Introduction: In this article, James Pylant describes the shocking conclusion to the extraordinary life and adventures of a relative on his family tree: Harry Wham. While tracing his ancestry and conducting a last name origin study, James uncovered a story far more dramatic than most family histories. James is an editor at GenealogyMagazine.com and author for JacobusBooks.com, is an award-winning historical true-crime writer, and authorized celebrity biographer.

Editor’s Note: When researching your family tree, you never know when you will uncover a surprising story. James Pylant has uncovered many interesting ancestors and relatives – perhaps none more so than Harry Wham, who had so many adventures that one family member commented his life “reads like fiction – but all so true.” James has written a three-part article to tell the tale of Harry’s life. In Part 1, James provided context by filling in details of the family background, beginning with a migration in covered wagons. In Part 2, James wrote about the thrills and dangers Harry faced. And now in Part 3, James describes the most shocking and dangerous event in Harry’s colorful life.

Harry Wham, 58, celebrated New Year’s Day 1978 by marrying Margaret Marie “Peggy” Camp Stuberg, 35, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Reportedly, it was the seventh time down the aisle for both. The couple soon separated, and their divorce was finalized in June. (1)

Yet they reunited, and in March the following year, a tavern license was approved for Sin City’s Keyboard Lounge with Harry as president and Peggy as vice president, secretary, and treasurer – each holding 50 percent ownership.

Performing as “Stormy Wham,” Peggy was also the tavern’s featured singer.

On 3 April 1981, the Las Vegas Review-Journal briefly reported that Harry Wham was hospitalized but “in good condition” after being “wounded in the arm early Thursday morning after his wife allegedly shot him during an argument.” Few other details were provided, and no follow-up was given, as if it were hardly noteworthy.

Strangely, it happened again – without news coverage this time. The second incident came on 26 January 1983 when Harry, returning home, was robbed and shot in the neck. Nearly two years passed before details about this shooting appeared in print, and only after a third shooting at the Wham home made headlines – because this time, the shooting was fatal.

This article reports:

The owner of the Keyboard Lounge was shot and killed Sunday when a gunman ambushed him in the garage of his Paradise Valley town house, authorities said.

Harry Wham, 63, was shot in the head several times about 4:30 p.m. in the garage behind his home in the Greenbriar Town House complex, 165 Pecos Way, authorities said.

Paramedics said the lounge owner’s heart was beating faintly and he was gasping when they arrived, but Wham died at the scene. One paramedic told police it looked as though Wham had been shot twice in the cheek area and possibly another time in the head.

Wham’s body was found slumped behind the wheel of his Alfa Romeo, with his legs sticking out the passenger door. Both car doors and the garage door were open when police arrived.

Shortly before the shooting, Harry and his brother-in-law (unnamed in reports) arrived simultaneously at the garage in separate vehicles. The brother-in-law placed a video cassette recorder on the luggage rack of Harry’s car, left to park his pickup, and then returned to find somebody had killed Harry. Peggy was in the home at the time of her husband’s shooting death. A neighbor saw the fleeing gunman disappear between nearby townhouses.

Peggy said at first she believed her husband’s murder was robbery-related, but then decided “that there’s something more.”

What about the gunfire that struck Harry only weeks earlier?

“I just don’t know,” Peggy said. “Obviously, somebody hated him very much and had a personal vendetta.”

Then, the shocker: days later, Peggy was arrested for her husband’s murder.

This article reports:

Harry Wham’s wife and three accomplices hired a New Jersey man to murder the popular Las Vegas entertainer for a large sum of money, court documents allege.

…According to an affidavit filed with the court, Peggy Wham’s sister told a confidential police source the Wham murder was “a conspiracy as well as a contract murder.” The affidavit identifies the conspirators as the widow and the Parker brothers [Joseph Parker, 42, and John Parker, 30].

The affidavit alleges that the Parker brothers hired a New Jersey hitman for “a large sum of money,” and that the contract murder was instigated by Peggy Marie Wham.” Also arrested was Peggy’s daughter, Kathy Faltinowski, who lived with the Parker brothers less than a quarter of a mile from Harry and Peggy.

Memorial services were held the day after the arrests. “Two of my sisters went to the funeral but didn’t ‘mingle’ for obvious reasons,” Harry’s first cousin, Pat Bennett, told me. (2)

“I participated in a conspiracy that ended in the death of Harry Wham,” John Parker confessed in July. “I sent the money to get the alleged hit man out here, and I took him from place to place.” Pleading guilty to first-degree murder, Parker drew a pre-arranged life sentence in the Nevada State Prison.

“I made a phone call back East to get a hit man,” confessed his brother, Joseph Parker. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon and drew a pre-arranged double life sentence.

Sentences for the two brothers came with eligibility for parole.

The alleged hitman, John Oliver Snow, was arrested and detained in New Jersey. While he fought extradition, Peggy Wham stood trial for her husband’s murder in September. Deputy District Attorney Mel Harmon’s opening statement in court told jurors that Joseph Parker was Peggy’s boyfriend while his brother, John, was the boyfriend of Peggy’s daughter, Kathy. Harmon went on to say that the hitman’s first attempt to kill Harry Wham was in January.

Prosecutors stated that the Whams had fought over control of the Keyboard Lounge, with Peggy wanting it for herself. Defense attorneys claimed Peggy’s sister, Sally Cook – the state’s star witness – was the mastermind behind the crime, and that she was Joseph Parker’s girlfriend, not Peggy.

Sally Cook testified that her sister admitted to stealing $5,000 from the Keyboard Lounge’s safe to pay the hitman. Peggy’s father, Wendell Camp, also testified that Peggy told him that she had hired the contract killer.

On September 26, jurors found Peggy Wham guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy.

On September 30, the widow Wham was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole; however, she was released in December 1998 after serving 15 years. The Las Vegas Sun reported that “her death from cancer is said to be imminent.” She died in 1999 in Dover, Oklahoma.

Peggy’s daughter, Kathy Faltinowski, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was given a life sentence, but was later released. As a plea bargain, she testified against hitman John Oliver Snow, who received a capital conviction.

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Note on the header image: covered wagon. Credit: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives; Wikimedia Commons.

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• Fearless Frontiers: ‘It Reads like Fiction – But All So True’ (part 1)
• Fearless Frontiers: ‘It Reads like Fiction – But All So True’ (part 2)

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(1) Harry P. Wham/Margaret Marie Wham, county file no. D003013 (1978), “Nevada, U.S., Divorce Index, 1968-2015,” online database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 10 July 2025).
(2) Pat Bennett (Anaheim, Calif.) to the author, 4 May 1984.