The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son

In her book, The Love Pirate and the Bandit’s Son: Murder, Sin and Scandal in the Shadow of Jesse James, Laura James -- no relation to the outlaw Jesse -- presents the story of Zeo Zoe Wilkins -whose love life and the harsh treatment of husbands - made her one of America’s most scandalized women. Her brutal death on March 15, 1924 in her home on Kansas City’s east side brought her and the city to the acme of media attention. And, what could add more to the media frenzy than the fact that her attorney, Jesse James, Jr. -- yes, the outlaw’s son -- was one of the key suspects. The author, a noted true crime blogger, mixes conjecture, forensic facts and a thorough review of the national media coverage of the life and death of Wilkins to tell a remarkable story of the troubled lives, and deaths, of Zeo Wilkins and Jesse James, Jr. Kansas City history buffs will especially enjoy the references to people, places and things of early 20th Century Kansas City.

From the book cover

She was Zeo Zoe Wilkins, a beautiful, ruthless woman whose rise and fall in love and larceny scandalized the nation. He was Jesse James Jr., the twisted son of America's most legendary outlaw. No good was likely to come from the crossing of their paths. None did.

In the opening years of the twentieth century, Wilkins emerged from the hog farms of rural Ohio. The high school dropout finagled her way into Missouri's American School of Osteopathy at age seventeen and embarked on a devious medical career. With her diploma in hand, she capitalized on her stunning looks, taking up the more lucrative occupation of gold digger. She married a series of wealthy men and was the mistress of many more—some of them decades her senior.

As a boy, Jesse Edwards James watched his father, Jesse Woodson James, bleed to death after he was shot by the coward Robert Ford. The bandit's only surviving son never recovered from the trauma. For the rest of his life, Jesse Jr. would flirt with, but never quite achieve, respectability. He became a criminal defense attorney, but spent his free time riding shotgun for the Ku Klux Klan. Eventually, Wilkins made him her legal muscle in a scheme to extract money from an ex-husband.

On the night of March 15, 1924, Zeo Zoe Wilkins was brutally murdered in her Kansas City home. Though never confirmed, it is likely that her killer made off with $100,000 in diamonds and bonds. Three men—none of them Jesse James Jr.— were charged, then exonerated. The murder was never officially solved. Within six weeks of Zeo's murder, Jesse Jr. suffered a complete mental collapse.

Deftly mixing historical conjecture with forensic fact, noted true crime blogger Laura James follows the remarkably opportunistic, eccentric, and troubled lives of Wilkins and James, revealing for the first time the details of their tumultuous relationship, while making a convincing case that their mutual avarice led to a murderous confrontation that bloody night.

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Publisher	Union Square Press
Publish Date	May 2009
Retail Availability	Authors web site and major online retailers
Price	Not available
Description	Hardback, 307 pages

About the author

Laura James (no relation to the James Gang) is an attorney and crime historian in Detroit. She is the proprietor of Clews (www.laurajames.com), one of the top true crime sites on the internet and has been consulted as an expert on historic crimes by PBS/Nova, the BBC World Service Newshour, and the History Channel among others.

Review by WindingRiver.com Staff