Anna Mimms Farley had a hard life. That much was apparent to me when I started looking through records and old newspapers to see just who this scrappy little lady was. When she disappeared, she had a nice portfolio of rental properties and a great income; she had busted her fanny and sacrificed to have what she had. 

In fact, even at retirement age, Anna was still sacrificing. She lived in the most run down of her properties, the Reiger Inn, an old fashioned rooming house in old east Dallas.

But the thieves who stole from her wanted to live bigger than their paychecks. So they found a way to take hers. 

She became a mark for an unscrupulous Dallas lawyer named Leon Cordell Horton and his notary-crime partner, Ardis O’Dell Reed, because Horton and Reed preyed on people who were alone and isolated. Anna had no family. Her only child, a little boy, died a horrible death when he was two years old after ingesting a small amount of lye he found under a sink at his home in Dallas. It was the 1920s. They didn’t have the benefit of child-proofing tools and shared knowledge and experiences like we have now. Many babies died from similar events. 

Right after that, Anna and her husband separated, then they divorced. From that day forward, she always checked “Widowed” on the forms that asked if she was married, single, divorced, etc. She never admitted to having a divorce. Anna put herself through college, taught school, took care of her mother, and eventually became a real estate agent. 

When she was 67 years old, Anna vanished. And no one noticed except one of her tenants. 

Most of these are photos from the books I’m working on now. The one of the two boys in the gold frame are actually my great grandmother’s uncles; nonetheless, it it is a cool vintage Texas portrait. I couldn’t resist.

On Friday, November 21, 1969,  Robert Seanor dropped by to pay his rent and let her know her car door was standing open on her Ford Falcon station wagon when he came in from work. Robert shut it, but he wanted to warn her that her dome light had probably run down her car battery.

He was going to try and jump it off for her so she could drive it when she needed it again. But, “Mrs. Farley,” as she was known to everyone at The Reiger Inn, didn’t answer her door.

Robert came back two days later on Sunday, November 23 and knocked on her door. She was still gone. Mrs. Farley was always there to open her door and take the rent. He knocked several times and finally decided to see if her door was locked. She could be in there hurt or worse.

He turned the knob and the door opened; Robert went in. He called to her and hearing nothing, he walked through the shotgun-house layout of her apartment to see if she had fallen or was ill.

Robert was relieved that she wasn’t lying in her room deceased, and he didn’t want to find a naked lady fallen down in the bathroom. But he had lived there for over a year and he had never seen her leave for a night. Robert was about to exit the apartment and think about what to do next when he saw a brown paper sack from the Piggly Wiggly sitting on Anna’s little dinette table. The ice cream that had been in the sack was melted and was now a sticky mess on the table and floor.

Something had happened to Mrs. Farley; Robert Seanor was sure of it, now. He called the police and filed a missing persons report.

But not another soul noticed her absence. The police took the report and finally located her nephew who had not heard from her in years.

Remember Sophia (aka Estelle Getty) from the Golden Girls?

That’s who I think of when I look at Anna Farley’s picture. She’s tiny, almost birdlike. I just have one picture, an old driver license photo…that’s all that is left for us of Anna.

I found it in the archives of the Dallas Morning News. 

Her case went cold immediately, until a year and a half after she disappeared.

A fellow named Albert Bergeron was looking for a missing friend of his. The 79-year-old millionaire named Robert L. “Tex” Roberts and his companion had also vanished without a single clue, except the involvement of a lawyer named Leon Horton who now had the millionaire’s power of attorney.

It was April 1971 by then. Al Bergeron and Paul Chitwood, Tex Roberts’ real lawyer, did a little sleuthing in the county records. They found out that Tex, his female companion, Jessie Forsyth, and Anna Farley were all victims of Leon Horton and Ardis Reed.

It looked to them like Horton typed up documents necessary to steal from his victims. He crafted deeds, assignments of liens, powers of attorney, and anything else he needed to steal property, money, and stock accounts. Someone forged fake signatures on the documents, and Ardis Reed would then notarize the documents so Horton could have them recorded at the Dallas County Courthouse.

Soon, they would be in the same courthouse answering for their behavior. But, oh my, Horton was a drama queen.

People are something, aren’t they?  

Just so you know, this isn’t the only time I will write on my blog about Anna. There’s a lot to say about her, but not everyone is as obsessed about this case as I am. So I’ll try not to make this first article about her too long.

I have two more points to make–

Point 1 – after he was convicted on ten counts of fraud and forgery-related crimes in Amarillo, Leon told an acquaintance of his that he and Reed had caused Mrs. Farley’s disappearance.

Randolph Scott, Dallas lawyer who lived across the street from Horton issued a sworn statement to the court saying, “Leon Horton said he and Reed lured an old woman to the bus station and ‘set her up.’”

Scott said Horton was referring to Mrs. Farley and he told Scott it was probably for a hit by a hired killer.

Point 2 – I don’t think there was a hired killer. More to come on that at a later date.

I think it is quite possible that Reed and Horton caused Mrs. Farley’s demise. Actually, I am pretty sure of it, but since they were not convicted of that specifically, I will say I am “alleging” it so I can stay out of trouble.

There’s so much more to say about Anna’s disappearance and I’ll discuss that next time. 

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Progress report

I’m still editing the book Declared Dead in Dallas County and about to finish my other one, Unlikely Victims.  You might wonder why I would not do that rather than writing blog articles, making social media accounts, posting, and so forth.

Well…I’m so glad you asked that!

I’m self-publishing my books. Unless you are Stephen King or another heavy hitter, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many other writers, an author is better off these days using platforms like Amazon, their own websites, and social media to get their books out. There are tons of ways to market books. I prefer to try that route first. If you get involved with a publisher, there is a lot of fine print you must know.

Many times, traditional publishers will pick up a new author’s books, pay them a pittance for the rights, but never publish them. I didn’t expect to get rich as a writer. I will be excited if anyone reads my books! I just wanted to tell the stories I am interested in.

As a teenager, I always read the articles written by Marie Beth Jones in my hometown newspaper. She wrote with a passion about the history of the place where I grew up. I have most of her books and I never tire of reading her stories. I loved what she wrote when many people would thing it was dull. She wrote to share her knowledge and leave it for posterity. It was a passion for her. I may be more obsessed than passionate, but I love my stories. They stay with me all the time. (Writers are weird.)

Some of my besties like to hear about the crimes and people I am writing about, but there are a number of my friends whose eyes glaze over. I can tell they are not interested if I mention a historical crime story or character. I’ve learned to reel it back in. It’s a niche. Either you’re interested or you aren’t–I understand that.

I’m fairly sensitive to social cues and don’t want to bore a table full of friends at dinner.

Writing stories is one way to find the clan that likes what I like. If you don’t put your book “out there,” no one will know about it. A self-published author needs to have a place to talk about her books! All the successful self-published authors say to “warm up” your social media pages and blog before you actually publish the book. 

Carpe diem!

best, bk smith