CUTLER ~ Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington, died at 12:30 a.m. Saturday at 1202 Utah. He had lived in Houston for 20 years and was born in Waco. Survivors include his mother, Mrs. O. C. Cutler; two brothers, C. J. and D. F. Cutler, all of Houston; two sisters, Mrs. W. W. Clancy of Houston, and Mrs. N. C. Carter of Beaumont; three nieces, Betty Joyce Carter, Patsy Lee Carter and Bertha Mae Baker all of Houston; and grandparents. Services at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Heights Funeral Home., with Rev. T. C. Jester officiating. Burial in Hollywood Cemetery. Pallbearers,: C. C. Carter, Shannon Bothwell, Herman Moos, Fred Smith George McMichael and Johnnie Henderson. Heights Funeral Home directing.
Father: Benjamin Franklin Cutler
Mother: Olive Catherine Rogers
Marriage to Eula Orelia Shuffield
15 July 1934 Harris County, Texas
Son: Delton Lloyd Cutler
Divorced and then Remarried
30 Nov 1938 Harris County, Texas
B.O.V.S. CD# 17822
COD: Gunshot Wounds / Justifiable Homicide
Texas Dept. of Corrections Convict # 92652
Convicted: 9 Oct 1939, Harris Co., TX
Charge: Embezzlement
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= = = =
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Houston Chronicle, 27 Apr 1946, p. 7
Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington died at 12:30 a.m. Saturday at 1202 Utah. He had lived in Houston for 20 years and was born in Waco.
Survivors include his mother, Mrs. O. C. Cutler; two brothers, C. J. and D. F. Cutler, all of Houston; two sisters, Mrs. W. W. Clancy of Houston and Mrs. N. C. Carter of Beaumont, and grandparents.
Services at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Heights Funeral Home, with Rev. T. C. Jester officiating.
Burial place will be announced.
Heights Funeral Home.
= = = = =
The Houston Press, Sat., 27 Apr 1946, p. 1, c. 1-7 & p. 6, 1-5
Two Die in Gun Duel Over Wife
By Walter Mansell and Howard Stevens
Press Staff Writers
Two men were shot to death early Saturday in a gunfight between a Houston veteran and the violently jealous former husband of the veteran's wife.
The shooting occurred in the veteran's bungalow, where the former husband, an ex-convict, lay in wait for his successful rival in love, and his former wife. The wife hid in the bathroom while the gun duel took place a short distance away.
The dead men were Arnold Winkelman, 31, of 1202 Utah, who was in the Navy for three years, discharged last October, and Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington, a convict out on an extended reprieve.
Cutler shot five times, hitting his foe with each shot. The former sailor fired three times, each of his shots also thudding into the body of his assailant.
Cutler was in the living room of the home when the Winkelmans came home shortly after midnight. Mr. Winkelman heard a noise in the room, grabbed his .32 Spanish type pistol and started toward the room from which the noise came.
As he looked around the door leading into the living room, police said, Butler shot once, hitting Mr. Winkelman in the pit of the stomach.
A roar of shots then aroused the neighborhood as the two men shot at each other. Apparently, the wounded Mr. Winkelman shot after he fell to the floor. He hit Cutler three times.
"Then I heard Arnold call out, I've been shot. Call an ambulance." She related.
She ran into the living room, found the men on the floor, blood streaming from wounds in each.
Cutler was shot in the neck, in the groin and in the left arm at the elbow. Mr. Winkelman was wounded in the pit of the stomach, in the groin, in the right thigh, in the abdomen and in the side of the right leg. Several of the bullets passed completely through the men to hit walls and windows.
Another Loaded Clip
Cutler's automatic had three unexploded shells in it and in his pocket was another fully loaded clip.
Mr. Winkelman's pistol had three discharged shells in it. By him lay another bullet which he apparently had ready to jam into his gun for another shot.
Cutler as he was dying in a pool of blood in the middle of the room shot one more time, fatally wounding the ex-sailor with a shot in the groin. The ex-convict's gun was a .45 calibre pistol.
Started in 1934
Events leading up to the tragedy started in 1934 when the present Mrs. Orelia Winkelman was 14 and was married to Cutler, 18 at the time.
Then in 1939, Cutler was convicted of charges of assault and felony embezzlement and given two five-year terms to run concurrently.
While he was in the penitentiary his wife obtained a divorce and married Mr. Winkelman in 1940.
In 1942, Mr. Winkelman joined the Navy, serving for three years, part of that time in the Pacific where he had one ship sink from under him.
While Mr. Winkelman was abroad, Mr. Cutler was given a year's reprieve from prison, in 1943 - and the reprieve later was extended.
Had "Lived in Fear"
Mrs. Winkelman told police that since he was reprieved Cutler had been molesting and threatening her. She told of her turbulent marriages and how lately she had lived in fear of her former husband.
"He has been interfering with my married life ever since then," Mrs. Winkelman said. "He tried to get me to get a divorce and remarry him."
"When I wouldn't do it he said he would kill me."
Husband, Former Mate Die in Gun Fight Over Woman
Early in December last year, he came to Jefferson Davis Hospital (where Mrs. Winkelman is a switchboard operator) and again told me that; "I'll kill you if you don't marry me again."
