Sam McMullin [1866 - 1946]

Individual, McMullin, Sam

About

Samuel G. McMullin was a prominent community member during the early years of Grand Junction. Though he was born in Philadelphia in 1866, McMullin found his way to Colorado by 1889 and settled into practicing law by the next year in Grand Junction. It was from this point on that McMullin would shoulder his way into many different aspects of community life in the valley. He opened a law firm, joined the Grand Junction Fruit Growers Association, served as District Attorney for a number of years, and co-founded multiple loan and investment companies, the most prominent being Home Loan and Investment, which still exists to this day. In his off hours, McMullin invested his time in a wide variety of social clubs, including Rotary Club, the local Elks Lodge, the Masonic Temple, and many others that increased Sam’s status in town. On the surface, Sam would also be considered a family man. He married his first wife, Rella, in the winter of 1890. They had two sons together, Bentley and Howard, and were married until Rella’s death in 1942. Bentley would serve in the Navy and Howard followed in his fathers' footsteps. It would be four years after his wife’s death that Sam, now 80 years old, would meet his second wife, Mazie B. Lightfoot, a woman nearly 24 years his junior. Mazie too was a widow, her husband Gus having passed away several years prior to her meeting Sam. On Oct. 1, 1946, Sam and Mazie eloped to Aztec, N.M. After six weeks of marriage, McMullin. On the morning of November 15, 1946, Sam McMullin was sitting in his study. He had already poured himself a glass of whiskey from his personal stache. In his last moments, rumors say that he muttered something about his drink before becoming unable to speak. A few months after the death, Howard and Emily McMullin became ill from sipping a New Year’s whiskey toast that Howard described as bitter. Howard would then dump all of Sam McMullin’s liquor down the sink, suggesting that he thought they had all gone bad, Later Emily and Howard would allegedly fall ill, prompting Dr. Bull, the doctor present at Sam’s death, to send off the empty liquor bottles for testing. These bottles would test positive for having an alkaloid poison within them. Because of this find, Sam’s body would be exhumed and examined for similar chemicals and an aneurysm. The discovery of strychnine in Sam’s organs would lead to the year long investigation and trial surrounding his mysterious death.

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