Queer Places:
517 Broadway Ave, Jackson, MS 39216
Hotel Heidelberg, 131 E Capitol St, Jackson, MS 39201
Mount Carmel Cemetery
Silver Creek, Chautauqua County, New York, USA
John Raymond Murrett (April 19, 1926 - July 24, 1955), a Jackson interior decorator, was found dead in a room at Hotel Heidelberg on July 24, 1955. He was bound, gagged, beaten and left to die with a pillow case stuffed in his mouth. He died of suffocation, an autopsy later revealed. The gag in his mouth cut off th air, doctors decided, after a thorough examination, and he died because he couldn't breathe.
John Raymond Murrett was born in Silver Creek, NY, and lived at 517 Broadway, Jackson.
He was found by a maid at the Heidelberg Hotel. His body was lying face down on the floor, clad in shorts only, with his hands tied behind his back with a cord of a lamp. His feet were bound with his belt and a sheet was knotted tightly around his neck. A pillow slip had been stuffed into his mouth. Murrett, a big man six-feet-seven-inches tall and weighing close to 200 pounds, had been employed by Sid Jones, interior decorator, since February 1954. Chief of Detectives M. B. Pierce said Murrett was either dead or unconscious when bound and tied, since no signs of attempt to release himself were evident. Detectives John F. Sutherland and Paul H. Stribling said that Murrett checked into the hotel shortly after 2 a. m., bul did not go directly to his assigned room. He walked out onto Capitol street and returned a few minutes later, then going to his room, accompanied by two men. A physician summoned to the scene said that Murrett had been dead about six hours, indicating that the murder and robbery took place around 3 a. m. The victim's face was bruised and blue, showing that he had suffered a severe beating. However, the hotel room showed little signs of struggle and very little blood. His clothes were hanging neatly in a closet, and his empty pocket-book, along with keys and tie, lay on the dresser. Chief Pierce said he was known to have had a "reasonable amount" of money.
Investigations revealed that, on July 23, 1955, Murrett got off work at 6.00 pm and went to a small basement café, the Cellar. After that he went to the Mayflower Café on Capitol Street and after eating went to the Wagon Wheel. The owner Houston Barnett noticed Murrett first talking with three uniformed men and, after they left, he conversed with two men on leave from Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, with whom he got out. They first went to the elegant Walthall Hotel, but the price of the room was too high. They then took a room at the Hotel Heidelberg. Apparently 22 years old Lawrence Burns of Cincinnati and 17 years old Warren Koenig of Chicago, robbed Murrett after beating and gagging him. They left when Murrett was still alive, but he died by asphyxiation. Burns was condemned to life prison and Koenig to twenty years.
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