Fined $5 for Displaying Pistol
"Arnold then filed charges against Frank - but all Frank got was a $5 fine for displaying a pistol."
Then Mrs. Winkelman shuddered, paused briefly and swung into the events of the fatal night.
"Last night Arnold and I went to my mother's home at 1412 Summers," she said. "Arnold was helping mother repaint and repaper the house."
"We left shortly after midnight and I parked the car in the driveway and we went to the house by the back way."
Room Torn Up
"We walked through the kitchen to the front bedroom where I saw that the room was torn up and apparently somebody had been lying on the bed."
"Just then, we heard a noise in the living room and Arnold snatched up his pistol. I turned off the bedroom light and ran into the bathroom."
It was almost immediately that the roar of the guns terrified her.
As police re-enacted the scene, Cutler shot first as Mr. Winkelman appeared in the doorway of the living room. The latter fell to the floor, then started blasting back.
Bullet Holes in Wall
Bullet holes were found in each side of the wall by the doorway. Cutler, shot three times and mortally wounded started to drag himself toward the front door. He paused, however, to fire once more, the bullet hitting his enemy in the groin. Mr. Winkelman, also fatally wounded, crept toward his foe.
Mr. Winkelman's brother, Alfred F. Winkelman, who lived next door, ran to the bungalow. He found Cutler dead in the middle of the living room and his brother, twice wounded, lying in the doorway.
Mr. Winkelman was taken to Heights Hospital, where he died a short time later.
Police found in Cutler's pocket a number of snapshots of his former wife, and members of the Winkelman family.
Cutler apparently had been in the house for some time. He had helped himself to a package of cigarettes, and numerous cigarettes, half-smoked, were found in an ashtray by the divan.
Police records show he was arrested in 1935 on a charge of trying to kill his wife but the charge was later dropped.
Detectives L. L. Watts and W. P. Brown related Mrs. Winkelman after obtaining her statement about the tragedy.
Funeral arrangements for Mr. Winkelman will be announced by Fogle-West Funeral Home. Those for Cutler are in charge of the Heights Funeral Home.
Photo - Caption: Mrs. Orelia Winkelman . . . for love of her two men died.
Photo - Caption: Frank Cutler . . . his jealous rage brought tragedy.
Photo - Caption: Arnold Winkelman (in sailor's uniform) . . . killed by wife's former husband.
= = = = =
Bungalow Where Two Were Killed Peaceful in Aftermath of Death
By Martha Word
Press Staff Writer
The little white frame bungalow at 1202 Utah looked, Saturday morning, like any little cottage where the lady of the house was about to start her weekend house-cleaning.
In the dining room, the sewing machine was open, a pink summer dress, half-finished, tossed over it.
In the kitchen, a cup of coffee was on the table, with cream and sugar beside it; and in the skink, dishes were stacked in the dishpan.
Only the smoke-rimmed bullet holes in the white woodwork and stains of blood showed that in this little house death struck twice early Saturday morning, as two men shot each other down in semi-darkness.
Albert Winkelman, next-door neighbor and brother of one of the victims, Arnold Winkelman, reconstructed the double murder from the silent evidence of the house.
His brother and sister-in-law, Mrs. Orelia Winkelman, left the house Friday night after dinner, to visit her mother.
In the absence, Frank Cutler, ex-convict and former husband of Mrs. Winkelman, entered the house, apparently through the front door, and sat down on the living room divan.
He had been there some time - the ashtray on the coffee table was full of half-smoked cigarettes, Camels, which apparently came from a carton on the sewing machine.
Cutler did something else, for a reason, which will probably never be known. Ignoring the large studio portraits of his ex-wife and Winkelman on the walls and tables of the living room, he went to the bedroom and filled his pockets with a miscellaneous collection of family snap-shots.
Police, a short time later, removed from his pockets this stack of pictures of Winkelman, the Winkelman brothers, cousins, and friends.
By the time the Winkelman's returned, entering the house through the back door, Cutler was perhaps asleep in the living room. Certainly, he made no sound until after the Winkelmans had reached their bedroom and were preparing to retire.
Shots Fired
Then Winkelman heard a sound - possibly a man's step, possibly the faint scraping of the table as Cutler left the divan - and seizing a .32 caliber pistol, went into the dining room.
There he fell, fatally wounded by a shot, which ripped through the doorframe, struck him in the groin and emerged to bury itself in the wall behind him.
The quiet street echoed with gunfire for several minutes - nine shots were fired as the two men shot at each other, and when it was over, Cutler lay dead on his back by the coffee table. Winkelman, who died a short time later on the way to a hospital, lay next to him.
Mrs. Winkelman, who had cowered, terrorized, in the bathroom while the two men killed each other in the next room, came out to find the bodies of her husband and ex-husband lying side by side under the framed marriage certificate of Arnold Winkelman and Orelia Sheffield. "This day of August 24, 1940, in the Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church."
Photo - Caption: Where Two Shot it Out - The five-room bungalow at 1202 Utah, a quiet, shady little street, where two men met death early Saturday. The home, a modest cottage is typical of the houses surrounding it.
Photo - Caption: No Thought of Tragedy - Arnold Winkelman and his wife, Orelia, before tragedy struck them. Together in an armchair in the living room of their home when the picture was taken, they had no thought of the tragedy awaiting them.
