Izard Family, murdered

In May 1998, Oxford residents were reminded that murder was not a recent addition to their community when Doris Hammack arrived from Detroit, Michigan. Hammack reopened the long-dormant wounds of the 1958 murders of Richard and Lisa Izard and the disappearances of their children, Ricky, age 6, and LeAnne, nearly 3. The Izard case, unsolved for 40 years, had long since been relegated to the cold case files.

In 1958, Richard Izard, 32, was the Foreman at the Bowlan Glove Factory in Oxford. Both Richard and his wife Lisa, 27, were Yoknapatawpha natives and had been married seven years before they were brutally murdered outside their home. The two were bludgeoned to death with their own garden shovel, which was found between their lifeless bodies.

Local postman, Thomas Joe Hinkley, who discovered the bodies while on his usual delivery route, called local authorities to the scene. Hinkley also notified police of the missing children. When young Ricky's book bag was discovered in the Izards' driveway and blood and dirt were found near LeAnne's playpen, concern for the children's safety heightened. Police and neighbors quickly formed a search party in an attempt to locate the tots. Searchers found a cap and blanket belonging to the Izard children on the bank of a nearby creek, but no additional clues to the children's whereabouts were ever found.

Police initially questioned the postman, Hinkley, and Ricky's school bus driver, Elroy Murphy, but the investigation quickly widened. At the time of the Izards' deaths, the Bowlan Glove Factory was fighting union organization of their employees and had laid off 153 workers on the day of the murders. Local rumors hinted that Richard Izard had acted as an inside informant for the union supporters and had accepted payoffs from union organizer, Elliott Perch.

Investigators uncovered several possible motives for the murders and compiled an extensive suspect list, which included local union sympathizers, laid off employees and Mrs. Izard's former boyfriend, who had harassed the couple in the past. But Detective Jackson McPhail, the 1958 lead investigator, and his team were never able to uncover enough evidence to charge anyone in the Izards' murders or in the children's disappearances. The case went unsolved for 40 years.

Then Doris Hammack arrived in Oxford, claiming to be the long-missing LeAnne Izard. In 1960, Hammack had been abandoned at a Catholic Girls' Home in Detroit, Michigan. She was a troubled child, plagued by bloody nightmares, and was placed with several foster homes before she reached adulthood. Hammack had been researching her past for 20 years, with only a few tenuous leads and clues to guide her. In 1998, the trail led her to Oxford. She contacted the Sheriff's Department and the local press for help in finding the truth of her past.

Leanne Izard

Though skeptical of Hammack's claim that she was LeAnne Izard, Yoknapatawpha Detective Terrence Nelson agreed to review the case files and assist Hammack with her quest. The local newspaper ran an article on Hammack's story, which prompted several calls that Hammack resembled Doris Hadley, daughter of Howard Hadley, a former Bowlan Glove employee. The callers suggested that Hammack contact Beatrice Carmichael, a local woman who was Hadley's girlfriend in 1958.

Carmichael died of a heart attack while the investigation was in progress. When investigators found evidence among Carmichael's effects tying her to Howard Hadley and proving that he had moved to Detroit shortly after the Izard murders, what had been a cold case for 40 years suddenly began to heat up.

Investigators tracked down additional evidence linking Howard Hadley to the Izard murders. Hammack underwent hypnosis to expose forgotten memories of her childhood, and recalled several references to a pond on her father's former property in Oxford. Dredging of that pond uncovered the remains of Ricky and LeAnne Izard.

The case had a bittersweet ending for Doris Hammack, who learned conclusively that she was not the missing daughter of the slain Izards, but instead was the daughter of the man who murdered them. In an effort to atone for her father's horrific actions, Hammack arranged a touching memorial service and proper burial for little Ricky and LeAnne, alongside their parents in an Oxford cemetery. [ Continued --> ]