[John] It has been called a crime of passion.
Two wealthy sisters from a small East Tennessee town
and a teenage caretaker who helped run errands for those sisters
all gunned down at point-blank range.
Eight decades later, the triple murder remains unsolved.
Was the killer motivated by greed, racism, or pure hate?
Here is 10News anchor Robin Wilhoit.
[Music]
[singing] "A body was laying on a stairway of blood"
"Shot through the shoulder and head by a gun"
[Robin] The lyrics recount a murder that shook the small town of Oliver Springs to the core.
[singing] "Her life was now over before it was through"
[Robin] Decades later, the question remains,
who killed sisters Margaret and Ann Richards
and Leonard "Powder" Brown, a 16-year-old who ran errands for them?
[Danita] It's been over 75 years, you know,
and people are still reluctant to talk about it.
[Robin] Consumed with the murders she learned about decades after the fact,
Danita Ashley ran into silence as she researched and wrote a book.
[Danita] This is Ann and here this is Margaret.
[Robin] The Richards sisters were from a prominent wealthy family.
Their grandfather built the famed Oliver Springs Hotel.
During the late 1800s, it drew people up and down the East Coast.
Attorney Joe Van Hook said, at the time,
Oliver Springs was the Gatlinburg of East Tennessee
and the Richards reaped the rewards.
[Joe] They lived in a Victorian-style mansion
that was on three floors and had 18 rooms.
[Robin] Margaret and Ann were at home mid-morning on February 5, 1940
planning for a big night in Knoxville.
[Joe] That they were going to the premiere of Gone With The Wind tonight,
and they had bought new dresses to go to Gone With The Wind, see?
[Robin] Their younger sister, Mary,
a teacher at the nearby elementary school,
sent students two different times
to make sure the sisters were getting ready for their outing.
No one answered the door.
So Mary checked for herself.
[Danita] As soon as she opened the door,
she saw her sister, Margaret,
in a pool of blood in front of the staircase,
and she just immediately turned around and started running and screaming.
[Robin] Neighbors converged on the house.
Commotion followed.
Ann was shot in the head,
Margaret in the head and throat,
and Powder between the eyes.
A gun found near his body automatically made him the prime suspect in a murder-suicide.
[Danita] It wasn't something that a 16-year-old boy that had never fired a gun...
He was afraid of guns.
It's just, it's not something he could have done.
[Robin] As part of the investigation, a coroner's jury considered the evidence.
There was no gunpowder residue on the teen,
and the bullet's trajectory was not consistent with a self-inflicted wound.
[Danita] Even the people that were doing the inquest went and told the sheriff,
"We don't believe he did it."
And the sheriff at that time said, "Well, it's my call."
[Robin] Despite the sheriff's call,
other suspects and scenarios surfaced.
The Richards' cousin, Mamie Sienknecht, had sued the family the year before
for what she thought was her fair share of their wealth.
[Danita] She ended up losing her case.
A lot of people think she was actually in the house and pulled the trigger.
[Robin] Then there was a property dispute with the Hannah family
who lived across the street from the Richards.
The weapon found near Powder Brown
belonged to Gerald Hannah.
[Danita] The weapon that was found at the crime scene disappeared.
People were actually passing it around.
[Robin] For decades, Powder Brown remained the prime suspect, until 2001.
Then-Oliver Springs Police Chief Paul Massengill
reopened the case and re-examined the evidence.
In a documentary interview, Massengill called the timid teen an "innocent scapegoat."
[Paul] You know, the Black men didn't have any power.
Women really didn't have any power.
The white men had all the power.
I mean, in my opinion, I know who did it,
and I could surely clear Powder's name.
And that's what I was able to do.
I was able to clear Powder.
[Joe] 1940, the Richards house would have sat on this hillside.
[Robin] 83 years later, the Richards' mansion is long gone.
Shortly after the murders, the family sold it to the American Legion for $1.
It burned down in 1947.
Across the street from where it stood,
the Hannah house still stands
and so does the building that housed Mamie Sienknecht's insurance business.
The Oliver Springs Cemetery is Margaret and Ann's final resting place.
They went to the grave likely knowing who pulled the trigger.
[Danita] But they ended up being buried in their new dresses
that they bought to wear to see Gone With The Wind.
[chain clanking]
[Robin] And at another cemetery miles away,
a marker bearing Leonard "Powder" Brown's name
placed there more than 60 years after he was buried.
[Danita] A relative of the Richards sisters actually had this put here for him so...
[Robin] With the message being, "We believe you had nothing to do with this?"
[Danita] Exactly, yeah.
[singing] "On a cold winter day in 1940"
[Robin] It's a story retold in song without an ending.
Unless...
[Danita] There could be people still alive today that may know who done it
that would...if they would come forward.
But getting them to come forward would be the thing.
[Music ends]
[John] Right now, you can watch an extended version of the Oliver Springs murder
at WBIR.com in the Appalachian Unsolved section of our website.