Photo - Diagram of House - Caption: An artist's sketch of events in the death cottage at 1202 Utah - Fatally wounded Arnold Winkelman fell in the dining room at right top, dragged himself near the body of his enemy, Frank Cutler, who fell in the living room at lower left. Mrs. Winkelman was cringing in the bathroom at the right.
.
Father: Benjamin Franklin Cutler
Mother: Olive Catherine Rogers
Marriage to Eula Orelia Shuffield
15 July 1934 Harris County, Texas
Son: Delton Lloyd Cutler
Divorced and then Remarried
30 Nov 1938 Harris County, Texas
B.O.V.S. CD# 17822
COD: Gunshot Wounds / Justifiable Homicide
Texas Dept. of Corrections Convict # 92652
Convicted: 9 Oct 1939, Harris Co., TX
Charge: Embezzlement
.
= = = =
.
Houston Chronicle, 27 Apr 1946, p. 7
Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington died at 12:30 a.m. Saturday at 1202 Utah. He had lived in Houston for 20 years and was born in Waco.
Survivors include his mother, Mrs. O. C. Cutler; two brothers, C. J. and D. F. Cutler, all of Houston; two sisters, Mrs. W. W. Clancy of Houston and Mrs. N. C. Carter of Beaumont, and grandparents.
Services at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Heights Funeral Home, with Rev. T. C. Jester officiating.
Burial place will be announced.
Heights Funeral Home.
= = = = =
The Houston Press, Sat., 27 Apr 1946, p. 1, c. 1-7 & p. 6, 1-5
Two Die in Gun Duel Over Wife
By Walter Mansell and Howard Stevens
Press Staff Writers
Two men were shot to death early Saturday in a gunfight between a Houston veteran and the violently jealous former husband of the veteran's wife.
The shooting occurred in the veteran's bungalow, where the former husband, an ex-convict, lay in wait for his successful rival in love, and his former wife. The wife hid in the bathroom while the gun duel took place a short distance away.
The dead men were Arnold Winkelman, 31, of 1202 Utah, who was in the Navy for three years, discharged last October, and Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington, a convict out on an extended reprieve.
Cutler shot five times, hitting his foe with each shot. The former sailor fired three times, each of his shots also thudding into the body of his assailant.
Cutler was in the living room of the home when the Winkelmans came home shortly after midnight. Mr. Winkelman heard a noise in the room, grabbed his .32 Spanish type pistol and started toward the room from which the noise came.
As he looked around the door leading into the living room, police said, Butler shot once, hitting Mr. Winkelman in the pit of the stomach.
A roar of shots then aroused the neighborhood as the two men shot at each other. Apparently, the wounded Mr. Winkelman shot after he fell to the floor. He hit Cutler three times.
"Then I heard Arnold call out, I've been shot. Call an ambulance." She related.
She ran into the living room, found the men on the floor, blood streaming from wounds in each.
Cutler was shot in the neck, in the groin and in the left arm at the elbow. Mr. Winkelman was wounded in the pit of the stomach, in the groin, in the right thigh, in the abdomen and in the side of the right leg. Several of the bullets passed completely through the men to hit walls and windows.
Another Loaded Clip
Cutler's automatic had three unexploded shells in it and in his pocket was another fully loaded clip.
Mr. Winkelman's pistol had three discharged shells in it. By him lay another bullet which he apparently had ready to jam into his gun for another shot.
Cutler as he was dying in a pool of blood in the middle of the room shot one more time, fatally wounding the ex-sailor with a shot in the groin. The ex-convict's gun was a .45 calibre pistol.
Started in 1934
Events leading up to the tragedy started in 1934 when the present Mrs. Orelia Winkelman was 14 and was married to Cutler, 18 at the time.
Then in 1939, Cutler was convicted of charges of assault and felony embezzlement and given two five-year terms to run concurrently.
While he was in the penitentiary his wife obtained a divorce and married Mr. Winkelman in 1940.
In 1942, Mr. Winkelman joined the Navy, serving for three years, part of that time in the Pacific where he had one ship sink from under him.
While Mr. Winkelman was abroad, Mr. Cutler was given a year's reprieve from prison, in 1943 - and the reprieve later was extended.
Had "Lived in Fear"
Mrs. Winkelman told police that since he was reprieved Cutler had been molesting and threatening her. She told of her turbulent marriages and how lately she had lived in fear of her former husband.
"He has been interfering with my married life ever since then," Mrs. Winkelman said. "He tried to get me to get a divorce and remarry him."
"When I wouldn't do it he said he would kill me."
Husband, Former Mate Die in Gun Fight Over Woman
Early in December last year, he came to Jefferson Davis Hospital (where Mrs. Winkelman is a switchboard operator) and again told me that; "I'll kill you if you don't marry me again."
Fined $5 for Displaying Pistol
"Arnold then filed charges against Frank - but all Frank got was a $5 fine for displaying a pistol."
Then Mrs. Winkelman shuddered, paused briefly and swung into the events of the fatal night.
"Last night Arnold and I went to my mother's home at 1412 Summers," she said. "Arnold was helping mother repaint and repaper the house."
"We left shortly after midnight and I parked the car in the driveway and we went to the house by the back way."
