The Armored Lady

"The long-awaited Candy Mossier murder trial began here Monday," wrote the Chicago Daily News correspondent in Miami, "and it gives every sign of being one of the most lurid and bloodstained among latter-day criminal cases. Whichever way the murder trial goes, it is all mixed up with big money and wheeler-dealerism." Added the Houston Chronicle's man in Miami: "Woven through the fabric of the case are the threads of love, hate, greed, savage passion, intrigue, incest and perversion."

It all adds up to an ideal recipe for bringing out the ham in the nation's press. Some 40 reporters from around the U.S. were covering the trial last week, and still more were expected. Until the jury was impaneled late last week after protracted argument, the press focused its attention on blonde, blue-eyed Candace Mossier, 45, who is accused along with her nephew, Melvin Powers, 24, of complicity in the bludgeoning and stabbing of her millionaire husband Jacques Mossier in 1964. And Candy was taking no chances on reporters' losing interest; she regaled them with the sorrows of her life and the peculiarities of her husband.

Veneers of Honey. For some of the press, Candy's soft, breathless Southern accent carried conviction. "She is remarkable for her poise, her wealth, her tenacious hold on the vestiges of a vanished youth and the bouncy, unquenchable optimism with which she faces an ordeal that will surely tarnish her and could end in a one-way walk to Florida's death chamber," wrote Paul Holmes of the Chicago Tribune. "She is remarkable for an outgoing disposition that makes it appear she seeks friends for friendship only and neither needs nor wants sympathy. She is remarkable for her gaiety, her effervescence, and for an underlying intelligence that is her ultimate armor."

Fascinated in a somewhat different fashion, Hearst's Jim Bishop drew a less flattering portrait: "The lady is 60 inches of wrought iron. It is blonde and pale and unyielding. It isn't something that God wrought. Candace did it. From the day long ago, when the little Georgia belle found out females have an earthy attraction for males, Candace has coated that little body with so many veneers of honey and passion that if the real Candace stood up, Mrs. Mossier would probably disown her."

Private interviews with Candy could be had for the asking. "We are sitting in a big living room, her infant grandson crawling on the floor nearby, fascinated with the photographer's cameras and cases," wrote the New York Daily News's Theo Wilson after a chat in Candy's apartment. "It is the end of the first week of Candy's trial and she has been hearing the words adultery, fornication and incest used openly in court nearly every day." What she might have been reading was just as bad. Wrote Jim Bishop: "Some claim to have seen photos of Candace embracing her Negro chauffeur . . . Other photos show the swinging grandma almost nude on a bed."

Another Hearst reporter, the gadabout lady psychologist Joyce Brothers, waded through an audience with Candy: "I spent 90 minutes today talking to a woman who is on trial for her life, a woman who bared her soul and tried to describe the life she lived for 15 years with the man she is accused of murdering." Joyce asked Candy: "What really happened? Who do you think killed your husband?" Replied Candy: "I think it was one of those strange people he used to pick up on the street all the time. He would waltz into the house with strangers by the half dozen. He would tell people that we were very wealthy and important and owned a chain of banks and then say, 'Come on over and have a drink any time!' "

From Outer Space. When they tired of too much Candy, reporters came up with surprising sidebars. The Chicago Daily News's M. W. Newman noted that Candy's brother DeWitt Weatherby, a Georgia tavern keeper, was convicted in 1956 of murdering a customer; one of his defense attorneys was Carl Sanders, now the Governor of Georgia. The Miami News's Haines Colbert reported that on the anniversary of her husband's death, Candy sent newspapers some pictures of herself and her four adopted children mourning at Mossler's grave.

Searching for new angles, a few reporters concentrated on peripheral people. The Miami Herald's Gene Miller described prospective jurors, including an insect exterminator who was opposed to the death sentence for humans. Theo Wilson was impressed with a seeress named Jeannie, who turned up at the trial and claimed she had never made a wrong prediction. Her verdict on Candy: innocent.

As they reworked the same material and rewrote the same leads, some reporters inevitably succumbed to the temptation to try the case prematurely in their columns. "Candy is positive that she had nothing to do with the demise of her rich old husband Jacques," wrote Bishop, who apparently disagreed with Jeannie. "She is equally positive that her sister's little six-foot boy Melvin had nothing to do with it. When one thinks of the 39 stab wounds sustained by Jacques, in addition to having a crystal flamingo broken over his head and the impact of a Coke bottle which fractured his skull, it is difficult to imagine a stranger applying himself with such diligence. Either way, the lawyers are going to cost half a million. Jacques Mossier may be in the awkward position of paying to spring his betrayers."

But after producing the evidence, anticipating the trial and deciding who was guilty, Jim Bishop still seemed confident that the best was yet to come. Said he: "It's not a big story yet."

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