Today’s old Texas crime story is about a Texas icon from the 1940s, Mrs. Lucyle Richards, who was said to be the prettiest and best dressed cowgirl trick rider and bronco buster wherever she went.
Not only did she perform tricks while riding horses, but she also flew planes before, during, and after World War II. And Lucyle got married several times, but she didn’t act like there was anything wrong with multiple marriages, so her fans didn’t either, even though it was in an era that the number of times a lady would be married was ONE, unless they were widowed, and then, after a certain amount of time passed, they could consider remarriage.
Born Lucyle Garms in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, in 1909, to a Choctaw Indian mother and Irish father, her rodeo career began at thirteen and the awards for her horse riding flowed in like a spring breeze. Lucyle lived life on her terms until she met a fellow named Frank Y. Dew. She saw Frank for the first time on the dirt floor arena at the Houston Fat Stock Rodeo. It was the first year the rodeo was held at the Sam Houston Coliseum in 1937.
Crowds clamored to see Lucyle Richardson perform in the same way they hang over their phone and laptop screens these days to buy rodeo tickets to see their favorite singers perform at NRG Stadium. If there weren’t performers at rodeos, the crowds would be about a tenth of what they are now. Only a fraction of the people go to rodeos to see the rodeo stars riding and roping. The rest of the people who come are there for the performances and festivities. It was the same in 1937.
When she was in her late teens, Lucyle had learned how to fly and she was daring, which made her a trick flyer that people loved to see in various airshows. Lucyle had a small airplane which was the only real asset she had. But the trick flying also gave her a second income.
Frank Y. Dew
Now back to Frank Y. Dew … he was an accomplished rancher and quite wealthy, which made him attract to many women younger than he was. Actually, Frank wasn’t too bad to look at if you were a woman in your forties. He was heavyset, close to six feet tall, with thinning dark hair.
Frank wasn’t just a rancher. Now, he was always the boss, but Frank hired people to run the operations on his ranches. He couldn’t just waste away without a little fun, and he liked pretty dark-haired girls that gathered around men in cowboy hats at rodeo time. He liked the nightlife and parties, and the performances like Lucyle’s that paralleled the riding and roping. Frank was a rodeo official on the board of directors that oversaw rodeos in Texas in those days. (I honestly don’t know what board he was on, just that he was a rodeo official.) He also pushed his way into the rodeo promotions business, promoting his own entertainers for the rodeos held around Texas.
When he saw the dark-haired trick riding beauty, Lucyle Richards, he wanted her. He was smart enough not to suggest romance to her, but he asked her to work for him. She had plenty going on without Frank, so she declined. Besides, she had a feeling he was thinking about romance, and, after all, he was 44, and Lucyle was only 27. He followed her all the way back to Fort Worth where she lived to convince her to work for him. Finally, she said she would, and she came back to the Houston area, Fort Bend County, to be more accurate, to work at one of his ranches.
Lucyle Richards
Lucyle’s new boss had promised to pay her $200 a month, provide a place for her to live, and free boarding for her horse. In exchange, she performed at rodeos for him, usually riding bucking animals. She broke some of his horses and he had her doing ranch hand work. The $200 was the part that hooked her. That was a lot of money for Lucyle to see coming in steadily. Today, it would be about $4,600.
Within a year, they became intimate, and Frank Y. Dew said he wanted to marry her. There was just one problem. Lucyle was already married. She was separated from the man, but she was technically married when they met.
That bit of news infuriated Frank, and he said she must get divorced immediately. He practically pulled her cave man style to a lawyer and then to the courthouse to get that annulment accomplished.
It was finally done. After that, they spent a lot of their time in Houston. He had an apartment in River Oaks, the most exclusive part of Houston. She had a house on Montclair Drive he had put her in and kept up. After all the drama about her getting the divorce, Frank said they would get married after his mother, age 87, passed on. Lucyle wasn’t exactly in a rush to get married, but it irked her he made such a big deal about her getting a divorce and suddenly decided to wait.
Frank’s holdings were also in southeast Texas. That ranch stretched, at one point, 65 miles across Liberty and Chambers counties. He had a home there, as well. It was five miles outside of Devers, which is at the junction of U.S. Highway 90 and State Highway 61, thirty-two miles west of Beaumont in southeastern Liberty County.
The house in Devers was built out of unpainted rough wood with a large brick chimney, and it was said to be beautifully furnished.
The Dew ranch near Devers produced top quality cattle. To give you an idea of how well he maintained his herds, here’s a quick story. Besides other types of cattle, Frank raised a fine herd of Longhorns at the time when they were going extinct from being bred with other cattle. Longhorn cattle weren’t popular for commercial meat because they weren’t as beefy as other types of cattle; but they were strong and resistant to conditions in Texas. Cattlemen liked to cross them with a meatier breed like Hereford cattle, and the purebred Longhorn line was dwindling.