Room Torn Up
"We walked through the kitchen to the front bedroom where I saw that the room was torn up and apparently somebody had been lying on the bed."
"Just then, we heard a noise in the living room and Arnold snatched up his pistol. I turned off the bedroom light and ran into the bathroom."
It was almost immediately that the roar of the guns terrified her.
As police re-enacted the scene, Cutler shot first as Mr. Winkelman appeared in the doorway of the living room. The latter fell to the floor, then started blasting back.
Bullet Holes in Wall
Bullet holes were found in each side of the wall by the doorway. Cutler, shot three times and mortally wounded started to drag himself toward the front door. He paused, however, to fire once more, the bullet hitting his enemy in the groin. Mr. Winkelman, also fatally wounded, crept toward his foe.
Mr. Winkelman's brother, Alfred F. Winkelman, who lived next door, ran to the bungalow. He found Cutler dead in the middle of the living room and his brother, twice wounded, lying in the doorway.
Mr. Winkelman was taken to Heights Hospital, where he died a short time later.
Police found in Cutler's pocket a number of snapshots of his former wife, and members of the Winkelman family.
Cutler apparently had been in the house for some time. He had helped himself to a package of cigarettes, and numerous cigarettes, half-smoked, were found in an ashtray by the divan.
Police records show he was arrested in 1935 on a charge of trying to kill his wife but the charge was later dropped.
Detectives L. L. Watts and W. P. Brown related Mrs. Winkelman after obtaining her statement about the tragedy.
Funeral arrangements for Mr. Winkelman will be announced by Fogle-West Funeral Home. Those for Cutler are in charge of the Heights Funeral Home.
Photo - Caption: Mrs. Orelia Winkelman . . . for love of her two men died.
Photo - Caption: Frank Cutler . . . his jealous rage brought tragedy.
Photo - Caption: Arnold Winkelman (in sailor's uniform) . . . killed by wife's former husband.
= = = = =
Bungalow Where Two Were Killed Peaceful in Aftermath of Death
By Martha Word
Press Staff Writer
The little white frame bungalow at 1202 Utah looked, Saturday morning, like any little cottage where the lady of the house was about to start her weekend house-cleaning.
In the dining room, the sewing machine was open, a pink summer dress, half-finished, tossed over it.
In the kitchen, a cup of coffee was on the table, with cream and sugar beside it; and in the skink, dishes were stacked in the dishpan.
Only the smoke-rimmed bullet holes in the white woodwork and stains of blood showed that in this little house death struck twice early Saturday morning, as two men shot each other down in semi-darkness.
Albert Winkelman, next-door neighbor and brother of one of the victims, Arnold Winkelman, reconstructed the double murder from the silent evidence of the house.
His brother and sister-in-law, Mrs. Orelia Winkelman, left the house Friday night after dinner, to visit her mother.
In the absence, Frank Cutler, ex-convict and former husband of Mrs. Winkelman, entered the house, apparently through the front door, and sat down on the living room divan.
He had been there some time - the ashtray on the coffee table was full of half-smoked cigarettes, Camels, which apparently came from a carton on the sewing machine.
Cutler did something else, for a reason, which will probably never be known. Ignoring the large studio portraits of his ex-wife and Winkelman on the walls and tables of the living room, he went to the bedroom and filled his pockets with a miscellaneous collection of family snap-shots.
Police, a short time later, removed from his pockets this stack of pictures of Winkelman, the Winkelman brothers, cousins, and friends.
By the time the Winkelman's returned, entering the house through the back door, Cutler was perhaps asleep in the living room. Certainly, he made no sound until after the Winkelmans had reached their bedroom and were preparing to retire.
Shots Fired
Then Winkelman heard a sound - possibly a man's step, possibly the faint scraping of the table as Cutler left the divan - and seizing a .32 caliber pistol, went into the dining room.
There he fell, fatally wounded by a shot, which ripped through the doorframe, struck him in the groin and emerged to bury itself in the wall behind him.
The quiet street echoed with gunfire for several minutes - nine shots were fired as the two men shot at each other, and when it was over, Cutler lay dead on his back by the coffee table. Winkelman, who died a short time later on the way to a hospital, lay next to him.
Mrs. Winkelman, who had cowered, terrorized, in the bathroom while the two men killed each other in the next room, came out to find the bodies of her husband and ex-husband lying side by side under the framed marriage certificate of Arnold Winkelman and Orelia Sheffield. "This day of August 24, 1940, in the Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church."
Photo - Caption: Where Two Shot it Out - The five-room bungalow at 1202 Utah, a quiet, shady little street, where two men met death early Saturday. The home, a modest cottage is typical of the houses surrounding it.
Photo - Caption: No Thought of Tragedy - Arnold Winkelman and his wife, Orelia, before tragedy struck them. Together in an armchair in the living room of their home when the picture was taken, they had no thought of the tragedy awaiting them.
Photo - Diagram of House - Caption: An artist's sketch of events in the death cottage at 1202 Utah - Fatally wounded Arnold Winkelman fell in the dining room at right top, dragged himself near the body of his enemy, Frank Cutler, who fell in the living room at lower left. Mrs. Winkelman was cringing in the bathroom at the right.
.
