The Lady in the Well
By Robert A. Waters
Maisie Gray dropped into the darkness, arms flailing and her screams piercing the silence. Within seconds, she smashed into a rock-hard bottom. Filled with water and a strange toxic smell, she must had known she would die in this pit.
As she tried to feel with her fingers where she was injured, Maisie heard the man who'd tossed her down. "I know you're still alive," he said. Then he leaned over the opening in the pit and began firing gunshots down at Maisie. Some of the bullets rocketed straight into her body, others ricocheted off the stone walls. A later autopsy revealed she'd been hit with multiple rounds in the head and all over her body.
Did she think of her husband, her son and daughters? Did she pray to God? Whatever she may have thought, she would soon be dead.
At about 2:30 A.M., December 10, 1984, a customer stopped at the Majik Mart in Attalla, Alabama. Finding the store empty and the cash drawer open, she called the Etowah County Sheriff's Office. Thus began a month-long search for the missing 57-year-old clerk.
Gray had been working there for only three weeks. During that time, she'd sold more beer and soft drinks than she ever knew existed. A friendly country girl, the Gadsden Times reported "she liked nothing better than sitting down with a couple of friends and draining a coffee pot while they talked."
Maisie was alone when Michael Eugene Thompson walked into the store. He looked around, making sure no one else was there. Then he pulled a long-barrel .22-caliber pistol and stuck it in Maisie's face. Quickly complying when he demanded she empty the cash register, she handed him exactly $72.23.
Instead of leaving, Thompson demanded that Maisie go outside with him. Keeping the gun trained on his victim, he marched her to his car and forced her into the trunk. For about two hours, he drove randomly through the countryside. During that dark time, Maisie likely wondered if the man was going to kill her.
Thompson had grown up in hills in nearby Blount County. He knew many places to hide a body. Before he got hooked on dope, he'd hunted and fished the area. Those were pleasant memories, but the thrill of hunting deer had died long ago. Now he couldn't go more than a day without getting stoned. The cash in his pocket now should get him what he needed. Al least for a few hours.
But he had to get rid of this woman's body. He finally thought of place where she would never be found. Thompson recalled where several abandoned wells were located. In Blount County, he drove to one. He parked about five feet away, then dragged Maisie out and threw her 24 feet down into the well. Then he emptied his pistol into that dank, poisonous well.
He later confessed. "I left there and went to Blount County, where I pushed her in the well and shot a bunch of shots down in the well, and I run out of [bullets]."
The Birmingham Post-Herald wrote that Gray's "body was found a month later when Etowah County Sheriff Roy McDowell received a tip that Mrs. Gray's body was in a 24-foot well about 5 miles north of Snead. McDowell testified he learned of the location of the body after Shirley Smith Franklin, who had lived with Thompson, called his office and later talked to him in person."
Franklin explained her involvement. After getting some shells for the pistol, she informed cops that he grabbed a burgundy-covered housecoat off the bed. According to Franklin, Thompson pulled her out of the house and forced her to go with him. While driving to Blount County, he told her about kidnapping the clerk, throwing her in the well and shooting her.
She said they stopped in front of the well where he had thrown Maisie, then he set the housecoat on fire and forced Franklin to hold it down in the well where he could see. She testified that he refilled the gun and began firing again into the well. After eight or ten shots, the left and went home.
Thompson was tried in Blount County. Convicted of capital murder and kidnapping, he was sentenced to death.
Then the seemingly endless appeals began. after more than a decade, Maisie's children had gotten tired of it all. Evelyn Elliott, Maisie's daughter, told reporters "he's been found guilty of kidnapping and killing her. He took a life. There's got to be a penalty for doing things like that. I would like to tell him to be a man. To admit his sins and face the consequences like a man."
On March 13, 2003, Michael Eugene Thompson was put to death by lethal injection. After the execution, James Rodgers, Maisie's son, said, "I don't feel sorry for him. It was his actions that brought all this about."
Evelyn Elliott said, "He died a very painless death. I wish my mother had a chance to feel no pain."