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MURDER OF DIAMOND BESSIE MOORE
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Diamond Bessie and Abe Rothschild registered at the Brooks Hotel under the name "A. Monroe & wife" on January 19, 1877. She was born "Annie Stone", the daughter of a shoe dealer in Syracuse, New York, where later in life she became a lady of the evening. Abe Rothschild was a distant cousin to European merchant bankers, and himself a Cincinnati jeweler. On a balmy afternoon of January 31, 1877, he strolled across the Big Cypress footbridge headed into the woods with Diamond Bessie Moore, picnic basket in hand to have a picnic.
February 5, 1877, during a winter snow and sleet storm, of Diamond Bessie's body was discovered with a gunshot wound in the temple. Maybe the sudden winter weather had helped preserve her body in its very natural state. After her body was found, Rothschild left for Cincinnati, Ohio, and attempted suicide. He was later arrested and tried for murder at his first trial. He was sentenced to be hung, but after seven years of appeals, a second trial was held and he was found to be not guilty. Rothschild then caught the very next train out of town and disappeared.
The citizens of Jefferson collected funds to bury Diamond Bessie and she was laid to rest in Oakwood Cemetery. Her grave is marked by a stone, kindly donated by Jeffersonian E. B. McDonald who explained, "I placed it there one night because it did not seem right for Diamond Bessie to sleep in an unmarked grave."
There is no obvious reason as to why the death date on Bessie's tombstone reads December 31, 1876 and the date of her murder was at least a month later. The headstone has also been painted white making it very difficult to photograph.
Oakwood Cemetery also has a Texas historical marker for John M. Vines, the lawman who brought Abe Rothschild from Cincinnati to Jefferson for trial. However Mr. Vines headstone was not found.
For another story on the Diamond Bessie story:
http://texaslegacy.homestead.com/AbeRothschild.html
This page is a part of the Marion County, TXGenWeb project and all of the information here is FREE for you to use:
The Marion County, TXGenWeb site
http://www.txgenweb4.org/txmarion/