CUTLER ~ Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington, died at 12:30 a.m. Saturday at 1202 Utah. He had lived in Houston for 20 years and was born in Waco. Survivors include his mother, Mrs. O. C. Cutler; two brothers, C. J. and D. F. Cutler, all of Houston; two sisters, Mrs. W. W. Clancy of Houston, and Mrs. N. C. Carter of Beaumont; three nieces, Betty Joyce Carter, Patsy Lee Carter and Bertha Mae Baker all of Houston; and grandparents. Services at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Heights Funeral Home., with Rev. T. C. Jester officiating. Burial in Hollywood Cemetery. Pallbearers,: C. C. Carter, Shannon Bothwell, Herman Moos, Fred Smith George McMichael and Johnnie Henderson. Heights Funeral Home directing.
Father: Benjamin Franklin Cutler
Mother: Olive Catherine Rogers
Marriage to Eula Orelia Shuffield
15 July 1934 Harris County, Texas
Son: Delton Lloyd Cutler
Divorced and then Remarried
30 Nov 1938 Harris County, Texas
B.O.V.S. CD# 17822
COD: Gunshot Wounds / Justifiable Homicide
Texas Dept. of Corrections Convict # 92652
Convicted: 9 Oct 1939, Harris Co., TX
Charge: Embezzlement
.
= = = =
.
Houston Chronicle, 27 Apr 1946, p. 7
Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington died at 12:30 a.m. Saturday at 1202 Utah. He had lived in Houston for 20 years and was born in Waco.
Survivors include his mother, Mrs. O. C. Cutler; two brothers, C. J. and D. F. Cutler, all of Houston; two sisters, Mrs. W. W. Clancy of Houston and Mrs. N. C. Carter of Beaumont, and grandparents.
Services at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Heights Funeral Home, with Rev. T. C. Jester officiating.
Burial place will be announced.
Heights Funeral Home.
= = = = =
The Houston Press, Sat., 27 Apr 1946, p. 1, c. 1-7 & p. 6, 1-5
Two Die in Gun Duel Over Wife
By Walter Mansell and Howard Stevens
Press Staff Writers
Two men were shot to death early Saturday in a gunfight between a Houston veteran and the violently jealous former husband of the veteran's wife.
The shooting occurred in the veteran's bungalow, where the former husband, an ex-convict, lay in wait for his successful rival in love, and his former wife. The wife hid in the bathroom while the gun duel took place a short distance away.
The dead men were Arnold Winkelman, 31, of 1202 Utah, who was in the Navy for three years, discharged last October, and Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington, a convict out on an extended reprieve.
Cutler shot five times, hitting his foe with each shot. The former sailor fired three times, each of his shots also thudding into the body of his assailant.
Cutler was in the living room of the home when the Winkelmans came home shortly after midnight. Mr. Winkelman heard a noise in the room, grabbed his .32 Spanish type pistol and started toward the room from which the noise came.
As he looked around the door leading into the living room, police said, Butler shot once, hitting Mr. Winkelman in the pit of the stomach.
A roar of shots then aroused the neighborhood as the two men shot at each other. Apparently, the wounded Mr. Winkelman shot after he fell to the floor. He hit Cutler three times.
"Then I heard Arnold call out, I've been shot. Call an ambulance." She related.
She ran into the living room, found the men on the floor, blood streaming from wounds in each.
Cutler was shot in the neck, in the groin and in the left arm at the elbow. Mr. Winkelman was wounded in the pit of the stomach, in the groin, in the right thigh, in the abdomen and in the side of the right leg. Several of the bullets passed completely through the men to hit walls and windows.
Another Loaded Clip
Cutler's automatic had three unexploded shells in it and in his pocket was another fully loaded clip.
Mr. Winkelman's pistol had three discharged shells in it. By him lay another bullet which he apparently had ready to jam into his gun for another shot.
Cutler as he was dying in a pool of blood in the middle of the room shot one more time, fatally wounding the ex-sailor with a shot in the groin. The ex-convict's gun was a .45 calibre pistol.
Started in 1934
Events leading up to the tragedy started in 1934 when the present Mrs. Orelia Winkelman was 14 and was married to Cutler, 18 at the time.
Then in 1939, Cutler was convicted of charges of assault and felony embezzlement and given two five-year terms to run concurrently.
While he was in the penitentiary his wife obtained a divorce and married Mr. Winkelman in 1940.
In 1942, Mr. Winkelman joined the Navy, serving for three years, part of that time in the Pacific where he had one ship sink from under him.
While Mr. Winkelman was abroad, Mr. Cutler was given a year's reprieve from prison, in 1943 - and the reprieve later was extended.
Had "Lived in Fear"
Mrs. Winkelman told police that since he was reprieved Cutler had been molesting and threatening her. She told of her turbulent marriages and how lately she had lived in fear of her former husband.
"He has been interfering with my married life ever since then," Mrs. Winkelman said. "He tried to get me to get a divorce and remarry him."
"When I wouldn't do it he said he would kill me."
Husband, Former Mate Die in Gun Fight Over Woman
Early in December last year, he came to Jefferson Davis Hospital (where Mrs. Winkelman is a switchboard operator) and again told me that; "I'll kill you if you don't marry me again."
