Bullet riddled body of woman found in thicket

On Aug. 4, 1932, Adams County Sheriff Clarence P. “Book” Roberts received a call that would shake Natchez and spark headlines that spread not only across the nation, but also to London, Paris, Rome, and Brussels.

Jane Surget Merrill, a 68-year-old wealthy, aristocratic spinster known in Natchez as “Miss Jennie,” had been murdered. Her body, as the newspapers reported, was “riddled with bullets” and “thrown in the thickets.”

The bizarre case quickly drew national and international attention—not because of the crime itself, but because of the four principals involved: the victim, Miss Jennie; her cousin and close friend, Duncan G. Minor; Richard “Dick” Dana, her former friend and next-door neighbor; and Octavia Dockery, another former friend who lived with Dana.

Although a 37-year-old Black laundress widow, Emily Burns, was eventually convicted of the botched robbery and sent to Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, it was the names of the original four that made the case sensational. Merrill, Minor, Dana, and Dockery all came from families whose surnames carried generations of wealth, power, and prestige.

Jane “Miss Jennie” Surget Merrill

Jane Surget Merrill gave birth to her daughter, the future “Miss Jennie,” in 1864. Jennie’s father, Ayres Phillips Merrill Jr., was a Harvard graduate who had studied law under Mississippi political leader Seargent Smith Prentiss. He married Jane Surget on February 18, 1851, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Natchez.

Jane was the daughter of wealthy Francis Surget of Natchez and the granddaughter of two distinguished men: William Dunbar, a renowned planter, inventor, and scientist; and Pierre Surget of La Rochelle, France, who immigrated to Natchez in 1788 and amassed a land empire of more than 100,000 acres.

As a wedding gift, Francis Surget gave his daughter and new son-in-law Elms Court, a grand mansion built in 1835. For a decade, the couple enjoyed life at Elms Court until the Civil War forced them to choose sides. Ayres Merrill chose the Union—a decision that preserved his mansion and cotton fields but earned him the scorn of many Natchezians. His decision deepened tensions when he extended warm hospitality to Union officers, including his distant cousin, General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant later repaid that kindness by granting safe passage north for the Merrills and other Union sympathizers.

By the 1860s, the family had resettled in New York City, where Ayres prospered, acquiring a Manhattan townhouse and a Newport cottage. Jennie received the finest education, and when Grant became president, he appointed Ayres as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium.

Although Jane Merrill passed away before the family departed for Europe, Jennie’s education continued abroad. As a teenager, she entered elite society, presented first at the Brussels court and later at the Court of St. James, where she was introduced to Queen Victoria. On both occasions, the petite Southern belle with European refinement made a lasting impression.

In 1932, her cousin-by-marriage, David L. McKittrick of Elms Court, recalled:

“I see Jennie Merrill when she was considered one of America’s most beautiful women, thick, waving, red-brown hair with a satin sheen, exquisite ringlets about her white neck framing a perfect face. She was dark, decidedly of the brunette type, with a clear olive skin that added to her loveliness. I have never seen such marvelous eyes, luminous, tender, and sympathetic.”

Suitors pursued her in droves. “At one time that I know of,” McKittrick added, “three millionaires of Louisville sought her hand in marriage.”

After her father resigned his ambassadorship due to illness, Jennie and he returned to Elms Court, reinstating the mansion as a center of Natchez society. She remained a prominent figure until her father’s death in 1883, when she inherited $250,000 and extensive property. However, Elms Court carried a mortgage that she chose not to settle, and the mansion was eventually sold to her uncle, James Surget.

Jennie later purchased Glenburnie, a stately mansion built in 1833, but her life slowly declined there. Over time, she withdrew from society, clung to outmoded fashions, and developed eccentric habits. She wrapped her bicycle in paper and string to protect it from the weather, and when storing her Model T Ford, she covered it in burlap and twine. She avoided visitors, placing a sign at her gate reading:“No Admittance. Merrill. Inquire Elsewhere for Persons of Other Names.”

The only person she welcomed was her cousin and loyal friend, Duncan G. Minor.

Duncan G. Minor

Born in 1862, Duncan Minor was descended from several of Natchez’s most prominent families. His great-grandfather, Stephen “Don Estevan” Minor, had served as Governor General of Natchez in 1797–98 and was one of the region’s wealthiest landowners.

Through the years, the Minors intermarried with other powerful families, maintaining wealth that survived the Civil War. Duncan grew up handsome, spoiled, and rich. His looks were once compared to those of Clark Gable, but by 1932 he was considered one of the richest, and stingiest, men in Mississippi.

He allowed his mansion to fall into disrepair, living with his mother and sister until their deaths, a result from his incomparable penny-pinching. After the staircase collapsed, he climbed to the second floor by ladder. When faced with a leaking roof, he refused to buy nails, calling them “too expensive,” and left bundles of shingles to rot on the ground.

Neighbors remembered his eccentric ways: moving his bed from room to room to escape leaks, and a family cook once was seen preparing meals beneath an umbrella indoors during a rainstorm.

By 1932, Minor was 69, white-haired, mustached, and still erect as a ramrod. That summer evening, when he made his customary nightly call on Miss Jennie, he did not find her waiting with a greeting. Instead, he discovered she had been murdered.

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