Jacques Mossler was the head of a $33 million banking, loan and insurance empire with companies all over the country. He had gone to work at an early age to support his mother after his father died. He progressed from car mechanic to car salesman on to used-car dealer to new-car dealer to car financing.
In 1947, while divorcing by first wife, Mossler met Candace Weatherby Johnson, a busty and attractive 33-year old former model and mother of two from Georgia who was also getting a divorce. Mossler and Candy married the next year, moved to Houston in 1950 and made their home in a mansion in the top line River Oaks neighborhood. Candace Mossler quickly became a key figure in Houston high society, earning a reputation as a charming hostess, entertaining visiting celebrities and taking active part in civic, cultural and charitable causes.
In 1961, Candy Mossler took in Melvin Lane Powers, the son of her older sister, Elizabeth Weatherby Powers. Melvin was a brawny 20-year old who had blown in from Pontiac, Michigan where he had fallen in with a group of swindlers and had spent 90 days in jail for fraud. He was still on probation when he showed up in Houston directed by his mother, who hoped Candy’s wealth would help set her son straight. Candy talked Jacques into giving her nephew a job at one of Mossler’s financial firms and letting him live with the family.
In 1962 Jacques Mossler suffered a respiratory infection and traveled alone to Europe for treatment. He also began spending more time on Key Biscayne for the healthy ocean air. Back in Houston, Candy began to develop a very close relationship with her nephew. Before long, the pair crossed the line and became lovers. Candy and Mel’s relationship became an open secret around the house. Jacques learned of his wife’s incestuous affair after he was tipped off by a servant. This prompted him to read Candy’s diary which confirmed the charges.
Afterward, Jacques paid a visit to the Harris County DA to see about bringing criminal charges against Powers for breaking up his home. The authorities dissuaded him, warning of the potential for scandalous publicity. Jacques fired Powers from his job and booted him from the mansion then retreated to Europe. He eventually returned to the United States, but was too embarrassed to live in Houston, where rumors of the incest tittered through high society. He moved to a modest two-bedroom unit at the Governors Lodge apartment complex in Key Biscayne.
Though their relationship was strained, neither Jacques nor Candy made legal moves to separate or divorce. Each had financial motivation not to. According to the terms of a pre-nuptual they had signed, Candy would receive only $200,000 if she sued for divorce and Jacques knew she could get half of his fortune if he sought the divorce. The couple was locked in a legal and financial standoff.
Despite Mel’s exile from the mansion, he and Candy still got together in nightclubs and traveling to beach resorts and ski lodges. During these trips, Powers often introduced Candy as his wife or claimed she was a distant relation recovering from a bad marriage. With her financial backing, Powers started selling trailer homes just south of Houston in Webster. He took an apartment in Houston which served as a love nest for Aunt Candy’s visits.
In May 1964, Candy traveled to Key Biscayne with her daughter, Rita, and three of the four children she and Jacques had adopted, the fourth was in summer camp. No one knows the nature of the couple’s relationship in Key Biscayne, but soon after she arrived, Candy began experiencing migraine headaches. Three times she sought emergency treatment at a hospital. Each time she drove herself between 1 a.m. and dawn, taking the children with her and leaving Jacques home alone with his boxer dog.
On June 29 Candy loaded the children into the car at 1 a.m. Saying she had to mail some letters, she drove to the DuPont Plaza Hotel in Miami, where she bought stamps and posted several letters. She then went to the hospital for a migraine treatment. In her two hours there, Candy reportedly received three phone calls from the same man at the nurse’s station near the emergency room. The caller was not Jacques Mossler, a nurse would later say. Back on Key Biscayne, Jacques’ dog woke neighbors with ferocious barking at 1:30 a.m. This was followed by a series of thuds, muffled groans and a strange man’s voice. The noises were so troubling that three neighbors went to Mossler’s door to check on him. Their knock went unanswered and they gave up and went home. Candy and the children returned at 4:30 a.m., found Jacques’ dead body in the living room and called police.
On the scene, police described Candy as strangely unemotional. Jacques’ body was a bloody mess. He had 39 stab wounds in what police theorized was not an average murder but a vengeance killing with passion involved. With a seeming emotional or sexual connection between the attacker and victim, suspicion naturally fell on Candy and Mel. Cops also discovered that Jacques left a record of his wife’s affair in his own diary. One entry stated ominously of Candy and Mel, “If they don't kill me first, I'll have to kill them.”
On the day of Jacques Mossler’s funeral, Florida authorities issued a warrant charging Mel Powers with his murder. Texas Rangers picked Mel up that afternoon. The evidence was circumstantial but strong: Powers was in Miami the night of the murder; his fingerprints were found in Mossler's apartment on nearby Key Biscayne and in a car similar to one seen driven from the murder scene; bloodstains matching Mossler's blood were also found in that car. Also, "fairly fresh blood" was found on clothes Powers was wearing when he returned to Houston. But the blood could not be identified. It also seemed convenient that while Mossler was being killed, his wife happened to be out with the children in the middle of the night. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, contending the two had plotted Mossler's murder to get his fortune and continue a "torrid and incestuous love affair." Candy hired top-flight Houston defense attorneys Clyde Woody and Marian Rosen for her defense and Percy Foreman and William F. Walsh for Powers’. In a sick slab of irony, Candy paid the lawyers with jewels Jacques Mossler had given her. In essence, Jacques foot the bill for the defense of his own killers.
End of Part I
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Originally Posted by Taggerez
So glad....