Fined $5 for Displaying Pistol
"Arnold then filed charges against Frank - but all Frank got was a $5 fine for displaying a pistol."
Then Mrs. Winkelman shuddered, paused briefly and swung into the events of the fatal night.
"Last night Arnold and I went to my mother's home at 1412 Summers," she said. "Arnold was helping mother repaint and repaper the house."
"We left shortly after midnight and I parked the car in the driveway and we went to the house by the back way."
Room Torn Up
"We walked through the kitchen to the front bedroom where I saw that the room was torn up and apparently somebody had been lying on the bed."
"Just then, we heard a noise in the living room and Arnold snatched up his pistol. I turned off the bedroom light and ran into the bathroom."
It was almost immediately that the roar of the guns terrified her.
As police re-enacted the scene, Cutler shot first as Mr. Winkelman appeared in the doorway of the living room. The latter fell to the floor, then started blasting back.
Bullet Holes in Wall
Bullet holes were found in each side of the wall by the doorway. Cutler, shot three times and mortally wounded started to drag himself toward the front door. He paused, however, to fire once more, the bullet hitting his enemy in the groin. Mr. Winkelman, also fatally wounded, crept toward his foe.
Mr. Winkelman's brother, Alfred F. Winkelman, who lived next door, ran to the bungalow. He found Cutler dead in the middle of the living room and his brother, twice wounded, lying in the doorway.
Mr. Winkelman was taken to Heights Hospital, where he died a short time later.
Police found in Cutler's pocket a number of snapshots of his former wife, and members of the Winkelman family.
Cutler apparently had been in the house for some time. He had helped himself to a package of cigarettes, and numerous cigarettes, half-smoked, were found in an ashtray by the divan.
Police records show he was arrested in 1935 on a charge of trying to kill his wife but the charge was later dropped.
Detectives L. L. Watts and W. P. Brown related Mrs. Winkelman after obtaining her statement about the tragedy.
Funeral arrangements for Mr. Winkelman will be announced by Fogle-West Funeral Home. Those for Cutler are in charge of the Heights Funeral Home.
Photo - Caption: Mrs. Orelia Winkelman . . . for love of her two men died.
Photo - Caption: Frank Cutler . . . his jealous rage brought tragedy.
Photo - Caption: Arnold Winkelman (in sailor's uniform) . . . killed by wife's former husband.
= = = = =
Bungalow Where Two Were Killed Peaceful in Aftermath of Death
By Martha Word
Press Staff Writer
The little white frame bungalow at 1202 Utah looked, Saturday morning, like any little cottage where the lady of the house was about to start her weekend house-cleaning.
In the dining room, the sewing machine was open, a pink summer dress, half-finished, tossed over it.
In the kitchen, a cup of coffee was on the table, with cream and sugar beside it; and in the skink, dishes were stacked in the dishpan.
Only the smoke-rimmed bullet holes in the white woodwork and stains of blood showed that in this little house death struck twice early Saturday morning, as two men shot each other down in semi-darkness.
Albert Winkelman, next-door neighbor and brother of one of the victims, Arnold Winkelman, reconstructed the double murder from the silent evidence of the house.
His brother and sister-in-law, Mrs. Orelia Winkelman, left the house Friday night after dinner, to visit her mother.
In the absence, Frank Cutler, ex-convict and former husband of Mrs. Winkelman, entered the house, apparently through the front door, and sat down on the living room divan.
He had been there some time - the ashtray on the coffee table was full of half-smoked cigarettes, Camels, which apparently came from a carton on the sewing machine.
Cutler did something else, for a reason, which will probably never be known. Ignoring the large studio portraits of his ex-wife and Winkelman on the walls and tables of the living room, he went to the bedroom and filled his pockets with a miscellaneous collection of family snap-shots.
Police, a short time later, removed from his pockets this stack of pictures of Winkelman, the Winkelman brothers, cousins, and friends.
By the time the Winkelman's returned, entering the house through the back door, Cutler was perhaps asleep in the living room. Certainly, he made no sound until after the Winkelmans had reached their bedroom and were preparing to retire.
Shots Fired
Then Winkelman heard a sound - possibly a man's step, possibly the faint scraping of the table as Cutler left the divan - and seizing a .32 caliber pistol, went into the dining room.
There he fell, fatally wounded by a shot, which ripped through the doorframe, struck him in the groin and emerged to bury itself in the wall behind him.
The quiet street echoed with gunfire for several minutes - nine shots were fired as the two men shot at each other, and when it was over, Cutler lay dead on his back by the coffee table. Winkelman, who died a short time later on the way to a hospital, lay next to him.
Mrs. Winkelman, who had cowered, terrorized, in the bathroom while the two men killed each other in the next room, came out to find the bodies of her husband and ex-husband lying side by side under the framed marriage certificate of Arnold Winkelman and Orelia Sheffield. "This day of August 24, 1940, in the Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church."
Photo - Caption: Where Two Shot it Out - The five-room bungalow at 1202 Utah, a quiet, shady little street, where two men met death early Saturday. The home, a modest cottage is typical of the houses surrounding it.
Photo - Caption: No Thought of Tragedy - Arnold Winkelman and his wife, Orelia, before tragedy struck them. Together in an armchair in the living room of their home when the picture was taken, they had no thought of the tragedy awaiting them.
