Toni Jo Henry was born Annie Beatrice McQuiston on January 3rd, 1916, near Shreveport, Louisiana, the third of five children. She became the only woman to receive the electric chair in Louisiana when she was executed on November 28th, 1942, for the brutal murder of Joseph P. Calloway on St. Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 1940.
Background
Toni Jo’s mother died when she was six years old, and later her father remarried. She was never happy with the new domestic arrangements and begged her aunt to take her away from the family home. At the age of thirteen, she got a job in a macaroni factory but was fired when the manager discovered her mother had died from tuberculosis. She was beaten by her father when she returned home that day and resolved to leave home for good.
She soon became involved with drugs and prostitution. Prostitution was one of the few things she could actually do. Petite and very pretty with jet black hair, getting customers was not a problem. By the age of sixteen, she was smoking, drinking, taking cannabis, and associating with Shreveport’s underworld. She was arrested several times during her teens, including once for assaulting a man, but avoided prison due to her age.
In 1939, Toni Jo met Claude “Cowboy” Henry at the Shreveport brothel where she was now working full time and fell for him immediately. He was down on his luck, and she felt instantly attracted to him. Cowboy had a criminal record but was also on bail awaiting a second trial for shooting an ex-police officer. By this time, Toni Jo was addicted to cocaine, so they made a great couple.
Cowboy succeeded in getting Toni Jo off the drugs, and they married on November 25th, 1939, in Louisiana, with Toni Jo using her real name. Cowboy took her on honeymoon to Southern California, but their marital bliss was short-lived. He received a telegram to appear in court in Texas on the shooting charge. Despite Toni Jo’s pleas for him to run away with her, Cowboy turned up for court and was convicted in his second trial.
In January 1940, Cowboy was sentenced to 50 years in the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville — a sentence that shocked and infuriated Toni Jo, who had believed in his story of self-defense and expected acquittal. Upon hearing the sentence, she vowed to get him out of jail, embarking on a series of criminal acts which, in reality, had no hope of success.
The Murder
Toni Jo had contacts in the criminal underworld of Louisiana and southern Texas and immediately started planning Cowboy’s escape, despite warnings that it was hopeless. Staying in Beaumont, Texas, to be near Cowboy, she teamed up with a young man named Harold Burks, known as Arkinsaw or “Arkie.” Arkie had served a sentence in Huntsville and was currently AWOL from the army. He claimed detailed knowledge of the jail, and together they believed they could get Cowboy out.
They planned to steal a car and rob a bank, one Cowboy knew in a small Arkansas town, to cover the costs of the jailbreak. Armed with pistols Toni Jo had arranged to be stolen from a gun shop, they posed as newlyweds and hitchhiked toward Arkansas and their target bank.
By the evening of February 14th, they were in Orange, Texas, looking for the “right” car. Then it came.
Joseph P. Calloway was delivering a new Ford V8 Coupe for a friend when he saw them and decided to offer a ride. The Ford was perfect — new and fast enough to outrun police during their planned jailbreak.
They drove toward Jennings, Louisiana, where Calloway was to deliver the car. After passing Lake Charles into the countryside, Toni Jo pulled out her .32 caliber revolver and ordered Calloway off the main highway onto a quiet road. She told him to stop, then ordered him to undress. Arkie collected his clothes, watch, and $15. Toni Jo wanted the clothes for Cowboy’s escape.
She forced Calloway into the trunk and they drove on, Arkie driving, until Toni Jo found a suitable spot. They removed Calloway from the trunk, and Toni Jo walked him across a field to some haystacks. She told him to kneel and say his prayers, then calmly shot him through the head, killing him instantly.
Toni Jo and Arkie fled in the Ford, driving through the night to Camden, Arkansas, their original bank robbery target. They checked into a cheap hotel. While Toni Jo slept, Arkie, unnerved by the cold-blooded murder, escaped in the car, taking Calloway’s clothes with him. Murder had never been part of his plan — he later claimed he was broke when he met Toni Jo and had only gone along with her plans to secure rides to Arkansas.
Alone and deserted, Toni Jo used the last of the stolen money for a bus ticket back to Shreveport. She contacted an old friend running a brothel who persuaded her to stay with her aunt. The aunt suspected trouble but could only glean fragments of information. Worried, she informed her policeman brother, who was on vacation, so she turned to one of his colleagues, Sgt. Dave Walker.
Walker accompanied the aunt to Toni Jo’s house and interviewed her. He knew Calloway was missing but was unprepared for Toni Jo’s full confession. She even gave him the revolver—with one spent and five live rounds.
Walker was skeptical at first, as no murder had been reported, and no body or car had been found. He arrested Toni Jo and handed her over to Lake Charles police, who took her to locate the body. They found Calloway exactly as Toni Jo described. The bullet recovered at autopsy matched the revolver Walker had.
The Ford coupe was discovered abandoned in Arkansas, still containing Calloway’s clothes and cigarette butts with lipstick marks.
Toni Jo was formally charged with murder but initially refused to reveal her accomplice, displeased with press coverage. Eventually, she cooperated, and Arkie was arrested and charged. They were tried separately.
