{"id":100387,"date":"2024-09-04T10:40:03","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T14:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=100387"},"modified":"2025-11-13T14:11:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T19:11:35","slug":"spoiled-to-death-the-rhonda-martin-case-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/spoiled-to-death-the-rhonda-martin-case-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Spoiled to Death: The Rhonda Martin Case (part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, James Pylant tries to solve the mystery of Rhonda Belle Martin, a seemingly normal Alabama wife and mother with a secret. James is an editor at GenealogyMagazine.com and author for JacobusBooks.com, is an award-winning historical true-crime writer, and authorized celebrity biographer.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stocky, auburn-haired, with blue eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses, Alabama waitress Rhonda Martin (1906-1957) admitted to never spending much money on her appearance. She enjoyed smoking, drinking, and reading romance magazines. Rhonda had been arrested twice, once for drunkenness and another time for reckless driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would always try to be a good Christian,\u201d she said, reflecting on her life in 1956. \u201cI\u2019ve spent a fortune for medicine,\u201d she added. Strangely, her family members were prone to painful illnesses. She showered them with loving attention, yet they would never recover. \u201cI have had tragedy, always.\u201d (1)<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: Rhonda Belle Martin. Credit: \u201cTrue Detective\u201d (June 1956); University of Pennsylvania.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rhonda\u2019s Background<\/strong><\/p>\n

I found many details of Rhonda\u2019s life from articles in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She was born Rhonda Belle Thomley<\/a> on 4 November 1906, in Lucedale, Mississippi, a logging and farming community. The Thomleys moved to Mobile, Alabama, and her father supported his wife and four children as a railroad yard laborer. She was raised in Mobile<\/a> and attended a Baptist church.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Birmingham Post-Herald (Birmingham, Alabama), 9 June 1956, page 25<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her childhood was what she called \u201cnormal,\u201d though another time, she claimed home life didn\u2019t offer much happiness. \u201cI was 11 when my mother and father separated the last time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Birmingham News (Birmingham, Alabama), 10 June 1956, page 29<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rhonda quit school after the seventh grade, and her father moved away, remarried, and started another family<\/a>. Her mother would eventually remarry, too. At her mother\u2019s boardinghouse, a lodger named Willie Alderman flirted with Rhonda across the dining table and asked her for a date. (2) At 15, she eloped with him to Mississippi \u2013 much to the disapproval of her mother, as reported in the Commercial Appeal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In addition to the information you\u2019d expect to find in a newspaper wedding notice, this one adds this unusual detail:<\/p>\n

The couple came here [to Mississippi, from Alabama] to escape the bride\u2019s mother, who went in pursuit of the pair, but stopped at Wilmar after learning the young folks were married.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"An<\/a>
Commercial Appeal (Nashville, Tennessee), 30 January 1922, page 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rhonda, at 19, divorced her husband after four years of marriage. (3) She remarried on 2 May 1928, to next-door neighbor George W. Garrett<\/a>, a railroad switchman. The Garretts rented a home in Montgomery and earned extra income by taking in roomers. Over seven years, the couple had five daughters: Mary Adalaide, Ellyn, Carolyn, Emogene, and Judith.<\/p>\n

Puzzling Series of Deaths<\/strong><\/p>\n

Firstborn Mary Adalaide<\/a> died of bronchopneumonia on 15 January 1934. Emogene<\/a>, at two-and-a-half, accidentally swallowed a fatal dose of poison while playing on 9 July 1937. The following year, Rhonda gave birth to Judith<\/a>, who was severely jaundiced. At age eight months, the baby was hospitalized on 24 August and died two days later with lenticular degeneration, an inherited disease associated with cirrhosis of the liver.<\/p>\n

In the early hours of Christmas morning, 1939, Rhonda\u2019s 35-year-old husband, George, died in a Montgomery hospital. Bronchopneumonia, the same sickness that claimed Mary Adalaide, had followed a cold. And that inflammatory infection would be blamed for six-year-old Carolyn\u2019s death<\/a> five months later in May 1940.<\/p>\n

Daughter Ellyn<\/a> died three years later at age 11 in August 1943. The girl\u2019s death certificate cited a gastrointestinal disorder and gave no indication of her sickness\u2019s duration \u2013 only that an attending physician treated her the same day she died. Six months later, Mary Gibbon<\/a>, Rhonda\u2019s mother, was admitted into a Mobile hospital on 11 February 1944, and died that night of acute diarrhea. She was 57.<\/p>\n

Rhonda met Talmadge J. Gipson<\/a> \u2013 a customer at a caf\u00e9 where she waitressed \u2013 and told him about her lonely widowed life. (4) She and Gipson, a gravel pit pump operator, wed on 11 August\u00a0 1947, only to divorce (allegedly) two years later. Days later, the ex-Mrs. Gipson made a fourth altar run with Claude Martin, her coworker at a glass factory, in October 1948. Rhonda would later say she left Gipson five months after their wedding; however, she never divorced him, according to author Alan G. Gauthreaux<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Claude Martin, who had been a widower, had three teenage daughters and an older son who was in the U.S. Navy. The Martins enjoyed 16 happy months together until Claude became bedridden with what Rhonda described to neighbors as a \u201cnervous disorder.\u201d The ever-doting wife tended to Claude constantly, feeding him and dispensing medicine. As Claude\u2019s condition grew worse, the Red Cross arranged for his son, Ronald, to take leave from the navy for a visit. (5) Claude Martin, at 48, died on 27 April 1951, after a six-week illness diagnosed as polyneuritis. No autopsy was performed.<\/p>\n

Seven months later, on 7 December 1951, 45-year-old Rhonda became Mrs. Martin for a second time when she married her late husband\u2019s 24-year-old son, Ronald. His sisters opposed her stepmother becoming their sister-in-law and left home. (6)<\/p>\n

Alabama law forbade marriage to a stepparent<\/a>. \u201cI didn\u2019t know there was anything wrong with that,\u201d Rhonda said. (7) Still, she didn\u2019t consider herself Ronald\u2019s wife; she used a secret mailing address to collect Social Security as Mrs. Claude Martin. (8) Besides, she didn\u2019t plan to be Mrs. Ronald Martin for very long.<\/p>\n

To be continued\u2026<\/p>\n

Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! Start a 7-Day Free Trial<\/a><\/p>\n

Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cInvestigating a Mystery.\u201d Designed by Freepik (www.freepik.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

__________________________<\/p>\n

(1) Joe Azbell, \u201cJailed Waitress Vows Innocence in Mate\u2019s Death,\u201d Montgomery Advertiser, 11 March 1956, pp. 1-A, 5-A.
\n(2) Ibid., p. 5-A.
\n(3) Ibid.
\n(4) Ibid.
\n(5) Jonas Bayer, \u201cRedhead Hellcat,\u201d True Detective, Vol. 65 (June 1976), no. 2, p. 30.
\n(6) Ibid., pp. 30-31.
\n(7) Azbell, \u201cJailed Waitress Vows Innocence in Mates\u2019 Death,\u201d p. 5-A.
\n(8) Bayer, \u201cRedhead Hellcat,\u201d p. 88.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, James Pylant tries to solve the mystery of Rhonda Belle Martin, a seemingly normal Alabama wife and mother with a secret.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":100398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12557],"tags":[23641,58902],"class_list":["post-100387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-stories","tag-crime-and-criminals","tag-rhonda-belle-martin"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/photo-0904-2024-featured-graphic-crime-investigation.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100387"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100397,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100387\/revisions\/100397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}