Photo - Diagram of House - Caption: An artist's sketch of events in the death cottage at 1202 Utah - Fatally wounded Arnold Winkelman fell in the dining room at right top, dragged himself near the body of his enemy, Frank Cutler, who fell in the living room at lower left. Mrs. Winkelman was cringing in the bathroom at the right.
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Father: Benjamin Franklin Cutler
Mother: Olive Catherine Rogers
Marriage to Eula Orelia Shuffield
15 July 1934 Harris County, Texas
Son: Delton Lloyd Cutler
Divorced and then Remarried
30 Nov 1938 Harris County, Texas
B.O.V.S. CD# 17822
COD: Gunshot Wounds / Justifiable Homicide
Texas Dept. of Corrections Convict # 92652
Convicted: 9 Oct 1939, Harris Co., TX
Charge: Embezzlement
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Houston Chronicle, 27 Apr 1946, p. 7
Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington died at 12:30 a.m. Saturday at 1202 Utah. He had lived in Houston for 20 years and was born in Waco.
Survivors include his mother, Mrs. O. C. Cutler; two brothers, C. J. and D. F. Cutler, all of Houston; two sisters, Mrs. W. W. Clancy of Houston and Mrs. N. C. Carter of Beaumont, and grandparents.
Services at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Heights Funeral Home, with Rev. T. C. Jester officiating.
Burial place will be announced.
Heights Funeral Home.
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The Houston Press, Sat., 27 Apr 1946, p. 1, c. 1-7 & p. 6, 1-5
Two Die in Gun Duel Over Wife
By Walter Mansell and Howard Stevens
Press Staff Writers
Two men were shot to death early Saturday in a gunfight between a Houston veteran and the violently jealous former husband of the veteran's wife.
The shooting occurred in the veteran's bungalow, where the former husband, an ex-convict, lay in wait for his successful rival in love, and his former wife. The wife hid in the bathroom while the gun duel took place a short distance away.
The dead men were Arnold Winkelman, 31, of 1202 Utah, who was in the Navy for three years, discharged last October, and Frank Cutler, 30, of 924 Bennington, a convict out on an extended reprieve.
Cutler shot five times, hitting his foe with each shot. The former sailor fired three times, each of his shots also thudding into the body of his assailant.
Cutler was in the living room of the home when the Winkelmans came home shortly after midnight. Mr. Winkelman heard a noise in the room, grabbed his .32 Spanish type pistol and started toward the room from which the noise came.
As he looked around the door leading into the living room, police said, Butler shot once, hitting Mr. Winkelman in the pit of the stomach.
A roar of shots then aroused the neighborhood as the two men shot at each other. Apparently, the wounded Mr. Winkelman shot after he fell to the floor. He hit Cutler three times.
"Then I heard Arnold call out, I've been shot. Call an ambulance." She related.
She ran into the living room, found the men on the floor, blood streaming from wounds in each.
Cutler was shot in the neck, in the groin and in the left arm at the elbow. Mr. Winkelman was wounded in the pit of the stomach, in the groin, in the right thigh, in the abdomen and in the side of the right leg. Several of the bullets passed completely through the men to hit walls and windows.
Another Loaded Clip
Cutler's automatic had three unexploded shells in it and in his pocket was another fully loaded clip.
Mr. Winkelman's pistol had three discharged shells in it. By him lay another bullet which he apparently had ready to jam into his gun for another shot.
Cutler as he was dying in a pool of blood in the middle of the room shot one more time, fatally wounding the ex-sailor with a shot in the groin. The ex-convict's gun was a .45 calibre pistol.
Started in 1934
Events leading up to the tragedy started in 1934 when the present Mrs. Orelia Winkelman was 14 and was married to Cutler, 18 at the time.
Then in 1939, Cutler was convicted of charges of assault and felony embezzlement and given two five-year terms to run concurrently.
While he was in the penitentiary his wife obtained a divorce and married Mr. Winkelman in 1940.
In 1942, Mr. Winkelman joined the Navy, serving for three years, part of that time in the Pacific where he had one ship sink from under him.
While Mr. Winkelman was abroad, Mr. Cutler was given a year's reprieve from prison, in 1943 - and the reprieve later was extended.
Had "Lived in Fear"
Mrs. Winkelman told police that since he was reprieved Cutler had been molesting and threatening her. She told of her turbulent marriages and how lately she had lived in fear of her former husband.
"He has been interfering with my married life ever since then," Mrs. Winkelman said. "He tried to get me to get a divorce and remarry him."
"When I wouldn't do it he said he would kill me."
Husband, Former Mate Die in Gun Fight Over Woman
Early in December last year, he came to Jefferson Davis Hospital (where Mrs. Winkelman is a switchboard operator) and again told me that; "I'll kill you if you don't marry me again."
Fined $5 for Displaying Pistol
"Arnold then filed charges against Frank - but all Frank got was a $5 fine for displaying a pistol."
Then Mrs. Winkelman shuddered, paused briefly and swung into the events of the fatal night.
"Last night Arnold and I went to my mother's home at 1412 Summers," she said. "Arnold was helping mother repaint and repaper the house."
"We left shortly after midnight and I parked the car in the driveway and we went to the house by the back way."
