Virginia Viola Hyatt

Posted on July 31, 2010 by chris

http://myfamilytreeisfullofnuts.com/2010/07/virginia-viola-hyatt/


    Born February 3, 1929

    Died June 12, 2000

    Occupation: Alabama Ax Murderer.

Viola was Calhoun County, Alabama's most infamous resident.

Virginia Viola Hyatt, known by Viola, was from the White Plains, Alabama area more commonly known as 
Rabbittown. Her mother died when she was a young child and she was raised alone by her father, Martin 
Hyatt until he married her stepmother, Jessie Wheeler. Jessie was terrified of Viola. She died the 
day Viola was scheduled to be released from prison.

June 28,1959 Emmett and Lee Harper met their maker.

The death certificates states June 28th, 1959 as their death date. Other records state the 27th.

Emmett and Lee were tenants at the Hyatt home living in a small trailer in the back of the property. 
The story goes that they were sexually abusing her and physical abusing her father and argued over 
the use of their car.

She confessed to the authorities that she shot the men in the face with a double barreled shotgun as 
they stood in the doorway of their trailer. Then she stated that she hung the bodies up on the door 
of the shed and dismembered them with a double bladed ax. It was also told by Hyatt that she then 
took the parts of the bodies, loaded them up in the family car and headed to different counties in 
Alabama and threw the body parts out of the car windows as she drove.

Viola spent several months, possibly 5 or 6, at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama under mental 
observation. Then she pled guilty and served 10 years of a life sentence.

In prison she was a model prisoner. Gave them no trouble and was the seamstress for either the Warden's
 wife or Governor of Alabama wife. 

Question has always been on the minds of others as maybe she was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, 
if she had produced children and they died or were killed and fed to the hogs and if she actually 
committed the murders alone or had help by a family member and she took the blame. Whatever the reason
 or reasons this was a horrific crime and it still is alive and well in the minds of everyone that is 
still alive from that time.

I mentioned about the hogs on purpose. When I was a child the talk was she had a baby and it was fed 
to the hogs. I was fortunate enough to spend a good long time with the now owner of the Hyatt home 
in White Plains, Alabama. I told her the story I had always heard about Viola feeding a baby to the 
hogs. She told me that the story was very interesting to her that Viola had visited the home quite 
often before she died and she always talked a lot about the hog pen and they found that very 
interesting that she would be so interested in the hog pen area. You see Viola never talked about 
committing the murders after she was released and when she wanted to tell you something she talked 
'in circles.' She never would come out and say 'I did this' and 'I did that,' but she would talk about 
things that would lead you to know the story.

The day after this happened my grandfather took me to the scene. I do remember a lot of people there 
and the shed door where they were hung up and butchered up was bloody and had hair on it. I never will 
forget that scene. 

Forever etched in my mind.