The Trial and Appeals
Toni Jo’s first trial opened in Lake Charles on March 27th, 1940, before Judge Hood. The case attracted huge press coverage, and she was described as a sultry brunette. She tried to shift the blame onto Arkie, but the jury didn’t believe her. After six hours of deliberation on March 29th, she was found guilty of murder, for which the mandatory sentence was death by hanging. Toni Jo showed no emotion at the verdict and was formally sentenced to death by hanging. Arkie was also convicted later and sentenced to death.
She appealed on the grounds that the trial judge had permitted prejudicial conduct. She was granted a retrial in February 1941. Arkie testified against her, and the jury took only an hour to convict her again. She was sentenced to death once more but appealed again and won.
Their new trial began on February 3, 1942, with Judge Pickrel presiding. The jury deliberated under an hour before delivering guilty verdicts and re-sentencing both to death.
While Toni Jo’s cases progressed, Louisiana changed its execution method from hanging to electrocution. Her lawyers challenged the constitutionality of this change, but the Supreme Court upheld it. Governor Sam Jones made clear there would be no reprieve.
In the Condemned Cell
While the court battles continued, Toni Jo was incarcerated in Lake Charles prison. There, she was baptized by Father Wayne Richard, a Catholic priest.
Towards the end, she granted an interview explaining her feelings toward Cowboy. She made a sworn statement claiming responsibility for shooting Calloway to clear Arkie. She said,
“In the first place, the victim doesn’t return to haunt me, I never think of him. I’ve known all along it would be my life for his. I believe mine is worth as much to me as his was to him. I wonder though, sometimes, why it’s legal now for some fellow to kill me.”
On November 23rd, 1942, Cowboy and an accomplice attempted a prison breakout at the Texas prison farm where he had been transferred, hoping to rescue Toni Jo. The attempt was quickly foiled, and he was recaptured.
On November 27th, Toni Jo was allowed to phone Cowboy from the chief jailer’s office. She reportedly told him,
“Get rid of that prison suit, go out the front door. Go straight and try and make something of your life.”
He was crying and emotional, while she remained bright and cheerful.
The picture of Toni Jo in the condemned cell is remarkable — it’s hard to believe it was taken the morning of her execution or that she was allowed such comfortable surroundings. She was even permitted the company of a small black-and-white dog. To the news cameraman who took the picture, she said,
“I’ve smiled twice, Mister. Have you any idea how much talent is being wasted here today?”
Execution
Toni Jo’s execution was scheduled for Saturday, November 28th, 1942, at 12:05 p.m. She was to be executed in the basement of the Lake Charles prison, using Louisiana’s portable electric chair, brought by truck from Angola prison the day before. Hers was to be the sixth electrocution in the state.
She chose a plain black dress, which was returned from the cleaners that morning, and black pumps. She reportedly cried when her head was shaved but was allowed to wear a brightly colored scarf to hide her baldness.
Kenny Reid, the Deputy Sheriff in charge, read her the death warrant and asked if she had any final statement. She replied, “I think not,” and was led to the execution chamber, holding Father Richard’s hand. She admitted to being nervous and afraid but went calmly to her death.
Several reporters were present, and she managed a smile for them.
She prayed briefly, then Sheriff Henry Reid Jr. asked if she had any last words. She replied “No,” smiled at the executioner, and mumbled a few inaudible words as she was strapped into the chair, electrodes applied to her shaven head and calf, and a leather mask put on her face.
A moment later, 2,000 volts hit her. At 12:12 p.m., she was certified dead by the Parish Coroner, Dr. E. L. Clement, and Dr. H. B. White, the prison doctor. Her body was removed a few minutes later. Her last request was that a crucifix be left in her hand when she was buried.
Father Richard officiated at her burial at Orange Grove Cemetery in Lake Charles and designed her headstone.
Aftermath
Arkie was executed in the same electric chair on March 23, 1943, despite Toni Jo’s belated efforts to take responsibility for the murder after she lost her final appeal. No relatives claimed his body, so he was buried in an unmarked grave.
Cowboy was released from prison two years after Toni Jo’s execution. On July 15, 1945, he was shot and killed in a brawl with a barkeeper.
Comment
As crimes go, Toni Jo’s was ill-planned, under-resourced, and had virtually no hope of success from the start. It seems too easy just to have stolen a car off the street instead of hijacking one and killing its driver. Would she and Arkie have been able to successfully rob the bank in Camden? How did she think she could get Cowboy out of a large, heavily guarded, well-run jail like Huntsville? There are no obvious answers other than she had absolutely no chance of success.
At the time of the murder, she would have been hanged if convicted, as Julia Moore had been just four years earlier. Yet none of this seemed to register with her.
So, what were her motives? It seems the only true motive was her total love for Cowboy Henry — so strong it overcame all practical considerations, including her own safety.
And yet why did she instantly confess to a murder not even discovered at the time? Why hadn’t she disposed of the gun, a major piece of evidence? She cooperated fully with the police in finding Calloway’s body. Had she disposed of the gun carefully, cleaned the car with Arkie, and kept quiet, there would have been little to connect her to the killing. We will never know the answers to these questions.
For a detailed account of this case, read Stone Justice by Lawrence King.
This story is included in the book Women Executed in America (1900–2021) — 56 True Crime Biographies, along with 55 other compelling case studies of women who faced capital punishment. If you found this story interesting, click the link to buy the book and explore more of these powerful narratives.
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