Room Torn Up
"We walked through the kitchen to the front bedroom where I saw that the room was torn up and apparently somebody had been lying on the bed."
"Just then, we heard a noise in the living room and Arnold snatched up his pistol. I turned off the bedroom light and ran into the bathroom."
It was almost immediately that the roar of the guns terrified her.
As police re-enacted the scene, Cutler shot first as Mr. Winkelman appeared in the doorway of the living room. The latter fell to the floor, then started blasting back.
Bullet Holes in Wall
Bullet holes were found in each side of the wall by the doorway. Cutler, shot three times and mortally wounded started to drag himself toward the front door. He paused, however, to fire once more, the bullet hitting his enemy in the groin. Mr. Winkelman, also fatally wounded, crept toward his foe.
Mr. Winkelman's brother, Alfred F. Winkelman, who lived next door, ran to the bungalow. He found Cutler dead in the middle of the living room and his brother, twice wounded, lying in the doorway.
Mr. Winkelman was taken to Heights Hospital, where he died a short time later.
Police found in Cutler's pocket a number of snapshots of his former wife, and members of the Winkelman family.
Cutler apparently had been in the house for some time. He had helped himself to a package of cigarettes, and numerous cigarettes, half-smoked, were found in an ashtray by the divan.
Police records show he was arrested in 1935 on a charge of trying to kill his wife but the charge was later dropped.
Detectives L. L. Watts and W. P. Brown related Mrs. Winkelman after obtaining her statement about the tragedy.
Funeral arrangements for Mr. Winkelman will be announced by Fogle-West Funeral Home. Those for Cutler are in charge of the Heights Funeral Home.
Photo - Caption: Mrs. Orelia Winkelman . . . for love of her two men died.
Photo - Caption: Frank Cutler . . . his jealous rage brought tragedy.
Photo - Caption: Arnold Winkelman (in sailor's uniform) . . . killed by wife's former husband.
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Bungalow Where Two Were Killed Peaceful in Aftermath of Death
By Martha Word
Press Staff Writer
The little white frame bungalow at 1202 Utah looked, Saturday morning, like any little cottage where the lady of the house was about to start her weekend house-cleaning.
In the dining room, the sewing machine was open, a pink summer dress, half-finished, tossed over it.
In the kitchen, a cup of coffee was on the table, with cream and sugar beside it; and in the skink, dishes were stacked in the dishpan.
Only the smoke-rimmed bullet holes in the white woodwork and stains of blood showed that in this little house death struck twice early Saturday morning, as two men shot each other down in semi-darkness.
Albert Winkelman, next-door neighbor and brother of one of the victims, Arnold Winkelman, reconstructed the double murder from the silent evidence of the house.
His brother and sister-in-law, Mrs. Orelia Winkelman, left the house Friday night after dinner, to visit her mother.
In the absence, Frank Cutler, ex-convict and former husband of Mrs. Winkelman, entered the house, apparently through the front door, and sat down on the living room divan.
He had been there some time - the ashtray on the coffee table was full of half-smoked cigarettes, Camels, which apparently came from a carton on the sewing machine.
Cutler did something else, for a reason, which will probably never be known. Ignoring the large studio portraits of his ex-wife and Winkelman on the walls and tables of the living room, he went to the bedroom and filled his pockets with a miscellaneous collection of family snap-shots.
Police, a short time later, removed from his pockets this stack of pictures of Winkelman, the Winkelman brothers, cousins, and friends.
By the time the Winkelman's returned, entering the house through the back door, Cutler was perhaps asleep in the living room. Certainly, he made no sound until after the Winkelmans had reached their bedroom and were preparing to retire.
Shots Fired
Then Winkelman heard a sound - possibly a man's step, possibly the faint scraping of the table as Cutler left the divan - and seizing a .32 caliber pistol, went into the dining room.
There he fell, fatally wounded by a shot, which ripped through the doorframe, struck him in the groin and emerged to bury itself in the wall behind him.
The quiet street echoed with gunfire for several minutes - nine shots were fired as the two men shot at each other, and when it was over, Cutler lay dead on his back by the coffee table. Winkelman, who died a short time later on the way to a hospital, lay next to him.
Mrs. Winkelman, who had cowered, terrorized, in the bathroom while the two men killed each other in the next room, came out to find the bodies of her husband and ex-husband lying side by side under the framed marriage certificate of Arnold Winkelman and Orelia Sheffield. "This day of August 24, 1940, in the Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church."
Photo - Caption: Where Two Shot it Out - The five-room bungalow at 1202 Utah, a quiet, shady little street, where two men met death early Saturday. The home, a modest cottage is typical of the houses surrounding it.
Photo - Caption: No Thought of Tragedy - Arnold Winkelman and his wife, Orelia, before tragedy struck them. Together in an armchair in the living room of their home when the picture was taken, they had no thought of the tragedy awaiting them.
Photo - Diagram of House - Caption: An artist's sketch of events in the death cottage at 1202 Utah - Fatally wounded Arnold Winkelman fell in the dining room at right top, dragged himself near the body of his enemy, Frank Cutler, who fell in the living room at lower left. Mrs. Winkelman was cringing in the bathroom at the right.
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Gravesite Details
Buried in the same Plot as his brother, Chesley and their mother, Olive Cutler.
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