Longhorn Cattle
The federal government decided to purchase 30 head of the breed to transport to a sanctuary in Oklahoma where Longhorns would be protected while they multiplied.
There’s nothing more impressive than a strong herd of Longhorn cattle and the Dew Longhorn herd was in tremendous shape; they had bred carefully to see the best results.
An agent from the federal government had looked at thousands of head of cattle before purchasing the thirty. Sixteen Longhorns were purchased from Frank Dew in 1927. He was an expert on the breed, and we can thank Frank, in part, that the original Longhorn breed is still with us. Before that, they were on the path toward extinction.
Aside from that, I’m thinking he had less than a few desirable qualities if Lucyle is to be believed. It sounds like their relationship started to stink like an open sewer as the next year went by.
Frank was said to have pistol whipped Lucyle one night in the Ben Milam Hotel in Houston, and supposedly this took place in the presence of another man. That wasn’t the only time; Frank began abusing her.
Frank stopped paying her the full amount he had promised. He would give her a check for $200 and she had to give him $100 back. Gambling was illegal in Texas, yet Frank was running card games. It was Lucyle’s job to cash checks made out to her so Frank could make sure they had thousands of dollars on hand for the games.
He had become so mean that she left him. A friend named Donald Taft was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Lucyle made a joke about marrying him to get away from Frank; Taft said, “Let’s do it.” So they did. I’m not sure about the timing, but she was getting ready to leave town when Frank found out and beat her up. He said if she didn’t get that marriage annulled, he would kill her. So she created the petition for annulment and went to court.
Wedding rings and a judge’s gavel
I read just a little of this story about her relationship with Frank and thought, “Lucyle, why didn’t you leave him? You had an airplane; and you had skills!” But it’s difficult to change your situation when you’ve been loved-bombed by a rich and powerful man like Frank Y. Dew, and then abused, and brainwashed … so no judgment here.
Another thing Frank did was take out two insurance policies on Lucyle for a total of $15,000. If she died, he was the beneficiary. He told her that she was worth more dead than alive. (That would be like a $350,000 insurance policy today.)
Behind the scenes, Lucyle was applying to the Royal Canadian Air Force and was accepted to go there and teach pilots to fly. World War II was hot in Europe, and Lucyle was also trying to get into a program that would allow her to ferry planes from Canada or the U.S. to England. But she had no money of her own. Frank held the purse strings, so she had to leave with a plan that included income to support herself.
Part II
On April 23, 1941, Lucyle tried to have her marriage annulled, but she wasn’t able to do it on her own. The judge refused to grant it. She flew over to Galveston on April 27 (a Sunday) and lined up a lawyer to get her marriage to Taft annulled before Frank exploded.
Frank called her in the early evening and asked her about it. She said she wanted to come over and tell him all that happened. He said he was working on a cattle deal and to call him back in two hours. She did. She said she wanted to come over and tell him in person what she had done because he was getting angry while she tried to explain on the phone.
Wait! His anger tells me she doesn’t need to be around him! Don’t go, Lucyle!!
She put her little .25 pistol in her purse just like she always did when she was going somewhere—Frank wanted her to carry it for protection, and she went over to the posh apartments in River Oaks, which was only a short drive. Lucyle approached the back door which was kitchen entrance; it was usually unlocked. Lucyle is surprised to find that it had been latched. She knocked and Frank came out into the hall.
“Lucyle, go back home. I’m busy, but I’ll be over later.”
That’s an odd response, and Lucyle smelled a rat.
“Do you have someone here with you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Today, we might say, “And it was on like Donkey Kong…” or maybe that was in the 1990s we said that?
Anyhow, she popped off at him about how she would not allow him to treat her poorly any longer, and Frank shoved her and pushed her head into a post; he picked her up under her arms, shook her, then tossed her down the steps.
Lucyle grabbed her gun out of her purse and got on her feet. He cussed her and grabbed for the gun and was practically right on top of her. There was an explosive noise; Frank hit her again in the face, and Lucyle backed up and left, running toher car. She doesn’t know what happened to the gun; she thought she dropped it and that’s why she ran. Lucyle claimed she didn’t know he was shot.
Terrified, Lucyle ran home and put on her dressing gown.
Let’s pause a moment. You’ve gotta love all these glamorous things that women did back in the day … like put on dressing gowns! I was not even sure what a dressing gown is, so I looked it up. Here you go … “A 1940s dressing gown was a symbol of luxury and comfort. They were long, often full length, a garment to be worn indoors as a lounging robe or housecoat. They were typically tailored, sometimes had a belt, and often made from luxurious fabrics like silk or wool brocade.”
I don’t know about you, but I can think of several more comfortable lounge wear!
Meanwhile, back at Frank’s apartment, a woman named Grace Collins came out. Apparently, he had been seeing Grace on the side since he had about made Lucyle crazy. Grace pulled Frank into the apartment, and before he passed out, he said, “Lucyle shot me.”
Grace called for an ambulance. Frank died on the way to the hospital.
