (part 2)

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(1) “Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880,” online database with images, American Ancestors (www.americanancestors.org: accessed 19 June 2025), citing Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, Mass.: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015.
(2) “Mrs. Sarah Warren: Aged Resident was Ill Eight Years,” Barre [Vt.] Daily Times, 19 April 1948, p. 2.
(3) Mrs. Ola G. Wheeler obituary, Times Argus (Bare-Montpelier, Vt.), 6 May 1976, p. 14.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Candace L. Wheeler card (1962), “New York State, Passage and Crew Lists, 1919-1967,” online database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 23 June 2025).