Within an hour and a half, A police detective, Capt. George Peyton came to Lucyle’s house and arrested her.
The Harris County Grand Jury met in three days, on April 30, 1941, and indicted Lucyle Richards.
She had no money, only her saddles, her plane, and that was it. Finally, a lawyer named Troy T. Stokes agreed to represent her. He got the judge to set bond so she could get out of jail. Bond was set at $10,000. That was too high to allow Lucyle’s family to post her bond.
Eventually, her lawyers got her bond down to $5,000 and Lucyle got out of jail.
In August, Lucyle and another trick rider friend named Bethel Kell were in Lucyle’s plane flying to Denver, where they would talk to a promoter about jobs they had heard about there. Near Jacksboro, a little community between Wichita Falls and Fort Worth, Lucyle saw smoke, and she knew the plane was on fire. She did all she could and then told Bethel to put on her safety belt.
“We’re going down!”
But Lucyle thought she could set the plane down safely, and without a too hard of a landing; there was a clearing up ahead, but she heard a horrible noise and the right wing ripped completely off. That’s all Lucyle remembered. Fortunately, she had slowed down and navigated them nearer the ground before losing control of the plane. They were alive but banged up badly. Lucyle’s face was cut up badly so that it would scar in three places; she was banged up all over, and both women had shattered bones in their ankles. Three months later, Lucyle’s lawyers tried to get a continuance for her for medical reasons when the trial came up in December. Lucyle was in no shape to go through a trial, but the judge wouldn’t do it. He was ready to get that woman tried and put away.
Jury selection started on December 1.
Lucyle took the stand in her own defense on December 3. She never wavered from her story of pulling the gun in self-defense. However, she also did not remember that she had ever had her finger on the trigger.
There was plenty of evidence against her.
The jury deliberated for 21 hours.
In the beginning, they took a vote and seven said not guilty, five said guilty. The next morning, it was six and six. They deliberated more and asked for pieces of testimony to be read back to them. They were at eleven and one.
Soon, the only holdout decided Lucyle was innocent and was not trying to kill Frank. She was trying to protect herself.
The verdict was in: Lucyle was a free woman.
Three days later, Pearl Harbor was bombed in Hawaii.
During World War II, Lucyle Richards joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) and ferried bombers between the United States and England. She was one of only four women instructors in the country in a special government training program, and she flew bombers over the Atlantic.
I’ll end with this comment on Lucyle’s marriages; she had around seven husbands in her life. They included rodeo stars, Oklahoma Curly Roberts and T. J. Richards.
It wasn’t because she was a romantic, according to Lucyle.
“I like to take chances,” she told the Fort Worth Star Telegram in the summer of 1938.
“That’s why I do what I do, riding vicious horses for a living. I’ve been riding the rodeo since 1929—from Texas to London and back. It’s been a good life, lots of fun, but it has not been without its struggles—five broken ribs, a fractured chest bone, and innumerable bruises. But I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
In 1960, Lucyle Richards retired at 51 years of age to become a policewoman in Yoakum, Texas.
Lucyle died on March 3, 1995, at age 86. In 1987, she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.
Note: If you liked this story, in source #6 below, is listed a website of an author who authored a book about Lucyle. I haven’t read it yet, but I intend to.
Sources
Unnamed Author, 12/24/24, , Wikipedia; Website; Pg. 1, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucyle_Richards; Date Collected: 4/10/25.
Unnamed Author, Undated, Lucyle Richard, National Cowgirl Hall of Fame; Website; Pg. 1, https://www.cowgirl.net/portfolios/lucyle-richards/; Date Collected: 4/10/25.
3, Special to The News, 12/3/1941, Other Woman’ Accuses Rodeo Beauty in Slaying, The Daily News; New York, New York; Pg. 4, https://www.newspapers.com/image/415129820/; Date Collected: 4/11/25.
4, Unnamed Author, Undated, Lucyle Richard, Find a Grave; Online; Pg. 1, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/275149395/lucyle-richards; Date Collected: 4/11/25.
5, Arnold Dibble, UP Staff Correspondent, 1/2/1941, Girl Bronco-busting Star Now Trains Fliers, Corpus Christi Caller-Times ; Corpus Christi, Texas; Pg. 7, https://www.newspapers.com/image/755143115/; Date Collected: 4/11/25.
6, Chris Enss, 45235, Along Came Cowgirl Lycyle Richards, Chris Enss (Author’s Website); Online; Pg. 1, https://chrisenss.com/along-came-cowgirl-lucycl-richards/; Date Collected: 4/12/25.
7, Unnamed Author, 4/28/1941, Cowgirl is Charged in Slaying of Frank Dew, Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Ft Worth, Texas; Pg. 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/636788160/; Date Collected: 4/12/25.
8, Unnamed Author, 4/28/1941, Woman Jailed in Death of Prominent Ranchman, Longview News; Longview, Texas; Pg. 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/170723926/; Date Collected: 4/12/25.